The farce which passes as a news media
Apr. 9th, 2008 11:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
solarbirdI'm making sure this gets at least my little bit of reposting to keep it in people's minds.
Last week, a John Yoo memo was released - after much fighting to keep it secret, a secrecy it did not merit under any terms. The memo authorised torture; it authorised Presidential ignoring of and overriding of law; it asserted that Constitutional restraints (including the Bill of Rights) did not apply to the Chief Executive and "domestic military operations." Separately, Atty. General Mukasey invented a story about a call from an Afghani "safe house" that he claimed couldn't be tapped under standard FISA law. This was both a fabricated event, and an outright lie, and was part of an attempt to get unrestrained domestic warrentless wiretapping passed by Congress.
On Saturday, Glenn Greenwald did a series of searches of national newspapers, via the industry's NEXIS database. Here are his searches, and the hits counts:
Stories pushing the idea that Obama is an Un-Patriotic Non-American: 1607.
Stories about the breathtaking dictatorial power grab by the Bush administration: 118.
Stories even talking about the blatantly fraudulent claim of Mr. Mukasey: 73.
Pathetic. And yet predictable - not just that, but exactly what we've been seeing, will continue to see, and should expect. The American media would be a comedy, were it not enabling power abuses so brutal. That makes it tragic.
Here, these items have also been hanging around my brain:
Botnets are a criminal problem. Not a terrorism problem. It'd be nice if Congress could stop turning everything into terrorism.
Rail is expanding at a pace not seen since World War I. That's good. Not enough, but good. Oil broke $112 today, another new record by all measurements.
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dogemperor posts about The Family, and Senator Clinton's ties to it. This is extremely disturbing if true, and dogemperor has a history of getting things right.
ETA: You should look atelfs's coverage of the fraudulent history text being used in many American high schools.
Last week, a John Yoo memo was released - after much fighting to keep it secret, a secrecy it did not merit under any terms. The memo authorised torture; it authorised Presidential ignoring of and overriding of law; it asserted that Constitutional restraints (including the Bill of Rights) did not apply to the Chief Executive and "domestic military operations." Separately, Atty. General Mukasey invented a story about a call from an Afghani "safe house" that he claimed couldn't be tapped under standard FISA law. This was both a fabricated event, and an outright lie, and was part of an attempt to get unrestrained domestic warrentless wiretapping passed by Congress.
On Saturday, Glenn Greenwald did a series of searches of national newspapers, via the industry's NEXIS database. Here are his searches, and the hits counts:
"Yoo and torture" - 102Stories pushing the faggotisation of Obama because he's not a very good bowler: 1043.
"Mukasey and 9/11" -- 73
"Yoo and Fourth Amendment" -- 16
"Obama and bowling" -- 1,043
"Obama and Wright" -- More than 3,000 (too many to be counted)
"Obama and patriotism" - 1,607
"Clinton and Lewinsky" -- 1,079
Stories pushing the idea that Obama is an Un-Patriotic Non-American: 1607.
Stories about the breathtaking dictatorial power grab by the Bush administration: 118.
Stories even talking about the blatantly fraudulent claim of Mr. Mukasey: 73.
Pathetic. And yet predictable - not just that, but exactly what we've been seeing, will continue to see, and should expect. The American media would be a comedy, were it not enabling power abuses so brutal. That makes it tragic.
Here, these items have also been hanging around my brain:
Botnets are a criminal problem. Not a terrorism problem. It'd be nice if Congress could stop turning everything into terrorism.
Rail is expanding at a pace not seen since World War I. That's good. Not enough, but good. Oil broke $112 today, another new record by all measurements.
dogemperor posts about The Family, and Senator Clinton's ties to it. This is extremely disturbing if true, and dogemperor has a history of getting things right.ETA: You should look at
elfs's coverage of the fraudulent history text being used in many American high schools.
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no subject
Date: 2008-04-09 07:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-09 08:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-09 10:14 pm (UTC)The semi-secret fundie group is isn't secret at all and puts on the national prayer breakfast, that little thing of which U2's Bono has been a guest speaker; most congresspeople including some Jewish ones have attended some of these things and Hillary isn't more involved than most; etc.
