Saturday, March 2, 2013
Thursday, February 7, 2013
Alone on Outrage Island
Okay, yeah, the title of this post is overly dramatic. Anyways, as of late I'm feeling overwhelmed with what I'm calling "authoritarianism creep". I'm sure I'm not the first to ever use that term, but that's how it feels right now.
First, we've got this thing at Brooklyn College regarding their Political Science department's co-sponsorship of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) group, and the absolute shit-storm of pro-Israeli censorship that has come down on them from the likes of Alan Dershowitz and the NYC City Council. The censorship of Academic Freedom is extraordinarily harmful, obviously, to the free exchange of ideas, both accepted and subversive. Luckily, Karen Gould, the school's President, and Michael Bloomberg have successfully thwarted these attempts at censorship and it appear the NYC City Council has gone back to their respective caves. Regardless, the fact that it takes an address from the school's President and the City's Mayor to allow for an unobstructed exercise in free speech to occur on a college campus is infuriating. These are the types of things that should seriously worry any American worth her/his salt, and that's regardless of your position on the Israeli/Palestine conflict.
Second, we've known about the Obama Administration's penchant for carrying on with the policies of the Bush Administration that they once admonished (with the exception of torture - as far as we know, anyways), and we've been well aware of their penchant for the use of drones to kill American citizens once they started doing so in 2010 (see: Anwar al-Awlaki and his sixteen year old son), a white paper (legal memo) was released this week, and the news-world lost its fucking mind. It's like they forgot this was going on for three years, and weren't actively working to shroud the Administration from criticism by not critically reporting on it. Also, they were complicit in the burying of a story regarding the fact that the U.S. also has a secret drone base in Saudi Arabia. Unfortunately, most people seem to be more concerned about Beyonce's Superbowl half-time show performance. No big deal, folks, the Obama Administration has essentially claimed that the world is Battlefield, and if a high-ranking official thinks its okay to explode you with a drone aircraft from on high - well, them's the breaks. No due process, no Constitutional protections, do not pass go, do not collect $200. Folks lose their minds when you threaten to take away their guns, but their own government threatens to maintain the Executive right to kill them on the whim of a high-ranking official and there's barely a peep.
This is a terribly frightening road to be traveling down.
Add to that our Government's willingness to prop up the Too Big Too Fail financial industry, the worst economic inequality since the Great Depression, a continued Congressional fixation upon deficits instead of unemployment, and the list really does go on... it's hard to be anything but quite disillusioned.
First, we've got this thing at Brooklyn College regarding their Political Science department's co-sponsorship of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) group, and the absolute shit-storm of pro-Israeli censorship that has come down on them from the likes of Alan Dershowitz and the NYC City Council. The censorship of Academic Freedom is extraordinarily harmful, obviously, to the free exchange of ideas, both accepted and subversive. Luckily, Karen Gould, the school's President, and Michael Bloomberg have successfully thwarted these attempts at censorship and it appear the NYC City Council has gone back to their respective caves. Regardless, the fact that it takes an address from the school's President and the City's Mayor to allow for an unobstructed exercise in free speech to occur on a college campus is infuriating. These are the types of things that should seriously worry any American worth her/his salt, and that's regardless of your position on the Israeli/Palestine conflict.
Second, we've known about the Obama Administration's penchant for carrying on with the policies of the Bush Administration that they once admonished (with the exception of torture - as far as we know, anyways), and we've been well aware of their penchant for the use of drones to kill American citizens once they started doing so in 2010 (see: Anwar al-Awlaki and his sixteen year old son), a white paper (legal memo) was released this week, and the news-world lost its fucking mind. It's like they forgot this was going on for three years, and weren't actively working to shroud the Administration from criticism by not critically reporting on it. Also, they were complicit in the burying of a story regarding the fact that the U.S. also has a secret drone base in Saudi Arabia. Unfortunately, most people seem to be more concerned about Beyonce's Superbowl half-time show performance. No big deal, folks, the Obama Administration has essentially claimed that the world is Battlefield, and if a high-ranking official thinks its okay to explode you with a drone aircraft from on high - well, them's the breaks. No due process, no Constitutional protections, do not pass go, do not collect $200. Folks lose their minds when you threaten to take away their guns, but their own government threatens to maintain the Executive right to kill them on the whim of a high-ranking official and there's barely a peep.
