Americans, refuse to be terrorized

 

After the attacks in Boston this week, which took the lives of four people, including an 8-year-old boy, and inflicted injuries like those seen in war on dozens of others, the President this morning praised Americans’ supposed refusal “to be terrorized.” I think that sentence is missing an important comma, which would make it into the imperative it deserves to be.

Many Americans, since 9/11, have hardly refused to be terrorized. In fact, some of us practically make a living out of cowering in fear. The usual suspects, like professional pants-wetter Lindsey Graham and professional Lady Macbeth Liz Cheney, are calling for us to go ahead and shred the constitution. Enemy combatant! No rights! Military tribunal! Fortunately, they are not being heeded, this time (well, except for that whole Miranda warning thing). Because Muslim terrorists are supermonsters, don’t you know, who must be whisked away from our tried and true system of laws, disappeared into a dark hole that exists totally outside the constitutional framework of justice.

And there will be others who want more cameras, less privacy (if that’s even possible), more police powers, more NSA data mining of everything everyone says, does or thinks, less immigration, more brutal border controls (again, if that’s even possible). The unprecedented “lockdown” of a major American city won’t be enough to satisfy their authoritarian thirst, whether they thirst, like Cheney, to be the boot of oppression, or like Graham, Hannity, O’Reilly, and so many more, to be the followers, toadies and lickspittles of a police state. The calls for overreaction will be coming soon, and the shock doctrine dictates that further eviscerations of our freedoms will be slipped quietly into every piece of legislation available. (CISPA, anyone?)

Meanwhile, the fertilizer plant explosion in Texas, which killed at least fourteen people, and was the result (most likely) of poor safety measures in a plant that had not been inspected since 1985, will result in nothing. OSHA’s pathetically small budget for inspections will not be increased, and the crumbling of America can continue apace.

But if we were to actually refuse to be terrorized, and actually valued our freedoms, the exact opposite scenario would ensue. Law enforcement would be praised for its good work on the Boston case, the notion of locking down a whole city would be appropriately questioned and evaluated, and no one would contemplate giving the government more spying powers over us, the people. And because freedom means the freedom to go to work without worrying that your employer’s cost-cutting will cost you your life, inspections and enforcement of safety rules for dangerous industries would be fully and swiftly funded.

We don’t operate that way, though. America is no longer a country that does things for itself. We are a country that does things to itself. Undermining the basic foundations of both the physical infrastructure of our daily lives though neglect, and through deliberate harm like the sequester, and the legal, constitutional basis for liberty and democracy itself through creeping fascism are the new American way. That is, unless we really refuse to be terrorized and really start valuing freedom.

A very slippery slope

So cops want to force phone companies to store text messages in case they want to riffle through them later? They say that “evidence might be lost,” so we have to keep everybody’s text messages forever. What is the difference between this and recording everyone’s telephone conversations and keeping them in case they are needed as “evidence” later? The difference is technical only–the principal is identical. Private communications are private, and the government should be required to get a warrant before they can access them or even begin collecting them, no matter the medium. “Evidence” can be lost during phone calls and face-to-face conversations as well. But the police always want to make their jobs easier. Is there somewhere someone can have a private, unrecorded conversation? We gotta get in there! Record it all, we’ll sort it out later! And don’t worry, we won’t abuse that power at all!

There are more and more ways that we can communicate now than ever before, and the ability to store those communications indefinitely comes along with almost all the newer ones. What happens when people are walking around with Google Glass or something similar, recording everything they see and do? Will we be living in a society where everything we do and say will be under the scrutiny of the police? The capacity for ubiquitous law enforcement is there. We have to make sure it never comes to pass. As sf author Vernor Vinge pointed out in a novel about a future of law enforcement everywhere and privacy nowhere, no functioning society can survive it.

Zero Down and Dirty

“Depiction is not endorsement.” That’s the way Kathryn Bigelow has tried to weasel away from criticisms that her latest movie shows a lot of torture. And it does show a lot–I saw it this evening, and the opening scene includes some waterboarding (done haphazardly and not clinically as was the case in places like Guantanamo). Later, there are beatings, hanging prisoners up by the wrists, and confinement in a small wooden box. There’s sleep deprivation, food deprivation, humiliation with forced nudity, sensory deprivation with hoods, and force feeding with a funnel. Nearly every sequence in the first hour of the film includes some torture, or references to previous torture which the detainee wants to avoid repeating.

