By H. N. Burdett
Palin Envy may be pushing and shoving its way into our national consciousness. It is high time.
An epidemic of laryngitis seems to have overtaken women of progressive persuasion who mainly sit in silence on the sidelines as Sarah Palin puts her brand on feminism. Her long-running road show is at very least a cash cow for the less than righteous right.
Perhaps the decision to ignore Palin reflects the fact that liberal Democrats are perfectly content with two extremely competent women in the roles of Speaker of the House of Representatives and Secretary of State. An attitude of let them fume, flail and fumble, while we're the grown-ups intent upon leading by example.
Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton are hands down the most mocked -- and dare we say despised? -- contemporary American political figures, after Palin, of course. Then again, it depends on who is doing the mocking and despising.
In a recent New York Times op-ed piece, Anna Holmes and Rebecca Traister dissect with near surgical precision the Palin conundrum and the urgency for progressive Democrats to find or create their very own version of the Sarah phenomenon.
Traister is the author of the forthcoming, "Big Girls Don't Cry: The Election That Changed Everything for American Women." Holmes is the founding editor of the blog Jezebel.
The two feel that what the Democrats need is nothing less than: "A female candidate on the left who speaks as angrily and forcefully about her rivals' shortcomings as Sarah Barracuda does about the Pelosis and Obamas of the world. A smart, unrelenting female who unlike Ms. Palin, wants to tear down, not reinforce, traditional ways of looking at women."
Holmes and Traister then introduce the proverbial rub: to achieve this goal would "require a party that is eager to discover, groom, promote and then cheer on such a progressive Palin." There are grave doubts that such a party exists.
A lesson from the women's liberation days of the 1960s was that all women did not sing from the same hymnal regarding feminism. The Betty Freidans and Gloria Steinems spoke to one audience of women, Phyllis Schlafly to a quite different one. Schlafly was an army unto herself.
As the antichrist of liberal feminism, Schlafly had a collection of bumper sticker punchlines that resonated more with the male-dominated power structure than they reflected common sense -- even on no-brainers such as equal pay for equal work (which, incidentally, remains perhaps the most basic and yet elusive goals of the women's rights movement). But how could the logic and fairness of this issue, which even on its worst days never drew a convincing counter-argument, compete with Schlafly's full-throated concern that equal rights for women would lead directly to unisex public restrooms?
Gender equality enthusiasts naively postulated that the justness of their cause guaranteed that the women's movement would be a political monolith. Schlafly was equally determined to prove that this was an absurd misreading of the minds of American women. As much as so many women believe their most fundamental right is to have control over their own bodies, Schlafly presented the argument that no husband could ever be guilty of raping his wife because marriage implies sexual consent.
Furthermore, Schlafly can hardly be accused of the crime of inconsistency. She has through the years demonstrated remarkable fidelity to the conservative playbook: opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment, which she feels will, among other things, deny Social Security benefits for housewives and widows, as well as opposition to the United Nations, the World Trade Organization and Arms Control. For good measure, she believes -- and I'm not making this up -- that Congress should impeach Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy for casting the deciding vote to abolish the death penalty for minors.
Those who feel Schlafly is an anomaly even among conservative thinkers, should try reading her literary descendants: Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham (when she resumes writing, which she surely will) and Michelle Malkin. That formidable trio would have been regularly skewered when Mary McGrory and Molly Ivins were alive and well. These days Rachel Maddow pretty much has to set the record straight alone.
Meanwhile, though there may be two distinct ideological groups who think of themselves as feminists, the hearts and minds the Maddows and Coulters are even more driven to win and keep are those of the men who control the levers of power, from boardrooms to courtrooms to legislatures and governors' offices, as well as major political party platforms and coffers.
Not too long ago, the grievances presented by liberal women did not at all jibe with the world as most men knew it. Any number of men who considered themselves proudly liberal could readily associate themselves with the womanifesto of the '60s -- basically, equality in both the workplace and at home. But there was virtually always a line that these same men did not want crossed. Whether it was a more equitable division of household chores, changing diapers, or something else, it was almost always there.
Progressives cheered to the rooftops Barrack Obama's call for change in the 2008 election. The response was overwhelming. But the change that could not be predicted was how Palin, in Holmes's and Traister's words "an anti-choice, pro-abstinence socialist-bashing tea party enthusiast," is positioning herself to become "the
21st century symbol of American women in politics." While the arguments they pose are understandable and reasonable, they may be missing the point.
Sarah Palin is easily the most visible woman political figure stumping the nation today, it would require neither very much paper nor ink to recount that her actual achievements -- Governor of Alaska, defeated nominee for Vice President of the United States -- pale when compared with those of Pelosi and Hillary Clinton.
As two of the three most powerful officeholders in the United States and, thus, the world, the Mesdames Pelosi and Clinton are making their mark. While Palin prattles on about the evils of tax-and-spend Democrats who refuse to cut taxes but can't resist funding any cockamamie social program that will plunge the country into ever greater indebtedness, Pelosi keeps steering the Obama administation program through the House of Representatives and Hillary Clinton keeps mending overseas fences the Bush administration with its neoconservative cohorts toppled recklessly and regularly.
The more success Ms. Clinton and Pelosi have in their respective endeavors, the more they will be demonized by the well-greased and oiled GOP smear machine -- Clinton as a ruthless combination of Lucrezia Borgia and Therese Defarge and Pelosi as "a San Francisco liberal," right-wing vernacular for the vilest, most depraved members of the most contemptible of all species.
The latter characterization is particularly amusing considering that Nancy D'Alesandro Pelosi was born and reared in Baltimore's Little Italy which resembles Haight-Asbury about as much as Manhattan compares with the crater of the moon. But nothing rouses the contempt of an opponent more certainly than success and Pelosi's record for steering Obama administration legislation through the House of Representatives nearly matches Tiger Woods's string of successes on the fairways before his fall from grace.
Hillary Clinton is regarded by the GOP as the personification of evil, despite her ability to work productively with some of the more conservative members of the U.S. Senate when she represented the State of New York in that august body. But Mrs. Clinton remains a convenient punching bag for rightists, in no small measure because she happens to be married to none other than the devil himself. It matters little to the disloyal opposition that Madame Secretary is making headway in restoring the global goodwill in which the United States spent more than 200 years investing before the Bush administration squandered it in only eight years.
With the American economy still on the ropes and unemployment -- when those who have given up even looking for work are counted -- above 10 per cent, the mood of the electorate can best be gauged by the as yet unknown quantity of the staying power of the Tea Party, the dissidents that Palin leads spiritually if not officially.
There remain legitimate questions regarding whether the tea-baggers can outlast their historic aberrant forebears, the Liberty League and the John Birch Society, whose notoriety was at least equally fearsome but relatively short-lived.
The durability of the Tea Party hangs by a tenuous thread that nevertheless will require significant change to unravel. Unless there is a dramatic economic and employment upward surge within the next two months, the Democrats can expect to take a pounding in the midterm congressional elections -- if for no other reason than they are there and have not yet fixed what was broken.
That a Republican majority bears at least equal responsibility for the damage, through waging a costly preemptive war, through borrow and spend profligacy and through slashing taxes for the wealthy at the expense of the middle class, may be irrelevant.
It requires a greater degree of political sophistication than voters generally demonstrate to comprehend that without the overly maligned economic stimulus packages and choosing instead the Republican option of continuing to cut taxes for the deserving wealthy and allowing the market to seek its own level with as few rules and regulations as possible would likely have had us digging out of a considerably deeper hole.
The misguided machismo which perpetuates the myth that only men are capable of running the country, compounded by the belief that the nation would be in better shape had we just left everything alone and done nothing about the economy,brings to mind the immortal question Will Rogers once posed: "If stupidity got us into this mess, why can't stupidity get us out?" A return to the conservative agenda would be a supreme test of that kind of thinking.
If the most inspiring leader for a back-to-the-future platform two years hence turns out to be Sarah Palin, with her Twitter wisdom ("Who hijacked the term 'feminist'? A cackle of rads who want 2 crucify other women w/whom they disagree. . ."), the Republican party is in real trouble, and maybe even the country.
