Blues Break: John Fahey - "Red Pony" (1969)

Here's the description of this performance from YouTube:

John Fahey performs "Red Pony" on Laura Weber's "Guitar Guitar" TV show in 1969. From the DVD "John Fahey in Concert and Interviews 1969 & 1996."

The guitar is in open G tuning (I think).

I saw Fahey (1939-2001) open for his protegé Leo Kottke at Reed College in Portland back in 1970 (or maybe 1971). Fahey walked onto the stage, sat down on a stool, chugged a can of beer and plunged into a dazzling (but too short) 30-minute set without a word. At the end he got up and said, "now it's time for the guy you really came to hear," then walked out. There was no hint of irony in his comment: a very sad, even shocking, moment. I never saw him perform again even though he moved to Salem, just an hour down I-5, ten years later.

There's a rumor in my family that Fahey was a distant relation on our paternal grandmother's side, but I have no confirmation of this claim.

Trivializing pursuits

One might be excused for thinking, for a moment, that columnists and pundits would be slightly more sensitive to stereotypes after Chris Matthews was forced to apologize to Hillary Clinton for a long series of misogynist remarks. Not so.

A case in point is a snide and profoundly unfunny column by Joel Klein that appeared in the Los Angeles Times (and locally in the Portland Oregonian). Professing that he will "miss" Hillary Clinton, Klein regurgitates clichéd references to her physical qualities, appearance and gender-based expectations:

• "her creepy laugh"
  
• "the way she tried to bring back the pantsuit"
• "The woman even managed to get better looking as she aged." [A comment that, somehow, doesn't come across as a compliment.]
  
• "You wanted cookies, and she whipped up an oatmeal chocolate chip recipe."
• "As the mean kids figured out in high school, you can make the smart girl do anything."
• "Hillary's problem is that she was too good."
• "...such personalities are far less annoying whiny than self-satisfied."
• "...that awful burst of cackle stayed with me."

Klein's litany overlooked only a handful of the more familiar adjectives that are applied to Clinton, like shrill and Tucker Carlson's castrating, overbearing and scary.

Unfortunately, the ancient sport of ridiculing women (and specifically Hillary Clinton) for their appearance is not limited to Maureen Dowd or the conservative right, as a minute of surfing will reveal.

Ridicule is a uniquely powerful, and often unanswerable, political tool. Hillary Clinton or any other other politician can, and certainly should be, subjected to a din of satire and ridicule when they deserve it. Everyone invites public derision when they act or speak stupidly—politicians especially, since their bad choices affect so many other people. But it's unfair and offensive to perpetuate stereotypes by ridiculing people for qualities that are beyond their control [1], including gender, race, age and physical appearance.

NOTES

[1] Okay, fashion choices are within our control. But critics who dwell at length on Hillary Clinton's outfits—or Condi Rice's for that matter—would rarely report on the wardrobes of John McCain or (unless he's wearing a turban or no flag pin) Barack Obama.

PHOTO: Clinton and Obama making fashion statements.

Hillary Clinton in Texas debate

As promised a few weeks ago, here's an eloquent statement by Hillary Clinton at the most recent Democratic debate in Texas. As a lifelong Democrat, I have to say that I'm proud of both these candidates and look forward to voting for one of them. And that one, almost certainly, will be Barack Obama.

Although they've exchanged a few harsh words in debates, Hillary Clinton's many talents will probably not be overlooked if Obama wins in the fall. She deserves a prominent place in the new cabinet, or as the new majority leader in the Senate. Maybe she can overcome her regrettable tendency towards a kind of "bipartisanship" that often requires caving in to the opposition's agenda.

"Into a different game..."

In an interview with the BBC on February 12th, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia (left) addressed the question of torture in the following terms:

"To begin with the constitution... is referring to punishment for crime. And, for example, incarcerating someone indefinitely would certainly be cruel and unusual punishment for a crime."

Scalia argued that courts could take stronger measures when a witness refused to answer questions:

"I suppose it's the same thing about so-called torture. Is it really so easy to determine that smacking someone in the face to determine where he has hidden the bomb that is about to blow up Los Angeles is prohibited in the constitution?" he asked.

"It would be absurd to say you couldn't do that. And once you acknowledge that, we're into a different game.

"How close does the threat have to be? And how severe can the infliction of pain be?"

Here, once again, is Scalia's version of "strict constructionism" in action: the "punishment" narrowly refers to sanctions imposed by a court following a criminal conviction.

Scalia seems to believe that the authors of the Bill of Rights weren't really concerned about how people in pretrial custody, for whatever reason, were treated. He implies that the 9th Amendment doesn't restrict coercive interrogations during the investigative process, when the presumption of innocence applies to suspects or defendants in the U.S. legal system. So "smacking someone in the face" is permissible, then, for a suspect (or maybe even a witness) who's presumed to be innocent—but not, Scalia generously allows, for convicted criminals.

There's a separate and quite vast body of law, of course, that applies to coerced confessions by persons who are merely suspects in criminal cases. Seventy-two years ago, in Brown v. Mississippi [1], three black defendants were sentenced to death following their conviction for murder. Despite uncontested evidence of torture, the state Supreme Court affirmed the jury's verdict. Two courageous Mississippi judges dissented and described the events that led to the three "confessions:"

"The crime with which these defendants, all ignorant negroes, are charged, was discovered about 1 o'clock p.m. on Friday, March 30, 1934. On that night one Dial, a deputy sheriff, accompanied by others, came to the home of Ellington, one of the defendants, and requested him to accompany them to the house of the deceased, and there a number of white men were gathered, who began to accuse the defendant of the crime. Upon his denial they seized him, and with the participation of the deputy they hanged him by a rope to the limb of a tree, and, having let him down, they hung him again, and when he was let down the second time, and he still protested his innocence, he was tied to a tree and whipped, and, still declining to accede to the demands that he confess, he was finally released, and he returned with some difficulty to his home, suffering intense pain and agony. The record of the testimony shows that the signs of the rope on his neck were plainly visible during the so-called trial. A day or two thereafter the said deputy, accompanied by another, returned to the home of the said defendant and arrested him, and departed with the prisoner towards the jail in an adjoining county, but went by a route which led into the state of Alabama; and while on the way, in that state, the deputy stopped and again severely whipped the defendant, declaring that he would continue the whipping... until he confessed, and the defendant then agreed to confess to such a statement as the deputy would dictate, and he did so, after which he was delivered to jail.

"The other two defendants, Ed Brown and Henry Shields, were also arrested and taken to the same jail. On Sunday night, April 1, 1934, the same deputy, accompanied by a number of white men, one of whom was also an officer, and by the jailer, came to the jail, and the two last named defendants were made to strip and they were laid over chairs and their backs were cut to pieces with a leather strap with buckles on it, and they were likewise made by the said deputy definitely to understand that the whipping would be continued unless and until they confessed, and not only confessed, but confessed in every matter of detail as demanded by those present; and in this manner the defendants confessed he crime, and, as the whippings progressed and were repeated, they changed or adjusted their confession in all particulars of detail so as to conform to the demands of their torturers. When the confessions had been obtained in the exact form and contents as desired by the mob, they left with the parting admonition and warning that, if the defendants changed their story at any time in any respect from that last stated, the perpetrators of the outrage would administer the same or equally effective treatment.

