Category: Politics

Posted on

[it depends what your definition of “is” is]

From the BBC:

This is not an instance of bilateral negotiations,” White House spokesman Tony Snow told Reuters news agency.

“What you had …this week in Berlin were talks with Chris Hill and a North Korean representative as preparations for the six-party talks.”

Oh. Sure. Not negotiations, talks. Right. That makes all the difference. Thank goodness it was talks and not negotiations!

Either way, the US seems to be showing some flexibility on a number of issues, including economic sanctions, which means that there is now the actual possibility of negotiation at the upcoming resumption of the Six-Party Talks.

Posted on

[the genius of diplomacy]

See, here’s the crazy thing about diplomacy: sometimes engaging in it works better than declaring it pointless.

For years, the North Koreans have been trying to get the US to engage in talks. But the Bush administration has insisted that the only way we could ever possibly talk to North Korea is in the format of the Six-Party Talks, with Russia, China, Japan and South Korea in the room. The successes of this approach include North Korea’s missile and nuclear tests last year.

Now, in a surprise move, the US seems suddenly to have decided that bilateral talks could be possible. How did this come about? Well, Assistant Secretary of State Chris Hill made this discovery while in bilateral talks with senior North Korean officials.

Does this strike anyone else as spectacularly tortured? Our high-level officials met their high-level officials, with representatives of no other country present; at this meeting, they discussed the possibility of bilateral talks?

The whole argument against bilateral talks was that they would somehow encourage the North Koreans to more bad behavior by demonstrating that prior bad behavior got them what they wanted. And so we did: nothing. That’ll learn ’em! Of course, this is typical Bush admin thinking, which puts talks with us on a pedestal as the ultimate prize to be earned for doing what we want, instead of seeing talks as how we convince other countries to do what we want. Traditionally, talks have been seen as relatively safe, even if they’re not expected to produce results, while wars have been seen as relatively dangerous, even if they’re expected to go well. The Bush administration has turned that thinking on its head.

But now something seems to have changed. This is good. Talking to North Korea is wise. Talking to all our enemies would be wise. And perhaps one day we will have a government that realizes you flip more bad guys with dialogue than with waterboarding.

Posted on

[afghanistan]

Strange thought: Is the fall of Kabul to a resurgent Taliban America’s best hope? I can imagine no stronger Katrina-like event that would wake Americans from their self-deceptions on our foreign policy and completely reshape the debate over what to do next.

Boy, things have gotten ugly.

Posted on

[roh on the ropes]

The New York Times has an article on the dismal approval rate of South Korean president Roh Moo-hyun, down to an appalling 11 percent.

The article makes the point that Roh’s unpopularity has little to do with the North Korean issue, which people across the political spectrum recognize as intractable for any political party. The primary issue is the economy, but the article also argues that the reason the economy has come so sharply into focus is that Roh has been largely successful at what he was elected to do: give greater independence to prosecutors in pursuing corruption, stop using tax collectors and intelligence agencies for political ends, and push democratization forward.

Now voters want to use their enhanced democracy to vote for someone else. They’re frustrated by high real estate and education costs, stagnating wages, high unemployment, and President Roh’s fixation despite all this on ideological issues such as collaboration during the Japanese occupation.

What will all this mean for my little corner of the South Korean government? Hard to say, except that I hope a focus on the economy will mean we can at last get some cost-of-living raises.

I do think the article is salutary, however, for making it clear just how little the internal politics of South Korea have to do with the issues Americans associate with the country. This should be a reminder that the politics in most countries is not primarily about us, but about them. Iraqi factions are almost certainly more interested in the politics of their country and region than in our midterm elections, and spikes in violence shouldn’t be read as secret coded messages to us. The Iranian election of Ahmadinejad and the Palestinian election of Hamas likewise were not gestures of defiance aimed at America, but political calculations based on an intimate concern with the politics of those respective countries. Sometimes, an election is just an election.

Posted on

[god says abortion isn’t murder]

In the comments on a TPM Café piece on Barack Obama’s efforts to reach out to the Christian right, I ran across this fascinating passage from Exodus 21:22-25 (New International Version):

22 If men who are fighting hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely [or she has a miscarriage] but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman’s husband demands and the court allows. 23 But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, 24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.