Twas the sort of hit piece that caused the journalist to lose all credibility, even retroactively, in my eyes, and I really liked Nickel and Dimed and believed her. Rather typical of the Hillary smears going round in right wing circles for the last 16 years, it's just sad to see democrats doing it now . . .
no subject
Date: 2008-04-09 11:26 pm (UTC)She has a significantly less positive (or even neutral) view of the group that you do. There is the public face, and then there is the not-so-public face that she has described on occasion. I don't claim to have superiour knowledge here, but I do not dismiss
no subject
Date: 2008-04-10 01:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-09 11:51 pm (UTC)Sharlet is a very well-respected researcher on dominionism in general, and is probably the first person to ever have done any sort of extensive research on "The Family" (and in fact, he relied largely on one of the few archives "The Family" had never sealed up, an archive of its meeting records at a religious university--after Sharlet started writing re "The Family", they've since moved to seal practically all the records within the past 25 years on the group). A lot of the reason that there is more known about the group *is* because he's been writing articles on "The Family" on a fairly regular basis in Harper's, Mother Jones, and Rolling Stone since about 2003 or so.
As for Nazi links--that gets a wee bit confusing. The founders of "The Family" *did* certainly have documented links to the German-American Bund, but these links seem to have been largely abandoned after World War II (and, personally, I suspect any real alliance was just because dominionists saw Nazis as anti-Communist at the time). Some of the Nazi stuff has been found to be tinfoil-hattery.
However, the *present* activities of "The Family" are quite well-documented, including in sections of Hillary Clinton's own autobiography as well as in interviews with known dominionist leaders in Washington, DC (Robert Schenck's confirmation of Hillary's participation in a cell-church group is especially worrisome; Schenck is an extremely well-connected Assemblies of God pastor who has links with pretty much all of the dominionist leaders in the Beltway and can be counted as a major dominionist playmaker himself).
Recent info as to the people she met with in the cell-group she was a part of in the 90s doesn't soothe my mind any--all of them, to a one, were linked with neopentecostal dominionist groups with histories of highly coercive activity. Sharlet's also confirmed some things to me, pre-publication, that indicate that some of the same "bad habits" as are common with coercive religious groups that use a "cell church" model may well be in play with "The Family's" cell-church groups.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-10 01:51 am (UTC)Err, that sounded harsher than I meant, but I'll leave it because if you still post regularly on Kos you might want to mention to some of the people there (assuming they haven't all figured this out by now) that a fairly large segment of genuinely progressive, very much left of center on most issue liberal democrats currently views anything coming from that site the same way we view things coming from right wing talk radio. Seriously.
I think it's beyond the point of the site getting back any credibility w/a bunch of us (meaning nearly all Hillary supporters or even leaners who are aware the site exists, and a fair # Obama fans who don't like the sexism/slantedness there) for at least months and possibly years or ever, but they might want to start trying now if they wish to re-expand their circle of influence. (granted, I never much liked Markos and always thought he seemed like a Republican who switched parties because his previous side went crazy but was still pretty conservative in outlook, so I'm not really your target audience, but I do read a lot of people who did once have a more positive view of the place, and I used to check it out on a regular basis myself just because of the posts I did like). More importantly, while I think the Democratic party schism is beyond fixing in this election cycle, it would be good if the damage was limited to the point where we could (probably non-peacefully) coexist at least in the fall election run-up.
(apologies to solarbird if your blog was the wrong place for me to say this?)
I don't doubt there's some good stuff still being posted there, or that you are one of the people doing this, but the Sharlett book and the overall story was initially mentioned in the Nation/Huffpo article about a month ago, quickly followed by a whole bunch of people w/more time & resources than me describing in detail how the Ehrenreich article was extremely misleading in the way it described things, to the point of outright lying. I will look it up again, but would urge you to check a wider variety of sources if you haven't already done so, since you might not believe me or mine.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-10 02:22 am (UTC)And as for research, I have been looking up other sources too--the info I've dug up so far (and keep in mind this is a group that, at least as far as the internal workings go, is a little more difficult than most to get good, *solid* info on--in part because it would appear that for whatever reason "The Family" has sealed off its archives for the past 25 years even to its own membership (http://dogemperor.newsvine.com/_news/2008/04/09/1421298-just-what-is-the-family-so-desperate-to-hide)) does appear to collaborate Sharlet's research. (There are some writers who *do* tend to tinfoil-hattery on subjects re "The Family"--Wayne Madsen's writings tending to lean more towards tinfoil territory--Sharlet, to his credit, has tended to stick with what he can show from his research inside the archives before they were sealed.)