"Further details of the brutal treatment to which these helpless prisoners were subjected need not be pursued. It is sufficient to say that in pertinent respects the transcript reads more like pages torn from some medieval account than a record made within the confines of a modern civilization which aspires to an enlightened constitutional government."

In unanimously reversing the three convictions, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the notion of a "trial by ordeal," stating [citations omitted]:

"The rack and torture chamber may not be substituted for the witness stand. The state may not permit an accused to be hurried to conviction under mob domination--where the whole proceeding is but a mask--without supplying corrective process...The state may not deny to the accused the aid of counsel... Nor may a state, through the action of its officers, contrive a conviction through the pretense of a trial which in truth is 'but used as a means of depriving a defendant of liberty through a deliberate deception of court and jury by the presentation of testimony known to be perjured...' And the trial equally is a mere pretense where the state authorities have contrived a conviction resting solely upon confessions obtained by violence. The due process clause requires 'that state action, whether through one agency or another, shall be consistent with the fundamental principles of liberty and justice which lie at the base of all our civil and political institutions...'

"It would be difficult to conceive of methods more revolting to the sense of justice than those taken to procure the confessions of these petitioners, and the use of the confessions thus obtained as the basis for conviction and sentence was a clear denial of due process."

Is waterboarding even "more revolting to the sense of justice" than the treatment of the suspects in Brown? It's certainly not less revolting. Scalia's reference to a "smacking someone in the face" is disingenuous given the catalog of far greater horrors that have been inflicted on suspects in U.S. custody in places like Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. His comments to the BBC also focus on the extreme situation facing Jack Bauer in 24: the suitcase atomic bomb that's about to go off in Los Angeles [2].

Ah, but Scalia has already argued that the "unlawful combatants" at Gitmo don't have the same legal rights, and freedom from coercion, as the defendants in the Brown case [3]. In another speech in Europe reported by the BBC , he is quoted as follows:

"War is war, and it has never been the case that when you captured a combatant you have to give them a jury trial in your civil courts. Give me a break... If he was captured by my army on a battlefield, that is where he belongs."

Scalia, as usual, is quite reckless about expressing himself, and apparently prejudging, matters that are likely to come before the Supreme Court. To paraphrase the old bumper sticker from the days of the AT&T telecommunications monopoly, Scalia might just say: "I don't care, and I don't have to." Unlike other judges, the Supremes aren't subject to any ethical constraints whatsoever, apart from their own consciences.

While Scalia told the BBC that it would be "absurd" to rule out sticking "something under the fingernail" of a detainee in a difficult situation, at least he seems to think that detainees captured on a battlefield are entitled to the same treat as prisoners of war (although 80% of Gitmo inmates were not captured on the battlefield).

The Bush administration, meanwhile, refuses to grant the Gitmo "unlawful combatants" the same minimal rights available to POW's. The prosecution is seeking the death penalty for six detainees, a sentence that is strictly forbidden for POW's under international law, including the Third Geneva Convention of 1949. These show trials will likely be conducted as the fall election approaches, possibly winning political points for Republican waronterra candidates but deepening worldwide cynicism about the alleged "rule of law" in the U.S.

NOTES

[1] Cite: 297 U.S. 278 (1936). The prosecutor in the case was John Stennis, who was the U.S. Senator from Mississippi from 1947 to 1989.

[2] Any minimally-competent terrorist group would arrange to limit the damage to its plans that might result from the capture of any of its members, especially as the plan is about to be realized. It's likely that the terrorists who had actual possession of such a suitcase bomb would be the only ones in a cell who'd know where it was or where it would be used. Torture would be very unlikely to extract any information of value in that situation.

[3] The three defendants were described as "ignorant Negroes" even in the dissent, and no doubt they were second-class citizens. But at least they were citizens entitled to minimal constitutional protections—once their case went beyond the trial court.

PHOTO: The Washington Note

Blues Break: Big Mama Thornton and Buddy Guy - "Hound Dog"

Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton (1926-84) performs this blues classic with a very young Buddy Guy in 1965. She first recorded it in 1952 and made it a big hit nationally in 1953. Four years later, Elvis Presley performed his rock-'n'-roll version* on the Milton Berle Show before forty million people and became a national sensation (and the subject of some controversy). His recording sold four million records in the U.S., making it Elvis' most popular single release.

[*NOTE: This video is from a later Ed Sullivan show.]

Watching the parade

For a couple weeks now this site has gone into hibernation or, to be more accurate, an attempted sabbatical from politics after months of cerebral overload. The timing, right before super Tuesday, was dismal.

The result on the 5th, for Democrats, seemed to be a draw. But today's three caucuses, swept by Barack Obama, suggest that Hillary Clinton may have only temporarily blunted, rather than stopped, the impressive momentum that he has developed. He now has a small lead in the delegate count (not counting the superdelegates), with primaries in some major states (Texas, Ohio and Pennsylvania) rapidly approaching.

My friends (who have mostly joined the Obama parade) have been taking pains to assure me that their candidate is a deeply closeted progressive who has to pass himself off as a moderate in order to get elected. More likely, given the dearth of convincing evidence either way, he's a blank screen on which people can project their own expectations (or wishful thinking) about his politics. His proposal on health care either reveals a deep conservative and corporate streak, or (as I prefer to think) it's an aberration.

For years, Hillary Clinton has been depicted in some circles as yet another closeted progressive (have you read her Wellesley commencement speech?). Even more than Bill. Like so many others in her party, the argument goes, she's had to conceal her true opinions due to the conservative marinade that this country has been steeped in for nearly 30 years.

With her longer public record, we can predict with greater confidence what Hillary is likely to do in the White House. But that's precisely her problem: we know what to expect, and many voters don't necessarily like it. On top of all that, she's been trashed so relentlessly and for so long by the political opposition and the MSM that she she can now be written off as too "divisive."

The brain reels from an overload of irony. The only truly gratifying result so far is the complete voter rejection of movement conservatives like Fred Thompson and Mitt Romney.

So voters demand "change," possibly even for its own sake. At the risk of grossly oversimplifying, the Continuum of Change now reads something like this:

• John McCain: the illusion of change, or change for the worse (100 more years in Iraq);
  
• Hillary Clinton: incremental change, assuming she has 60 votes in the Senate to end filibusters;
• Barack Obama: fundamental change of some kind of other, assuming he has the support of his party and 60 votes in the Senate to end filibusters

But the numbers, for now, can't be very reassuring for the Democrats despite two shining candidates who should easily trounce the nominee of a failed party. McCain, not exactly an unknown himself, is highly competitive in the current polling despite his close association with the disasters of the last seven years. The latest national poll for TIME:

Obama 48, McCain 41
Clinton 46, McCain 46

For now, McCain can have it both ways (despite some invective from Limbaugh and Hannity): he's still perceived as a maverick despite years of bellicose rhetoric and his shameless identification with Bush's policies on Iraq and the economy. While Obama has been annointed by the MSM, McCain enjoys a daily miracle of redemption.

