Writing Life

I saw some statistics in the Fall 2009 Update put out by American University’s School of Public Affairs. In an article featuring Jennifer Lawless, who ran for the U.S. House seat in Rhode Island’s 2nd District, there was a stat “cheat sheet” at the end. I’ve heard these numbers in various places, but never gathered together. This is a call for change:

• The United States ranks 85th worldwide in the percentage of women serving in the national legislature.
• Eighty-three percent of the members of Congress are men
• Three-quarters of statewide elected officials and state legislators are men
• Men occupy the governor’s mansion in 44 states.
• In 89 of the nation’s 100 largest cities, men run city hall.

I ran across this New York Times piece about the Senate having pro forma sessions during the holiday break to prevent President Bush from recess appointing even more of his Administration. What struck me the most was when it got off topic and talked about Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA 04). Congressman Frank gave a speech before heading home. To quote from the NY Times article:

Mr. Frank, who is Jewish, took to the floor on Tuesday to apologize for abstaining from a vote on a resolution about the Christmas holiday. Or rather he apologized for not similarly abstaining from an earlier vote about the Muslim holiday Ramadan.

Mr. Frank said he had been concerned that the Christmas resolution improperly mixed government and religion by making statements about the role of Christianity in the United States.

Later, he said, he realized that he had supported a resolution earlier in the year congratulating people for observing Ramadan when he should have abstained from that, as well.

“It is really none of the business of the Congress of the United States as an official body whether or not people celebrate religious holidays; our job is to preserve a free society,” he said. “So I will announce in the future that I will not applaud people for Ramadan or for Christmas, for Yom Kippur or for any of the other holidays.”

He concluded, “Let’s leave religious holidays in peace.”

Absolutely. Neither support nor deny religion. Follow the beliefs of the Founders.

Guess who’s investigating the disappearance of the CIA’s torture tapes? The organization that videotaped its torture of captives (CIA) AND the organization headed by a Attorney General (Justice Department) who refused to answer during his confirmation hearings whether or not he thought a specific act of torture was really torture. Said act, waterboarding, had been considered torture by the U.S. Army and the U.S. Government since about the time of the Spanish American War, and has been called torture since the time of the Spanish Inquisition.

Now, these two groups, and the White House, are saying that Congress shouldn’t use its Constitutional oversight right to help investigate the potential illegal destruction of these videotapes as well as the acts shown on the tapes. The Attorney General say that such an investigation would politicize it. Does he realize his boss is doing just that, telling a court not to investigate? That the US tortured these people is without dispute. Even a former CIA interrogator said so, citing his own involvement in the crimes videotaped. That these tapes were destroyed even though a court order told the U.S. Government not to destroy such evidence, is also not in doubt.

So, a crime has been committed. The White House’s insistence that the courts ignore the situation is moot. Of import now is to remove the Attorney General, who’s boss is the White House, and the CIA, who tortured, taped, then destroyed those tapes, from leading the investigation. How can they investigate what they themselves have done? Let’s appoint a special prosecutor to independently assess the situation and bring charges where necessary.

A Dutch delegation visited the U.S. prison in Cuba and then Washington had a confrontation with U.S. Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA 12), the chair of the House Foreign Affairs committee. Lantos, you might remember, recently derided fellow House members who spoke up for a Congressional resolution on the Armenian genocide. A genocide survivor himself, from the Holocaust, it seemed a very surprising stance at the time.

It appears he seems to like this spotlight. In response to the Dutch parliamentary delegation’s call for the closure of Guantanamo Bay, Lantos complained that “Europe was not as outraged by Auschwitz as by Guantanamo Bay.” Lantos then demanded the Dutch keep their NATA troops in Afghanistan. To bolster his stance, he spewed out a whoper:

“You have to help us, because if it was not for us you would now be a province of Nazi Germany.”

Oh yeah, that’ll tell ‘em Tom. That pretty much shut down any discussion. So much for our enlightened leader of Foreign Affairs in the U.S. House of Representatives. While alienating most of the delegation, Lantos found himself in close agreement with one of its members on the Guantanamo issue. Lantos hasn’t called for closing this stain on America’s international reputation. In this, he was joined by far right Dutch Freedom Party leader Geert Wilders:

“Let’s not forget we are in a state of war — not only the United States but also my country — with Islamic terrorists. I think we could only learn from Guantanamo.”

Nice company you’re keeping, Tom.