As for the reported members of Hillary's cell, much of my research on that has been following info about these folks including some research done by a group I used to help out extensively with (Rock Out Censorship--yes, there is a reason I know about the PMRC's promotion of neopentecostal dominionists in past, and Susan Baker's particular role in this; in fact, probably my first work I did in exposing dominionists *was* with ROC).
I would also note that in this case--especially if there is extensive use of cell-groups and even potential front orgs (and there are indications, again from Sharlet's research in the "Family" archives before they were sealed, that there were over 150 groups either receiving funding from "The Family" or which were outright frontgroups of "The Family"--he'll be detailing this far more in his book)--there is a possibility that astroturfing could be going on. Not saying it is or it isn't--I will note that with groups that "ping the alarms" in a similar manner that the reported activities of "The Family" and what I've been able to dig up re the folks supposedly in Hillary's cell (and what Sharlet has discovered re the internal workings of the cell), there has been astroturfing in threads critical of those groups, and I would not put astroturfing past "The Family" and its friends. (I also think a lot of it is because the full contents of Sharlet's book aren't out just yet--people have raised similar claims re MRFF's research on extensive steeplejacking of the US Military. Some of this info is *very* difficult to confirm unless you have people on the inside speaking out.)
On the worries re cell-groups and how they operate--I'll note I'm not the only one who's raised some concern. No less than two people who are ex-members of Maranatha (an extremely coercive neopentecostal dominionist group that ended up banned from campuses and now operates under the name Every Nation) have expressed, to a one, identical concerns based on Sharlet's description of the cell groups and what apparently goes on *in* the cells (including elite members being told not to go to mainstream churches or to even independently read their Bible--I have not noted this explicitly in the article, but identical coercive tactics have been reported in "cell church" groups associated with the "Brownsville revival" in Assemblies of God circles as well as in Maranatha, which is why this especially trips alarm bells for me).
Much of my concern, actually, isn't to slag Hillary. To be really and truly honest, I'm scared she may have gotten herself into something that could be highly abusive and not have realised it--the "National Prayer Breakfast" is not only promoted as innocuous but almost mandatory in the Beltway, and I can well see her having been "recruited" by folks in an abusive cell linked to "The Family" (and inducted further into the org) when the stuff came out re Bill Clinton's affair. I might not be a Hillary supporter, but I don't like to see anyone get into that. :(
no subject
Date: 2008-04-10 03:02 am (UTC)Tho the whole "hillary's cell" thing -- as far as I could tell, she was no more involved in this than, as you said, practically the entire DC senatorial community, who nearly all have at least gone to some of these little things. I view it sort of like I'm viewing her meeting w/Scaife while trying to get endorsements from his paper, or both her and Obama associating w/Murdoch for fund-raising purposes; not in any case as a sign of actual agreement w/these people on everything or even many things.
But again, will check further.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-10 03:27 am (UTC)Level 0 is the recruitment level--basically the National Prayer Breakfast. Cell-church members are considered "Friends" internally, and the more elite members (meeting with Coe personally) as "Members".
Based on available information (including, notably, an interview with cell member Grace Nelson (http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2007/09/hillarys-prayer.html) included in a recent article by Sharlet entitled "Hillary's Prayer"), it would appear that Hillary is *at least* heavily involved in a cell group at "level 1" (roughly akin to someone who's joined Scientology or AmWay but isn't OT VII or a "Diamond" yet), and a comment by Robert Schenck (a well-connected Assemblies of God pastor who has "ins" with "The Family", among others) in the same article indicates she may--if she is not considered "level 2", a "member" (akin to OT VIIs or "Diamonds" in Scientology and AmWay respectively) already--she is certainly being groomed towards being a member of the core.
In comparison, Obama and McCain are (as far as can be reliably determined) not a member of any cell-groups and their extent of involvement has been with the National Prayer Breakfast. (Of note, "Family" publicists are likely using the confusion of the National Prayer Breakfast--which, compared to the cell groups, IS pretty innocuous--with the "cell church" groups, which indications point to *not* being nearly as innocuous, and less innocuous the higher one gets. Generally, folks in "The Family" are *not* directly led in "prayer groups" by Doug Coe unless they're pretty far up in the org--and Schenck *has* indicated Hillary's *present* cell is in fact being mentored by Coe himself, which gives an additional level of concern for her welfare IMHO.)
