Don't Let The Democrats Off That Easy

Matt Yglesias defends neocon-bashing:

It’s actually true that neocon bashing is a bit on the tiresome side. That said, I think it really has to be understood as a vital social necessity. Adherents of a deranged and sociopoathic “neocon” conception of America’s role in the world continue to be tremendously influential in our society. They have columns at The Washington Post and dominate the foreign policy coverage on Fox News. They have The Weekly Standard and Commentary and a healthy slice of The New Republic. And most important, as best as anyone can tell their ideas remain utterly dominant in the Republican Party. Their intra-party critics like Colin Powell, rather than winning intra-party arguments seem to be simply drifting out of the GOP coalition.

While Yglesias is right (neocon-bashing is sorely needed in this country), he's too generous towards anyone who isn't a Republican or people who write columns for the New York Times. The tenets of neoconservatism are alive and strong in both parties, and, while certainly dominant in the Republican party, they are arguably dominant in the Democratic party. Pres. Obama is certainly a better actor on the world stage than Pres. Bush, but that's not really that hard. It's just so refreshing we think our new president is a foreign policy maestro. Well, no, he's not. The President is still amenable to neoconservative ideas. Escalating troop levels in Afghanistan is a neoconservative move and the President grandly made it. The continued drone strikes in Pakistan, the special forces operations that cross the AfPak border, the dream of remaking Afghanistan are all born out of neocon notions that countries can be remade by the force of the United States alone.

Furthermore, the President, the Congress, and just about every American writer can't find an international issue they don't feel required to comment on. The President eagerly jumped in to condemn the coup in Honduras, when it's quite possible the military was removing a President who was committing unconstitutional acts. The Congress voted up a statement supporting the protests in Iran, when they had little information about what was going on there and had no idea who would rise to power if the protests did succeed. The President wisely stayed away from providing an opinion on the Iranian upheaval because the US is often used by the current Iranian regime as a bogeyman to rally support. Yet, the Congress jumped in and provided just what the President wanted to avoid. However, the President does not get flying colors here either because he jumped in later on. The idea that the US has a say in everything goes on on the globe is neoconservative. The US is a leader, they say, US leadership is required because who else will pacify the globe?

Get back to me when Democrats start arguing to pull out of Afghanistan, to consider our interests before acting, and to stop getting involved in disputes that are not our business. On the day that starts happening I'll indict Republicans alone for neoconservatism. Democrats are still liable for the domination of neoconservatism over foreign policy. And, this is not because Democrats have accepted neoconservative ideas. Rather, it's Republicans who have made neoconservatism part of their platform from the Democrats. Richard Perle is a registered Democrat. Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith are former aides to Democrat Scoop Jackson, one of the progenitors of neoconservatism. Scoop Jackson Democrats held many of the same ideals as modern neoconservatives. While some might think this is odd, it's really not when you consider neoonservativism through the lens of America's foreign policy history. There are three traditions in Amerian foreign policy: European-style realpolitik, Roosevelt-style exceptionalism, and Wilsonian idealism. Neoconservatism is the combination of Roosevelt and Wilson. Where Wilson wanted collective security, neoons have placed American military might. Where Roosevelt would wipe out an entire island of people he considered savages just to project American power, neocons have placed American ideals. Think of it as a tank with a smiley face painted on the front. Republicans and Democrats are responsible for neoconservatism. Both parties unknowingly worked together throughout history to produce neoconservative foreign policy.

It's Not Okay

It's the 4th (happy birthday, America!) and I hope everyone is having a good time. I was just reading over some blogs and read a new disability post at Feministe. Not an interesting analysis of what practical measures would aid the lives of disabled people but "Wah, these words make me feel bad" post. The post is by amandaw, who gives a run down on the social model of disability versus the medical. The medical model treats the person as a problem, she declares, when really the problem is society's. Spare me. The fact that I can't walk is indeed a problem. Sure it'd be nice if every building had a ramp, I'd even go so far as to say they should, but the walking thing is indeed a problem. See, the crusade of the social model proponents is to treat disabilities like race or gender. It's merely a construct that's in our heads and has no basis in reality. This is feel-good bullshit. Whereas there is little connection between race and genetics, disabilities are very really. Not to beat a dead horse, but my inability to walk is not a social construct, it's not just in all our heads.

amandaw is fighting for more respectful words. She writes:

When at all possible, I prefer to use the term “condition” rather than words like illness, disease, disorder — which require the assumption that something is wrong with the person. The word “condition” has a more-or-less neutral connotation, in my experience, which allows me to describe the condition (see what I did there?) of a person’s body and/or mind without loading them down with all the detritus attached to the medical model, which assumes deviance over variance.

But, there is something wrong. A person who has a cold is not in some variation of what a body should do. That person has an illness. A person who is deaf is not a variation of normalcy. The ears they possess were meant to provide them with the sense of hearing; they are not merely an adornment. My legs was supposed to conducting the commands of my brain to the rest of my body. There is actually literal deviation going on in all these cases. So, the use of the words illness, disease, or disorder is not just appropriate, it's apt.

amandaw then goes after the word "disability." Read:

Think about the word “disability.” There are so many problems to identify with using this particular word to describe a certain category of people. It uses negative language — the prefix “dis-” — to describe them, which sets the tone for all the discussion that follows. The word necessarily implies a lack of something, which is a screwy way to describe a set of people and leaves all sorts of trouble in its wake. And the assumption that people with disabilities do not have ability is kind of silly, isn’t it? Ability to do what? Maybe certain folks with disabilites cannot walk — or talk — or perform certain self-care tasks — or work for pay. But those people do have the ability to do a host of other things. Why is it only that-which-exists-in-opposition-to-abled-people which is important to identify? And why can these differences never be positive?

Not the prefix "dis-"! O Heavens, help us so that we my escape the prefix "dis-"! Of course the word "disability" implies the lack of something. In fact, it means the lack of something. What's wrong with using the defining characteristic of a certain group of people to refer to them? Is it wrong to refer to bald people as "bald people" because I'm using the word "bald" which necessarily means a lack of hair? Disability is the apt word to use in reference to disabled people because they are literally unable to perform a certain task that any able bodied person could. Why? Because our bodies were not meant to function this way. Our bodies are not functioning normally. There is literally something wrong with our bodies. amandaw's last question is quite easily the most ridiculous.