There’s a little ambiguity over what exactly is meant by “gives birth prematurely,” but it seems clear from context — and from the state of medical technology in Biblical times, which would have been insufficient to keep a seriously premature baby alive — that this passage is describing the death of a fetus. (The bracketed interpolation is theirs, not mine.)

A very clear distinction is then made between the killing of a fetus, for which a fine is incurred, and “serious injury,” which can apparently be inflicted only on the living woman, not on the unborn fetus. Fetuses, then, are distinctly in a separate category from actual people. Those who insist that abortion is murder are thus rejecting the legal definitions set forth in the Book of Exodus, which most Fundamentalist and Evangelical Christians recognize as the word of God.

Interestingly, this passage is actually used by pro-lifers to support their position because it penalizes the killing of a fetus. That seems unarguable, but based on the above passage, it would seem more Biblically correct to demand a ban on cars and guns than on abortion, because maiming and death as a result of auto and gun accidents is relatively common and clearly considered more serious by the Biblical God than the death of a fetus.

Of course, no such thing will ever happen (or should). Just as a few verses are plucked from the Bible to justify a culturally based revulsion against homosexuality, the Biblical justifications for banning abortion are ex post facto, chosen to support a preexisting political position. (Indeed, this cherry-picking approach is regularly applied by people who consider themselves Biblical literalists. I would be fascinated to see a serious effort to construct a complete world view starting with the Bible and rejecting any outside sources that contradict the Bible — a modern Karaite movement, as it were — but I suppose the many contradictions within the Bible itself would make such an effort nearly impossible.)

Why abortion is so controversial is not an easy question to answer, but the reasons should be sought in the structure of our society today and in its recent history, not in the Bible.

Note: For those who prefer it, the King James version is less ambiguous:

22 If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman’s husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. 23 And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life, 24 Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 Burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.

Posted on

[more great news]

Rummy is out!

Choice quote from Bush: “Actually, I thought we were gonna do fine yesterday. Shows what I know.” Indeed. “I thought we were gonna do fine” has been the approach of this administration — and of Donald Rumsfeld — throughout the protracted disaster that they wrought in Iraq.

Other great news: John Tester has won for Senate in Montana! That means that the Senate will be, at worst, split 50-50, with Cheney as the deciding vote. And so far, Webb is still the leader in Virginia.

Meanwhile, as Rummy is shown the door, let us remember all that was best about him: his poetry and his fighting techniques. Kung fu fighting, that is. His war-fighting techniques are horrible.

Posted on

[victory]

As my cousin Louise put it, “It’s not an election, it is an intervention.”

It seems to have worked.

In October of 2001, just weeks after 9/11, Jenny and I left the country for 18 months. While we were away, the Patriot Act was passed, a plane crashed in Queens, a sniper terrorized the Mid-Atlantic states, mysterious parcels of anthrax appeared in the offices of the mainstream media and elsewhere, shoes in airports were rendered ominous, the specter of Iraqi WMDs was raised, the UN was pushed aside and a war was begun. Just days after our return home, the president stood under a “Mission Accomplished” sign.

The country we came home to in 2003 was a very uptight place — uptight in a 1950s way, though the threat we faced was much smaller than that posed by the Soviets, and the trauma we’d come through was also much smaller. In 2004, the ongoing war was invoked to keep Bush in power.

Now, though, the war has dragged on for another two years, and it has become clear that no one in charge has any notion of how to end it. Katrina, I think, was a tipping point: people saw that our government, given days of advance warning, couldn’t deliver food, clean water, electricity or medical care to thousands upon thousands of its own citizens in an emergency on its own soil, which raised doubts about how well they could deliver those things to millions of Iraqis in the midst of an ongoing war. Since then, things in Iraq have only gotten worse.

Americans like to think of ourselves as good, and we like to have fun. The war is no good and no fun. I hope that America lightens up again in the coming years — that we give up the illusion of perpetual war and recognize the basic reality that we are in fact living in peace, albeit a peace that requires constant vigilance (and when has that not been the case?). The war in Iraq is a disaster that should be ended, while the War on Terror is an amalgam of military, law enforcement and diplomatic efforts that should be much better coordinated and shifted away from their emphasis on brutality.