I'm actually not surprised there's been some confusion in the reporting of this in the media--very few people (who have not studied coercive religious groups using this model or who are not survivors of involvement with pyramidal-setup coercive religious groups or abusive MLMs) even really *know* about cell-groups and how they operate, or that cell-based orgs have multiple levels of "recruitment" (from initial "set the hook" events like the National Prayer Breakfast to increasingly coercive "pyramids" of cells), or that they tend to name these levels deliberately in a manner to cause confusion (the first level of actual cell-church involvement is termed "friends" and the elite are termed "members"--so that "Family" linked folks can say "Hillary isn't a member"--technically she's not at the "member" level, yet, but she's still pretty hip deep in a cell with some not-good folks all around her).
Pretty much unless you are a researcher or an exit counselor or a survivor, you don't know this stuff about how cell-based orgs work--mainstream media and even specialised media really won't know this, certainly, not even their religion correspondents. Even a lot of researchers into dominionism didn't know about the role of cell-church groups in things like steeplejackings and all until people who were survivors of those groups started speaking out and documenting things--which had been written in circles meant for non-dominionist evangelical Christians trying to keep their churches from being taken over by dominionists--which showed this was part of a strategy for a long time. (In fact, several other researchers have noted to me that I'm one of the few folks that seems to be actively tracing the history on this, or the history and workings of the neopentecostal wing of "Christian Nationalism" in general. I still don't consider myself a total subject matter expert in it, but apparently other folks think otherwise for some reason.)
no subject
Date: 2008-04-10 04:26 am (UTC)Okay, if she's secretly involved in a weird culty cell, due to the whole secrecy thing that's part of this I probably won't be able to check out.
But if someone who you think seems credible is claiming to have inside info on this, as to how believable they are . . .
Here are a couple of things about her that don't seem to go along w/general dominionist tendencies . . .
She has been fiercely pro- women's reproductive freedom, moreso than any other democrat running this time and more than any running last time except Dean, who whatever I think of him at the moment was awesome on Russert way back when; she was for the Alito filibuster (when Obama was not), she led the fight to get Plan B available over the counter, and she was staunchly against Roberts, whereas Obama, for example, wanted to confirm until one of his top aides convinced him this would be a political disaster waiting to happen. This would seem to more than make up for that stupid speech back in the early 2000's where she said every abortion was a tragedy or somesuch idiocy (and which in general seems at odds w/her political stance on the issue). (and again, Obama in his book and in his comments on Ashcroft said many much more troubling things)(sorry, I feel compelled to try and singlehandedly make up for what I view as a tidal wave of media misinformation)
She seems the most gay-friendly of any of the dems, her indefensible idiocy in (at least at one time) only wanting to partly repeal the idiotic defense of marriage act notwithstanding. http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2008/04/clinton-teh-gayz.html
I thought this was really awesome. And totally not remotely dominionist.
And I'm being chased off the computer. =)
no subject
Date: 2008-04-10 04:58 am (UTC)I've been mostly sitting this out, but I have to jump in here.
She's running in no small part on her previous White House experience, in the previous Clinton administration. Part of that record is very nice promises to queers, followed by shivs in the back in no uncertain terms. No lasting gains; severe lasting legal harm. Specifically after big promises of equality and improvements.
Because she's running in part on that experience, and on that history, I don't trust her promises here.
Mind you, as I've noted, I'm sitting out the whole Democratic Party selection process, so I've got no horse in this race. But she unfortunately is not in any way the slam-dunk on this issue you see her as being.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-12 04:55 am (UTC)But that's totally aside from the whole thing of whether she's part of some dominionist cult. Fundies don't run around trying to get what they call "abortion pills" approved over the counter, much less almost single=handedly (or double handedly, w/Patty Murray) making sure this happens, or fighting for women's equality in general, or consorting w/queers of any sort, and especially not being called the most genuinely comfortable hanging out with the gay community at the LGBT focused debate way back when, and I read that assessment on Pandagon, which has never been Hillary friendly.
Barack has closed-to-press fundraisers w/gay groups because he thinks the association will hurt him and at an open fundraiser Gavin Newsome threw for him, he told Willie Brown to make sure he and Newsome weren't photographed together, because of the whole gay marriage controversy (that, btw, is a killer in my view--along w/the Alice Palmer thing and his entire campaign this spring, if I wind up voting 3rd party if he gets the nod, which I hopefully won't have to decide, those will be the reasons, even trumping his nuclear power support)
Oh, I haven't had time to look up the exact link and probably won't tonight, but the Daily Howler did a nice job of examining the "Family" crap from the Ehrenreich article, which also had other problems; can't remember for sure if they were also covered by the Howler or if that was elsewhere.