She asks "And why can these differences never be positive?" This to me is the ultimate stupidity of the social model proponents. The wish for disabilities to be thought of as a good thing. Like it's good thing that Stephen Hawking and everyone else suffering from ALS are slowly losing control of their bodies and will eventually be forced to use a respirator. Oh, but that's not a disease, it's a condition, it's variation of the human body. It's not a good thing that kids are born deaf or blind or that people go deaf or blind. It's not positive when a kid just on the ice in his first college hockey game breaks his neck and can never play hockey again. It's not positive when a child is born with spina bifida. These are not good things. And, here comes what will seem offensive to some: it's not okay to be disabled. Now, that is not a moral statement; it's a prescriptive one. People who take pride in being disabled are taking pride in the wrong thing. That's like taking pride in being the worst math student in your class. Disabled people face real problems that require practical solutions, but none of them will ever be solved by being psyched about being disabled. Disability is reality, don't blame it on society or yourself. It's a fact of life that must be compensated for, adapted to, and dealt with. To do otherwise is to live your life by your disability.

Someone's Playing A Trick On Me

There are few times when I agree with Jonah Goldberg, but the man happens to be right in line here. Disgust is the best word for it:

Sure, I liked the Jackson Five. I liked Thriller, too, when I was a teenager. Michael Jackson was an “icon” for me too.

But let’s pause for a moment on that word “icon.” It seemed the consensus adjective for the news networks. NBC ran a special on two “American Icons” – Fawcett and Jackson. Every cable network (including Fox, for the record) used the word “icon” to describe him as if this was some sort of safe harbor, a word everyone could agree on. “Love him or hate him,” the implied logic went, “he was an ‘icon.’”

Yes, well, maybe so. But that doesn’t let you off the hook. Even though the term sounds neutral, it isn’t. An icon, technically speaking, is a religious symbol deserving of reverence and adoration. The networks may not have intended to use the word that way, but they certainly showed an unseemly amount of reverence and adoration for the man.

There are times when I'm disgusted by my country, and this is one of those times. I can't help but laugh as Wolf Blizter says in his most somber voice, "Now, let's watch this clip from Michael Jackson's thriller," as if the thing were the Mona Lisa. Michael Jackson does not deserve this much reverence. And, while Goldberg gets into the issues of Jackson's alleged pedophilia, that's not what I'm talking about when I say Michael Jackson was not a great man. I use that term in sense I use it for great novelists, philosophers, composers, men and women who lived morally questionable or emotionally disturbed lives and yet created something that has aesthetic value, something that persists. I like Michael Jackson's music, I really do. He has his own section in my mp3 library. But, he was a pop star. He wasn't John Lennon, he wasn't Robert Johnson, and he sure as hell wasn't Brahms. So, who are we sanctifying? Al Sharpton spoke of Michael Jackson as if Jackie Robinson didn't exist, as if Michael Jackson was the civil rights hero of our culture. No, Michael Jackson was a pop star. I've seen more minutes devoted to Jackson's death spent on MSNBC than I've seen spent on any other news story in the past few months. Concerned commentators discuss just how Michael Jackson will be remembered. Will it be for the controversy? Will it be for the music? Invariably they agree Jackson was a hero. No, he was a pop star. Yes, he was the King of Pop, but that's like being the best school president ever. Excuse me while I etch your visage in the side of a mountain and burn your name into the surface of the moon.

Did you hear? Brave Iranians are putting themselves in danger, some are sacrificing their lives, to revolt against an oppressive regime. Please, don't waste my time with that, Michael Jackson died. Did you hear? An important debate is going about a new health care system that has the potential to change the lives of millions of Americans. Please, don't waste my time with that, Michael Jackson died.

Did I wake up psychoville? Because I'd swear someone is playing a trick on me. The fact that a fifty year old pop star died cannot be the most important news story in this country. It really cannot.

Legitimacy Issues

Over at The Corner, Mario Layola advises that the President should strike a balance between realism and idealism, in the model of certain former president (hint: he was the greatest president ever). Read:

Obama should think carefully about the Reagan example, because it was a balancing act between principle and pragmatism that proves difficult for even the most talented presidents—as Obama himself has just demonstrated. His statements on Iran so far sounded an essential theme — that Iranian leaders must govern by consent and not by coercion. Yet we still don't know whether Obama considers the recent election to have been illegitimate merely because it was marked by indications of fraud and by violence, or whether he thinks the political system of Iran fundamentally illegitimate, and therefore all of its election results the fruits of a poisoned tree, fraud or no fraud, violence or no violence.

Heavens help us, we don't know! Actually, we do know and Layola is ignoring the clear statements of the President. He has consistently said that he respects the sovereignty of the Islamic Republic of Iran, meaning: if the current regime is in place, its legitimate. I'll address legitimacy in a moment, but first let us address Ronald "The Greatest President Ever" Reagan. The notion that one can transpose the moves Reagan made in regards to the Soviet Union to the current Iranian regime is ridiculous. The two situations are not the same. Iran is not a superpower or even a failing superpower. Iran doesn't have batteries of missiles with nuclear warheads pointed at us. Just because Reagan did one thing with the Russians in the 80s does not mean that its strategically sound to do the same thing with Iranians now. For example, we would not want to take the same approach Reagan did towards the Iranians today. Arming the Iranian government now would not be wise.

Layola continues:

A strong realist case can be made that the essential problem we face in Iran is the inherent illegitimacy of the regime, which stages elections among candidates approved on a case-by-case basis by unaccountable clerics whose philosophy of governance, the "mandate of the wise," is by definition anti-democratic. It is because the regime does not represent the long-term interests of the Iranian people, and is founded instead on a commitment to extremism and messianic conflict, that it does not really respect the rule of law, and cannot be trusted with the advanced nuclear technology of uranium enrichment or plutonium separation. It is because the regime is illegitimate that it cannot be a good-faith partner in fixing the problems of the region, and instead makes them all worse. It is because the regime is illegitimate that it depends on other illegitimate regimes (like Venezuela) and on the terrorists it sponsors, and that is also the reason they all depend on it.