Now I wouldn’t have a problem with this depiction if it were at all accurate in terms of the hunt for Bin Laden. But it isn’t. Torture didn’t get us the name of the courier who led the CIA directly to the Abbotabad compound. In the movie, it does. That kind of depiction does amount to endorsement. The filmmakers went out of their way to put it in there, juicing up the real story with some good ol’ fashion American Ass Kickin’, which now includes torture, apparently. The first hour of the movie made me feel like I was watching Jack Bauer cowboy it up in an episode of 24, the first post-9/11 pro-torture entertainment.

Zero Dark Thirty does get a lot better once we get past all that, showing how the courier was tracked down by bribery and phone taps and men in the street following him. (Though they did keep referring to “detainee reports,” and Mark Strong’s character laments the demise of the “detainee program” later on. The only slightly negative connotation given to torture was in an aside by a White House aide who mentions “extreme duress” as a knock against the reliability of the intelligence presented to him.) And the part of the film that deals with the finding of the compound and the night raid is excellent. It achieves a level of docu-realism that only serves to make the torture-fantasy of the beginning more disturbing.

I wanted to enjoy this movie, having enjoyed The Hurt Locker and Bigelow’s previous work (yes, even Point Break). But I am left wondering: why? Why muck up a good story with bullshit about the effectiveness–even the necessity–of torture? I understand that it did happen. KSM was waterboarded, other detainees were tortured in the ways described above, and many more. At least a couple were tortured to death in Afghanistan. But those tortured prisoners, some of whom were innocent, did not provide the information that led to Bin Laden. So why show that they did? I can think of no other reasons besides these: either the filmmakers honestly thought it would make the film better, truth be damned, or they were snowed by the CIA into making propaganda for them. I’d like to think it was the former, but I fear it was the latter.

There is a Senate investigation into “leaks” from the CIA that may have made their way into the movie. Let’s hope that screenwriter Mark Boal is put in front of that committee and asked that very question: why put torture in the movie if it really didn’t help get Bin Laden? The answer needs to be on the tee-vee, if only as a counterweight to the falsehoods presented in the movie. It would not be enough of a counterweight though, as far more people will see the movie and play the videogame (yes, there is one) than will watch or read about a Senate hearing. The propaganda has been catapulted.

Do something

Even if it’s wrong! they say.

But here are some wrong things that definitely should not be done in the wake of the Newtown Massacre:

1. Using “possibly the Secret Service” to track mentally ill people, as one Congressman suggested on TV the other day. How would this even work? It would involve egregious violations of medical privacy, and there aren’t nearly enough Secret Service agents out there to investigate, much less follow around, every mentally ill person in the country. Mental health professionals are already obligated by law to report any specific threats that patients make; threats of violence are not protected by confidentiality. And anyway, this is probably a non-starter, since, as David Sirota pointed out, raising right-wing hackles in the process, it would involve profiling of white people.

2. Adding a bunch of security theater to every elementary, middle and high school in the country. Kindergarteners don’t need to be conditioned that going through metal detectors into an armed fortress is normal. Schools are already enough like prisons as it is. I’m surprised no one has suggested razor wire and guard towers around every school yet.

3. Arming people in schools. Teachers, principals, janitors, first graders, etc., should not be armed. The most ridiculously stupid idea to be floated in response to this tragedy. Michael O’Hare has a great “modest proposal” post up about this.

On a related note, the whole “armed society is a polite society” bullshit that oozes up out of the fever swamps after every mass killing is misguided and reprehensible. The idea is that it increases freedom and security if everyone is armed. What kind of freedom is it, though, when you have to walk around worried that the smallest provocation–cutting someone off in traffic, bumping into someone accidentally, taking more than 12 items through the express checkout–could get you shot? The freedom to be constantly wary, on guard, worried that someone’s bad mood or anger management issues could end your life at any moment. That ain’t freedom. That’s anarchy. UPDATE: This is exactly what I’m talking about–a guy shot for arguing with another guy at Little Caesers.