The more profound question is whether Clinton or Obama can overcome the deep reservoir of sexism and racism that has percolated through U.S. politics for some four centuries. How many white voters, when faced with that blank ballot, will be unable to bring themselves to vote for a woman or an African American? How will the Republicans craft their campaign to exploit this reluctance? Will the Democrats retaliate by offering innuendo about McCain's age?

Sadly, the arch-reactionary poet e.e. cummings was wrong about most things, including this:

Listen; there's a hell of a good universe next door: let's go.

Too bad that's not an option—at least until November 4th.

NOTES

Full disclosure: This blogger is undecided, and my final decision probably won't mean a damned thing by the time Oregon votes in three month. Lest I sound resentful, extensive reform of the whole ludicrous system of primary elections is long overdue, preferably along the lines recently proposed by the nonpartisan National Association of Secretaries of State.

[A shorter version was cross-posted on Hullabaloo.]

Obama victory speech in South Carolina

If skillful rhetoric turns out to be major factor in the fall campaign, this man should stroll easily into the White (sic) House.

In fairness, if Hillary Clinton or John Edwards makes a compelling speech, I'll post that too.

Call us when you're ready

We admit to small faults only to persuade others that we have no great ones.
--Maximes, Francois de la Rochefoucauld (1613-80)

And so it is with Chris Matthews' lame apology for his outrageously sexist comments concerning Hillary Clinton and other women involved in politics. Since I'm not a regular viewer of his program (which I've briefly endured only once or twice), I've left it to others to establish that his toxic emissions were not an isolated incident or two. In a letter to Steve Capus, President of NBC News, for example, activist Gloria Steinem and Kim Gandy, President of the National Organization of Women, described the following:

During an appearance on the January 9 edition of MSNBC's Morning Joe, Matthews said of Senator Hillary Clinton, “the reason she may be a front-runner is her husband messed around” and that “[s]he didn't win there [New York] on her merits.” Matthews has referred to Clinton as a “she devil,” compared her to a “strip-teaser” and called her “witchy.” He has referred to men who support her as “castratos in the eunuch chorus.” He has suggested Clinton is not “a convincing mom” and said “modern women” like Clinton are unacceptable to “Midwest guys.”

Matthews’ sexism is hardly limited to his comments about Clinton; such rhetoric is just the latest in a string of sexist attacks he has made against prominent female political figures.

[...]

In November 2006, shortly after the Democrats took the majority in Congress, Matthews asked a guest if then-presumptive Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) was “going to castrate Steny Hoyer” if Hoyer (D-MD) were elected House Majority Leader.

During coverage of a presidential debate last spring, NBC News chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell was compelled to remind Matthews that Sen. Barack Obama's (D-IL) wife, Michelle, is a Harvard-educated lawyer after he focused obsessively on her physical appearance.

Repetition of epithets like "she devil" and "witchy" tend to have an overwhelming cumulative effect, creating the perception that the "devisive" Clinton is "unelectable" due to the extreme hostility and high negatives that she generates in certain quarters. There's a self-fulfilling quality to these attacks, and deliberately so. Clinton ends of battling against a presumption that at least some of the hysterical response she generates is grounded in real character and political flaws. She is truly the velcro candidate, which makes it all the more improbable that she's in such a strong position after the first round of primaries.

The tricky question is: if Clinton gets an early lock on the nomination, will the Democrats face the same dilemma as they did in 2004? Namely, a problematic candidate who's acceptable to the mainstream of the party but too deeply flawed to win a national election.

Those who claim that Clinton is doomed as a nominee point to her high negatives, including the alleged 40% of voters who say they would never, ever, categorically and under any circumstances, vote for her. But the practical question is always: what's the alternative? Hillary does well in matchups with all GOP candidates, with McCain presenting the greatest threat to her and Obama:

A Jan. 10 national poll by CNN shows Barack Obama has a 55 percent favorability rating, John McCain 54 percent, Hillary Clinton 53 percent, Rudy Giuliani 46 percent, Mike Huckabee 38 percent and Mitt Romney 31 percent...

Somewhat surprisingly, Clinton and Obama would not only win if the election were held today but would win handily against Giuliani, Huckabee or Romney. This same trend is seen when respondents were asked whom they definitely would not vote for in November. While 38 percent gave thumbs down to Obama and 43 percent to Clinton, 52 percent outright rejected Huckabee, 55 percent Giuliani and 62 percent Romney. The one person who wouldn't be overrun by Obama and Clinton is McCain. McCain's "no" votes [sic] the same as Clinton's, and in hypothetical national matchups, he's in a statistical dead heat with both of them.

Voter perceptions of Hillary Clinton are not engraved in bronze, and a serious of dismissive articles and vicious attacks in the mainstream media have had the paradoxical effect of generating sympathy and raising her public stature. And, maybe, producing a narrow victory in New Hampshire.

The folks at Pollster.com, an excellent resource for current polling, have launched their own online survey that, among many other things, asks: "Do you think that America is ready for a female president?" They also ask whether "America is ready for an African American president."

What, exactly, does it mean to be "ready?" It's quite absurd, really, that such questions have to even be asked. The other day, someone asked me whether voters are willing to cast their ballots for a woman or an African American—making it clear that she was quite prepared to do so, but doubted that the majority of her fellow voters could stomach the thought.

On one level, it's a legitimate question: are U.S. voters capable of overcoming their presumed sexist and racist legacies, or will it be another generation or so before the country is mature enough to elect a woman or minority president? Also, do polls accurately reflect voter opinion on such matters? After all, polls suggested that the 2006 Tennessee senate race—in which African American Harold Ford, Jr., was the Democratic candidate—would be a lot closer than it turned out to be. Polls can't adjust for those who are too embarrassed to admit their racist or sexist motivations.

The fundamental problem for Democrats might be their candidate's gender, or race, and not the specific flaws of Clinton or Obama (both of whom are too reflexively centrist for my taste). The Republican attack machine could, and certainly will, make every effort next fall to transform the favorable ratings that Clinton or Obama currently enjoy. We can expect an absolutely vicious assault based on the kind of racial and sexist slurs and innuendo that have only been hinted at so far in national campaigns. Attacks on Clinton will suffer from the law of diminishing returns, since she is already such a known commodity, but we can only imagine what would be inflicted on Obama.

John Edwards is vulnerable on other grounds, of course, including his long career as a trial lawyer and the media's caricature of his compelling grassroots populism. Unfortunately, he seems to have dropped off the radar screen of viable candidates [1], as determined by ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC, Fox, The New York Times, The Washington Post and all the other usual suspects. Call it another self-fulfilling prophecy.

Are we "ready" for a president who's not a white male? There's every reason to fear the answer to that question.