Actually, no sound realist case can be made for this. What has the Iranian regime proven to us since the election? It has proven that it is committed to surviving, to maintaining power. The actions taken by Khamenei are not the actions of a suicide bomber or an extremist. He has acted as any dictator would. He is a fascist. A religious fascist perhaps, but a fascist, who cares more about being in power than being true to the Islamic Revolution or Khomenei's Islamic political philosophy or any religious ideology. So, if we know that Khamenei cares about surviving, why can't we trust the Iranian regime with nuclear weapons when we know they can be deterred? Layola seems to think that all our problems with Iran stem from the "illegitimacy" of its regime, as if Iran has no interests at stake in the region which may be contrary to those of the US. Does he think Iran doesn't want the US dominate region only because Khamenei is in power? Does he think that Iran doesn't want a strong and peaceful Iraq only because Ahmadinejad is president? No, these are strategic interests which will remain long after the fall of the current Iranian regime. The problem with the concept of legitimacy is that it is attached to democracy. Yes, we can all agree that it be nice if Iran was ruled by a democracy. However, we don't live in the world of nice. We live in a world where states have interests, whether or not they are a democracy. The current Iranian regime might not be legitimate, but who cares from a foreign policy standpoint? I know I, as an individual, care, but the US should not care. The Iranian regime has a monopoly on force within its borders and is conducting foreign policy, therefore it has sovereignty. This is all that should matter to the US.

Layola is insistent:

The most "realist" view of long-range U.S. interests would put democracy-promotion front and center in the case of Iran. Obama should make it clear that he considers the regime illegitimate so long as its elections are not free and fair; and that he looks forward to its demise even if he is willing to engage with its leaders in the same cordial diplomatic settings that so many other American leaders have used to duel with our adversaries, leveraging American power to make diplomacy succeed.

Why? What does this accomplish? Does it help Iranians overthrow their government? Will it change Iranian foreign policy? Will it stop Iranians from getting a nuke? Will it change anything in any way? Or, would it just be moral hot wind that's dismissed as easily as if the President said he believes all people love freedom?

Wishing It Were So

Matt Yglesias asks if the economic disaster that was the Great Depression, which many blame for the coming world war, was avoidable, was interwar foreign policy really so foolish. Read:

It’s conventional to treat inter-war American foreign policy with a kind of contempt. This was the era of “isolationism” in which the United States is said to have engaged in the folly of believing that Europe could handle its own problems in a manner that didn’t require American interventionism. US policymakers went in for such daft notions as arms control treaties limiting the size of navies, and even the Kellogg-Briand Pact, an international agreement to “outlaw war.”

...

Similarly, if you look at the history of Germany, the Nazis were not an especially large, powerful, or influential political movement. Indeed, as of 1928-29, the troubled Weimar Republic looked to have substantially stabilized itself. It seems very plausible to imagine that a normal economic downturn, rather than a years-long total collapse, would have prevented the Nazis from ever coming to power.

And had that happened, is it really so implausible to think that the US foreign policymakers of the 1920s would have looked pretty vindicated? Not that all wars would have been avoided, of course, but that the era of great power wars would have ended in 1918 rather than 1945, not because of a difference in foreign policy but because of a difference in macroeconomic management? Was it really so naive of Secretary Kellogg to have not foreseen an unprecedented economic collapse years in the future leading to the rise of an unprecedented political movement?

I suppose the question is worth asking, but my answer makes this rethinking sem rather pointless. Yglesias is asking a counterfactual history question. "What would we think if this thing that happened didn't happen?" And while counterfactual questions are interesting it is important that we note we are stepping into fantasy where grand claims can be made without much support. So, as I answer remember that.

Would we consider interwar foreign policy to be foolish if the Great Depression had not happened? Yes. Charles Evans Hughes's Washington Naval conference, which attempted to limit the size of navies, didn't really limit the size of navies. The conference was a success in that Hughes managed to get the great powers to agree to a ratio for the number of ships each power good have. The United States and Britain were given the largest part the ratio, Japan the next largest, and then so on and so forth. (I'll address the problems with the ratio later). The treaty only addressed certain crafts. Yes, capital ships stopped being built, but auxiliary ships, cruisers, destroyers, and submarines went unregulated. The naval arms race of the world continued, but only in a different manner. Hughes manages to change the structure of navies, not limit them. Furthermore, to reach an agreement on the ratio the conference establish, the US and Britain struck a deal with Japan. That deal required that the US and Britain not fortify their positions in the south Pacific. This led to great harm when the Japanese started their war. One might respond that there would be no war in Yglesias's scenario. Well, no, war between the Japan and the United States was coming. Japan had been making increasingly aggressive moves against China, threatening the beloved Open Door policy of the United States. Japan, as a rising power, was moving against US positions in Asia, demanding more and more while metaphorically holding US economic interests hostage. Hughes naval limitations did could not have prevented war or even made a war harder engage in. His conference, while nice, was essentially fruitless.

The Kellogg-Briand Pact was the height of foolish American foreign policy during the interwar period. The intent of the Pact was to end war, a ridiculous and impossible goal. However, that is the overall problem with the Pact. The specific problems are first, it has no method of enforcement. No collective security agreement, no sanctions for countries that don't abide. The Pact is toothless. I represents more of a wish for countries. Yes, they'd all like to outlaw war, but they all privately know that they are probably going to have to engage in war some time in the future, so they don't want the Pact to be able to affect them. The second problem with the Pact is that it makes exceptions for "defensive" war. It doesn't take too big of a leap of the imagination to see countries attacking others and claiming it was for defensive purposes. And during WW2 that's exactly what happened. Germany never actually attacked the mainland of the US. Technically, our actions violated the Kellogg-Briand Pact, but who is going to hold the winner of a war accountable for violating a international treaty that can't be enforced? Because Germany declared war on the US, Roosevelt was free to claim that he was defending the United States. But, in reality, the US was coming to the aid of our allies and attacking Germany. The Kellogg-Briand Pact is the international equivalent of hot air, all flash and no substance, (how many more cliches can I put in here) its bark was worse than its bite.