Monday, August 30, 2010
Friday, August 27, 2010
THE PRESIDENT FACES FRIENDLY FIRE
By H. N. Burdett
The soft-spoken, sweet-talking Bayou country sage, James Carville, famously counsels, "When your opponent is drowning, throw the son of a bitch an anvil!"
Barrack Obama may or may not be going under for the third time, though he's undeniably swimming against a treacherous tide. But Republican congressional leaders Mitch McConnell and John Boehner can't seem to find an anvil, only the end of George W. Bush's frayed rope.
It's hard to think of a single constructive idea the minority has contributed to the achievements of the first year and a half of the Obama administration: extending health care to from 16-32 million relatively poor Americans; meeting Obama's August 2010 deadline for the withdrawal of combat troops from Iraq, and the flawed but nonetheless enacted economic stimulus package and financial reform.
Even the GOP rages against the Obama program are flaccid and wobbly, delivered half-heartedly, as though rather than earnestly challenging they are just going through the motions. The right-wing blowhards of the airwaves are equally unsubstantive, only noisier.
No matter. The same so-called liberal media the foghorns of the right routinely bellow against are doing their job for them. The disloyal opposition has the luxury of at least temporarily sitting back, shutting up and enjoying the show. As if the Becks, O'Reillys and Limbaughs are about to let that happen.
New York Times columnist Frank Rich, reviewing Jonathan Alter's tome, The Promise, President Obama's Year One, in the New York Review of Books, feels it "confirms that the biggest flaw in Obama's leadership has to do with his own team. . .and it's a flaw that has been visible from the start."
Rich homes in on Obama's obsession with meritocracy which facilitated his own meteoric rise from community organizer to Illinois state senator to U.S. senator to the presidency, leaving mere mortal politicians to ponder whether he really does put on his pants one leg at a time as they do.
Recalling the administration's tardiness in responding to the BP oil spill, Rich recounts the White House endlessly repeating that energy secretary Stephen Chu is a Nobel laureate, as though credentials trump performance or lack thereof. And there's the droll observation that not only is Office of Management and Budget director Peter Orszag a Princeton summa cum laude with a Ph.D. from the London School of Economics, but his spokesman, Ken Baer, has a Ph.D. from Oxford. Facts that would impress only another thumb-sucking elitist.
Perhaps Obama felt that after eight years of Bush administration bumbling incompetence, high brain wattage would blind the public into faith and trust in its successors. Progressives are now learning that the smartest guys in the room can screw up as royally as the least engaged, and can be equally annoying, to wit, Timothy Gaithner and Lawrence Summers.
Indeed Gaithner and Summers are properly pole-axed as the foxes in Obama's chicken coop by John B. Judis in The New Republic.
While it has been argued that Gaithner's serial tax delinquencies should have disqualified him for secretary of the treasury, he has managed to intensify public disdain by his defense of the TARP initiative, his role in allowing Lehman Brothers to go under, and his indifference to AIG paying back their Wall Street creditors with taxpayers' money.
Meanwhile, Summers's reprehensibly imperious attitude as the top White House economic adviser about the inferiority of the judgments and opinions of his colleagues compared with his own, as well as his exaggerated concern over losing the confidence of business interests, have invited questions as to whether he has been helping or hurting the Obama administration.
While some Democrats see Obama's possible Waterloo in his single-minded persistence to pass health care restructuring "while the economy was hemorrhaging jobs," Judis insists that "the real damage was done earlier."
"What doomed Obama politically," Judis writes, as though the president's political demise is fait accompli, "was the way he dealt with the financial crisis in the first six months of his presidency. In an atmosphere primed for a populist backlash, he allowed the right wing to define the terms." Here Judis is quick to point out that had John McCain been elected, the all-too-apparent cluelessness the GOP presidential nominee exhibited on the campaign trail with regard to economics and financial issues indicated he most probably would have fared even worse than Obama has.
Judis goes on to correctly explain that populism is non-ideological, noting that Franklin D. Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan each found ways of using its appeal during an economic downturn.
If during times of high unemployment and a weak economy, the president fails to adopt populism, the opposition will, Judis asserts. "That's what (Jimmy) Carter discovered during the stagflation of the late '70s," he points out. "And that's what happened in the last 20 months of the Great Recession to Barrack Obama and to the Democratic party he leads."
A litany of Obama actions that have driven progressives bananas is offered by Eric Alterman, writing in The Nation. The list ranges from backing away from inclusion of single payer insurance, the key to true health care reform, to reneging on the president's promise to fight for "a hard cap on all carbon emissions at a level that scientists say is necessary to curb global warming --an 80 per cent reduction by 2050. . ."
Musing upon the horrific George W. Bush legacy, with which Obama still contends and doubtless is fated to continue struggling against throughout his presidency, Alterman says: "Think about the Mineral Management Service, where chaos, corruption and incompetence competed with genuine malevolence to empower BP to ignore so many safety rules before the oil spill. Now multiply that by virtually the entire government regulatory structure, and you have some idea of the kind of mess left by Bush and Cheney to the Obama administration."
Judis stresses that the one-term presidency of Jimmy Carter is "the specter hanging over Obama's presidency." Readily acknowledging that Obama has already accomplished more in the first 20 months of his administration than Carter did during his entire presidency, he adds, "But there is a disturbing political resemblance between the two presidents." Both ran inspired campaigns, positioned themselves above the partisan quarrels and scandals of their Republican predecessors, and initially raised the possibility of creating a "transformational" presidency. But Carter failed and Obama is failing to connect with large segments of the electorate.
PolitiFact.com, the St. Petersburg Times database that won a Pulitzer for fact-checking the 2008 presidential campaign offers another way of evaluating the progress of the Obama presidency. It catalogued and tracked a total of 502 promises Obama made during his campaign. One year later the analysis showed he had already kept 91 of them, made progress on another 285, "broken" 14, and was "stalled" on 89. Moreover, PolitiFact singled out 25 of Obama's most significant campaign promises; of these, in his first year 20 already have been "kept" or are "in the works." For a president who has yet to reach the halfway mark of his first term, that's hardly chopped liver.
Progressive dissatisfaction with Obama has less to do with the quantity of his accomplishments than their quality. More often than not, Obama settles for half a loaf. One of his political mentors puts it this way, "Sometimes you can't get the whole hog, so you settle for a ham sandwich." The White House mess will have to expand exponentially to accommodate the stockpiling of the president's ham sandwiches.
Obama constantly invites criticism from those who feel he relinquishes too much in the pursuit of his cockeyed quixotic dream of bipartisanship, which will become reality only when there is ice-skating on the Styx.
A one-term fate for the president is the current conventional wisdom of the Beltway soothsayers, who will never be accused of harboring foolish consistencies that Emerson tells us are hobgoblins of small minds.
But, as a former media colleague constantly used to remind me, you don't top chicken salad with chicken feathers, or something close enough to that. And Republican ammunition, no matter which candidate ultimately fires it, is reduced to belching the Methuselian cant of tax cuts for the rich, borrowing to cover government's bills and turning the tab over to our kids and grandkids to pay, and pulling the rug from under social programs.
The drumbeat for retrogression is less likely to produce a Republican bandwagon than induce an enormous collective yawn. With such a dog-eared, wrinkled and yellowing message, the GOP must pin its hopes on the messenger. That messiah has yet to surface, though there are more than a few aspirants itching to be so anointed.
If Barrack Obama can manage to dodge those frequent barrages of friendly fire, he may not only win re-election, he could even transform the Rushmore Four into a quintet.
The soft-spoken, sweet-talking Bayou country sage, James Carville, famously counsels, "When your opponent is drowning, throw the son of a bitch an anvil!"
Barrack Obama may or may not be going under for the third time, though he's undeniably swimming against a treacherous tide. But Republican congressional leaders Mitch McConnell and John Boehner can't seem to find an anvil, only the end of George W. Bush's frayed rope.