I want peace. I want it and I think our country should strive for it. I’m hoping that at long last, this point of view will no longer be labeled traitorous.

Posted on

[for what it’s worth]

Here’s how I intend to vote tomorrow.

Governor: Eliot Spitzer (D)
Spitzer was a strong, creative attorney general for the State of New York, holding corporations accountable for their malfeasance. He was fortunate to inherit a well-run office from his predecessor, Rudolph Giuliani — good fortune that will not be repeated upon his arrival in the Governor’s Mansion in Albany. Nevertheless, his demonstrated competence and the grim state of New York politics combine to make Spitzer the obvious choice.

Lieutenant-Governor: David Paterson (D)
Okay, I’ll admit it: I’m a yellow-dog Dem this year. But why vote for a lieutenant-governor who will hamstring your choice of governor?

Comptroller: Alan Hevesi (D)
In this season of accountability, it pains me to say that I’ll be voting for a candidate I know to be corrupt (Hevesi had the state pay to chauffeur his wife around for years). Here’s my admittedly twisted logic: Hevesi is likely to be forced to resign after the election, at which time he’ll be replaced by an appointed Democrat, whereas electing his opponent, Chris Callaghan, means having a Republican in office for the next four years. And even if Hevesi does stay put, see my endorsement for lieutenant-governor.

Attorney General: Andrew Cuomo (D)
Another no-brainer. Cuomo leaves much to be desired, but the alternative is a Republican attorney general, and I really, really, really don’t want a Republican setting the priorities for law enforcement in New York.

Senator: Hillary Clinton (D)
I genuinely like Hillary Clinton as a Senator. She’s worked hard to serve her constituents and to build bridges to Republican leaders Upstate. I see no reason not to send her back to the Senate, where I hope she will serve with similar focus and competence for another six years.

Congress (11th District): Yvette Clarke (D)
I voted for Yassky in the primary, but Clarke is the Democratic candidate, we need a Democratic Congress in this country, and besides, she’s going to win by a ridiculous margin anyway. Who else would I vote for? The Freedom Party candidate?

State Senate (25th District): Ken Diamondstone (Working Families)
Diamondstone lost his primary bid against veteran State Senator Martin Connor, but as with Joe Lieberman in Connecticut, Diamondstone has a second chance. Diamondstone opposes the Atlantic Yards project, while Connor does not. More importantly, Connor is part of the stasis in Albany that has made our state governance so abysmal, while Diamondstone would be a fresh voice. From what I can tell, Diamondstone has already given up, but his name is still on the ballot, so I’m going to pull the trigger for him, just like I did in September.

State Assembly (52nd District): Joan L. Millman (D)
Woof! Woof! Heeeere, yellow dog! Have a tasty vote! Enjoy a delicious assembly seat! Good yellow doggie!

State Supreme Court Justices: Abstain
For 80 years, New York has had a corrupt system in which parties nominate judicial candidates at show-conventions, giving voters essentially no choice. This year, for example, we have two candidates to choose from and two votes to hand out. What this has to do with democracy is anyone’s guess, but the party nomination system was recently ruled unconstitutional, so let’s hope we have some competitive judicial elections in the future.

Civil Court Judge (1st District): Abstain
In this case, it’s one candidate for one slot. Ick. See above.

Posted on

[phone scripter to the stars]

As many of you know, I have been pitching in a bit to help Steve Harrison’s Congressional campaign, mostly doing bits of writing and editing.

As part of that effort, I did some major editing of a phone script for automated calls, to be delivered by none other than President Bill Clinton. Someone from the Harrison campaign was kind enough to let me hear the finished product, and sure enough, Bill Clinton is reading the script I handed in!

I have been promised a WAV file, but not until after the campaign, just to be sure no obscure regulations or rules of protocol are violated. As soon as I get it, I will of course link to it.

In the meantime, there have been a lot of great developments on the Harrison front, including an extremely tepid endorsement of Fossella by the conservative Staten Island Advance (punchline: “On balance, [Fossela]’s the better candidate for Congress, though we’re less than thrilled to concede that”) and a very strong endorsement of Harrison from the New York Times. You can read all the latest news on Harrison at Blue Spot.

Go, team!