This is a terribly frightening road to be traveling down.
Add to that our Government's willingness to prop up the Too Big Too Fail financial industry, the worst economic inequality since the Great Depression, a continued Congressional fixation upon deficits instead of unemployment, and the list really does go on... it's hard to be anything but quite disillusioned.
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
Drone Despotism
All the world is currently ablaze with the news that the Obama Administration, wait for it, has claimed the legal authority to be the judge, jury, and drone executioner for pretty much anyone aboard Spaceship Earth. Love, and now the entire Globe, is a battlefield, and a battlefield upon which the President, and his band of merry men, gather together on 'Terror Tuesday' to plot out which of our enemies, American Citizens or not, are due to eat hellfire from on high.
Glenn Greenwald gives it the thorough treatment.
It is somewhat baffling to me that there's been such an explosion of incredulity regarding the DOJ's memo. This has been going on for at least three years, and general Executive overreach has been occurring since shortly after September 11th. We have known this is happening since the Obama Administration decided to unilaterally kill Anwar Al-Awlaki and his sixteen year old son in 2010. They were dual-citizenship Americans. Sure, Al-Awlaki wasn't the U.S.' biggest fan, and he was an inciter of Jihadi violence, but I'm not sure that justifies the lack of Due Process for both he and his son. Actually, I'm fairly sure given contemporary precedents of American jurisprudence that is was a shocking move toward an almost unlimited Executive power to kill.
But, what of it? These news stories will cycle through this week, there will be some outrage, both real and fake, and then most of the country will forget about it while CNN and their ilk blast their most pressing graphical assaults on our collective consciousness and we're threatened with going over the fiscal cliff or falling into the pit of deficit despair.
There seemed to be a lot more outright rage when we were learning that the Bush II administration had decided that they could wiretap us without warrants, torture whoever they wished under the pretense of enhanced interrogation techniques (as Orwellian a phrase can be), and indefinitely detain anyone with brown skin and a different opinion. However, today - the Obama Administration's DOJ is asserting legal doctrine for the right to assassinate whomever they please, be they American or not, wherever they please, be it a current war-zone or not, and I don't believe we're seeing near the same outrage.
This is the slipperiest of slopes; the kind that goes right to a bottom of tyrannical leadership and a complete negation of due process. It's been referred to as "chilling" by multiple bloggers/talking heads, but it seems like more and more governmental action (in the realm of civil liberties) is chilling. So much so, that maybe "chilling" is losing some of its meaning. Either way, the worldview of this administration sees it as "legal, ethical, and wise". Just ask Jay Carney.
Glenn Greenwald gives it the thorough treatment.
It is somewhat baffling to me that there's been such an explosion of incredulity regarding the DOJ's memo. This has been going on for at least three years, and general Executive overreach has been occurring since shortly after September 11th. We have known this is happening since the Obama Administration decided to unilaterally kill Anwar Al-Awlaki and his sixteen year old son in 2010. They were dual-citizenship Americans. Sure, Al-Awlaki wasn't the U.S.' biggest fan, and he was an inciter of Jihadi violence, but I'm not sure that justifies the lack of Due Process for both he and his son. Actually, I'm fairly sure given contemporary precedents of American jurisprudence that is was a shocking move toward an almost unlimited Executive power to kill.
But, what of it? These news stories will cycle through this week, there will be some outrage, both real and fake, and then most of the country will forget about it while CNN and their ilk blast their most pressing graphical assaults on our collective consciousness and we're threatened with going over the fiscal cliff or falling into the pit of deficit despair.
There seemed to be a lot more outright rage when we were learning that the Bush II administration had decided that they could wiretap us without warrants, torture whoever they wished under the pretense of enhanced interrogation techniques (as Orwellian a phrase can be), and indefinitely detain anyone with brown skin and a different opinion. However, today - the Obama Administration's DOJ is asserting legal doctrine for the right to assassinate whomever they please, be they American or not, wherever they please, be it a current war-zone or not, and I don't believe we're seeing near the same outrage.