It's hard to think of a single constructive idea the minority has contributed to the achievements of the first year and a half of the Obama administration: extending health care to from 16-32 million relatively poor Americans; meeting Obama's August 2010 deadline for the withdrawal of combat troops from Iraq, and the flawed but nonetheless enacted economic stimulus package and financial reform.
Even the GOP rages against the Obama program are flaccid and wobbly, delivered half-heartedly, as though rather than earnestly challenging they are just going through the motions. The right-wing blowhards of the airwaves are equally unsubstantive, only noisier.
No matter. The same so-called liberal media the foghorns of the right routinely bellow against are doing their job for them. The disloyal opposition has the luxury of at least temporarily sitting back, shutting up and enjoying the show. As if the Becks, O'Reillys and Limbaughs are about to let that happen.
New York Times columnist Frank Rich, reviewing Jonathan Alter's tome, The Promise, President Obama's Year One, in the New York Review of Books, feels it "confirms that the biggest flaw in Obama's leadership has to do with his own team. . .and it's a flaw that has been visible from the start."
Rich homes in on Obama's obsession with meritocracy which facilitated his own meteoric rise from community organizer to Illinois state senator to U.S. senator to the presidency, leaving mere mortal politicians to ponder whether he really does put on his pants one leg at a time as they do.
Recalling the administration's tardiness in responding to the BP oil spill, Rich recounts the White House endlessly repeating that energy secretary Stephen Chu is a Nobel laureate, as though credentials trump performance or lack thereof. And there's the droll observation that not only is Office of Management and Budget director Peter Orszag a Princeton summa cum laude with a Ph.D. from the London School of Economics, but his spokesman, Ken Baer, has a Ph.D. from Oxford. Facts that would impress only another thumb-sucking elitist.
Perhaps Obama felt that after eight years of Bush administration bumbling incompetence, high brain wattage would blind the public into faith and trust in its successors. Progressives are now learning that the smartest guys in the room can screw up as royally as the least engaged, and can be equally annoying, to wit, Timothy Gaithner and Lawrence Summers.
Indeed Gaithner and Summers are properly pole-axed as the foxes in Obama's chicken coop by John B. Judis in The New Republic.
While it has been argued that Gaithner's serial tax delinquencies should have disqualified him for secretary of the treasury, he has managed to intensify public disdain by his defense of the TARP initiative, his role in allowing Lehman Brothers to go under, and his indifference to AIG paying back their Wall Street creditors with taxpayers' money.
Meanwhile, Summers's reprehensibly imperious attitude as the top White House economic adviser about the inferiority of the judgments and opinions of his colleagues compared with his own, as well as his exaggerated concern over losing the confidence of business interests, have invited questions as to whether he has been helping or hurting the Obama administration.
While some Democrats see Obama's possible Waterloo in his single-minded persistence to pass health care restructuring "while the economy was hemorrhaging jobs," Judis insists that "the real damage was done earlier."
"What doomed Obama politically," Judis writes, as though the president's political demise is fait accompli, "was the way he dealt with the financial crisis in the first six months of his presidency. In an atmosphere primed for a populist backlash, he allowed the right wing to define the terms." Here Judis is quick to point out that had John McCain been elected, the all-too-apparent cluelessness the GOP presidential nominee exhibited on the campaign trail with regard to economics and financial issues indicated he most probably would have fared even worse than Obama has.
Judis goes on to correctly explain that populism is non-ideological, noting that Franklin D. Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan each found ways of using its appeal during an economic downturn.
If during times of high unemployment and a weak economy, the president fails to adopt populism, the opposition will, Judis asserts. "That's what (Jimmy) Carter discovered during the stagflation of the late '70s," he points out. "And that's what happened in the last 20 months of the Great Recession to Barrack Obama and to the Democratic party he leads."
A litany of Obama actions that have driven progressives bananas is offered by Eric Alterman, writing in The Nation. The list ranges from backing away from inclusion of single payer insurance, the key to true health care reform, to reneging on the president's promise to fight for "a hard cap on all carbon emissions at a level that scientists say is necessary to curb global warming --an 80 per cent reduction by 2050. . ."
Musing upon the horrific George W. Bush legacy, with which Obama still contends and doubtless is fated to continue struggling against throughout his presidency, Alterman says: "Think about the Mineral Management Service, where chaos, corruption and incompetence competed with genuine malevolence to empower BP to ignore so many safety rules before the oil spill. Now multiply that by virtually the entire government regulatory structure, and you have some idea of the kind of mess left by Bush and Cheney to the Obama administration."
Judis stresses that the one-term presidency of Jimmy Carter is "the specter hanging over Obama's presidency." Readily acknowledging that Obama has already accomplished more in the first 20 months of his administration than Carter did during his entire presidency, he adds, "But there is a disturbing political resemblance between the two presidents." Both ran inspired campaigns, positioned themselves above the partisan quarrels and scandals of their Republican predecessors, and initially raised the possibility of creating a "transformational" presidency. But Carter failed and Obama is failing to connect with large segments of the electorate.
PolitiFact.com, the St. Petersburg Times database that won a Pulitzer for fact-checking the 2008 presidential campaign offers another way of evaluating the progress of the Obama presidency. It catalogued and tracked a total of 502 promises Obama made during his campaign. One year later the analysis showed he had already kept 91 of them, made progress on another 285, "broken" 14, and was "stalled" on 89. Moreover, PolitiFact singled out 25 of Obama's most significant campaign promises; of these, in his first year 20 already have been "kept" or are "in the works." For a president who has yet to reach the halfway mark of his first term, that's hardly chopped liver.
Progressive dissatisfaction with Obama has less to do with the quantity of his accomplishments than their quality. More often than not, Obama settles for half a loaf. One of his political mentors puts it this way, "Sometimes you can't get the whole hog, so you settle for a ham sandwich." The White House mess will have to expand exponentially to accommodate the stockpiling of the president's ham sandwiches.
Obama constantly invites criticism from those who feel he relinquishes too much in the pursuit of his cockeyed quixotic dream of bipartisanship, which will become reality only when there is ice-skating on the Styx.
A one-term fate for the president is the current conventional wisdom of the Beltway soothsayers, who will never be accused of harboring foolish consistencies that Emerson tells us are hobgoblins of small minds.
But, as a former media colleague constantly used to remind me, you don't top chicken salad with chicken feathers, or something close enough to that. And Republican ammunition, no matter which candidate ultimately fires it, is reduced to belching the Methuselian cant of tax cuts for the rich, borrowing to cover government's bills and turning the tab over to our kids and grandkids to pay, and pulling the rug from under social programs.
The drumbeat for retrogression is less likely to produce a Republican bandwagon than induce an enormous collective yawn. With such a dog-eared, wrinkled and yellowing message, the GOP must pin its hopes on the messenger. That messiah has yet to surface, though there are more than a few aspirants itching to be so anointed.
If Barrack Obama can manage to dodge those frequent barrages of friendly fire, he may not only win re-election, he could even transform the Rushmore Four into a quintet.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
THE CRUX OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION
By H. N. Burdett
Political campaigns have a way of bringing out the beast in even the most reasonable, fair-minded politicians. This year's congressional elections are no exception. How else to explain an act of calculated contretemps by a throwback to the days of principled conservatism in the nation's capital such as Senator Lindsey Graham?
In an era when rigid polarization dominates the Washington landscape, motivating the Republican minority in both houses of Congress to adopt the deplorable option of voting against virtually every piece of substantive legislation, and even a hint of compromise is synonymous with betrayal, the South Carolina senator was among the scant few reminders of a time when conscience and conciliation rather than contrived conflict was the order of the day. It was a time of Dirksen of Illinois, Scott of Pennsylvania and Mathias of Maryland, lawmakers who brought civility and honor as well as brain wattage to the Art of the Possible, as opposed to today's minority party preference for parroting bumper sticker slogans.