NOTES

[1] Full disclosure: As an Oregon resident, I won't be able to vote in a primary until May 20th, when the nominations will probably be locked up. More than forty states vote before then. As a registered Democrat, I would be happy to vote in the general election for any of the declared candidates—including Obama, Edwards and Clinton (and not necessarily in that order). If I had to vote in a primary tomorrow, it would be a very tough choice indeed.

Quote of the Day: Mike Huckabee

This statement from a Republican candidate whom Fred Thompson denounced as "liberal" (at least on economic issues):

"I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution," [Mike] Huckabee told a Michigan audience on Monday. "But I believe it's a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living god. And that's what we need to do -- to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards so it lines up with some contemporary view."

[A tip of the hat David Edwards and Muriel Kane at The Raw Story and Robert Farley at Lawyers, Guns and Money.]

Blues Break: John Lee Hooker & Carlos Santana - "The Healer"

John Lee Hooker and Carlos Santana perform "The Healer" (date and place unknown).

Edmond Hillary (1919-2008)

Sir Edmond Hillary, a member of the first party to climb Mt. Everest (also known as Sagarmatha or Chomolungma), died today in New Zealand at the age of 88. He and his Sherpa partner and friend, Tenzing Norgay (1914-86), never revealed who was the first to actually set foot on the summit—an issue that Hillary considered "irrelevant." After summiting in 1953, Hillary went on to climb more Himalayan peaks until he began to show susceptibility to high-altitude pulmonary edema, a condition that can be fatal. He was the first person to stand on the highest mountain on the planet and both the north and south poles .

Hillary devoted much of his life to the work of the Himalayan Trust, which built schools, health centers and hospitals for the impoverished Sherpa of Nepal. The Trust has also initiated major reforestation projects. Hillary was knighted in 1953 and later became an honorary citizen of Nepal, the first foreigner to receive that distinction.

Hillary was an old-school alpinist who had little tolerance for the industrial-scale, summit-obsessed style of Himalayan climbing that is so pervasive today. He was the first to publicly acknowledge the absolutely essential role of the Sherpas, from porters to elite summiteers like Tenzing Norgay, in every phase of Himalayan mountaineering.

PHOTO: Mt. Everest (29,035 ft. /8,850 m.), showing the South Col route followed by Hillary and Norgay on the right skyline (Wikipedia Commons).

Nearing the top

With annoying frequency, the U.S. appears at the bottom of various lists of developed nations that are compared on the basis of health care, education and other indicia of their quality of life. But it's not always good news when the U.S. comes in at, or close to, the top.

A case in point is a study of 47 countries, including the world's "leading surveillance societies," by Privacy International.* Based on a thirteen criteria, the U.S. was listed among eight "endemic" surveillance societies that include China, Russia, Malaysia, Singapore, Lithuania and—near the very top—the U.K. The U.S. and Brits are the only western democracies that received the highest rankings.

The 39 surveyed countries with better privacy protections than the U.S. include Canada, Germany, Argentina, Italy, Romania and Estonia all other countries in the EU except the U.K. and Lithuania.

The authors note:

• "In terms of statutory protections and privacy enforcement, the US is the worst ranking country in the democratic world. In terms of overall privacy protection the United States has performed very poorly, being out-ranked by both India and the Philippines and falling into the "black" category, denoting endemic surveillance.
• "The worst ranking EU country is the United Kingdom, which again fell into the "black" category along with Russia and Singapore" [though Scotland, ranked separately, did much better].
  

The U.S. was listed among the countries with the "worst records" in 7 out of 13 categories, including:

• Statutory protection
• Privacy enforcement
• Identity cards and biometrics
• Communications interception
• Workplace monitoring
• Surveillance of Medical, Financial and Movement
  
• Border and transborder issues
  
• Leadership

In its review of U.S. privacy laws and practices, Privacy International noted the following:

• "No right to privacy in constitution, though search and seizure protections exist in 4th Amendment; case law on government searches has considered new technology
• "No comprehensive privacy law, many sectoral laws; though tort of privacy
• "FTC continues to give inadequate attention to privacy issues, though issued self-regulating privacy guidelines on advertising in 2007
• "State-level data breach legislation has proven to be useful in identifying faults in security
• "REAL-ID and biometric identification programs continue to spread without adequate oversight, research, and funding structures
• "Extensive data-sharing programs across federal government and with private sector
• "Spreading use of CCTV
• "Congress approved presidential program of spying on foreign communications over U.S. networks, e.g. Gmail, Hotmail, etc.; and now considering immunity for telephone companies, while government claims secrecy, thus barring any legal action
• "No data retention law as yet, but equally no data protection law
• "World leading in border surveillance, mandating trans-border data flows
• "Weak protections of financial and medical privacy; plans spread for 'rings of steel' around cities to monitor movements of individuals
• "Democratic safeguards tend to be strong but new Congress and political dynamics show that immigration and terrorism continue to leave politicians scared and without principle
• "Lack of action on data breach legislation on the federal level while REAL-ID is still compelled upon states has shown that states can make informed decisions
• "Recent news regarding FBI biometric database raises particular concerns as this could lead to the largest database of biometrics around the world that is not protected by strong privacy law."

What is Congress doing to protect its constituents from these predations, which seem to be expanding without restraints? Nothing. In fact, the U.S. has slipped since last year. As noted in the report, "immigration and terrorism continue to leave politicians scared and without principle." And, in an election year, the situation can only get worse. In the absence of any sustained public protests over the loss of personal privacy, the political classes will reflexively favor a growing security regime—even though it's hardly clear that unrestrained government surveillance is actually effective in deterring crime, illegal immigration or terrorism.

NOTES

*This annual survey has been conducted since 1997 by Electronic Privacy Information Center and the UK-based Privacy International. [A tip of the hat to Bean at Lawyers, Guns and Money for the link.]

PHOTO: Wikimedia Commons

Codifying English

"We have room for but one language in this country, and that is the English language, for we intend to see that the crucible turns our people out as Americans, of American nationality, and not as dwellers in a polyglot boarding house."
—Theodore Roosevelt (1906)

Since the first non-English-speaking immigrants arrived in the British colonies of North America, nativist anglophones have fretted about the imminent loss of their language and , by implication, their culture. In its most extreme forms, the English-only movement has supported the complete elimination of Native American languages and, during World War I, the removal of all books in German from public libraries [1] .

Now, capitalizing on the current hysteria over immigration, some thirty states [left] have adopted English as their "official" language. Bills in congress threaten to do the same for the federal government.

Proponents argue that the current wave of immigrants (read: Hispanics), unlike their predecessors from Europe, are unwilling or unable to learn English—a notoriously difficult language to acquire by any standard. Government support of bilingualism, they claim, will only perpetuate the linguistic isolation and economic marginalization of the growing Spanish-speaking minority. The English-only movement raises the dire prospect that unassimilated immigrants will even become a separatist force that will seek reunification with Mexico, undoing the results of the Mexican War and the Gadsden Purchase.

The only response for the nativists is a kind of tough love: Spanish-speaking children will be forced to undergo total immersion in English—all for their own benefit, of course.