This is the slipperiest of slopes; the kind that goes right to a bottom of tyrannical leadership and a complete negation of due process. It's been referred to as "chilling" by multiple bloggers/talking heads, but it seems like more and more governmental action (in the realm of civil liberties) is chilling. So much so, that maybe "chilling" is losing some of its meaning. Either way, the worldview of this administration sees it as "legal, ethical, and wise". Just ask Jay Carney.
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
First Thoughts
I've been reading a lot about campaign finance, specifically about how Citizens United has changed the rules and culture around financial expenditures, and I've learned quite a bit about how this system now works.
After reading this FRONTLINE interview with James Bopp, the legal architect of the Citizens United case, its difficult not to get frustrated with where the country has found itself with regard to our electoral process and the ways in which our candidates and advocacy for certain issues are funded. If you read the article, you'll find that James Bopp is masterful in the way he crafts his arguments, his elusive language when it comes to the differences between the terms campaign, political, and issue as it regards different types of spending, and his adherence to a very strict understanding of the role money plays in advocacy-in-general. In short, he believes that not only are the current regulations (after Citizens) too restrictive, but that the campaign finance system would actually be more 'free' if individuals and organizations (advocacy groups, corporations, or unions) could contribute unlimited sums of money to whomever they choose.
Depending on the way a question is asked in the interview, money is both speech and not speech. If money is contributed directly to a candidate or a PAC, then its a contribution (and there are limits and its required to be disclosed). If money is given to an advocacy/lobby group (501(c)(4)), then it's speech and that group can use that money to advocate or lobby for a specific issue (but not a direct candidate) and there are no limits and no disclosure requirements. Then there are Super PACs, which don't have a contribution limit, but there are disclosure requirements, and (here's the kicker) they can't coordinate with candidates and their campaigns. The term 'coordination' hasn't really been teased out all the well in the legal circles. As such, Corporations, Unions, and people like Sheldon Adelson or George Soros can deliver millions of dollars to Super PACs and 501(c)(4)s in an attempt to influence an election.
The people, like Bopp, that currently defend this system (and wish to deregulate it further) claim that this is a boon for free elections and the 1st Amendment. They claim that its a problem that people can't contribute unlimited sums to candidates, because the money might end up in somewhere else (like a 501(c)(4) social-welfare group) to be used in a less transparent way. That argument makes a lot of sense on its face, but then you look at the data and it doesn't.
After reading this FRONTLINE interview with James Bopp, the legal architect of the Citizens United case, its difficult not to get frustrated with where the country has found itself with regard to our electoral process and the ways in which our candidates and advocacy for certain issues are funded. If you read the article, you'll find that James Bopp is masterful in the way he crafts his arguments, his elusive language when it comes to the differences between the terms campaign, political, and issue as it regards different types of spending, and his adherence to a very strict understanding of the role money plays in advocacy-in-general. In short, he believes that not only are the current regulations (after Citizens) too restrictive, but that the campaign finance system would actually be more 'free' if individuals and organizations (advocacy groups, corporations, or unions) could contribute unlimited sums of money to whomever they choose.
Depending on the way a question is asked in the interview, money is both speech and not speech. If money is contributed directly to a candidate or a PAC, then its a contribution (and there are limits and its required to be disclosed). If money is given to an advocacy/lobby group (501(c)(4)), then it's speech and that group can use that money to advocate or lobby for a specific issue (but not a direct candidate) and there are no limits and no disclosure requirements. Then there are Super PACs, which don't have a contribution limit, but there are disclosure requirements, and (here's the kicker) they can't coordinate with candidates and their campaigns. The term 'coordination' hasn't really been teased out all the well in the legal circles. As such, Corporations, Unions, and people like Sheldon Adelson or George Soros can deliver millions of dollars to Super PACs and 501(c)(4)s in an attempt to influence an election.
The people, like Bopp, that currently defend this system (and wish to deregulate it further) claim that this is a boon for free elections and the 1st Amendment. They claim that its a problem that people can't contribute unlimited sums to candidates, because the money might end up in somewhere else (like a 501(c)(4) social-welfare group) to be used in a less transparent way. That argument makes a lot of sense on its face, but then you look at the data and it doesn't.
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