Graham, along with John McCain, once infused a measure of hope that immigration reform might be the breakthrough one dared to dream might resuscitate the long dormant if not comatose concept of bipartisanship in the corridors of power.
As a presidential candidate, McCain was taught the bitter lesson that Republican moderates with White House ambition either learn or resign themselves to forever harnessing their aspirations: deviation from the conservative gospel is the minefield route to the party's nomination for leader of the free world.
It is a lesson that was driven home to the 41st President of the United States. A paradigm of Republican centrism as a congressman from Texas, George Herbert Walker Bush was subjected to an old-fashioned whuppin' by Ronald Reagan during the 1980 GOP presidential primary. That a Grade B film actor could inflict such a thorough thrashing of a politician who had one of the most impressive resumes of anyone who has ever sought the presidency -- from congressman to chairman of the Republican party to director of the Central Intelligence Agency to Ambassador to the United Nations -- spoke volumes for the direction American politics had taken in the second half of the 20th century.
Bush 41 was subsequently chosen as Reagan's vice president running mate in the last year it was still regarded as important for Republicans to balance a conservative at the head of the ticket with a moderate candidate in the second spot. In that position, the elder Bush wore his new mantle as validation of his commitment to the tenets of his newly found aversion to rapid change. And he wore it proudly enough to succeed the Great Communicator in the election of 1988. As president, the senior Bush challenged Americans to read his lips as he pledged not to raise taxes, but eventually lapsed into responsible behavior when circumstances dictated, thereby assuring his fate as a one-term chief executive.
Following eight years of the Clinton administration, Republican boy genius Karl Rove never allowed George W. Bush to forget the sins of the father. That formula proved sufficient for the eldest son of the House of Bush to squeeze out a victory (by a single vote in the United States Supreme Court) in the controversial presidential election of 2000.
So disciplined was W. at adhering to his party's dogma that riding the crest of misplaced patriotism in the wake of the 9/ll attacks he could order the invasion of a country that had nothing to do with the suicide assaults on the trade center and the Pentagon, declare a victory that was a full decade premature, and still be re-elected in 2004.
Indeed conservative allegiance has been of such necessity for the nomination of Republican candidates for the presidency that even Nelson Rockefeller, with all of his millions as far back as the 1960s discovered that moderation was too much baggage for a presidential hopeful to haul into a GOP national convention. The last moderate to win that party's nomination was Dwight Eisenhower; the next may require credentials more impressive than merely winning a world war.
So it has come to pass that Lindsey Graham, though he has never actually revealed overt lust to reside in the White House, has now the requisite bona fides for that quest. He has toed the party line by renouncing his previous willingness to find a viable bipartisan solution to immigration reform. The South Carolinian has assumed a leading role in calling for a thorough review of arguably his party's foremost achievement: the adoption of the 14th amendment to the United States Constitution which decrees, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."
Those words that sounded the death knell for slavery now incite the animus of conservative Republican extremists who have pushed their party ever further to the right. So much so that
a leading GOP spokesman, Senator Jeff Sessions, is so comfortable with the idea of re-positioning the party of Lincoln that he feels wording of the 14th amendment that terminated the institution of slavery could also mean "somebody could fly in from Brazil and have a child and fly back home and that child would forever be an American citizen."
Well, yes, the 14th amendment could technically lead to entire planes loaded with pregnant Brazilian women landing at Miami International, be herded into taxis and ambulances waiting to transport them to reserved rooms in the nearest available maternity wards.
Those who have been naively unaware of the extent of the so-called "anchor baby" problem infecting the United States are indebted to the Federation for American Immigration Reform for doing their homework.
FAIR estimates that there are 13 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. Taking into consideration that the crude birth rate for the entire foreign-born population is 33 births per 1,000 population and adjusting downward to allow for women as a smaller share of undocumented workers, FAIR figures 363,000 children of illegal immigrants are born anually in this country.
A 2004 United States General Accounting Office report shows that three states submitted their annual cost estimates of educating children of undocumented foreigners. According to FAIR, "The estimates provided ranged from $50 million to $87.5 million in Pennsylvania and $932 million to $1.04 billion in Texas."
This same organization calls for more realistic quotas to be assigned to U.S. immigration and a moratorium on all such immigration until such figures can be determined, claiming, "By not correcting this mis-application of the 14th amendment, the funds that state and local governments must provide to anchor babies amount to a virtual tax on U.S. citizens to subsidize illegal aliens." FAIR does not seem to feel it is relevant to adjust for the taxes that illegal immigrants do indeed pay.
Rather than tackle symptoms of undocumented immigration like so-called "anchor babies," which amounts by and large to punishing the impoverished from south of the U.S. border who mostly want nothing more than to guarantee the survival of their families and are willing to leave their homeland, at least temporarily, to achieve this goal, Senator Graham and his conservative brethren might take a closer look at what drives south to north migration in the Americas and worldwide.
The crux of the problem is not the foreign worker who often enough risks his life to cross the border illegally, opts to live in constant fear of being caught, deported and even permanently separated from his family. Senator Graham, other anti-immigration lawmakers and immigration suppression organizations might find it more productive for achieving their stated goals to focus on the very source of clandestine trafficking in undocumented cheap labor. Law enforcement agencies need to home in on the human sleaze that lures impoverished, unemployed foreigners across the border with jobs for which they are paid under-the-table wages, violating an array of laws from those covering minimum wages and maximum hours to those designed to ensure employee safety, not to mention enrollment in health care programs and employment insurance and pensions.
Curiously little attention is directed towards those who promulgate, promote and perpetuate illegal immigration while their off-the-books employees are blamed and punished for the crime of struggling to survive. Only when legislators like Lindsey Graham recognize and act upon levying serious fines, in some cases temporarily suspending and, in others, permanently shutting down operations that seek to increase their profit margins through human exploitation, will true immigration reform finally be achieved. Meanwhile, foreign-born laborers continue to proliferate, they and their offspring desperately grasping at employment opportunities for which they are willing to subject themselves to multiple hazards, all the while learning to evade and subvert the laws of the land to which they have been lured.
Immigration, lawful or undocumented, traditionally inspires distrust and fear of foreigners, most frequently from the tier of workers whose jobs are most threatened by their existence. The inconvenient truth is that merchants of greed who represent the dark underside of capitalism contribute to the decay of an economic system that can be viable and productive through adjustments -- serious rules and regulations that are seriously enforced. Those conservatives who resist regulation with their familiar mantra that the marketplace can seek its true level only when it is completely unfettered are arguing for nothing less than exempting themselves from the concept of a level playing field, preferring to game the system to their own advantage.
As long as capitalism successfully defends itself against the notion that laws, rules, regulations, prohibitions on questionable behavior represent untenable restrictions on the free market, it is pursuing a course that is nothing short of suicidal. Unchecked exploitation of the system and of human resources can lead to the downfall of the world's most emulated economic system. Eternal vigilance is required to safeguard against it.
To replenish human resources, entrepreneurs will always resort to seeking the neediest, the hungriest, those eager and willing to take any job -- no matter how menial or hazardous -- to acquire their basic needs. Such a system is a predictable indicator of xenophobia, which is ever more pronounced among those whose livelihood is threatened by each succeeding wave of immigration.
The source of the United States's historic and continuing vigor and vitality -- the reason it is envied and emulated at the same time it is is mocked and hated -- is that despite ubiquitous immigration bashing, it is the immigrant's belief that hard work in this country can lead to a steady rise in economic status, and can even make one rich, wherein resides the secret of the United States's uniqueness. Waves of immigrants have accounted for U.S. growth and wealth from the very founding of the nation until the present day. To deny this is to deny our very history.
If the immigration saturation point has been reached and even passed in the United States, it is all the more reason for rational reform to take dead aim on eliminating the "pull factor" of avaricious and unconscionable traffickers in the cheapest possible labor to achieve the highest possible profits. As long as the former are allowed to exist and are, in fact, time and again subsidized by government, these merchants of greed who respect neither laws nor common decency will always be perfectly content to allow the very people they routinely and callously exploit to absorb abuse and shoulder the blame whenever capitalism appears in danger of imploding from its own excesses.