As it turns out, the Hispanophobes needn't be so alarmed. A study by the Pew Hispanic Center, released on November 29th, found that:

Nearly all Hispanic adults born in the United States of immigrant parents report they are fluent in English. By contrast, only a small minority of their parents describe themselves as skilled English speakers. This finding of a dramatic increase in English-language ability from one generation of Hispanics to the next emerges from a new analysis of six Pew Hispanic Center surveys conducted this decade among a total of more than 14,000 Latino adults. The surveys show that fewer than one-in-four (23%) Latino immigrants reports being able to speak English very well. However, fully 88% of their U.S.-born adult children report that they speak English very well. Among later generations of Hispanic adults, the figure rises to 94%. Reading ability in English shows a similar trend.

The study also showed:

Latinos believe that English is necessary for success in the United States... Asked whether adult Latinos “need to learn English to succeed in the United States, or can they succeed even if they only speak Spanish,” 89% of Hispanics in the 2002 survey said that they need to learn English. Slightly more Spanish-dominant Hispanics (92%) voiced this belief.

The other side of the coin is that many Latinos believe that inability to speak English well is the leading cause of discrimination against Hispanics. And discrimination is seen as a major problem in keeping Hispanics from succeeding in America: It was cited by 44% of Latinos in the 2002 survey, 58% in the 2006 survey and 54% in the 2007 survey.

Spanish-speaking immigrants have a thorough understanding of the realities that motivated earlier waves of immigrants to acquire proficiency in English as quickly as possible:

How do the patterns we found resemble or differ from those experienced by the last great influx of immigrants a century ago? The broad trajectory appears to be similar. Researchers generally agree that immigrants who arrived a century ago largely spoke their native language, especially at home. Their U.S.-born children used English and their parents’ native tongue. The children of U.S.-born parents—i.e., the grandchildren or later descendants of immigrants—spoke mainly or only English.

[...]

From the first generation to those that follow, we see a nearly complete transition from Spanish to English dominance.

Members of the second and third generations retain the ability to speak some Spanish at home:

Slightly more than half of the second generation (56%) say they speak Spanish very well, as do 29% of the later generations. But Spanish retains a foothold in the third generation and beyond, with 52% reporting they speak it at least pretty well.

But English prevails:

Spanish is the language that most foreign-born Hispanic adults (52%) speak exclusively at home. That proportion drops to 11% among second-generation adults and 6% among those in the third and higher generations.

So if only 6% of third-generation adults speak Spanish at home, where's the great threat that makes it so important to declare English the official language of the U.S.? No doubt the perceived danger has more to do with the skin color, socioeconomic status and demographics of Spanish-speaking immigrants than a desire to maintain the hegemony of the dominant language.

NOTES

The map [inset] shows the states in which English has been designated the "official" language. Three states have two official languages: French and Spanish, respectively, in Louisiana and New Mexico; Hawaiian and English in Hawai'i. [Wikipedia Commons]

[1] When I started public school in Maine, "subprimary" still substituted for the German "kindergarten" ("child's garden") many decades after the end of that war.

Blues Break: Mississippi Fred McDowell, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee

Fred McDowell performs at the Newport Folk Festival (around 1965), followed by Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee. (It's too bad that both songs are cut short, but we can still be grateful to have this footage available online.)

Islamofascism: construct and reality

As part of a symposium in Slate involving various discredited "liberal hawks" on the Iraq war, including Christopher Hitchens and Tom Friedman, Paul Berman writes:

It's all too true that better leaders could have made better plans, and the French and the Germans and the United Nations could help even now, if only they would. But it ought not to be so hard to see that, even so, the prospects of the totalitarian movement are looking a lot less healthy today than they did on Sept. 10, 2001 and the prospects of Muslim liberalism are looking up, somewhat.

Huh? Unless the perilous return of Benazir Bhutto to Pakistan is evidence of better "prospects" for Muslim liberalism, I must be missing something. The "totalitarian movement" in question, of course, is "Islamofascism," a meaningless term that Bush, Cheney and unrepentant neocons toss about recklessly in the hope that it will eventually gain some intellectual traction.

Writing in the neoconservative Weekly Standard, Stephen Schwartz—supposedly the "first Westerner" to use the term—attempts to define "Islamofascism" as the "use of the faith of Islam as a cover for totalitarian ideology. This radical phenomenon is embodied among Sunni Muslims today by such fundamentalists as the Saudi-financed Wahhabis, the Pakistani jihadists known as Jama'atis, and the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. In the ranks of Shia Muslims, it is exemplified by Hezbollah in Lebanon and the clique around President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran."

In lumping these groups together under the rubric of "Islamofascism," Schwartz seems to have overlooked the reality on the ground in Iraq, to mention just one example, where the schism between Sunnis and Shi'ites seems to have practical significance. Or the vast differences between the Sunni Wahhabis of Saudi Arabia and the Shi'ite mullahs who dominate the current regime in Tehran. If there's an unifying militant ideology that unites these conflicting groups, he's unable to describe it in a coherent way.

Schwartz goes on to state that fascism is "distinguished from the broader category of extreme right-wing politics by its willingness to defy public civility and openly violate the law." By that standard, both Gandhi and Martin Luther King were "fascists."

Terror, Schwartz writes, is one of major "fascist methods" that define the "Islamofascist" movement. Terrorism, though, is a tactic and not an ideology—a fundamental distinction that seems beyond Dubya's grasp. In fact, the systematic application of terrorist methods has been a political tactic for centuries across a vast ideological spectrum, from the Zealots of ancient Palestine to the radical Jacobins of the French Revolution to the 19th-century Russian anarchists and well beyond into the current century. Not to mention state terrorism, which has undoubtedly killed more people than all other forms combined.

The U.S. Department of Justice, back in 1975, offered a workable definition of terrorism that is independent of any specific ideology: "Violent criminal behavior designed primarily to generate fear in the community, or substantial segment of it, for political purposes." Terrorists are motivated by some form of ideology that provides a moral cover, however suspect, for their conduct. It's misleading to focus on the conduct without looking at the specific convictions that animate it.

But back to Berman's argument in Slate. His reference to the condition of the alleged "totalitarian movement" reveals how much he still shares the assumptions of the Bush war planners: they can only understand conflict in terms of a reductionist Cold War paradigm. So this fantasy-based community posits an all-powerful "totalitarian movement" on the communist model, with Al Qaida manipulating every nationalist and Muslim insurgency from Iraq to Afghanistan to the Philippines. Increasingly, in Iraq and elsewhere, Al Qaida and "Islamofascism" have become synonyms. In the same way, Cold Warriors imagined that every nationalist insurgency, from Vietnam to Guatemala, was precisely orchestrated in the back offices of the Kremlin. The reality was, and is, far more complex.

By this familiar process, Bush and the neocons attempt to transform disparate national and religious ideologies into a monolithic "Islamofascism" and launch a global war on it. Ironically, there's a self-fulfilling quality to all this: their "global war" on this alleged "totalitarian movement" may yet bring into being a unified Muslim counterforce that didn't previously exist.