American interwar foreign policy was truly foolish. The US refused to forgive war debts, refused to join the League of Nations or World Court, and dabbled in wishful thinking. Americans were so angered by WW1, they thought they could make it so war wouldn't happen again. The interwar period was not a period of American isolationism, but a period of American detachment from reality. The US was thoroughly involved in world affairs, but like the neocons of today, American policymakers practiced foreign policy in a world they wished existed rather than in the world that did exist. Perhaps different economic decisions of the US could have averted some conflicts, but not all. Wars would continue, bad economy or not, and that was a truth Americans rejected.

Song of the Day

We Can't Help

Rich Lowry has an astonishingly dumb piece criticizing the President's stance towards Iran. Read:

If only the Obama administration considered motorcycle-riding thugs beating demonstrators in Iran an offense on par with Israel’s West Bank settlements.

Then it could speak with moral passion. It could unmistakably denounce the killings, and relieve its State Department spokesman of the trouble of dancing around the word “condemn.” It could say that our relationship with the Iranian government depends on the unconditional end of its thuggery. It could explain that only if Iran stops the crackdown can we “move forward” in the Middle East.

But Iran is not an ally of the United States. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei gets a rhetorical pass that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu doesn’t. As hundreds of thousands of Iranian protesters march for democracy, in defiance of a government that is our committed enemy, Pres. Barack Obama resorts to lawyerly equivocations. He labors to avoid saying anything denoting untoward disapproval of the baton-wielding shock troops of Iran’s theocracy.

Lowry seems unaware of his invidious comparison. The two situations are not the same in any way. Israel has been allowed to have its way with the Palestinian people for decades with little or specious criticism from the United States. If a two state solution is ever to be had, the settlements have to stop. But, that's Israel. It's not Iran. The situations are completely different. Israel has to deal with US because we give them more foreign aid than anyone else in the world. The current Iranian regime gains legitimacy by opposing the United States. And while the beating and shooting of peaceful protesters is horrifying and wrong, foreign policy is not the arena of morality. There are US interests at stake in Iran that are different than US interests in Israel. These two different situations require two different strategies, not one moral bludgeon.

In a perverse irony, we are witnessing the most serious threat to the Islamic Republic since its establishment, at the same time the first American president explicitly to accept the regime’s legitimacy happens to be in office. Whatever credibility the mullahs have lost in the street, they have picked up in the Oval Office, where the president bizarrely seems less enthusiastic about a change in dispensation in Iran than much of Tehran’s population.

Obama says he wants to avoid stoking a nationalist backlash. A legitimate, but overblown, concern. Iranians surely can understand the difference between the U.S. sending CIA operatives into the country to help stage an anti-democratic coup — as Obama constantly reminds the world we did in the 1950s — and speaking up against repression. Without undue “meddling,” Obama could note that governments in Lebanon, Iraq, and Afghanistan honor election results, and exhort Iran to lead the democratic wave rather than resist it.

Somehow Lowry doesn't see the contradiction in this. He, without qualification, states that the Iranian people know the difference between rhetorical support and CIA meddling and then tells the President to laud Iraqi and Afghan democracy. 'Cause we never meddled in Iraq or Afghanistan. No, that civil war in Iraq happened all on its own and those drone attacks in Afghanistan are pure myth. We have sent thousands of troops into Iran's neighbors and meddled directly with their government, resulting in unrest and death. Yet, Lowry looks at Iraq and Afghanistan and thinks Iranians will appreciate being compared to them or will ignore US intervention in their affairs. I'm afraid neocons simply cannot divorce themselves from the simplistic structures they establish to practice foreign policy. They need bogeymen, so they wish for Ahmadinejad to win the election so that we won't have the wool pulled over our eyes. Then protesters come out in the street and they demand the President support anti-Ahmadinjad groups. The world is not as simple as "democracy good, tyranny bad." You cannot conduct a foreign policy upon "you're with us or against us." It's been tried, quite recently in fact, and it failed miserably.

And Obama is so dead-set on negotiating with the current regime, he doesn’t want to invest much in the hope of changing it. Obama is often compared to Jimmy Carter, but his approach in Iran is the opposite of Carter’s. Carter was deeply moved by human rights and put the possibility of promoting them above other priorities, such as stability and maintaining an ally in Tehran. Obama is putting human rights behind stability, in the ultimate cause of a prospective bargain with the mullahs.

This isn’t really “realism,” but a stubborn commitment to an illusory belief in the power of talks with an ill-intentioned, reform-resistant dictatorship. Beneath the veneer of its hardheaded distancing from the protesters, Obama’s policy has a goopy, naïve heart.

Here's where we hit the truly bizarre. Robert Kagan previously argued that the President's realism had driven him into the arms of the current Iranian regime. Lowry is saying that Kagan was wrong: the President has been driven into the arms of the current Iranian regime by his idealism. Not the idealism of human rights, but the idealism that a peaceful method of engagement can affect Iran's behavior. It's quite stupid when you think about it. Here's the calculation, if you can call it that: President Obama has not said a word in support of anybody in Iran, not the regime, the protesters, any of the candidates, no one, so this means he must want to talk with the current Iranian regime, because he is not committed to ends in Iran, he's committed to means.

Whatever wan hope there was that we could talk the Iranian regime out of its nuclear-weapons program is diminishing. The regime doesn’t appear to be in a compromising mood, and Obama’s free pass for the crackdown is likely only to broadcast our weakness and pliability. If there is no cost to violating international norms in crushing flesh-and-blood protesters, why will there be a cost to defying the parchment strictures of the International Atomic Energy Agency?

I have a fun little hypothetical question for all neocons. What if the Iranian people tear down their current government and establish a pro-Western democracy that's not driven by religious figures (the best of all possible outcomes, right?) and yet still develops a nuke? What then? Are they still run by a suicide state? Is rule by the people an illegitimate government? Democracies are not necessarily peace loving and this revolution, if it truly is that, probably won't end in a pro-Western democracy. These protesters are invoking the language and images of the last revolution. The protesters are religious fervor. Let's say the President supports them and the bring about a new Islamic government that seeks nukes, how are the neocons going to oppose that? Better yet, how is the President? Never does it occur to them that the wise course is not to buy into any side in a moment of unrest. The wise course is to not act, to not involve ourselves in a situation we don't understand.

The System

I put Khamenei's speech through Wordle. Here's what I got. One of Khamenei's favorite words: system. Ohhhh, he loves the system. It's an odd speech that celebrates both "the system" and "the revolution." I really hope the Iranian people bring the whole thing down.

