As South Sudan goes to the polls on this day, January 9th, to decide in a democratic manner whether to secede and form a new country we must wish them peace, and should consider what this referendum means. Sudan has reached a point of democracy, which in this case I use to refer to one man, one vote, at least at a nominal level. This, of course, won’t solve all of Sudan’s problems. Even democratic Belgium hasn’t “managed to form a government since federal elections were held in June,” so I’m sure that Sudan can only use the elections as a stepping stone to the next issue that needs resolving.
What will that issue be? Will it be Darfur, a part of Sudan about the size of Spain? Will it be oil reserves, which are mostly in the South (but not refined there)?
Whatever happens in Sudan, it will not stay in Sudan, or happen with without outside influence (hopefully the election is an exception). Darfur acquired worldwide attention – long after it was needed – because of genocide that peaked in 2005. People, organizations, and countries, are still watching. Separatist movements in other countries will be watching to see what South Sudan does right and wrong.
How will these issues be resolved? Will it be through democracy, as defined above?
I have a very different view of the world than the Tea Party does, and therefore that worldview is very similar. As I have shown before, the Tea Party is made up of disparate factions, is comprised at some level like a multi-marketing pyramid scheme, and thinks that its view is the correct worldview. I too contain disparate factions, interested in pursuing different means to the same end; the same end the Tea Party desires, which is to create a better world.
I think that my worldview is the correct view, and that society should pursue peace and social justice and economic redistribution. It is mostly comforting to think that I have the correct worldview, and the discomfort arises out of a learned trait to believe my interests are not mine alone. Does the Tea Party question, on occasion, that their worldview is the right view?
I am inexpert regarding many parts of the world, including Egypt. I have no great knowledge of Egypt beyond what grade school teaches. However, I desire to learn about people, places, and things – nouns – beyond borders that have been drawn up. Does the Tea Party? I am both like and unlike them. Some concepts are universal, and at the same time, bipolar concepts. Some concepts are both like and unlike; justice and injustice, wealth and poverty, respect and disrespect.
This week the 112th House of Representatives begins, and Republicans and Tea Party Representatives (akin very much like Death Eaters and the Ministry are one and the same in the final Harry Potter book) maintain or enter office to “shake things up” and “take their country back.” My views are both like and unlike theirs. How will they represent the views that they do not agree with. Will it be like Egypt?
I accuse the host of MPs and government officials who cannot help but take their own personal bigotries along to the parliament, or to the multitude of government bodies, national and local, from which they exercise unchecked, brutal yet at the same time hopelessly inept authority.
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And finally, I accuse the liberal intellectuals, both Muslim and Christian who, whether complicit, afraid, or simply unwilling to do or say anything that may displease “the masses”, have stood aside, finding it sufficient to join in one futile chorus of denunciation following another, even as the massacres spread wider, and grow more horrifying.
We have reached the point where elected representatives take their own bigotries to the halls of congress. We have reached the point of hopelessly inept authority. We, elected and not elected, have become complicit, afraid, and unwilling to say anything that may displease the masses. We have not become violently disagreeable. Our world is both very similar and very different.
It is a federal crime to act on behalf of any organization the United States has declared a terrorist organization, including advocating for peace. However, to my knowledge, it is not illegal to write about, or inform people of, past decisions of the Supreme Court, nor could it ever be under the stare decisis notion of ex post facto. From the lawyer David Cole,
I believe Mr. Mukasey and his compatriots had every right to say what they did. Indeed, I argued just that in the Supreme Court, on behalf of the Los Angeles-based Humanitarian Law Project, which fought for more than a decade in American courts for its right to teach the Kurdistan Workers’ Party in Turkey how to bring human rights claims before the United Nations, and to assist them in peace overtures to the Turkish government.
But in June, the Supreme Court ruled against us, stating that all such speech could be prohibited, because it might indirectly support the group’s terrorist activity. Chief Justice John Roberts reasoned that a terrorist group might use human rights advocacy training to file harassing claims, that it might use peacemaking assistance as a cover while re-arming itself, and that such speech could contribute to the group’s “legitimacy,” and thus increase its ability to obtain support elsewhere that could be turned to terrorist ends. Under the court’s decision, former President Jimmy Carter’s election monitoring team could be prosecuted for meeting with and advising Hezbollah during the 2009 Lebanese elections.