Political campaigns have a way of bringing out the beast in even the most reasonable, fair-minded politicians. This year's congressional elections are no exception. How else to explain an act of calculated contretemps by a throwback to the days of principled conservatism in the nation's capital such as Senator Lindsey Graham?
In an era when rigid polarization dominates the Washington landscape, motivating the Republican minority in both houses of Congress to adopt the deplorable option of voting against virtually every piece of substantive legislation, and even a hint of compromise is synonymous with betrayal, the South Carolina senator was among the scant few reminders of a time when conscience and conciliation rather than contrived conflict was the order of the day. It was a time of Dirksen of Illinois, Scott of Pennsylvania and Mathias of Maryland, lawmakers who brought civility and honor as well as brain wattage to the Art of the Possible, as opposed to today's minority party preference for parroting bumper sticker slogans.
Graham, along with John McCain, once infused a measure of hope that immigration reform might be the breakthrough one dared to dream might resuscitate the long dormant if not comatose concept of bipartisanship in the corridors of power.
As a presidential candidate, McCain was taught the bitter lesson that Republican moderates with White House ambition either learn or resign themselves to forever harnessing their aspirations: deviation from the conservative gospel is the minefield route to the party's nomination for leader of the free world.
It is a lesson that was driven home to the 41st President of the United States. A paradigm of Republican centrism as a congressman from Texas, George Herbert Walker Bush was subjected to an old-fashioned whuppin' by Ronald Reagan during the 1980 GOP presidential primary. That a Grade B film actor could inflict such a thorough thrashing of a politician who had one of the most impressive resumes of anyone who has ever sought the presidency -- from congressman to chairman of the Republican party to director of the Central Intelligence Agency to Ambassador to the United Nations -- spoke volumes for the direction American politics had taken in the second half of the 20th century.
Bush 41 was subsequently chosen as Reagan's vice president running mate in the last year it was still regarded as important for Republicans to balance a conservative at the head of the ticket with a moderate candidate in the second spot. In that position, the elder Bush wore his new mantle as validation of his commitment to the tenets of his newly found aversion to rapid change. And he wore it proudly enough to succeed the Great Communicator in the election of 1988. As president, the senior Bush challenged Americans to read his lips as he pledged not to raise taxes, but eventually lapsed into responsible behavior when circumstances dictated, thereby assuring his fate as a one-term chief executive.
Following eight years of the Clinton administration, Republican boy genius Karl Rove never allowed George W. Bush to forget the sins of the father. That formula proved sufficient for the eldest son of the House of Bush to squeeze out a victory (by a single vote in the United States Supreme Court) in the controversial presidential election of 2000.
So disciplined was W. at adhering to his party's dogma that riding the crest of misplaced patriotism in the wake of the 9/ll attacks he could order the invasion of a country that had nothing to do with the suicide assaults on the trade center and the Pentagon, declare a victory that was a full decade premature, and still be re-elected in 2004.
Indeed conservative allegiance has been of such necessity for the nomination of Republican candidates for the presidency that even Nelson Rockefeller, with all of his millions as far back as the 1960s discovered that moderation was too much baggage for a presidential hopeful to haul into a GOP national convention. The last moderate to win that party's nomination was Dwight Eisenhower; the next may require credentials more impressive than merely winning a world war.
So it has come to pass that Lindsey Graham, though he has never actually revealed overt lust to reside in the White House, has now the requisite bona fides for that quest. He has toed the party line by renouncing his previous willingness to find a viable bipartisan solution to immigration reform. The South Carolinian has assumed a leading role in calling for a thorough review of arguably his party's foremost achievement: the adoption of the 14th amendment to the United States Constitution which decrees, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."
Those words that sounded the death knell for slavery now incite the animus of conservative Republican extremists who have pushed their party ever further to the right. So much so that
a leading GOP spokesman, Senator Jeff Sessions, is so comfortable with the idea of re-positioning the party of Lincoln that he feels wording of the 14th amendment that terminated the institution of slavery could also mean "somebody could fly in from Brazil and have a child and fly back home and that child would forever be an American citizen."
Well, yes, the 14th amendment could technically lead to entire planes loaded with pregnant Brazilian women landing at Miami International, be herded into taxis and ambulances waiting to transport them to reserved rooms in the nearest available maternity wards.
Those who have been naively unaware of the extent of the so-called "anchor baby" problem infecting the United States are indebted to the Federation for American Immigration Reform for doing their homework.
FAIR estimates that there are 13 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. Taking into consideration that the crude birth rate for the entire foreign-born population is 33 births per 1,000 population and adjusting downward to allow for women as a smaller share of undocumented workers, FAIR figures 363,000 children of illegal immigrants are born anually in this country.
A 2004 United States General Accounting Office report shows that three states submitted their annual cost estimates of educating children of undocumented foreigners. According to FAIR, "The estimates provided ranged from $50 million to $87.5 million in Pennsylvania and $932 million to $1.04 billion in Texas."
This same organization calls for more realistic quotas to be assigned to U.S. immigration and a moratorium on all such immigration until such figures can be determined, claiming, "By not correcting this mis-application of the 14th amendment, the funds that state and local governments must provide to anchor babies amount to a virtual tax on U.S. citizens to subsidize illegal aliens." FAIR does not seem to feel it is relevant to adjust for the taxes that illegal immigrants do indeed pay.
Rather than tackle symptoms of undocumented immigration like so-called "anchor babies," which amounts by and large to punishing the impoverished from south of the U.S. border who mostly want nothing more than to guarantee the survival of their families and are willing to leave their homeland, at least temporarily, to achieve this goal, Senator Graham and his conservative brethren might take a closer look at what drives south to north migration in the Americas and worldwide.
The crux of the problem is not the foreign worker who often enough risks his life to cross the border illegally, opts to live in constant fear of being caught, deported and even permanently separated from his family. Senator Graham, other anti-immigration lawmakers and immigration suppression organizations might find it more productive for achieving their stated goals to focus on the very source of clandestine trafficking in undocumented cheap labor. Law enforcement agencies need to home in on the human sleaze that lures impoverished, unemployed foreigners across the border with jobs for which they are paid under-the-table wages, violating an array of laws from those covering minimum wages and maximum hours to those designed to ensure employee safety, not to mention enrollment in health care programs and employment insurance and pensions.
Curiously little attention is directed towards those who promulgate, promote and perpetuate illegal immigration while their off-the-books employees are blamed and punished for the crime of struggling to survive. Only when legislators like Lindsey Graham recognize and act upon levying serious fines, in some cases temporarily suspending and, in others, permanently shutting down operations that seek to increase their profit margins through human exploitation, will true immigration reform finally be achieved. Meanwhile, foreign-born laborers continue to proliferate, they and their offspring desperately grasping at employment opportunities for which they are willing to subject themselves to multiple hazards, all the while learning to evade and subvert the laws of the land to which they have been lured.
Immigration, lawful or undocumented, traditionally inspires distrust and fear of foreigners, most frequently from the tier of workers whose jobs are most threatened by their existence. The inconvenient truth is that merchants of greed who represent the dark underside of capitalism contribute to the decay of an economic system that can be viable and productive through adjustments -- serious rules and regulations that are seriously enforced. Those conservatives who resist regulation with their familiar mantra that the marketplace can seek its true level only when it is completely unfettered are arguing for nothing less than exempting themselves from the concept of a level playing field, preferring to game the system to their own advantage.
As long as capitalism successfully defends itself against the notion that laws, rules, regulations, prohibitions on questionable behavior represent untenable restrictions on the free market, it is pursuing a course that is nothing short of suicidal. Unchecked exploitation of the system and of human resources can lead to the downfall of the world's most emulated economic system. Eternal vigilance is required to safeguard against it.
To replenish human resources, entrepreneurs will always resort to seeking the neediest, the hungriest, those eager and willing to take any job -- no matter how menial or hazardous -- to acquire their basic needs. Such a system is a predictable indicator of xenophobia, which is ever more pronounced among those whose livelihood is threatened by each succeeding wave of immigration.