Song of the Day

I wanna devise a virus
To bring dire straits to your environment,
Crush your corporations with a mild touch,
Trash your whole computer system and revert you to papyrus.
I want to make a super virus
Strong enough to cause blackouts in every single metropolis,
'Cause they don't wanna unify us.
So, fuck it, total anarchy and can't nobody stop us.

-Deltron.

More On Scribblenauts

The game sounds interesting. Read:

The real challenge of Scribblenauts is just starting the game. Like Drawn to Life, another one of 5th Cell’s games, players can dilly-dally in the game’s startup menu. Using the game’s notepad, where you can write or type words, I asked for a “unicycle” and a “panda” so I could, naturally, have a panda riding a unicyle. Then I added two more pandas on top of the unicycle to make it three pandas riding a uniycle. With that alone, I already was sold on the game. But there was more.

“You can also summon God, who makes you totally invincible,” said Gavoni. She looked at me as if she knew what I was going to ask and said, “You can do God versus the devil, and God wins. Hopefully everyone’s okay with that.”

Cool with me.

Song of the Day

Cold Blooded Idealist

Robert Kagan has gone off crazier than usual. This time he's indicting realists as being against another Iranian revolution. Read:

It would be surprising if Obama departed from this realist strategy now, and he hasn't. His extremely guarded response to the outburst of popular anger at the regime has been widely misinterpreted as reflecting concern that too overt an American embrace of the opposition will hurt it, or that he wants to avoid American "moralizing." (Obama himself claimed yesterday that he didn't want the United States to appear to be "meddling.")

But Obama's calculations are quite different. Whatever his personal sympathies may be, if he is intent on sticking to his original strategy, then he can have no interest in helping the opposition. His strategy toward Iran places him objectively on the side of the government's efforts to return to normalcy as quickly as possible, not in league with the opposition's efforts to prolong the crisis.

Apparently realist are opposed to democracy, revolution, freedom, liberty, and all that good stuff. We just dislike it so much that we hope that there are no governmental upheavals ever again. Well, that's bullshit. A realist when conducting foreign policy has no preference in terms of government. The internal does not effect the way we deal with the external. Iran could be a beacon of democracy and light and I suspect neocons would still oppose its nuclear development. The external actions are what matter to the United States, not me personally. I would love it if the Iranian regime fell. I despise oligarchies and dictatorships. But, at the end of the day, if I'm a head of state, I'm going to have to deal with whatever regime is in power in Iran, be it the Supreme Leader or Ahmadinejad or whoever.

Back to Kagan:

It's not that Obama preferred a victory by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He probably would have been happy to do business with Mir Hossein Mousavi, even if there was little reason to believe Mousavi would have pursued a different approach to the nuclear issue. But once Mousavi lost, however fairly or unfairly, Obama objectively had no use for him or his followers. If Obama appears to lend support to the Iranian opposition in any way, he will appear hostile to the regime, which is precisely what he hoped to avoid.

Hence the declaration that he doesn't want to appear to be "meddling." But, oh wait, Kagan already dismissed that statement as bullshit.

Obama's policy now requires getting past the election controversies quickly so that he can soon begin negotiations with the reelected Ahmadinejad government. This will be difficult as long as opposition protests continue and the government appears to be either unsettled or too brutal to do business with. What Obama needs is a rapid return to peace and quiet in Iran, not continued ferment. His goal must be to deflate the opposition, not to encourage it. And that, by and large, is what he has been doing.

If you find all this disturbing, you should. The worst thing is that this approach will probably not prevent the Iranians from getting a nuclear weapon. But this is what "realism" is all about.

I guess Kagan submitted this piece before he heard about the President asking Twitter to remain online to aid the protesters. You may ask, "what's the big deal about Twitter being online?" Well, since the Iranian government has shut down almost every means of communication in the country, Twitter has risen up as the primary method of organizing. The Iranian regime has also confined reporters to their hotel rooms or kicked them out of the country, whhich made Twitter one of the important means of getting news out of the country. The President by making sure Twitter remained provided assistance to the Iranian regimes opposition. How does Kagan account for this? He doesn't. He can't. Because it doesn't fit into his stereotype of realists.

Kagan's indictment gets it wrong primarily because he assumes the outcome of the anti-government protests, if successful, will be democracy and no nukes. Well, Kagan has no idea what the outcome of all this will be. Nobody does. Ahmadinejad could very well be the president of Iran when all is said and done. Or, maybe a recount happens and Mousavi becomes president. Or, maybe Rafsanjani gets enough support in the Assembly of Experts to remove the Supreme Leader. Or, maybe the Iranian public brings down its government and establishes a whole new one. Maybe that new government is a democracy, maybe its not, maybe its friendly to the US, maybe it's not. Any one of these things and a dozen others could happen. We simply cannot know. So, to say the President isn't doing anything because his realism demands he support the Iranian regime is not true. The President isn't doing anything for two reasons. The first is that he actually understands that the US has meddled in Iran before and it always turned out bad. The second is that the President's realism requires information. The President is going to have to deal with whatever regime is in power in Iran and he does not know who is in power. The realist approach to this situation is to take a step back, let the situation sort itself out, and deal with the consequences, not to rush headlong into support of anyone without the necessary information.

I do think it's interesting that the worst outcome for Kagan is not that the Iranians don't get true democracy, but they get a nuke. Which one of us is cold blooded?

How Many?

Note to self: don't fall asleep in a tattoo parlor.

Flawless

James Poniewozik, who is fast becoming my favorite reviewer, is brutal with the new series "HawthoRNe." Read:

Many reviews of Jada Pinkett Smith's nurse drama Hawthorne, debuting tonight on TNT, mention that it's difficult not to compare it, unfavorably, with Showtime's Nurse Jackie. This is understandable, but it is unfair to this new series. Hawthorne would be terrible if Nurse Jackie never existed. It would be awful entirely on its own. Give it some credit, please.

After watching HawthoRNe previews, I had a feeling it would a cornball show about a selfless nurse in an unjust hospital system. And what do you know, I was right. According to Poniewozik, Jada Pinkett Smith's HawthoRNe is as flawless as a diamond. Flawless characters are the first step along the path to a shitty show. House could be a really boring show, I mean just dreadful. What saves it is the character of House, who is always more interesting than the case he's working on in whatever episode. House has numerous deep seeded flaws, which make him interesting.