Sorry for running on, I get wound up about this.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-12 05:20 am (UTC)Oh, it's worse. That's not reasonably arguable. It's worse on two grounds: 1) a policy was replaced by a Federal law that specifically defines queers as "an unacceptable threat" to the armed forces. That's much worse. 2) Even that aside, the effect was worse, in that under the policy, you could actually say you were queer and be openly queer if you remained abstinent. This was unreasonable, of course, but at least theoretically possible. Now being queer at all is an eject button; it's moved the cause for ejection from the practical doings of a person to the essential nature of a person. That's also worse.
Or is Bill the one who signed the DoMA?
He also signed DOMA. He gave us both of these train wrecks. Enthusiastically. Mr. Clinton endorsed DOMA as affirming his stance against queers gettin' hitched.
Now, again, this matters in terms of Senator Clinton because she's claiming that legacy as part of her qualifications, and doing so explicitly. That's going to carry this kind of stuff with it too, whether she likes it or not.
(I note that Mr. Clinton seems to be getting all revisionist, saying he did it to prevent a Constitutional amendment drive. That's bullshit; those amendments weren't at all on the radar yet. besides, that doesn't begin to explain why he'd try to get Kerry to endorse state and local anti-marriage acts in 2004.)
But that's totally aside from the whole thing of whether she's part of some dominionist cult.
And my comment only addressed the question of her promises to the queer community, and why I hold them valueless.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-12 05:39 am (UTC)and I did not know that specific wording in the da/dt bill. will explain what my thinking was/still semi-is later, tho it may turn out also to be flawed.
can't do it now cause I'm typing too loud and making someone's head pain worse and promised i would stop. in briefest--thought they people previously had to say they weren't and at least theoretically could be charged w/felony if found to be lying? err, okay, that is all, if ineloquently stated and non-researched. let me know if i had that wrong; you clearly know this better than I do.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-12 03:49 pm (UTC)How the policy was actually enforced varied by how much they needed bodies. I've heard Vietnam-era gay servicemen talk about how they would outright tell draft board people that they were gay. As in, had boyfriends and liked fucking men. In one case, one recruit related telling the recruitment officer, loudly, "I LIKE FUCKING MEN IN THE ASS." The recruiter marked down "displays some homosexual tendencies" and admitted him, because Vietnam. And they'd display their service medals, some of which were quite impressive, and things like that.
What would happen later depended. Some got normal honourable discharges, but in a lot of cases, officers would be shocked! Shocked! to discover a FAGGOT in their ranks and kick them out at the end of their services with a less-than-honourable.
The consensus I've heard from people who served before and after is that the new law is of course much worse, and the new policy to enforce that law ("don't ask/don't tell") is somewhat worse than the immediately preceding policy (which wasn't backed by law) as enforced, and significantly worse for women, straight or lesbian, as a series of abuses sprung up almost immediately where sexual harassment complaints were taken as grounds for investigation of lesbianism.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-12 06:35 pm (UTC)Tho as why they were let in during vietnam, that may also have had something to do w/straight people making up stuff like this in an effort to get out of serving . . . *I* would probably think it was a straight guy trying to get out of serving if I was on the draft board and they said something like that loudly. =)
(Not that I favor either drafts or discrimination, obviously, just that I would think this. )
no subject
Date: 2008-04-13 12:49 am (UTC)That's just the example for which I had the best story. This happened in World War II and Korea too. That's kind of key to this whole thing, and why the "morale" issue is such bullshit - when the war is important and the manpower is needed, queers get signed up (and/or drafted) and then kicked out as soon as the war is over. If the "morale" issue was real, and if queers in the ranks were such a threat to armed forces functioning, the reality would be rather different.
But yeah, there was a nonzero amount of straight men trying to pretend to be gay for the recruiter in the Vietnam era.
ITA on "morale"
Date: 2008-04-13 02:04 am (UTC)Oh, and lest we forget
Date: 2008-04-12 05:32 am (UTC)One problem with your Clinton-v.-Obama analysis on this issue is that it relies on the idea that the Democratic party as a whole won't sell us out for a ham sandwich. You're wrong on that. Sure, it's not 1992 anymore, but have you watched, say, the current Democratic majority? Have you seen the way they've helped savage the GBLT coalition with their wretched triangulation/divide-and-conquer-their-base bullshit with things like ENDA? For that matter, have you seen how hard they've worked against their supposed base in general over this last year or so? That's the Democratic party I know and loathe, and has been as long as I can remember.