And security? Was Nancy Lanza secure in her own home, full of weapons, even with her presumably paranoid “prepper” mindset? No. Unless you are actually walking around with a gun drawn and cocked, safety off, at all times, someone can get the drop on you easily. But not even soldiers in combat zones operate this way. It’s foolish and it would get people killed. The whole notion of more guns making everyone safer is asinine, juvenile fantasy, and it needs to be stamped out like a weed.

4. Suggesting that schoolchildren rush the shooter. What the fuck? Maybe McMegan could go around to schools and give workshops to kids on how to do this. “Now kids, there’s going to be some really loud BANGS, and a couple or three or four of you might get shot and killed, but just keep going! This is our best option until they let me supply you all with Saturday night specials.”

Nuts and guns

Nuts with guns are aided and abetted by gun nuts.

Those who buy into the whole NRA line, who deify and worship the gun, to whom the gun is God and God is the gun, are complicit in the regular slaughter of innocents. A lifetime membership in the NRA is a subsidy to mass death–a 9/11 of gun murders every three months.

And the answer is not “more guns,” especially not in the hands of panicked teachers, principals, and bystanders. Even trained cops can shoot the wrong people once the bullets start flying. Mass shooters are ready for this anyway: they’ve started wearing bulletproof vests. No, the answer is fewer guns. There is absolutely no need for anyone to have an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, and your right to own such an arsenal is far less important than everyone’s right to walk without fear into their school, workplace or public space. It is time to start taking guns away from dangerous people, away from shady gun dealers, and to make it much harder for people to get them in the first place. Ban assault weapons, large magazines, and bulk purchases; make ammunition much more expensive. Put a high tax on bullets and have the proceeds go to the victims of gun violence. Call it the “murdered children tax,” and make sure it is listed as such on every receipt for ammunition. Require a license to own any type of gun, and limit the number of guns any one person can own. None of these safety restrictions is incompatible with the 2nd amendment, though the current right-wing Supremos seem to disagree, overturning every gun law that comes before them.

There have always been crazy people, angry people and paranoid people. But there has not always been ubiquitous technology available to turn their deadly thoughts into reality. Any crazy guy can walk into a Wal-Mart and walk out with the god-like power to instantly kill anyone in his line of sight. That’s relatively new, and we see the consequences of living in a country waist deep in firearms. Guns kill people. That’s what they’re for. We don’t tolerate a free-for-all attitude about other deadly tools: explosives, missiles, nerve gas, weaponized anthrax, armed mini-drones that can be operated from your smartphone (ok, we don’t have those just yet, but give it a couple of years). Why should guns be different?

The culture can and must change, the way it has for tobacco, for civil rights, and so on. Guns are no more deeply ingrained in American culture than were slavery or treating women as second class citizens. The prevailing attitude of gun worship on the one hand and utter resignation to routine mass killings on the other can be thrown over. Shame the gun worshipers, don’t be afraid, don’t back down, and make them acknowledge the names of the dead. No more throwing up our hands at the paranoid fantasies of the gun nuts. Enough.

Update: what James Fallows said.

Further Update: If you want to debunk for yourself or others the gun nut fantasy of opposing tyranny with local irregular militias and such, read this piece by Michael Lind at Salon.

“Entitlement” “Reform”

Words that should always appear in quotes. “Entitlements” – that is, social insurance programs that we all pay into for our working lives – don’t need “reform” – that is, complete evisceration. Pete Peterson and his merry band of thieves want to destroy Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid. They always have, and they always will.

Splitsville

There’s a lot of hand-wringing on the op-ed pages now about the Republican party having a battle for its “soul.” (I’ll allow a moment for the laughter to subside.)

But as Kevin Drum says, there really isn’t much of a battle. The Tea Partiers have taken over; see every Senate race they lost, for example. The former establishment has been wandering in the wilderness for a couple of years now, under the illusion that they are still in control. That illusion was pretty much shattered by the primary campaign than transformed Mitt into a “severe” conservative, to the right of everyone on almost everything. And if he hadn’t pretended to transform back the other way at the first debate, the election would never have been close at all.