I think what happened with HawthoRNe is that TNT hit two homeruns with The Closer and Saving Grace. These two shows happen to be about strong a woman. TNT saw HawthoRNe and said "another strong female drama?! It's a guaranteed hit!" Well, no, it doesn't work that way. A female, whether strong or weak, requires the same thing that male characters require to be interesting: flaws. Say what you will about Saving Grace or The Closer, but their main characters have that all important ingredient. If HawthoRNe fails, as I suspect it will, it will deserve it.

It's The Little Things

Sometimes the simplest games are be the most interesting.

Video Games | Scribblenauts - God vs The Kraken

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

What Does Iran Mean?

Ezra Klein writes:

...those of us who have long argued for the fundamental rationality of the Iranian regime have seen our case fundamentally weakened. A rational regime might have stolen the election. But they would not have stolen it like this, where there is no doubt of the theft. This is like robbers leaving muddy footprints and a home address. Tehran's evident vote-tampering is tempting both domestic revolution and international isolation. That they appear to fear neither says something very unsettling about the mental state of the regime.

Klein makes two mistakes here. The first is that arguments about the rationality of the Iranian regime on the world stage are independent of the internal affairs of Iran. Just because a regime abuses its power and deprives the people of their vote does not mean that they lack rationality internationally. Some might question the illegal behavior of former presidents, but that does not mean that their foreign policy lacks rationality.

The second mistake Klein makes is that the regime's actions have in fact bolstered arguments about its overall rationality. Neocons have made the argument that Iran is like a suicide bomber, meaning it cannot be deterred or reasoned with. Neocons blame this on Jihadism. Well, the Iranian regime has revealed itself to be no more attached to religion than it is to democracy. Stealing an election is a rational act committed by people who wish to retain their power. A commitment to a suicidal form of Islam makes the guise of an election pointless. What was pointless was the guise of Islam. This isn't a theocracy or a religious police state. It's a police state, it's an autocracy.

Following Iran

Here are useful links:

Juan Cole.
Michael Totten.
Andrew Sullivan.
NIAC.
GlobalPost.
RealClearWorld.

Twitter feeds:
Mousavi1388.
Huffpo's collection.

Youtubes:
Mousavi1388.
PressTV (this is controlled by the Iranian government).

I'm consuming as much information as I can. I truly hope that the Iranian people tear down the regime in power. I hope there is another revolution. A government this violent, this intolerant of change, this unafraid of its own people shouldn't exist. Amongst the images of blood and horror on the streets of Tehran, I return to the words of Jefferson:

And what country can preserve its liberties, if it's rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

Mass Effect 2's Potential

Video Games | Mass Effect 2 | E3 09: Extended Cut Trailer

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

Mass Effect 2, the sequel to...that's right, Mass Effect, is previewed by Game|Life. Read:

Come for the action, stay for the engrossing story: Say what you will about its shallow take on morality and the occasionally campy stabs at romance, but the original Mass Effect was saturated with lore and excelled at presentation. Conversations became centerpieces, and even the typical dialog tree became interesting thanks to a liveliness evoked by careful camera work and accelerated pacing.

The Mass Effect 2 sequences shown off in the E3 presentation maintained that livelihood. In one segment, an interactive conversation plays out between two characters while the vehicle you’re flying in weaves through heavy traffic. But there’s a new sort of dynamism being folded in as well: an impatient Shephard interrupts a guard mid-sentence, and (with a timely tug on the Xbox 360 controller’s left trigger) shoves him through a plate glass window. Small touches like these won’t single-handedly win over the action-gamer crowd, but they do a great for embellishing the atmosphere.

And, yes, it's the little things that count. Mass Effect was a great RPG because the possibilities were numerous. The universe it created seemed endless. The operative word there is "seemed." The universe of Mass Effect was disappointingly limited. There were so many planets, but most of them were uninhabited. The inhabited worlds were, more often than not, limited to a mere mission rather than full of sidequests and people. Say what you will about Obsidian Entertainment's KotOR 2, but it had sidequests, it had teammates that were corruptible, that you could turn into Jedi, it had full worlds that took time to delve into. Mass Effect 2 could easily be great. But, if I have to spend any more time driving around in that Mako tanker, on lifeless rocks, searching for rocks, it will be a lesser game in my eyes.

Atheism Can't Tell You What To Do

Rod Dreher has a conversation with John Gray and thinks he has found the ultimate indictment of atheism. Sigh:

New Atheism, in Gray's view, is a cruder version of 19th-century Positivism, the philosophical position holding that the only real knowledge is knowledge acquired through the senses. It's hard materialism, in other words, one that regards metaphysical discussion as simply a matter of subjective preference. In the 19th century, intellectuals generally believed that religion was a phenomenon emerging out of primitive ignorance, a way of knowing that should be discarded in light of science and rationality. This is the basic position of Dawkins et alia, according to Gray

Here's a big problem, though: Liberals in the media take this positivist stance as a normative description of reality, and don't inquire about the connection between atheism, values and politics. And here we get into some very interesting territory, where it is understandable why the New Atheists suppress, consciously or not, the way atheism in power actually acted out its values. The key point, which I get into after the jump: There is no logical connection between atheism and liberalism -- in the sense that all of us in the modern West are liberals -- and in fact, the bedrock institutions of liberalism come out of the Judeo-Christian tradition.

Somehow in the midst of all this discussion about religion and atheism, New Atheists and the religious have missed the point of atheism. Dreher feels Gray has struck upon something by recognizing there are no necessary ties between atheism and liberalism. Of course their are no ties. Why would there be? This is ultimately the fault of New Atheists, who seem to think they must defend atheism in all its forms. When someone approaches Hitchens about Hitler or Stalin, he seeks to explain their atrocities away by detailing how they could only do what they did because of the religious impulse. And Hitchens may very well be right about that, but what does that have to do with atheism? The proper response is atheism is not a governing philosophy. You can't rule by atheism's precepts because it has no precepts. You can't turn atheism's dogma into law because it has no dogma. You cannot read the atheism's texts and divine from them foreign policy because atheism has no texts. Atheism makes one claim and one claim only: there is nothing supernatural about our existence and the existence of the universe. Anyone who says atheism claims anything else is wrong or lying. Anyone who attempts to govern as an atheist is on a fool's errand.