So really, I don't care much what either of them have to say, because in practical terms, in the field of queer issues, the Bush administration has actually been less bad than the last Democratic presidency of Mr. Clinton. It's been bad, mind you; quite bad. Mr. Bush endorsing that wretched Federal anti-marriage amendment was one of his endless series of lows. But in terms of practical effect, on queer issues only, the Clinton administration was actually worse.
Re: Oh, and lest we forget
Date: 2008-04-12 05:55 am (UTC)I remember the dems being as a whole much better (if still more spineless as a whole than I'd like; and I'm amenable to hearing shadow government theories to explain this, tho I have yet to be convinced of any) pre-9/11 and keep hoping they will be again; and I actually thought the 90's did get better for queers in general (nice term, not an abbreviation and broader scope, I normally don't use because fear people will think am using as insult rather than in the "for queers of every persuasion" that sin-a-matic used to advertise; that was a club I went to in early 90's) which I did attribute in great part to the atmosphere change under the clintons and also the sort of judges they appointed/different way debates were framed in legal circles/etc. whee! i'm typing soft enough no one is complaining. this is good, if difficult.
reason to take my opinion w/grain of salt -- I moved from Alabam to LA in 1990 and lived all of 90's in LA or DC; obviously different culture and info sources from where I grew up.
reason to not completely dismiss -- I remember a difference post '92 to 2000.
that said, yeah, i frequently got pissed at him (and her sometimes, even back then). furious even. not just on queer issues. but i do think they tried to do good and accomplished a lot, and that she will be much better than he was given a chance, in great part because of different climate now; they were sort of isolated in an era of presumed republican ascendancy, for the most part. Now, the republicans are discredited and so is the permanent majority theory. so I have hope . . . for change! (tho not for unity; unity will mean the dems caved)
Re: Oh, and lest we forget
Date: 2008-04-12 04:04 pm (UTC)Dramatically. I was in the trenches for those wars. But there was little help and absolutely no leadership from the national Democratic party in this. Some individual Democrats, yes. But I can also point to some individual Republicans, mostly from the now-exiled libertarian camp in the old GOP.
The big change in judicial rulings between Bowers v. Hardwick (1986) and Romer v. Evans (1996) was one of social perception: are queers fundamentally people or not? (And by "are people," I mean in the sense of whether it is possible to conceive of queers as a class of people, rather than a class of actors inherently illegal by their acts, such as thieves. This gets to the heart of the fundamentalist argument that there is no such thing as a gay person; there is only a straight person with a (disgusting) mental illness or perversion.) If not, you get Bowers. If so, you get Romer, which lead directly to Lawrence v. Texas (2003). The massive, continual campaign of just being out was most of that battle; a decades-long demand by a couple of generations of queers to be recognised as queer, rather than broken straights.
i do think they tried to do good and accomplished a lot, and that she will be much better than he was given a chance, in great part because of different climate now; they were sort of isolated in an era of presumed republican ascendancy, for the most part.
So you hold with the idea that the Democratic party will do the right thing when it requires no courage or leadership. I don't think it's even ready to do that. Hopefully, I am wrong, but I think it will require a generational change, because the leadership of the party has been locked in the same argument with the other half of their generation since (afaik) the early 1970s, and are still basically fighting that same tribal-based war. But as I said, hopefully, I am wrong. But if I'm right, I also don't think they're going to hand over power before they're forced to by decrepitude - the generationally-based self-definition/self-identification is that strong. And that means we're looking at least another 10 years of this mess, if not more, by virtue of the the size of the group.
Re: Oh, and lest we forget (you understand me perfectly!)
Date: 2008-04-12 06:31 pm (UTC)LOL! Yes! I had not thought of it that way before, but that is *exactly* what I think. (looking at this, what I said could be interpretated as sarcasm; it's not; that is exactly what I think. which is still a big improvement over the opposition)
I got in a shouting match in class and in the hallway after class w/my conlaw professor just a year or a semester after Romer v Evans, which I think actually came down during my first semester in law school; I can't believe I had forgotten the name of it last night; he was all for ending racism but thought women and gays were looking for "special rights" and despite being into game theory and literal interpretation of laws and generally being at least intelligent and more or less consistent in his theorizing, he went on about gays and women having more economic power as a reason that they should be treated differently from blacks (come to think of it, he avoided stating his position on Korematsu and didn't deal w/any Native American or other ethnic cases, so not sure if he felt any racial minorities other than African Americans warrented protection; I went to a very conservative law & economics school, if you're wondering); it wound up with him telling me to go live in my little gay enclave apart from the rest of the world. I don't know if anyone ever clued him in on me being hetero and married or not.
the leadership of the party has been locked in the same argument with the other half of their generation since (afaik) the early 1970s, and are still basically fighting that same tribal-based war.