The source of the United States's historic and continuing vigor and vitality -- the reason it is envied and emulated at the same time it is is mocked and hated -- is that despite ubiquitous immigration bashing, it is the immigrant's belief that hard work in this country can lead to a steady rise in economic status, and can even make one rich, wherein resides the secret of the United States's uniqueness. Waves of immigrants have accounted for U.S. growth and wealth from the very founding of the nation until the present day. To deny this is to deny our very history.
If the immigration saturation point has been reached and even passed in the United States, it is all the more reason for rational reform to take dead aim on eliminating the "pull factor" of avaricious and unconscionable traffickers in the cheapest possible labor to achieve the highest possible profits. As long as the former are allowed to exist and are, in fact, time and again subsidized by government, these merchants of greed who respect neither laws nor common decency will always be perfectly content to allow the very people they routinely and callously exploit to absorb abuse and shoulder the blame whenever capitalism appears in danger of imploding from its own excesses.
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
THE MOSQUE NEAR HALLOWED GROUND
By H. N. Burdett
For conclusive proof that the politics of hate remains alive and sick in this nation that was established on the principle of religious freedom, one need not look beyond the ongoing controversy over the planned Lower Manhattan site of the 13-story Cordoba House community center which includes a mosque. The proposed facility has drawn national attention because it is located within the vicinity of the hallowed ground on which the World Trade Center graced the New York skyline prior to the 9/11 terrorist attack.
With midterm national elections in the offing, the brouhaha is red meat for certain politicians ever eager to exploit issues that move voters to react rather than challenge them to think.
Prospective candidates for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination are at the forefront of the flock of right-wing vultures swooping down for a nibble of the perceived carrion of liberal appeasement. And they know only too well what jerks the knees of their constituents.
Writing on Twitter, the GOP's prototypical go-for-the-jugular headline grabber, Sarah Palin, asserted that the "Ground Zero mosque is UNNECESSARY provocation: it stabs hearts." The former Governor of Alaska and erstwhile Republican nominee for Vice President added: "9/11 mosque=act of fitna [Arabic for scandal] 'equivalent to building Serbian Orthodox church @ Srebrenica killing fields where Muslims were slaughtered.' "
Newt Gingrich, the former Georgia congressman now a college professor rummaging through issues to ignite his sputtering hopes of becoming the next Republican occupant of the White House, seizes the mosque uproar as just such an opportunity.
"There should be no mosque near Ground Zero in New York, so long as there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia," says Professor Gingrich, with all of the logic of adopting one's enemy's modus operandi and in so doing becoming the mirror image of what he is supposed to be combatting; to say nothing of forgetting that the Saudis are self-styled moderates who have pledged themselves to fighting terrorism.
"The time for double standards that allow Islamists to behave aggressively toward us while they demand weakness and submission is over," Gingrich prattles on. "Nazis don't have the right to put up a sign next to the Holocaust museum in Washington."
When the skewed reasoning of the blatantly and proudly visceral Palin and the pseudo-cerebral Gingrich implodes, it may finally dawn upon someone of influence in their ranks that the United States has declared war on terrorism, not Islam.
The self-same mentality that blocked the George W. Bush administration from distinguishing between the Salafist jihadists of Al Qaeda and the secular Baathists of Iraq under Saddam Hussein has apparently afflicted his would-be successors.
So clueless are the perpetrators of the myth that Islam is monolithic -- akin to judging all of Christianity by Roman Catholicism, or Judaism by Hasidim -- that Rick Lazio, a GOP candidate for governor of New York, has suggested that the individual behind the mosque project might be connected to "radical organizations."
In fact, that individual, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, is seen by Osama bin Laden as an enemy, an appeaser of infidels. As the author William Dalrymple wrote recently in The New York Times, the Taliban "no doubt regards him as a legitimate target for assassination."
Feisal Abdul Rauf is among America's leading proponents of Sufism, the mystical form of Islam that is an indigenous, deep-rooted resistance movement against violent Islamic radicalism. Sufis' open, intellectual interpretation of the Quran is seen by the Rand Corporation as an intriguing element that makes them ideal "partners in the effort to combat Islamic extremism." To suggest that the imam is radical is like comparing Mother Theresa with Torquemada.
The Taliban and Al Qaeda no more represent all of Islam than the Southern Baptist Convention or the Missouri Synod represent all of Christianity. While any number of Islamic moderates have been radicalized by the U.S. invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, the Sufis are not among them.
Several journalists have pointed out that the proposed mosque is not within the fenced-off area of downtown Manhattan known as Ground Zero. The mosque site is two blocks north of the former World Trade Center. Palin, Gingrich and their ilk are either unaware of this or have chosen to tip-toe around the inconvenient fact that there is indeed an existing mosque merely a few hundred feet further from the actual Ground Zero location.
Nor are Palin and Gingrich the only GOP presidential candidates to voice their opposition to the planned Cordoba House cultural center.
Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee questions whether advocates of the project feel "we can offend Americans and Christians, but not foreigners and Muslims." Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty worries that the mosque would "degrade or disrespect" the Ground Zero site. Mitch Romney, the once moderate Republican governor of Massachusetts whose born again conservativism coincided with his entry into presidential politics, weighs in by expressing concern for "the wishes of the families of the deceased and the potential for extremists to use the mosque for global recruiting and propaganda."
Romney's concerns are dumbfounding when it is generally acknowledged that the strongest boost to extremist recruitment and propaganda is the continuing U.S. presence in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Had the aforementioned candidates taken the time and trouble to learn what is actually behind plans to build Cordoba House, the so-called Ground Zero mosque, they would have found that, in addition to a place of worship, it will function as a full-service community and cultural center. A performing arts center and a bookstore, as well as a swimming pool, basketball court and fitness center will share space with the mosque within the facility.
While a number of Republican candidates have shamefully bowed homage to the politics of hate in the Cordoba House matter, this has hardly been the finest hour for some Democrats out to save their political hides by seeking to out-demagogue their opponents on the controversy.
Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid, D-Nevada, demonstrated the very antithesis of leadership and an appalling absence of political courage when he announced his position, but not personally, on the mosque controversy. He delegated a spokesman to do the honors, which were conveyed via e-mail: "The First Amendment protects freedom of religion. Senator Reid respects that, but thinks that the mosque should be built someplace else." At least the anxiety-ridden Reid, in the battle of his political life with Tea Party-endorsed Sharron Angle, mentions his respect for the First Amendment -- something none of the GOP politicians could manage.
Louisiana Rep. Charles Maloncon, who is seeking to unseat Sen. David Vitter, R-Louisiana, said, "I support freedom of religion, but let's give the families of 9/11 victims a voice about where this mosque will be placed, because putting one near Ground Zero isn't appropriate.
Wealthy real estate investor Jeff Greene, running against Rep. Kendrick B. Meek for the Democratic Senate nomination in Florida's August 24 primary, contends, "Common sense and respect for those who lost their lives and loved ones gives sensible reasons to build the mosque somewhere else."
Even more shocking than Senator Reid's queasy approach to opposing the Cordoba House mosque is President Obama's day-after dilution of his eloquent defense of freedom of religion.
Speaking recently at a traditional White House dinner first held by Thomas Jefferson to celebrate Ramadan, the Islamic holy month, Obama said, "As a citizen, and as President, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as anyone else in this country. That includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in Lower Manhattan, in accordance with local law and ordinances. This is America. And our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakeable."
The following day, speaking to the press rather than to Muslims gathered in the White House, the President equivocated. "I was not commenting and I will not comment on the wisdom of making a decision to put a mosque there," he said. Apparently his call for Change included his right to change his mind. He did not say whether his no-comment pledge was as a citizen or as president. I, for one, would like to know.
Baltimore Sun columnist Jean Marbella, who covered 9/ll and its aftermath for the same newspaper, revisited the site recently. She noted that the Ground Zero boundaries are "pretty clear": the site itself remains fenced off, and the Cordoba House site is a full two blocks away.