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Yet The Times recently reported that the Treasury Department, under a provision ostensibly intended for humanitarian aid, was secretly granting licenses to American businesses to sell billions of dollars worth of food and goods to the very countries we have blockaded for their support of terrorism. Some of the “humanitarian aid” exempted? Cigarettes, popcorn and chewing gum.Under current law, it seems, the right to make profits is more sacrosanct than the right to petition for peace, and the need to placate American businesses more compelling than the need to provide food and shelter to earthquake victims and war refugees.
It should go without saying – and therefore it needs to be said – that we have our values backwards.
The Israeli newspaper describes the shortcomings of the peace process in less than a page:
In view of Netanyahu’s forced recognition of the principle of two states for two peoples, he is proposing to establish the Palestinian state on a portion of the West Bank to remove the burden of Israeli occupation, but without dealing with any of the other issues. However, in this, and similar to the disengagement, Netanyahu is serving the interests of Hamas, seeking to “liberate” more land from “Palestine,” for no return.
Therefore, the prime minister should be reminded that we are interested in bringing the conflict to an end – not only the occupation. Israel and the Palestinians did not begin talks because one side “discovered” the rights of the other, but because they recognized that they had no choice. Israel feared losing its Jewish identity and its democracy, and the Palestinians feared losing territory to the settlement enterprise.
There is nothing wrong with this, nor is there any reason it should have to be otherwise. There is some mutual interest in having, and maintaining, peace. Peace can only come at the end of the conflict, of which the occupation is one part.
Since we have shown that democracy is anti-democratic more compelling information has come to our attention to convince us of this compelling theory. Reads the Espionage Act of 1917:
(g) If two or more persons conspire to violate any of the foregoing provisions of this section, and one or more of such persons do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy, each of the parties to such conspiracy shall be subject to the punishment provided for the offense which is the object of such conspiracy.
The foregoing provisions of which include everything known to man in 1917: “any vessel, aircraft, work of defense, navy yard, naval station, submarine base, fueling station, fort, battery, torpedo station, dockyard, canal, railroad, arsenal, camp, factory, mine, telegraph, telephone, wireless, or signal station, building, office, research laboratory or station or other place connected with the national defense,” ” intent or reason to believe, copies, takes, makes, or obtains, or attempts to copy, take, make, or obtain, any sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, document, writing, or note of anything connected with the national defense,” and so forth.
The Espionage Act is not the first of its kind (nor was it the last, as the PATRIOT act proved). Arguably unlike the current congress, or any congress of the last hundred and fifty years, the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, though signed into law, were later repealed, or allowed to expire, by many of the same people who promoted and ratified the Acts. As we have shown before, it is against the interest of even a democracy to act in an open, trusting, manner.
Somewhere between the Espionage Act and the PATRIOT act (the official title of which is “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA PATRIOT) Act of 2001”) came the Second Red Scare, in which we worried that the Communist idea of 1) doing what you do best, and 2)caring about your neighbor, might destroy us. The Second Red Scare (in case you needed another one) from 1947-1957 included, in its early stages, The Rosenberg Case, whose son Robert Meeropol wrote of the unconstitutionality of the Espionage Act in an article on December 28, 2010, said of recent scare tactics,
just as in my parents’ case, the prosecutors could seek to bully some involved into ratting out others, in return for more favorable treatment. This divide and conquer approach would turn individuals against each other, sow the seeds of distrust within the broader community, and intimidate others into quiescence.
It has previously been argued that caring is essential if progress, and here I would add to that argument, open democracy, is to survive. It is a lot easier not to worry – care- or expend emotional well-being on issues. That, intentionally or inadvertently is what the government desires, because citizens go about the task of providing taxes, unconcerned with the morality of to government to which they pledge allegiance. I have previously maintained that I’m not terribly concerned with ‘leaked secrets’ (that were already known). That’s true, in the nominal sense. What is disconcerting is the human aspect of what the government will do to ensure loyalty.