MAP: Islam by country, showing percentages of Sunnis (green) and Shi'ites (red). Click to enlarge. (Wikimedia Commons)

Norman Mailer (1923-2007)

Norman Mailer was a gifted novelist and journalist (The Armies of the Night, Miami and the Siege of Chicago, The Executioner's Song), but his political views were an infuriating stew of progressive eloquence and macho, antifeminist mush. The man was not lacking in grandiose aspirations or audacity, once stating (apparently without irony) that his goal as a novelist was to "transform the moral consciousness of our times." [1]

Mailer's ambitions for a career in New York politics were likely doomed even before he stabbed Adele Morales, his second wife, at a party in 1960. But his alcohol-fueled campaign for mayor of New York in 1969 was notable in two respects.

• Mailer remains, to this day, the only U.S. politician who (as he boasted at the time) could tender affidavits from one or more psychiatrists to verify his sanity. [1] If voters had imposed such a requirement in the national elections of 2000, the history of the last seven years might've been radically different.

• Mailer and fellow journalist Jimmy Breslin, who ran on the same platform for city council president, adopted "No More Bullshit" as their slogan, a theme that has since been claimed repeatedly (though more politely) by mainstream politicians from Jimmy Carter to Barack Obama.
  

For anyone who aspires to write, Mailer's insights on technique and the writing process are invaluable. His passing comes just seven months after the death of Kurt Vonnegut, whom he deeply respected.

NOTES

[1] Though I can't find the precise source of this statement, I remember it distinctly.

[2] Again, it's difficult to verify this incident, but it seems to me that Mailer offered affidavits from three psychiatrists.

PHOTO: Norman Mailer in 1948, the year that his first novel (The Naked and the Dead) was published. (Wikimedia Commons)

Blues Break: Robert "Wolfman" Belfour

Robert "Wolfman" Belfour performs at Del's General Store in Clarksdale, Mississippi, during the 2007 Juke Joint Festival. The vocals are difficult to follow in this recording, but the power of Wolfman's amplified blues guitar comes through clearly enough. After 35 years as a construction worker, this 67-year-old bluesman may finally be getting a well-deserved audience.

A week in Manhattan

A few impressions

During a trip back east in June, I managed to spend a few days in New York City (where I lived many years ago). It was frustrating not to have more time, but at least I was able to see some friends and spend a full day at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA). My latest visit of a full week, from which I just returned, was much more satisfying. A few impressions:

European, Japanese and Indian tourists were even more numerous than they were last summer, thanks to the weakened dollar. In midtown and the museums especially, English seemed like a minority language. It's just a matter of time before Chinese tourists become more common in the U.S. New York is a "world city" more than ever.

Traffic remains awful in midtown, where the only rule is: if you can get away with it, it must be legal. Cross traffic doesn't hesitate to block major intersections, causing hopeless (and mindless) gridlock. Drastic action seems necessary—and not just "congestion pricing" below 59th Street or 110th Street or whatever, since its effect would be to impose a regressive form of taxation. New York should follow Portland's example and establish fareless transit zones where private vehicles are banned entirely during the business day. (I rode the M10 bus from 59th Street to Battery Park, a trip of less than five miles that took over an hour.)

As in the rest of the country, public infrastructure continues to deteriorate despite the almost-inconceivable wealth generated in New York (whose private reserves of gold bullion vastly exceed the amount stored at Fort Knox). The subway stations are decrepit, though relatively free of debris and graffiti, and many need basic repairs (leaky ceilings are common). Many of the streets are potholed to the extent that axles are in jeopardy. The two exceptions are Central Park, which is superbly maintained and heavily used even on a rainy day, and the Staten Island Ferry, which has been upgraded and is now free.

After the second warmest October on record, the trees in the parks were shockingly (and somewhat disappointingly) green.

My old neighborhood on West 83rd (at Columbus) seemed eerily the same, decades after I moved away. The areas closest to Central and Riverside parks were gentrified long ago, but it was refreshing to see that the old block retains much of its former ethnic and economic diversity.

New York remains a paradox: the quintessential American city that bears little resemblance to any other urban area in the country. Compared to places like Portland and Seattle, Manhattan seems to be a third-world city in two respects: its ethnic diversity and extreme disparities in wealth. While there's a substantial African American middle class, most of the low-wage and menial work in Manhattan is still performed by black and Hispanic workers. I saw little evidence of racial or ethnic hostility, though it certainly exists near the surface, but the class and socioeconomic distinctions are clear and disturbing.

As just one small illustration of this reality, hardly any white people were visible on the packed subway to Jamaica, Queens, as I rode back to JFK for my flight home (see below). At least 95% of the commuters were black or Hispanic. Once in Jamaica, I transferred to the AirTrain, and suddenly the equation was reversed: 95% of the passengers were white. Though black and Hispanic travelers are hardly rare in airports, I was again reminded that there's a vast underclass, both white and nonwhite, that is nearly invisible in the debased political conversation in this country.

Wandering the museums

Returning to Oregon after strolling through the major museums of New York City, a few images emerged from the hundreds of paintings we saw: Vermeer's haunting Study of a Young Woman (c. 1665-67) at the Met's exhibition entitled "The Age of Rembrandt;" Rembrandt's self-portrait from 1660, which oozes so much self-confidence that it could've been painted with pure testosterone; MOMA's stunning new exhibition of luminous drawings by Georges Seurat, and its familiar galleries of important works by Cézanne, Van Gogh and Pollock.

But there were also disappointments [1]. Minor works by great artists can be worth a look, but a depressing number of the pieces in these museums are either mediocre or downright bad. They shouldn't be taking up valuable gallery space, so move them to the basement where they can be examined by future generations of art historians and specialists. Picasso and Matisse, for example, are overrepresented at MOMA. Many of Picasso's early works are splendid, and his long career displays endless versatility, but some of his paintings would've barely paid for his lunch in a Paris café. And, after Guernica, he seemingly became what he so often condemned: a connoisseur of his own works.

But the biggest disappointment was in what was absent from these collections. Between them, the Met, MOMA and the Guggenheim display just five paintings by Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud, the great postwar British figurative artists. And not a single work by their fellow Brit (born in Austria) Frank Auerbach. The limited selection of five works is impressive enough, but the curators would be well-advised to take down some of the Picassos and Matisses to make room for these worthy painters.

Equally disturbing is the underrepresentation of the post-World War I German and Austrian expressionists, including Emil Nolde, Franz Marc, Otto Dix, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Max Beckmann, Auguste Macke, Paula Modersohn-Becker, Käthe Kollwitz, Max Pechstein and—above all—the great Egon Schiele. Sadly, many of their works are apparently gathering dust in the basements of the great New York museums.

The Neue Gallerie, located on 5th Avenue between the Met and Guggenheim, is the one New York collection that specializes in the postwar Austro-German expressionists. Yet every square inch of wall space is currently devoted to a special exhibition of Gustav Klimt's works. Compared to the edgy and challenging work of Schiele, who died of the Spanish flu in 1918 at the age of 28, Klimt's works seem decorative and sentimental. It's understandable why the Neue Gallerie would focus on Klimt, since owner Ronald Lauder spent $135 million last year to purchase his Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I—the highest price ever paid for a painting until then (since surpassed by two paintings by Pollock and de Kooning). Still, I regretted spending $15 to gain admission to galleries full of paintings by an artist whose continuing popularity remains puzzling to me. I kept looking for the door to the basement, which houses some real treasures.