"If you took everything within several blocks of the former trade center site and considered it a part of Ground Zero," Marbella writes, "you'd have Ground Zero nail salons, Ground Zero fake designer sunglass stores, Ground Zero places that want to rub your feet and. . .the legendary Ground Zero Century 21 discount department store. None of which disrespects the real Ground Zero."
Back in May, arguing for permission to build the Islamic community and cultural center, Daisy Khan, executive director of the American Society for Muslim Advancement, said, "It will have a real community feel, to celebrate the pluralism in the United States, as well as in the Islamic religion. It will also serve as a major platform for amplifying the silent voice of the majority of Muslims who have nothing to do with extremist ideologies. It will counter the extremist momentum."
Ms. Khan said, "We are Americans, too. The 9/11 tragedy hurt everybody, including the Muslim community. We are all in this together, and together we have to fight against extremism and terrorism."
I respectfully suggest that when the Cordoba House is built and open to the public that it include a conspicuous memorial, including perhaps the names of some 300 American Muslims who were among the victims of the heinous September 11 attacks.
For conclusive proof that the politics of hate remains alive and sick in this nation that was established on the principle of religious freedom, one need not look beyond the ongoing controversy over the planned Lower Manhattan site of the 13-story Cordoba House community center which includes a mosque. The proposed facility has drawn national attention because it is located within the vicinity of the hallowed ground on which the World Trade Center graced the New York skyline prior to the 9/11 terrorist attack.
With midterm national elections in the offing, the brouhaha is red meat for certain politicians ever eager to exploit issues that move voters to react rather than challenge them to think.
Prospective candidates for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination are at the forefront of the flock of right-wing vultures swooping down for a nibble of the perceived carrion of liberal appeasement. And they know only too well what jerks the knees of their constituents.
Writing on Twitter, the GOP's prototypical go-for-the-jugular headline grabber, Sarah Palin, asserted that the "Ground Zero mosque is UNNECESSARY provocation: it stabs hearts." The former Governor of Alaska and erstwhile Republican nominee for Vice President added: "9/11 mosque=act of fitna [Arabic for scandal] 'equivalent to building Serbian Orthodox church @ Srebrenica killing fields where Muslims were slaughtered.' "
Newt Gingrich, the former Georgia congressman now a college professor rummaging through issues to ignite his sputtering hopes of becoming the next Republican occupant of the White House, seizes the mosque uproar as just such an opportunity.
"There should be no mosque near Ground Zero in New York, so long as there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia," says Professor Gingrich, with all of the logic of adopting one's enemy's modus operandi and in so doing becoming the mirror image of what he is supposed to be combatting; to say nothing of forgetting that the Saudis are self-styled moderates who have pledged themselves to fighting terrorism.
"The time for double standards that allow Islamists to behave aggressively toward us while they demand weakness and submission is over," Gingrich prattles on. "Nazis don't have the right to put up a sign next to the Holocaust museum in Washington."
When the skewed reasoning of the blatantly and proudly visceral Palin and the pseudo-cerebral Gingrich implodes, it may finally dawn upon someone of influence in their ranks that the United States has declared war on terrorism, not Islam.
The self-same mentality that blocked the George W. Bush administration from distinguishing between the Salafist jihadists of Al Qaeda and the secular Baathists of Iraq under Saddam Hussein has apparently afflicted his would-be successors.
So clueless are the perpetrators of the myth that Islam is monolithic -- akin to judging all of Christianity by Roman Catholicism, or Judaism by Hasidim -- that Rick Lazio, a GOP candidate for governor of New York, has suggested that the individual behind the mosque project might be connected to "radical organizations."
In fact, that individual, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, is seen by Osama bin Laden as an enemy, an appeaser of infidels. As the author William Dalrymple wrote recently in The New York Times, the Taliban "no doubt regards him as a legitimate target for assassination."
Feisal Abdul Rauf is among America's leading proponents of Sufism, the mystical form of Islam that is an indigenous, deep-rooted resistance movement against violent Islamic radicalism. Sufis' open, intellectual interpretation of the Quran is seen by the Rand Corporation as an intriguing element that makes them ideal "partners in the effort to combat Islamic extremism." To suggest that the imam is radical is like comparing Mother Theresa with Torquemada.
The Taliban and Al Qaeda no more represent all of Islam than the Southern Baptist Convention or the Missouri Synod represent all of Christianity. While any number of Islamic moderates have been radicalized by the U.S. invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, the Sufis are not among them.
Several journalists have pointed out that the proposed mosque is not within the fenced-off area of downtown Manhattan known as Ground Zero. The mosque site is two blocks north of the former World Trade Center. Palin, Gingrich and their ilk are either unaware of this or have chosen to tip-toe around the inconvenient fact that there is indeed an existing mosque merely a few hundred feet further from the actual Ground Zero location.
Nor are Palin and Gingrich the only GOP presidential candidates to voice their opposition to the planned Cordoba House cultural center.
Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee questions whether advocates of the project feel "we can offend Americans and Christians, but not foreigners and Muslims." Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty worries that the mosque would "degrade or disrespect" the Ground Zero site. Mitch Romney, the once moderate Republican governor of Massachusetts whose born again conservativism coincided with his entry into presidential politics, weighs in by expressing concern for "the wishes of the families of the deceased and the potential for extremists to use the mosque for global recruiting and propaganda."
Romney's concerns are dumbfounding when it is generally acknowledged that the strongest boost to extremist recruitment and propaganda is the continuing U.S. presence in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Had the aforementioned candidates taken the time and trouble to learn what is actually behind plans to build Cordoba House, the so-called Ground Zero mosque, they would have found that, in addition to a place of worship, it will function as a full-service community and cultural center. A performing arts center and a bookstore, as well as a swimming pool, basketball court and fitness center will share space with the mosque within the facility.
While a number of Republican candidates have shamefully bowed homage to the politics of hate in the Cordoba House matter, this has hardly been the finest hour for some Democrats out to save their political hides by seeking to out-demagogue their opponents on the controversy.
Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid, D-Nevada, demonstrated the very antithesis of leadership and an appalling absence of political courage when he announced his position, but not personally, on the mosque controversy. He delegated a spokesman to do the honors, which were conveyed via e-mail: "The First Amendment protects freedom of religion. Senator Reid respects that, but thinks that the mosque should be built someplace else." At least the anxiety-ridden Reid, in the battle of his political life with Tea Party-endorsed Sharron Angle, mentions his respect for the First Amendment -- something none of the GOP politicians could manage.
Louisiana Rep. Charles Maloncon, who is seeking to unseat Sen. David Vitter, R-Louisiana, said, "I support freedom of religion, but let's give the families of 9/11 victims a voice about where this mosque will be placed, because putting one near Ground Zero isn't appropriate.
Wealthy real estate investor Jeff Greene, running against Rep. Kendrick B. Meek for the Democratic Senate nomination in Florida's August 24 primary, contends, "Common sense and respect for those who lost their lives and loved ones gives sensible reasons to build the mosque somewhere else."
Even more shocking than Senator Reid's queasy approach to opposing the Cordoba House mosque is President Obama's day-after dilution of his eloquent defense of freedom of religion.
Speaking recently at a traditional White House dinner first held by Thomas Jefferson to celebrate Ramadan, the Islamic holy month, Obama said, "As a citizen, and as President, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as anyone else in this country. That includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in Lower Manhattan, in accordance with local law and ordinances. This is America. And our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakeable."
The following day, speaking to the press rather than to Muslims gathered in the White House, the President equivocated. "I was not commenting and I will not comment on the wisdom of making a decision to put a mosque there," he said. Apparently his call for Change included his right to change his mind. He did not say whether his no-comment pledge was as a citizen or as president. I, for one, would like to know.
Baltimore Sun columnist Jean Marbella, who covered 9/ll and its aftermath for the same newspaper, revisited the site recently. She noted that the Ground Zero boundaries are "pretty clear": the site itself remains fenced off, and the Cordoba House site is a full two blocks away.
