Current affairs

In 1788 Alexander Hamilton foresaw the danger that a President might try to nominate someone like Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court. That is, someone who came from the President’s state, who was personally allied to him, who was so pliable as to be the “obsequious instrument of his pleasure” (dear God, please send me such a woman; who knew the Federalist Papers had such an erotic ring?). Hamilton thought that a President would be ashamed to do this. As Bush should be. Here’s an excerpt from the History News Network’s instructive article, “What Did the Federalist Papers Say About…

Ah, I’ve never used “duplicitousness” in a blog post, but I couldn’t resist. There just wasn’t another alliterative "d" word that I could put after “DeLay’s.” For yesterday I saw Tom DeLay interviewed by Wolf Blitzer on CNN. Now, I’m sure DeLay has some good qualities. He probably is kind to pets and loving toward his wife and children. I do my best to look upon him as a human being, flawed though he is (as are we all). Yet when he settled into his cocky, smirking, can’t-touch-me interview demeanor, I instantly loathed him. And what I heard next didn’t…

A picture is worth a thousand denying words. For several hours Fox News has been showing photos of a major breach in a New Orleans levee. Just now I watched a live news conference featuring an Army Corps of Engineers spokesman. Fox’s split screen had him on the left, with a televised image of water rushing through an obvious breach on the right. Here’s the interchange between he and a reporter: Brigadier General William Grisoli: What’s happening in the Industrial Canal is that we were able to repair in three weeks up to about a seven-foot level. We knew that…

Be a patriot. Be unselfish. Be strong. Don’t top off your car’s gas tank because you’ve heard that Hurricane Rita could bring us $5 gas and lines around the block. Panic and a “I’ve got to get mine” mentality is just going to make the gasoline situation a lot worse. Fill up when you usually do, not before. I wait until my tank is two-thirds to three-fourths empty. Please do the same. Stifle the urge to horde gas by rushing out to fill up. If everyone does this, a lot of the nation’s gasoline is going to be sloshing around…

After writing “Now is the time for finger-pointing” I’ve heard from some people who questioned the appropriateness of bashing the Bush administration for bungling Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. Here’s my considered thoughtful response: Hell, yes, it is appropriate. Let me explain. I agree with those commenters that I’ve been focused much more on pointing out the failings of the federal response in general, and of FEMA’s response in particular, than with supporting the relief efforts. Yet personally, we’ve contributed $400 to those efforts, $300 of which has gone to animal rescue organizations. So we’ve been putting our checkbook where my…

We've made several donations to the Humane Society's relief effort for animals affected by Hurricane Katrina and other disasters. Click on the banner to make a contribution yourself. The link leads to the HSUS Disaster Relief Fund. "Animals are people too," as the saying goes. They suffer just as we do and deserve help on their own merit. In addition, the human victims of Hurricane Katrina often are more devastated by the loss of a beloved pet than by the loss of material possessions, as this CNN story says. Laurel has been worrying about Snowball ever since she heard this…

I admit it: I’ve become obsessed with pointing my finger at the Bush administration’s failure to respond to the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina.

Several times today friends asked me, “How are you?” I’d respond, “If you’re just talking about me and my life, I’m fine. If you include how I feel about the lives that have been lost by Department of Homeland Security and FEMA bungling, I’m not fine at all.” And then I’d take off on my finger-pointing rant.

It’s been a beautiful sunny warm day here in Oregon. I started off wanting to simply enjoy it, to be in the here and now. Then, driving into Salem this morning I heard right-wing talk show host Lars Larson plug his upcoming broadcast from Washington where the anniversary of 9/11 will be “celebrated.”

“We’ve got to make sure 9/11 will never happen again,” Larson said. “We must never forget the lessons of 9/11.”

For the rest of the day I couldn’t stop thinking, “Hey, 9/11 did happen again in the guise of Hurricane Katrina. The final death toll hasn’t been calculated yet, but estimates range into the thousands. And we did forget the lessons of 9/11, because the Bush administration failed to heed the clear warning that a category 4 hurricane was likely to hit New Orleans, sitting on its hands when many lives could have been saved.”

My already-dark mood wasn’t improved when, listening to the radio while driving home late in the afternoon, I heard Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff intone, “After this is over there likely will be some serious changes in how the federal government reacts to natural disasters.”

Are you kidding me? Bush and company have had four years to make serious changes to how the federal government reacts to disasters both natural and unnatural. Now you want more time, Chertoff? That’s bullshit, which is all that we’ve been getting from the Bush administration.

I’m sick of it. This is the time for finger-pointing and getting mad as hell. This is the time to never forget the victims of Hurricane Katrina. This is the time to vow to honor the dead and homeless by casting votes against the Bush administration in November 2006.

In today’s New York Times columnist Paul Krugman says that people on the Gulf coast have been “Killed by Contempt.” Meaning, the present federal government has contempt for the role of government in helping people who can’t help themselves.

A political crony, Michael Brown, was appointed FEMA director. FEMA funding was slashed after 9/11. Those were conscious decisions to enfeeble government’s ability to respond to a disaster. So Krugman is absolutely right: the Bush administration has killed people by contempt.

On the radio today several times I heard a heartbreaking interview where a New Orleans official, Aaron Broussard broke down in tears on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” You have to hear Broussard’s voice to get the full impact of the story he told about a woman in a nursing home dying after waiting four days to be saved.

You can read about this disgrace here and here (or read the continuation to this post.)

[Monday morning update: The New Orleans newspaper, the Times-Picayune, published a devastating “Open letter to the President” on Sunday. The editorial calls for every FEMA official to be fired, starting with political flack Michael Brown, the FEMA director. Great idea.]