At this point, I'd be worried about some of them, too, including Bill, given past history. Hillary seems much more relaxed about this; for whatever reason women generally seem to be much more comfortable w/their sexual orientation and less worried about proving how hetero they are (see the difference in Elizabeth and John Edwards, tho there may have been some unfortunate political calculus there as well). Agreed tho that this is all guesswork.
I will try to write something tomorrow in my journal on how I view the whole 3rd party thing; under what circumstances one would be viable, and link to a site favoring instant run-off voting, which has actually gotten traction in some places and would be (along w/proportional voting) the best way to get a viable long term 3rd (or multi-) party system going.
Re: Oh, and lest we forget (you understand me perfectly!)
Date: 2008-04-13 03:50 pm (UTC)Oh, I know; I wasn't being sarcastic either. I know other people with that opinion; my opinion is more that if cowardice and wrongness is rewarded, you'll get more of it, because that's what got them the reward. It seems rather obvious to me that this is much more likely, tho' I can understand the hope for something different.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-10 05:22 am (UTC)Which is why I personally hope Sharlet's book inspires a lot more research (and maybe even a formal investigation or two by the IRS) so we can find out just what the hell is going on--because "The Family" is being decidedly less than forthcoming about it, and that worries me (for Hillary's sake).
I'd honestly feel better if Hillary were to give a statement re her involvement in the group--but, depending on how deep she is in, this may well not be an option (either because she's taken the vow of silence, or because it may not be safe for her to speak out).
no subject
Date: 2008-04-12 05:08 am (UTC)Will just add for now I'm pretty sure that whatever she's involved in is of her own free will; I have zero worries that an extraordinarily intelligent, tough-minded and forceful adult personality who was married to the sitting President and had Secret Service protection was forced into some fundie cult against her will.
I'll have links and more by the end of the weekend.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-13 09:08 pm (UTC)http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh032408.html
http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh032508.html
I put them in order by date, but I *think* the second probably has the most details.
A lot more work could be done on this, but hopefully this will be adequate for now.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-14 04:39 am (UTC)In her piece, Ehrenreich says that the Workplace Religious Freedom Act—the (proposed) bill which shows Clinton’s “sinister” ways—guarantees religious freedom to “pharmacists who refuse to fill birth control prescriptions and police officers who refuse to guard abortion clinics.” From her post, you might think that this is the actual aim of the bill. But in fact, this is a concern about the possible effects of the bill—a concern which has been expressed by groups which oppose the measure. Proponents of the WRFA say the bill wouldn’t have those effects.
...except for the fundamentalists who have been lobbying for this bill's various versions for over a decade, who push for it explicitly because they say it will have exactly these effects, and others they want to see. For example, I've heard fundamentalist backers of the bill say that it will allow "Christian" workers to refuse to work with queers on religious grounds, and that it would stop employers from refusing to let "Christian" fundamentalists prostelyise at their jobs. And have other, similar effects.
They may (and may not!) be wrong about these claims, but these are politically active fundamentalist groups who have lobbied heavily for the various versions of this bill over many years, and they have consistently made these claims and similar, only seeing it as a good thing, rather than bad.
If the writer at the Howler is not aware of this, then the writer at the Howler has not followed this issue at all, and as such, has very little credibility to me.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-10 03:42 am (UTC)My honest worry at this point is that...well, if the cells in "The Family" operate like *other* abusive cell groups--and there's every indication to point to "yes, they do" at this point--let's just say it takes a *very* strong person to continue to "smile and nod" whilst being subjected to increasing levels of what amount to thought reform. (In fact, groups have proposed--and nixed--things like having people deliberately join Scientology to get info on the group when ex-members and exit counselors revealed to them the levels of thought reform tactics that tend to be piled upon members.)
Generally, one of two responses happens when you end up in a coercive group--you either bend (either by falling under the tactics or, in essence, in a form of Stockholm syndrome) or you snap (resulting in leaving or in a psychiatric injury or both). PTSD is pretty much a given for survivors of coercive groups, including complex PTSD; people have been known to snap (occasionally quite dramatically) when forced back into a coercive group in what amounts to a fight/flight response (Matthew Murray's recent murder-suicide being a particularly nasty version of this; most people who "snap" end up with PTSD at best, it's also not unknown for people to end up requiring hospitalisation for nervous breakdowns).