"If you took everything within several blocks of the former trade center site and considered it a part of Ground Zero," Marbella writes, "you'd have Ground Zero nail salons, Ground Zero fake designer sunglass stores, Ground Zero places that want to rub your feet and. . .the legendary Ground Zero Century 21 discount department store. None of which disrespects the real Ground Zero."
Back in May, arguing for permission to build the Islamic community and cultural center, Daisy Khan, executive director of the American Society for Muslim Advancement, said, "It will have a real community feel, to celebrate the pluralism in the United States, as well as in the Islamic religion. It will also serve as a major platform for amplifying the silent voice of the majority of Muslims who have nothing to do with extremist ideologies. It will counter the extremist momentum."
Ms. Khan said, "We are Americans, too. The 9/11 tragedy hurt everybody, including the Muslim community. We are all in this together, and together we have to fight against extremism and terrorism."
I respectfully suggest that when the Cordoba House is built and open to the public that it include a conspicuous memorial, including perhaps the names of some 300 American Muslims who were among the victims of the heinous September 11 attacks.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
A CLEAR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT
By H. N. Burdett
With near certainty the fate of California's ban on same-sex marriage will be dumped onto the robed laps of the United States Supreme Court. That destination was obviously on the mind of Vaughn Walker, the chief judge of the Federal District Court in San Francisco who earlier this month struck down Proposition 8, the public referendum restricting marriage in that state to one man and one woman.
In 2008, 5.5 million California voters, representing 52 per cent of the total vote, approved the prohibition against marriage between gay men and between lesbians. Following a three-week trial, however, Judge Walker ruled that because the ban "prevents California from fulfilling its constitutional obligation to provide marriages on an equal basis, the court concludes that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional."
"The evidence at trial regarding the campaign to pass Proposition 8," the judge wrote, "uncloaks the most likely explanation for its passage: a desire to advance the belief that opposite-sex couples are morally superior to same-sex couples."
"Moral disapproval alone is an improper basis on which to deny rights to gay men and lesbians," Judge Walker ruled. He further stressed: "Proposition 8 fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license. Indeed the evidence shows Proposition 8 does nothing more than enshrine in the California Constitution the notion that opposite-sex couples are superior to same-sex couples."
Dalia Lithwick observed in Slate, the online news magazine, that Judge Walker's decision liberally cites Associate Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, who is expected to cast the decisive vote when the case almost inevitably reaches the nation's highest court. Lithwick counted seven citations of Justice Kennedy's 1996 opinion in Romar v. Evans, striking down an anti-gay ballot initiative, as well as eight citations to his 2003 decision in Lawrence v. Texas, overruling the Lone Star state's anti-gay sodomy law. These citations do more than validate Judge Walker's cleverness; they attest to his brilliance.
Walker quoted Kennedy as saying "it would demean a married couple were it to be said marriage is simply about the right to have sexual intercourse," that "'moral disapproval, without any other asserted state interest' has never been a rational basis for litigation." To which the California judge added: "Animus towards gays and lesbians or a simple belief that a relationship between a man and a woman is inherently better than a relationship between two men or two women, this belief is not a proper basis on which to legislate."
Judge Walker refused to base his decision on a challenge to the 2008 California ballot initiative. He instead insisted on a full trial. Walker also sought to have the trial televised, but was overruled. His 136-page ruling lists dozens of "findings of fact," including: same-sex marriage does not have much affect on opposite-sex marriage; marriage laws have changed over time, and marriage serves many purposes beyond procreation.
Both the Los Angeles Times and the San Francisco Chronicle have reported that Judge Walker is gay. He has never confirmed nor denied these reports. But in private practice he represented the U.S. Olympic Committee in opposition to an event known as the Gay Olympics. Consequently, when President Reagan nominated Walker to the federal bench in 1987, his appointment was blocked in the Senate Judiciary Committee by Democrats, led by Rep. Nancy Pelosi, with the help of gay advocacy groups. Two years later, he was again nominated by President George H. W. Bush and this time he was approved by the Senate. As a federal judge, Walker has ruled against gay plaintiffs or defendants when he felt the law required it.
While Judge Walker appears to have directed the core of his decision to strike down Proposition 8 specifically to the attention of Justice Kennedy, it is well past time for legal discrimination based on sexual orientation to be as much a part of our past as slavery. A unanimous ruling by the Supreme Court for overturning California's ban against same-sex marriage, unlikely as this may be, would be not only the right thing to do, it would be a large nail in the coffin of discrimination -- reaffirmation of what this nation was meant to be about.
With near certainty the fate of California's ban on same-sex marriage will be dumped onto the robed laps of the United States Supreme Court. That destination was obviously on the mind of Vaughn Walker, the chief judge of the Federal District Court in San Francisco who earlier this month struck down Proposition 8, the public referendum restricting marriage in that state to one man and one woman.
In 2008, 5.5 million California voters, representing 52 per cent of the total vote, approved the prohibition against marriage between gay men and between lesbians. Following a three-week trial, however, Judge Walker ruled that because the ban "prevents California from fulfilling its constitutional obligation to provide marriages on an equal basis, the court concludes that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional."
"The evidence at trial regarding the campaign to pass Proposition 8," the judge wrote, "uncloaks the most likely explanation for its passage: a desire to advance the belief that opposite-sex couples are morally superior to same-sex couples."
"Moral disapproval alone is an improper basis on which to deny rights to gay men and lesbians," Judge Walker ruled. He further stressed: "Proposition 8 fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license. Indeed the evidence shows Proposition 8 does nothing more than enshrine in the California Constitution the notion that opposite-sex couples are superior to same-sex couples."
Dalia Lithwick observed in Slate, the online news magazine, that Judge Walker's decision liberally cites Associate Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, who is expected to cast the decisive vote when the case almost inevitably reaches the nation's highest court. Lithwick counted seven citations of Justice Kennedy's 1996 opinion in Romar v. Evans, striking down an anti-gay ballot initiative, as well as eight citations to his 2003 decision in Lawrence v. Texas, overruling the Lone Star state's anti-gay sodomy law. These citations do more than validate Judge Walker's cleverness; they attest to his brilliance.
Walker quoted Kennedy as saying "it would demean a married couple were it to be said marriage is simply about the right to have sexual intercourse," that "'moral disapproval, without any other asserted state interest' has never been a rational basis for litigation." To which the California judge added: "Animus towards gays and lesbians or a simple belief that a relationship between a man and a woman is inherently better than a relationship between two men or two women, this belief is not a proper basis on which to legislate."
Judge Walker refused to base his decision on a challenge to the 2008 California ballot initiative. He instead insisted on a full trial. Walker also sought to have the trial televised, but was overruled. His 136-page ruling lists dozens of "findings of fact," including: same-sex marriage does not have much affect on opposite-sex marriage; marriage laws have changed over time, and marriage serves many purposes beyond procreation.
Both the Los Angeles Times and the San Francisco Chronicle have reported that Judge Walker is gay. He has never confirmed nor denied these reports. But in private practice he represented the U.S. Olympic Committee in opposition to an event known as the Gay Olympics. Consequently, when President Reagan nominated Walker to the federal bench in 1987, his appointment was blocked in the Senate Judiciary Committee by Democrats, led by Rep. Nancy Pelosi, with the help of gay advocacy groups. Two years later, he was again nominated by President George H. W. Bush and this time he was approved by the Senate. As a federal judge, Walker has ruled against gay plaintiffs or defendants when he felt the law required it.
While Judge Walker appears to have directed the core of his decision to strike down Proposition 8 specifically to the attention of Justice Kennedy, it is well past time for legal discrimination based on sexual orientation to be as much a part of our past as slavery. A unanimous ruling by the Supreme Court for overturning California's ban against same-sex marriage, unlikely as this may be, would be not only the right thing to do, it would be a large nail in the coffin of discrimination -- reaffirmation of what this nation was meant to be about.
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