A tip to travelers

My friend and I shared the $50 (without tip) cost of a "limo" (actually an SUV) ride from JFK to midtown Manhattan. Taxis, without tip, cost $5 less but you may have to wait in line to get one. Returning by myself to JFK, I didn't want to spend that kind of money. So I took the E train from midtown to the Jamaica stop, where I paid $5 more for the AirTrain to JFK. The subway ride is long, even though the E train is an express, and crowded at rush hour. But it's very cheap (especially if you buy a 7-day Metrocard when you arrive), and the AirTrain quickly transports you (on elevated tracks) to all the terminals at JFK. So the cost was about one-tenth of what I would've paid for a limo/taxi, and I didn't have to sit in heavy traffic and breathe exhaust for an hour. I did have to wheel my luggage a few blocks from my hotel to the subway, but that proved to be quite bearable.

NOTES

[1] Bias alert: as an amateur painter and drawer, I have a preference for portraiture and other figurative works. This certainly does not mean that I disrespect abstraction, landscapes or any other kind of visual art. It's simply a preference.

PHOTOS: Central Park near 59th Street (taken with a Sony digital camera).

Blues Break: Allen Ginsberg - "Father Death Blues"

From an interview with Ginsberg on the BBC's Face to Face (date unknown, but probably not long before his death in 1997) . The poem, which is Part IV of "Never Grow Old," appears in Plutonian Ode: Poems 1977-1980. Here's the full text:

"Father Death Blues"

Hey Father Death, I'm flying home
Hey poor man, you're all alone
Hey old daddy, I know where I'm going

Father Death, Don't cry any more
Mama's there, underneath the floor
Brother Death, please mind the store

Old Aunty Death  Don't hide your bones
Old Uncle Death  I hear your groans
O Sister Death  how sweet your moans

O Children Deaths go breathe your breaths
Sobbing breasts'll ease your Deaths
Pain is gone, tears take the rest

Genius Death  your art is done
Lover Death  your body's gone
Father Death  I'm coming home

Guru Death your words are true
Teacher Death I do thank you
For inspiring me to sing this Blues

Buddha Death, I wake with you
Dharma Death, your mind is new
Sangha Death, we'll work it through

Suffering is what was born
Ignorance made me forlorn
Tearful truths I cannot scorn

Father Breath once more farewell
Birth you gave was no thing ill
My heart is still, as time will tell.

(Over Lake Michigan)

In loving memory of Elliott Smith
Friend - Songwriter - Musician
(August 6, 1969 - October 21, 2003)

Graduating from the Electoral College

Republican efforts to "reform" how California casts its votes in the Electoral College have quietly, and deservedly, collapsed—for now. A group called "Californians for Equal Representation" (CFE), led by a Republican lawyer and supported by Governor Arnold Schwartzenegger, failed to collect the 434,00 signatures they needed to place it on the ballot. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the Presidential Election Reform Act

...would have changed the state's winner-take-all means of awarding Electoral College votes to a proportional system that would have awarded 53 of the state's 55 electoral votes - one by one - to the popular vote winner of each of the state's 53 congressional districts. The other two electoral votes would have gone to the statewide popular vote winner.

The Electoral College may be an antiquated and antidemocratic institution, and its abolition is long overdue, but the CFE's campaign was a brazen attempt to weaken Democrats' hold on the largest bloc of electoral votes in the country. If passed, it might've given Republicans 20 electoral votes (about equal to Ohio or Pennsylvania) that otherwise would've gone to Democrats.

Not surprisingly, the "Equal Representation" effort focused only on California, ignoring the electoral votes of Texas—with its 34 Republican votes—and all other states.

The need for serious reform seems clear enough. For example, a Wyoming voter has about four times the clout in the Electoral College as voters in the largest states. As our smallest state in population, Wyoming has one vote for every 171,668 residents, compared to one vote per 662,865 Californians or 691,405 Texans. (My own state, Oregon, casts one vote per 528,680 residents—giving each of us just 1/3 the impact of a Wyoming voter.)

Despite these disparities, outright abolition of the Electoral College, through a constitutional amendment, simply ain't gonna happen. The legislatures of the fourteen smallest states could easily block, forever, an amendment that would end a system that gives them a disproportionate influence on presidential elections.

An intriguing alternative, of uncertain constitutionality, has been advanced by two law professors (and brothers), Akhil Reed Amar and Vikram Amar. Under the Amar Plan for an interstate agreement, participating states would cast all their electoral votes for the candidate who won the national popular vote. This National Popular Vote Interstate Compact would go into effect when enough states had accepted it to determine the result of the election. Once the members of the compact could command 270 votes, in other words, they could swing the election to the winner of the national popular vote no matter how the other states cast their electoral votes.

National Popular Vote has begun a campaign that is sure to encounter resistance from smaller states and those who fear the domination of national politics by the eleven largest states, who between them could control the 270 votes needed to elect a president.

How would courts rule on the constitutionality of the Compact, if it is ever adopted? States can determine their own methodologies for casting electoral votes, and there's no constitutional provision that specifically conflicts with the Compact. In fact, the Constitution provides that "Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors..." [1]

Republicans will oppose the Compact, for obvious reasons. If it had been in place in 2000, Al Gore's narrow victory (by half a million votes) in the popular would've changed the result. Instead, he lost in the Supreme Court by one vote—and by 271 votes to 266 in the Electoral College.

NOTES

[1] Two states, Maine and Nebraska, already allow for split votes in the Electoral College.

GRAPHIC: 2000 election results in the Electoral College, with each square representing one vote (click for larger version).

Keeping the faith

Back to a topic from couple weeks ago...

During the White House Press Correspondents' dinner in 2006, Stephen Colbert famously described George Bush, who was seated nearby, as follows:

"The greatest thing about this man is that he's steady. You know where he stands. He believes the same thing Wednesday that he believed on Monday, no matter what happened Tuesday. Events can change; this man's beliefs never will."

This concise description of Bush's dogmatism conveys something basic (and disturbing) about him. Nothing has changed, at least outwardly, in the last year. George Bush seems more convinced than ever that he will be vindicated by history, or at least that no one will be able to form conclusive judgments about his administration during his lifetime.

But if history finally condemns him, as seems inevitable, Bush has staked out an unchallengeable backup position: god speaks through him, so he is forever immune from the judgments of mere mortals [also here].