Well, that’s not such a good metaphor for a hurricane disaster—holding FEMA’s lungs underwater would be a better image. Regardless, last night Nightline showed an interview Koppel conducted earlier in the day with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) director, Michael Brown. He gave Brown no mercy. Nor should he have. Koppel acted like professional journalists should, yet rarely do in these days of fawning deference to Bush administration incompetence. Whenever Brown tried to wriggle out of a question about how FEMA has been responding (or, rather, not responding) to the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina, Koppel interrupted him with…

There used to be a message painted on the side of a barn that was visible from the freeway south of Salem: “Soldiers of the Lord, Armor Up!” I had a creepy feeling every time I saw it.

That feeling is still with me, even stronger now. For the Christian armoring-up is no longer an admonition but a reality. Fundamentalists are fighting battles on many fronts. And they mean business. This is no joke. It’s war.

Read T.A. Barnhart’s excellent essay that was posted today on BlueOregon, “The Religious Right’s Coming Civil War?” Barnhart includes a question mark in his title, but this reformed fundamentalist is confident that the war is coming:

There is a battle coming, and it won’t be restricted to politics and elections. Those who believe they are God’s chosen will act upon that belief…I just know the mind set, the vast and unshakable belief in the holy righteousness of their thoughts and opinions. They have created God in their own image, and they will seek to force us all to kneel before their self-created idol. What happens when we necessarily refuse?

I don’t know. Nobody does. I’m sure that it won’t be a well-mannered fight, however. The progressives, independents, humanists, and other tolerant people believe in being reasonable.

Reason means squat to a fundamentalist Christian, Muslim, Jew, or adherent of any other faith-based religion. Fundamentalists don’t believe in reason; they believe in the revelation of their holy book or religion’s founder. Unbelievers are toast, fit only to be buttered up and crunched into oblivion.

I’m reading Charles Freeman’s excellent (though scholarly) book about the rise of Christianity, appropriately titled “The Closing of the Western Mind: The Rise of Faith and the Fall of Reason.” This morning I got to the cheery part about the Christian emperor Justinian massacring 30,000 to 50,000 of his own citizens in 532.

A contemporary historian, Procopius, said: “Justinian did not see it as murder if the victims did not share his own beliefs.” Christians were excusing the killing of infidels way before al-Qaeda.

Now, I’m not suggesting that non-religious folks like me and my wife need to worry about the Christian right causing us physical harm. (Laurel does, however, fret about the imposition of a fundamentalist dress code for women, since she’s guessing that it wouldn’t be based on the teals and purples that she favors, nor would fused glass earrings likely be on the approved jewelry list, which would render meaningless countless hours of Laurel’s shopping.).

But the Christian jihadists are unabashedly out to dominate American culture. That’s why they consider themselves to be fighting a “culture war” to defend traditional values.

Hmmmm, that’s funny. I’ve always thought that my non-Christian beliefs were a lot more traditional. After all, I’ve been a vegetarian most of my life and find the theory of karma/reincarnation to be a pretty compelling basis for morality. This has been a traditional Hindu belief for way longer than Christianity has been around.

No matter. Fundies like Cal Thomas, whom I saw interviewed on a Nightline program last week along with the more moderate conservative George Will, come right out and say that debates over single issues like the teaching of intelligent design can’t be isolated from the Grand Christian Fundamentalist Culture War.

Thomas said that Christian red-staters are fed up with having their values shut out of public schools and rejected by godless judges. He ran off a bunch of interrelated battles that all coalesce in the broader culture war: gay rights, Terri Schiavo, display of the Ten Commandments, prayer in schools, teaching of intelligent design/creationism.

Christians like Thomas don’t want to peacefully coexist in a diverse culture where many faiths and non-faiths are practiced. They want to make Christianity the state religion, just as in the good old days (to Christians, not for pagans) of Constantine. Witness yesterday’s religious rally that attacked “arrogant” judges, broadcast to churches all across the country.

Gosh, for some reason I thought Christians went to church on Sunday to be spiritual, not political. Obviously I misunderstand Christianity; I guess it doesn’t have much to do with Christ.

If you want more proof that T.A. Barnhart is correct—the Christian right is out to start a culture war that could tear this country apart—I offer as evidence a portion of an email message that I received recently from Ford Vox. Ford is the founder of Universism, a faithless approach to spirituality that matches up well with my own churchless leanings.

He had lunch with a director of Focus on the Family, a Christian right organization. After what he hoped would be a “diplomatic meeting” between two people on different sides of the culture war, Ford had this to say to his fellow Universists: (which I’ll include as a continuation to this post)

Suppose this happened to you, an American citizen. Your plane lands at the Montreal airport and Canadian officials hold you without charges. They don’t let you talk to a lawyer, then ship you off to another country to be tortured. After ten months you’re released without any charges being filed. Oops. Guess we made a mistake, says Canada. Sorry for all the torture. Hope there’s no hard feelings. Well, there should be. And in Maher Arar’s case, there are. For this is just what happened to him. Except, he holds joint Canadian/Syrian citizenship and it was American officials who seized…

I’m getting tired of reading stories like this: “Most House E-Board picks are from GOP: The ratio is 7 to 2; in Senate, Democrats get 5 of 8 members.” Good lord. Karen Minnis is speaker of the House, where her Republicans comprise 55% of the House members (33/60). Her blatantly lopsided appointments to the Emergency Board, which is a mini-legislature in between Oregon’s biennial sessions, were 78% Republican (7/9). Peter Courtney is president of the Senate, where his Democrats comprise 60% of the Senate members (18/30). His eminently fair appointments to the Emergency Board were 63% Democrat (5/8). So once…