Dreher continues:

Gray further said that the New Atheists cannot deal with the fact that atheism in power has been horrifically deadly, because it would deny the basic dogma of their faith: that atheism leads to liberation and redemption, and that their project of liberating people from their traditions and their history also severs them from their humanity.

The problem is New Atheists feel they must deal with "atheism in power." They worry themselves with defeating the claims that atheism has lead to mass murder. But, why is an atheist responsible for the actions of another atheist? There is no such thing as an atheist action. Someone can't say, "what he did was deeply atheist," like he or she can say "what he did was deeply Christian," because there is no morality attached to atheism. There is no criteria by which to judge an atheist. That's why blaming a dictator's atrocities on his atheism or even relating them to his atheism is simply foolish. His actions are his own, not atheism's. Atheism (this is my claim, not atheism's) does lead to liberation, but only of the individual, not of a polity. An individual is liberated in both thought and morality by no longer following a religion and, yes, this can lead to evil things (a man calling in to a Dawkins interview said he would murder his neighbor if not for religion). But, those evil things are the product of bad people exploiting their personal liberty.

Dreher implies that there is a utility to religion that justifies its existence and that utility is the tempering of a ruler's actions. That if every ruler was a good Christian, we'd all be better than if our rulers were atheists. This is idiotic. Anybody that makes the claim that a ruler that's an atheist would be a better ruler than a Christian has not studied history. Anybody that makes the claim that a Christian would be a better ruler than an atheist probably hasn't read a history textbook. Bad people will do bad things when they have power, whether Christian or atheist. Otherwise good people can do bad things when they have power, whether Christian or atheist. However, the atheist ruler cannot be measured against atheism, the Christian ruler can be measured against Christianity. The atheist ruler cannot justify his bad acts with his atheism, the Christian ruler can justify his bad acts with Christianity.

say WHAT?!

Atheists In Your Neighborhood

My sister-in-law sent me this. It's a website that tells kids all about the joys of what Andrew Sullivan calls Christianism. However, it also warns kids about the various spiritual dangers out there. Amongst these dangers are the dreaded atheist. Take it away Christians:

If you find an Atheist in your neighborhood, TELL A PARENT OR PASTOR RIGHT AWAY!

You may be moved to try and witness to these poor lost souls yourself, however AVOID TALKING TO THEM!

Atheists are often very grumpy and bitter and will lash out at children or they may even try to trick you into neglecting God's Word.

Very advanced witnessing techniques are needed for these grouches. Let the adults handle them.

Apparently an atheist is the spiritual equivalent of a pedophile. Which makes me wonder if Christians would like a law that forces atheists knock on the doors of their neighbors telling them they are an atheist. What if a child found a disgraced Catholic priest in his or her neighborhood? Should that child not tell their parents he or she met a stranger because that stranger is Christian?

Now, I'm not up on the Christian lingo, but when they say "You may be moved to try and witness to these poor lost souls yourself," does that mean kids might be tempted to look at atheists like they are zoo animals? Would kids be tempted to nervously watch an theist from afar and then report back to each other about his or her odd ways? Or does "witness" mean something spiritual, like "saving" someone by telling him or her about Christ's love? I think it means the latter because it's followed by "AVOID TALKING TO THEM!" You'd think the power of Christ's love would be strong enough to make sure a child doesn't stray from the fold, but evidently you'd be wrong.

Why should children avoid atheists? Because they "are often very grumpy and bitter and will lash out at children?" I know a lot of atheists and I'm certain maybe one or two of them are grumpy or bitter. The rest are nihilistic misanthropes. It's really quite offensive that these Christians would say otherwise.

Remember kids: watch out for atheists.

Did Hip-Hop Just Die?

Judge for yourself.

This is either fake and a joke or real and a war crime.

We Need To Abandon Afghanistan

After writing a intelligent, capabilities-based post on why al-Qaeda "safe haven" fears are not a sufficient reason for the President's increased commitment in Afghanistan, Matt Yglesias manages to find reasons that are not based on capabilities or interests for the President's commitment. Read:

For one thing, I’m enough of a squish that I think “not abandoning the population of Afghanistan to civil war and Taliban rules” makes perfect sense. And it’s also very reasonable to see the situation in Afghanistan as tied in with the situation in Pakistan and to see preventing the collapse of the Pakistani state as an important American policy goal.

Why the hell should we protect the people from Afghanistan from civil war or Taliban rules? If the reason is "'cause we're America, we fight for freedom and peace and happiness and puppy dogs and unicorns," then it's time to bring the boys home. We owe the Afghan people nothing. We don't owe them a functioning government, a competent and uncorrupted police force, or any other of the wondrous joys we've brought Iraq. We went into Afghanistan to eliminate an enemy who had attacked us. Our objectives should go no further than that. The operative word is of course "should," because somebody always comes along and says "we have to protect the people," like helping the unfortunate people of Afghanistan provides any security and doesn't severely tax and already over taxed and over extended military. Not only should we not help the people of Afghanistan because its not in our interests, but also because we suck at helping other people. We sure did a terrific job helping Iraq or Somalia or any of the countries we've ever intervened in.

The Coolest Thing I've Seen Today

Quote of the Day

We're talking about folks like Chris Lardner. She and her husband work hard; they're doing well. They have a wonderful small business. But she wrote to me last week and you just heard her story. Her husband's business is in Albuquerque; two of their children are in college. When one tuition payment that was mistakenly charged to a credit card put her over the limit, her credit card company more than tripled her rate to nearly 30 percent. And she made a simple point in the letter that she wrote to me. She said: "If we conducted business this way, we'd have no business," she wrote. "And if this is happening to us, I can only imagine what's going on in homes less fortunate than ours."

You all know what Chris is talking about. I know. I remember. It hasn't been that long since I had my credit card, sometimes working that a little bit. (Laughter.) We're lured in by ads and mailings that hook us with the promise of low rates while keeping the right to raise those rates at any time for any reason -- even on old purchases; even when you make a late payment on a different card. Right now credit card companies charge more than $15 billion a year in penalty fees. One in five Americans carry a balance that has been charged interest rates above 20 percent. Sometimes they even raise rates on outstanding balances even when you've paid your bills on time.