“Bradley Manning’s detention is not comparable with the horrific measures imposed on Jose Padilla, an American citizen who was accused of plotting to detonate a “dirty bomb” and held as an “enemy combatant” for six years before being convicted on a lesser charge. Padilla’s attorneys alleged that he was subjected to sleep deprivation, sensory deprivation, and tortured with psychotropic drugs until he lost his mind. But Manning is also a 23-year-old who, whether he is right or wrong, thought he was doing the right thing, and has now run into the maw of a vindictive American security state.”
A government cannot (justly) propose that it teach morality in schools, expect morality of citizens, teach morality to soldiers, and then act immorally. Just as you do not resolve a peace process by lobbing missiles at your enemy – though often tempting – you do not resolve truth with lies, or trust with mistrust.
We quickly forget information we are not reminded of, or do not have a reason to recall. That information either departs from our brain for good, or is shunted into the corner, to be remembered at odd moments of the future. You may have already forgotten – why would you want to remember, when more pressing personal issues such as holidays with the family concern you? – that the newly notorious WikiLeaks is reminding us of already known information, and creating quite a scandal.
That which is democratic is inherently anti-democratic; or to put it another way, that which follows the ideals that democracy espouses (liberty of the press, free speech, personal rights, a governmental system that represents everyone), goes against the grain or flow of democratic (much less non-democratic) governments, and against the nature and interest of authority. Therefore, even those societies and states that claim to have a democratic ideal act to suppress, or utilize to the advantage of the already empowered, both its citizenry and any power that can be wielded beyond its own borders. This means that governments – even those shining, democratic governments – routinely attempt to keep information secret. This is neither shocking nor new. However, it is not always necessary, nor is it damaging to the government to have ‘secrets’ (in this case, and many others, secrets are facts which are already known and reported, but not talked about) revealed.
No one outside of the Washington establishment and the myriad foreign leaders shamed by revelations of their penchant for hatred, hubris and pedestrian peccadillos can seriously argue that the release of these classified documents has done anything but good for the cause of peace and political transparency.
Occasionally I find information – in this instance, a case of law – at the beginning and the end. I wrote, in July 2009, on facebook about Hal Turner, using a post of this same name. Let me quote what I wrote then, using a First Amendment lawyer as my source.
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” reads the first Amendment to our Constitution. What is free speech? In the article below a radical blogger suggested that three judges be killed for limiting the use of handguns (against the Second Amendment, after all). Is Mr. Turner allowed the right to suggest, apparently seriously, that a judge, or any citizen be killed?
Free speech and its limits are not the classic example of not being allowed to yell “fire” in a public place. Free speech means you can look at someone, anyone, and tell them “I most respectfully disagree” without being prosecuted, followed, monitored, or suspected of being a terrorist. You can even say “I hate you and am ceasing all diplomatic relations with you” and make it clear you have no intent to hurt the person, merely to disengage your social contract with them, and what you say is legal and fair. You have the right, according the First Amendment to say “I disagree with your policies”.
It is quite possible to disagree with a citizen, a judge, or an inanimate object without issuing a death threat and infringing on that person or object’s right to exist. It is not quite easy to disagree with a person and maintain favorable relations. Indeed, the impulse is maximize our gain, and minimize our loss, in all relations — and we need not learn of minimax in political and economic theory to pursue this end. What, then, of people who, seeking a short term minimax strategy, find their gain to be to issue threats against the existence of another? In short, we have failed. Yet that does not excuse the act of a person, nor their responsibility to conceptualize acceptable and unacceptable, as the state of their own social contract agrees.
We have doubtless failed Mr. Turner in his education, as we each fail or lack in necessary qualities. It is nonetheless our bounden duty to disagree, under the full protection of the law, without resort to violence or threat of violence.
“touching our person seek we no revenge, but we our kingdom’s safety must to tender that to her laws we do deliver you” Shakespeare, Henry V; in which our laws are the greater good and our person are threats only. It is the duty of the state to see that laws are followed, so that we each may maximize our gain. Mr. Turner, you do misunderstand the need for firearms. It is not for you, alone, but for our collective security.