Bush's rigid faith in his United Methodist god places him beyond doubt and critical reflection on his own limitations, which are painfully obvious by now to most of the world's population. In a 2004 article for the New York Times Magazine that included an interview with a prominent old-school Republican, Ron Suskind described Bush in term that are just as telling today as they were three years ago:

''Just in the past few months,'' Bartlett said, ''I think a light has gone off for people who've spent time up close to Bush: that this instinct he's always talking about is this sort of weird, Messianic idea of what he thinks God has told him to do.'' Bartlett, a 53-year-old columnist and self-described libertarian Republican who has lately been a champion for traditional Republicans concerned about Bush's governance, went on to say: ''This is why George W. Bush is so clear-eyed about Al Qaeda and the Islamic fundamentalist enemy. He believes you have to kill them all. They can't be persuaded, that they're extremists, driven by a dark vision. He understands them, because he's just like them. . . . ''

This is why he dispenses with people who confront him with inconvenient facts,'' Bartlett went on to say. ''He truly believes he's on a mission from God. Absolute faith like that overwhelms a need for analysis. The whole thing about faith is to believe things for which there is no empirical evidence.'' Bartlett paused, then said, ''But you can't run the world on faith.''

For Bush, faith and dogmatism provide a convenient rationale for avoiding accountability for the horrific errors of judgment that have caused massive suffering and taken countless lives. As the philosopher David Hume wrote (in a 1751 letter to a friend):

The worst speculative Sceptic ever I knew, was a much better Man than the best superstitious Devotee & Bigot.

Or, as Mark Twain wrote in Following the Equator ("Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar"):

There are those who scoff at the school boy, calling him frivolous and shallow. Yet it was the school boy who said, "Faith is believing what you know ain't so."

Is Bush truly immune from doubt? Perhaps he is beyond conscious doubt, but he is in such constant conflict with the "reality-based community" that he must, on some level, have at least a vague sense of uncertainty. [1] But he has learned to overcompensate for it with arrogance and a tendency to demean those around him. As Pudd'nhead Wilson wisely observed:

When people do not respect us we are sharply offended; yet deep down in his private heart no man much respects himself.

NOTES

[1] As the end of Bush's term nears (though to many it seems impossibly distant), the attempts to psychoanalyze Bush seem to be multiplying. For example, one commentator argues in WaPo:

But to me, it sounds like Bush is looking not for answers -- but for rationalizations for his behavior. There is no sign of genuine introspection, no sign of acknowledgment of mistakes, no sign of any significant change of course. In a pattern familiar to anyone who has ever had a drinking problem, Bush appears to be engaged in a furious effort to persuade onlookers that he's fine -- even if he isn't.

In fact, one could even argue that Bush's search for "answers" from a parade of easily cowed visitors allows him to avoid a hard look at the one place he is most likely to find an explanation for his predicament: Within himself.

GRAPHIC: Portrait of Mark Twain (1890) by James Carroll Beckwith (1852-1917). (Wikimedia)

The new dynastic politics

Following allegations of fraud during the last two national elections, deeper questions have been raised about whether the U.S. can still pretend to be a functioning "democracy." Some conservatives have long insisted that the U.S. is a "republic, not a democracy." Now there are reasons to question whether the U.S. can even claim to be a "republic."

If Hillary Clinton is elected president next year and serves two full terms, someone named Clinton or Bush will have held national office (as POTUS or VPOTUS) for 37 consecutive years. Conveniently enough, Chelsea Clinton will turn 35 and become eligible in 2015, two years before her mother would leave office.

This isn't unprecedented in U.S. history. Twice before, two members of the same family have assumed the presidency: John Adams (father) and John Quincy Adams (son), Teddy Roosevelt and (fifth cousin) Franklin Roosevelt.

Politics in the U.S. has been dominated by a de facto landed and propertied aristocracy that has been in place since its founding, though membership in that group has tended to be fluid and not necessarily fixed by ancestry. But the two competing dynasties of the last fifteen years are caught in an electoral dynamic that's unique in U.S. history.

After eight years of contrived "scandals" involving Bill Clinton, Dubya became the nostalgic choice of a significant percentage of voters who yearned for qualities that his father, at least in their fantasies, represented: the integrity, stability and moral righteousness of the Reagan/Bush years. Dubya's appeal was undoubtedly enhanced by his fraudulent claim that he was a "compassionate conservative," implying that he would supply a needed corrective to the harsh economic and social policies of the 80's.

After the devastating rejection of the elder Bush in the 1992 election, it's hard to imagine that anyone would be "nostalgic" enough to vote for a proven mediocrity from the same family—the first president in U.S. history who has ever been convicted of a crime. Dubya's appeal based on his ancestry was more subliminal than overt, but it may have had an effect by keeping him close enough in the vote count that he could steal the election in Florida.

After six and a half disastrous years, are we now witnessing the opposite dynamic—a kind of "Clinton nostalgia" that could help to propel Hillary into the White House? After all, she seems to offer the best of the Clinton legacy without the personal, ah, foibles that Bill brought to the office.

To many voters, at least by contrast with the Bush debacle, the Clinton era was a time of peace, prosperity, optimism and stability. The U.S. had emerged from the Cold War triumphant, at least in the popular imagination, and unchallenged. For all his obvious personal failings, Clinton was perceived as brilliant, competent and in control of his administration. As an added bonus, he speaks in complete and coherent sentences, a quality that radically distinguishes him from both his predecessor and successor. Hillary may be a less compelling speaker and presence, but she shares most of Bill's strengths and few of his vulnerabilities. A few political weaknesses are unique to her, primarily the high negatives that come from years of vicious personal attacks by the "vast right-wing conspiracy" that she has accurately described.

So are voters, after a catastrophic attempt to return to the perceived golden years of the Reagan/Bush administration, yearning to somehow replicate the 90's? Clearly we could, and did, do a lot worse.

The Bush brand has become so devalued, of course, that no one with that name is ever likely to get elected again. If daughter Jenna Bush thinks she can promote a political career by simply rebranding herself with her new husband's last name, I suspect she's sadly mistaken. And she, like her sister, also shares her father's reputation as a party animal.

If Seymour Hirsh is correct about the Bush/Cheney plan to launch a limited war against Iran, Republicans could be faced with an electoral fiasco in 2008 that could rival 1964. The end of the Bush dynasty could be the beginning of another.

NOTES:

George Bush has as strong a claim to membership in the hereditary U.S. elite as any president. The Bush family has been described as "the most successful political dynasty in American history" [a claim which, if true, suggests that dynasties haven't served us very well]. In fact, Dubya is a distant relative of Queen Elizabeth II. By contrast, Bill Clinton's background seems downright lumpen. Hillary's father worked as a coal miner in Pennsylvania before he moved to Illinois and began a successful career in the textile supply industry. The Clintons' claims to membership in the national aristocracy are founded on their educations (Yale and Wellesley) and political success rather than an accident of birth.

Now isn't the time to attempt an analysis of whether the U.S. can best be described as a democracy, republic, oligarchy, plutocracy or kleptocracy.

PHOTO: Samuel Prescott Bush, patriarch of the family and great-grandfather of George W. Bush. (Wikimedia)

Blues Break: Dirty Mac - "Yer Blues"

John Lennon is joined by Keith Richards (bass), Eric Clapton (lead guitar) and Mitch Mitchell (drums) in a 1968 (or maybe 1969) performance of this song from the White Album. (YouTube has a 4-screen version online.)