Cell-church groups and "discipling and shepherding" groups are particularly infamous for making people "bend". You have a combination of high amounts of peer pressure, a leader who cannot be challenged (and in "The Family", also holds a Sword of Damocles over you in that they can literally destroy your political career putting you and your family's well-being at risk), and often other coercive tactics in practice (there's been specific mention by members of Hillary's cell-church, for instance, of "prayer warriors"--this is a term pretty much only really used in neopentecostal dominionist churches or churches influenced by neopente dominionists, comes from "Joel's Army" theology and in particular from a theology called "deliverance ministry" that is very similar to some of the worst stuff Scientology pushes (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/10/3/114749/049/223/253028), and includes a thing called "imprecatory prayer"--praying that God will do bad things to a target to force them to bend to your will). Independent studies have shown this can make people "bend" to such an extent that they can completely change their personality to match that of a group leader (http://www.somis.org/TDD-02.html)--and this does *not* happen in mainstream churches. (Seriously, people who have not survived "cell churches" or studied the discipling/shepherding movement *have no earthly idea how harmful it is in practice*.)
My real worry is that, even if Hillary joined in a "smile and nod" sense, she may have gotten herself into something potentially very harmful and nasty--and, if she isn't swallowing the Flavor-Aid, she may have no real way to extricate herself if "The Family" discovers she's just smiling and nodding. :P
oh, other political sites (hope you don't mind several)
Date: 2008-04-10 03:31 am (UTC)and for more specifically presidential stuff, if you want to get a different view of the campaign and coverage (asdie from what is already present up there), http://www.correntewire.com, http://anglachelg.blogspot.com, the confluence, ie. http://riverdaughter.wordpress.com, http://bluelyon.blogspot.com, Tom Watson's blog (used to be devoted primarily to Johnny Thunder and the New York Dolls before this election cycle, heh), and Craig Crawford and Susie Madrak/Suburban Guerilla
and Tennessee Guerilla Women and um, I don't read all these every day, but those are the main ones I do read as much as I can. The ones from Tom Watson up are the ones I do at least skim pretty much everything. The ones below I came to more recently and frequently forget.
For feminist stuff, if interested, Feministe and Echidne of the Snakes when the person who started it is posting; I don't care for her new additions so much, esp the guy; he posted something about Amy Winehouse that really ticked me off a while back, can't rmeember what exactly.
Sorry, that's prolly more than you ever wanted to know . . .
Re: oh, other political sites (hope you don't mind several)
Date: 2008-04-10 03:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-09 11:59 pm (UTC)What's been published so far--and what's leaked out re Sharlet's book--*has* shaken up "The Family" sufficiently that the group ordered Wheaton College to keep all records regarding the group within the past 25 years under lock and key and to remove them from public access (yes, you are reading this right; "The Family", once they discovered some of their dirtier laundry has been brought out to air, ordered all records on the group since 1982 to be sealed in a deliberate attempt to prevent anyone from verifying Sharlet's research--and this was *not* a restriction put in place until Sharlet started writing about the group in 2003, and includes even other "Family" members).
My question: What the hell are they hiding that is so damning to them that they've sealed their records to such an extent that nobody other than Douglas Coe has access to them for 25 years? (http://www.wheaton.edu/bgc/archives/GUIDES/459.htm#1)
no subject
Date: 2008-04-09 07:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-09 07:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-09 09:50 pm (UTC)"Terrorism" is the new "Communism"; a handy scapegoat reference that can be used as a convenient corral in which to contain anyone with whom Congress or the President disagrees. Yesterday's "Communist sympathizer" is today's "terrorism supporter". In this case, the rhetoric masks the real concern: the average computer user has absolutely no idea what their machine can be doing behind their backs. An education initiative would be helpful, but no, we have to declare war on something and imprison people instead.
Rail is expanding at a pace not seen since World War I. That's good. Not enough, but good.
I'd like to see passenger rail expand more, both commuter and excursion. With gas prices going through the roof here in Chicago, a lot more people who work downtown have been taking Metra. But even freight expansion is good; rail can be incredibly efficient when done right.
So far as fraudulent history texts....the whole problem with textbooks in general is that many school boards buy their materials from the lowest bidder. It's not as though the textbooks undergo any sort of fact-checking or editorial review by anyone in a position to veto the purchase.