Why mention this now, almost eighteen months later? Well, that’s about how long it takes for things to go through our legal system, and there was a resolution. “A right-wing New Jersey blogger has been sentenced to 33 months in prison for making death threats against three federal judges in Illinois.”
What is equality? It is a long, hard, struggle that does not end in legal recognition. The Magna Carta gave landed gentry some rights; rights that they had to fight to maintain over many centuries. An end to slavery in the Americas meant what? That former slaves could easily become rich landowners? That was never the case. What of suffrage for women? Are they now equal to men? In pay, in social value?
Every 365 days we celebrate Martin Luther King Day. Today is not that day, but it worth remembering every day what he and many other men will tell us. Our calm president from Illinois – the living one, not the one who built a log cabin – remembered King well a couple years ago.
“Dr. King once said that the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice. It bends towards justice, but here is the thing: it does not bend on its own. It bends because each of us in our own ways put our hand on that arc and we bend it in the direction of justice….”
It does not bend on its own. There are causes left to fight. The Civil Rights Act did nothing except create a law. The Americans with Disabilities Act is just a law. A wise man, long dead, once told an audience of lawyers that the law is to protect and help people. If it is done right, that is what law is for. That alone does not make all laws good, but it reminds us that we are the ones who fight for equality.
Interestingly, I just wrote about European Values, mostly immigration and religious or ethnic purity; now I’m writing about American Values.
For the past decade we Americans have been terrorized by fear of terror. For the incoming 112th congress, there seems to be little difference between immigration and terror.
Foreigners and terrorists: Really, what’s the difference? That the nation has grown and prospered precisely because of adaptive immigration is beside the point, an obvious reflection of someone caught in the old mindset of the September 10th world. Interestingly, though, only about 8 percent of those who cast ballots in the 2010 election cited immigration concerns as their primary motivator. Of those who did, however, nearly 70 percent were Republicans.
Somehow, that doesn’t exemplify the fear our government and populace bounce off one another well enough. Society is a collective, and that includes our state of mind.
The American collective state of mind has become incapable of making the elementary, basic distinction between personal preference and law. To raise the matter with colleagues and friends is to elicit responses dictated solely by what one thinks of Wikileaks, Assange and their doings. That is a logical non sequitur and ethically obtuse. My personal feelings about them have nothing to do with my judgment about the illegality and arbitrariness of what our government is doing. Nor should it. One should be fierce in denouncing this violation of our principles and laws whatever/whomever the object of the abuses. We used to understand that….
How have we reached this point? The obvious answer is fear — fear exploited by self-serving elected officials whose own political interests trump their oath of office to protect and obey the constitution of the United States of America. Fear and the craven behavior it spawns. Supposedly we are a people whose bravery keep us free — supposedly.
When did Europe begin discriminating against immigrants? For that matter, when did history begin? This idealistic notion that Europe, or America (the ‘America’ that thinks it has ‘European Values’), is a non-discriminatory land-of-the free, red-white-and-blue, enlightened and tolerant society doesn’t hold valid under scrutiny.
Europeans have always come from somewhere else. The French came to France from Armenia and Georgia. The Saxons, themselves scattered and multi-ethnic after wars between the Ostrogoths and Visigoths, invaded Anglia at about the same time the Danes did. And now they all call themselves English. Spain wasn’t Spain at all until its disparate kingdoms were united by the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella. Germany was never a united entity, and people moved from one European principality to the next without much thought of identity other than fealty to the lord who protected them.
The European Union hasn’t changed any of that. People say they belong to larger entities now – a county, a state – but there is still a flow of people – some forced, some voluntary – from one area to the next. So, historically we can agree with the European Union’s President, Herman van Rompuy, when he said, “”Turkey is not a part of Europe and will never be part of Europe.” But for tens of centuries, the people that comprise what is now Turkey have been flowing, voluntarily and involuntarily, into what is Europe. So Europe – Bosnia, Serbia, Sweden and Switzerland – has Turkish immigrants. Even more scary for them, they have Muslim residents.
Herman van Rompuy thinks that Europe is a land of Christians. He forgets that in the flow of time, all Europeans once came from Turkey
The Dole Blog 