Seems that Attorney General nominee Michael B. Mukasey isn’t that far away ideologically from his predecessor Alberto Gonzales. First, he refuses to call waterboarding torture. Now, it appears he’s all for making presidents into kings, as long as there is a war going on, regardless of the legitimacy of such a war. In a report from the Washington Post on his testimony, it seems as if Mr. Mukasey thinks that the president can use his supposed powers as commander-in-chief to supersede U.S. law:

Under sharp questioning about the Bush administration’s warrantless eavesdropping program, Mukasey said there may be occasions when the president’s wartime powers would supersede legal requirements to obtain a warrant to conduct wiretaps.

But yesterday, he said this:

Mukasey also said the president cannot use his powers as commander in chief to override prohibitions against using torture or cruel, inhuman and degrading conduct in the interrogation of prisoners.

Do these two points of view contradict each other? It seems that he’s hedging the second one, since the President and his cohorts have already said that by definition, anything the US does isn’t torture since the US doesn’t torture. I used to get in trouble in high school geometry class when I tried to prove things using such tautological arguments. No one seems to be scolding the cronies in charge, at least not yet.

We scream it from the pulpit, broadcast it over the radio, and stump it on the campaign trail: genocide is bad and we must never forget and never allow it to happen again. Though, it seems that if there’s some personal interest at stake, then, hold your horses, let’s not get all up in arms about something. Especially if it’s not something going on right now. Moreover, it really seems to be okay to ignore or downplay ongoing genocide if it’s somewhere where the people’s skin is darker, their bank accounts empty, or their natural resources scant, plundered, or exhausted.

Today, the House Foreign Affairs committee passed a resolution condemning the massacre of Armenians by Turks and the Ottoman Empire during the World War I period. Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA 12), a vociferous Holocaust survivor, said that “We have to weigh the desire to express our solidarity with the Armenian people … against the risk that it could cause young men and women in the uniform of the United States armed services to pay an even heavier price than they are currently paying.” I wonder if he’d say that about a Congressional Resolution recognizing the Holocaust? Or voicing concern about the Genocide in Darfur? As a matter of fact, Rep. Lantos and Candidate Bush (prior to the 2000 election) both supported calling these early 20th Century killings genocide. Now, their running from their conscience and conviction due to the fact that the US needs Turkey right now to prosecute Iraq war (and maybe an Iran war). Turkey is also a longtime ally and member of NATO, and is also trying to get into the European Union.

What bothers me is that it appears we have classes of genocide. There are the ones we always talk about and never waver on. There are those we sometimes support unless it’s in our short-term national interests to wobble a little. Then there are those we don’t care about that much. Finally, there are those we never talk about (e.g. the one that began with the person we celebrated as a federal holiday this past Monday). Genocide is genocide, plain and simple. One isn’t better, more noteworthy, more deserving than another. Innocent human beings are or were slaughtered in large numbers for no reason other than simple human hate. We’ve got to stand firm and not waver. Never again must have a solid foundation that doesn’t crack during short-term tremors. If it doesn’t, then let’s just stop using the phrase and shed what little humanity we’ve clothed ourselves in over the last 10,000 years.

The Post, and others, report that Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE)’s plan to partition Iraq passed with bipartisan support today in the Senate, on a vote of 75 to 23. What’s interesting, though, is that I thought Iraq was a sovereign nation? Why is the United States Senate declaring that Iraq should be divided into three autonomous regions with a weak federal government? I thought that would be up to the Iraqis? [Yes, I am being sarcastic here, just in case you missed it.]

And, while Bush played with his generals in Iraq and Congress bipartisanly rejected doing anything about it (through abdication by Republicans or lack of skill/power by Democrats), it seems that the Tabliban are resurgent in Afghanistan. Thanks Mr. Bush.

No vote for citizen-residents of the District of Columbia and no right to habeas corpus for detainees being held indefinitely without charge by the United States.

Congressional and Administration Republicans want it both ways. In the first case, they hold up the U.S. Constitution as sacrosanct and that only “the few states” can have a voting Representative in the U.S. House. In the second case, Republicans throw out the Constitution, its rich common law history, and forfeit a long-standing U.S. tradition of supporting human and civil rights. Ideally, I really think Republicans would like a King and they would then be able to fill its court: feasting without the need to think or act responsibly. Your time is running out. You might want to get one last drink and toast the king before the castle crumbles down around you.