...

You should not have to worry that when you sign up for a credit card, you're signing away all your rights. You shouldn't need a magnifying glass or a law degree to read the fine print that sometimes don't even appear to be written in English -- or Spanish. (Applause.) And frankly, when you're trying to navigate your way through this economy, you shouldn't feel like you're getting ripped off by "any time, any reason" rate hikes, and payment deadlines that seem to move around every month. That happen to anybody? You think you're supposed to pay it this day, and suddenly -- and it's never on the end of the month where you're paying all the rest of your bills, right? It's like on the 19th. (Laughter.) All kinds of harsh penalties and fees that you never knew about.

Enough is enough. It's time for strong, reliable protections for our consumers. It's time for reform -- (applause) -- it's time for reform that's built on transparency and accountability and mutual responsibility -- values fundamental to the new foundation we seek to build for our economy.

-President Barack Obama.

Credit card companies need to be stopped. I'm happy someone in government, especially the President, is spearheading the effort.

Elizabeth Warren is expert on this issue. Skip to 13:10.

Nukes Aren't Really Usable

Thomas P.M. Barnett has made a pretty good list of reasons of why a nuke free world is not only unlikely, but also undesirable. I do have one point to quibble with. Barnett writes:

If nuclear weapons are suddenly in short supply by the destabilized great powers, any regime that rapidly fields them would become, overnight, the strategic equivalent of the one-eyed man in the land of the blind.

This is not supported by history. Well, we only really have one historical example to cite and that's that of the United States before the Soviet Union developed their own nuclear weapons. Policymakers believed that the nuke would give the United States a free hand to push Soviet Russia around in eastern Europe. However, it was quickly discovered that the nuke is simply not usable weapon. It's at once too devastating and not effective enough. Most people know of Dresden only by name and few know of the fire bombing of Japanese cities. The US had horrifyingly destructive tactics and weapons before the nuke. However, these tactics could not be used outside of an ongoing war. The US could not fire bomb a Russian city anymore than they could nuke it, because the devastation was beyond measure and simply immoral. The use of a nuke would have killed millions of civilians, but left Western Europe open to attack.

The modern analogue is apparent. Imagine for a moment that the United States and all current nuclear powers give up their nukes, and then Iran develops a nuke. For some reason, they have developed the technology to launch this nuke at any region of the globe. Why would Iran be able to push around the United States? Let's, for the sake of this imaginary scenario, imagine the Iranians are completely devoid of moral thought. The only thing the United States has given up in its nuclear capability. It still possesses hugely effective fighters, bombers, ships, missiles, bombs, and guns, all of which could lay waste to Tehran. Iran would know this. And, their nuclear device, while quite powerful, would not eliminate the US military's ability to respond with equal power. An Iranian nuke could possibly annihilate a state or a whole region of the United States. The majority of the US population would survive, whereas most Iranians would die in the response.

The nuke has been, is, and will always be a defensive weapon. It is used to threaten possible attackers, not to coerce defiant states. It does not provide prestige and it does not provide clout. A nuclear power cannot be attacked, but it can be no more aggressive than a power with a sizable and powerful military. It's time that this was recognized in all foreign policy circles.

Quote of the Day

I think that President Obama and Attorney General Holder ought to be standing up and saying, look we may have policy differences with the former administration but we're America and we don't criminalize those.

-Liz Cheney, defending torture as a policy difference. Because that's what it is now, a partisan issue.

Wishful Thinking

It appears Pres. Obama is moving towards his no nuke world, otherwise known as insane-o-ville. I've previously stated my opposition to abolishing nukes. Michael Crowley details Obama's move:

Obama's new budget plan includes a little-noted sea change in U.S. nuclear policy, and a step towards his vision of a denuclearized world. It provides no funding for the Reliable Replacement Warhead program, created to design a new generation of long-lasting nuclear weapons that don't need to be tested. (The military is worried that a nuclear test moratorium in effect since 1992 might endanger the reliability of an aging US arsenal.) But this spring Obama issued a bold call for a world free of nuclear weapons, and part of that vision entails leading by example. That means halting programs that expand the American nuclear stockpile. For the past two budget years the Democratic Congress has refused to fund the Bush-era program. But Obama's budget kills the National Nuclear Security Administration program once and for all.

Crowley notes that this is total contradiction with the advice of Sec. Def. Robert Gates. Gates appears to be a realist when it comes to nuclear weapons. Despite my serious objection to Gates's foreign policy in Iraq and Afghanistan, I appreciate his levelheadedness in regards to nukes. He understands that nuclear weapons are not about offensive capabilities per se, but the defensive structure that those capabilities create. MAD, as it was so affectionately dubbed, has prevented great power wars or decades. Gates recognizes this and wants to maintain the offensive capabilities of our nuclear weapons to ensure the continuance the defensive structure they create. Pres. Obama has decided this is not a worth spending any money on.

I am of two minds about this. I believe nukes ironically make the world safer. That's the only way I can explain the increasing amount of peace we have seen over the last fifty years. So, making sure we have nukes that work is worth a lot of time and money. However, Gates makes a shitty case for spend that time and money. Credibility is a bad argument for just about everything in foreign policy, especially when dealing with opponents. It was used in Vietnam, it was used in Iraq II, and Gates is using it here. Your opponents have to assume you are as strong as possible, so why would it matter if our credibility is in question? Like our opponents are going to believe a word we say. Credibility is not a reason to do anything in foreign policy and Gates rightfully lost using that argument.

The proper argument is that we can reduce our nuclear stockpile if we are certain that our nukes will function properly. The military fears that our aging nukes are approaching unreliability. The problem here is that MAD depends upon a country believing its nukes will be effective. Nuclear deterrence does not work if a country believes it needs to keep building nukes to ensure that aging ones won't hamper a response. The program the President eliminate would have ensured that we could destroy our aging stockpile and replace it with nukes that we are certain will last, which will maintain our second strike capability. This program would allow us to reduce our stockpile, while keeping MAD intact.

The Coolest Thing I've Seen Today

They're Coming

This...

Is just a few steps away from this.