As entertaining as the self-immolation of the Republican party is to watch, it’s ultimately not good for the country. We need, as Rachel Maddow pointed out the other night, to have debates between (at least!) two real policy positions on every real problem facing us, and there is no shortage of problems. But when the debate is between one sensible position, which often as not originated with the Republicans, and one bugfuck crazy fantasyland position, based on hallucination and paranoia, that doesn’t leave much hope for good policy, especially when one side’s idea of “compromise” is “do everything we want or else.” Boehner has been pretty brazen with this since Tuesday, saying, hey Mr. President, adopt Mitt Romney’s tax plan and then maybe we can talk.

The only real solution is to have our two-party system become a three-party system, but not by the creation of some mythical DLC-Americans Elect-No Labels corporate golem. The Republicans need to break up. Let the confederates and the conspiracy theorists and the fundamentalists have one side, and the Rockefeller Republicans and non-racists the other. Then all the “centrist” Democrats would have somewhere to go, and the Democratic party could become something that we currently lack and sorely need: an actual party of the left.

I doubt Republicans will do this, though. They will probably opt to do what they’ve been doing, only more so, but perhaps with a return to the “stealth candidate” approach they used in the 1980s to take over local parties, school boards, and so on. They are already talking about “messaging” as the problem, not their crazy-ass policy positions. They need to “sell” better is all. In other words: lie harder, dammit!

Done deal

NBC just called Ohio for Obama. It’s over.

Thieves and crooks

Here’s the crux of all this voter suppression and intimidation and perhaps theft that is going down: the electorate was 87% white in 1992, and 74% white in 2008.

Medicare fraudster Rick Scott in Florida and John “I’m Prettier than Katherine Harris” Husted in Ohio are both pulling every trick they can think of to keep the darker-hued voters away from the polls. Purging voter rolls of eligible voters, slashing early voting, closing down polling places, turning away voters, throwing out legal provisional ballots, loading up voting machines with crappy software at the last minute. The Democrats have sued on every one of these things, and they have prevailed in a number of them. But in a close election, if the vote is swung to Romney in either of these states by these machinations, you can bet that all these thugs will have to say is “Get over it!”

On the other hand, if the President is re-elected, as I believe he will be, the hue and cry about (non-existent) ACORN! and (non-existent–well, except for those two guys in Philly) NEW BLACK PANTHER PARTY!  and (non-existent) VOTER FRAUD! will be deafening. Much as I might want to say “Get over it!” to all that, it will be difficult, because how can you get over something that isn’t real in the first place?

All the stuff the Republicans have been doing to suppress the vote is for real, and it won’t be “gotten over” anytime soon, whether the President wins or loses. The process of voting in this country must be reformed either way. All eligible voters should be able to vote and have their votes counted. It should be easy to register to vote. And there should be one national standard–a New Voting Rights Act–to ensure that there are uniform, fair and nonpartisan standards for registration, all forms of balloting, early voting, and tabulation, including paper-verified ballots for every system, throughout America. This is the single most important thing we can do to preserve democracy, second perhaps only to overturning Citizens United.

So what this means is, for now, we need a landslide to prevent the possibility of another stolen election (yes, 2000 was a stolen election). A vote not cast, or cast for some third party stunt candidate (Gary Johnson, Jill Stein, et al), is a vote for the destruction of American democracy, because you can bet these problems have no chance of being addressed as long as Republicans are in power anywhere. Shamefully, there is only one major party that is interested in the full participation of the citizenry in democracy, and I think you know which one that is.

If you made this up, no one would believe you

So apparently, “Heckuva Job” Brownie (aka Michael Brown, the Arabian horse guy who fiddled while a city drowned) said Obama was wrong for responding to hurricane Sandy too quickly. There’s just no pleasing some people.

And if we were living under a Thurston Howell III administration, you can bet that Karl Rove would’ve already been appointed czar of privatizing, then eliminating (or is it eliminating, then privatizing?) the MTA. Those subway tunnels would be great for SUVs, and Central Park would make a great 800-acre parking lot to hold them all.

As it is, you can bet that disaster aid for NY and NJ and all areas affected by the storm will be politicized, held up, and ultimately blocked by congress, because, you know, liberals live there.