Then -

Roman dictum: Si vis pacem para bellum.

If you want peace, you must prepare for war.

Now -

If you want war, you must prepare for the peace that will follow.

posted by Quiddity at 8/31/2002 09:01:00 AM

The war matrix.




red = no military service, blue = military service (sometimes intelligence or other non-combatant position)

Sources:
Debate within the GOP, old Bush hands: 1, 2
Congressional approval / hearings: 1, 2
International opinion: 1, 2, 3, 4
Pundits: 1, 2, 3, 4

NOTE: This matrix captures the situation at the end of August. Since then, especially because of political forces in play, some of the individuals have shifted positions (e.g. Powell moving towards "Yes").
posted by Quiddity at 8/30/2002 08:40:00 AM

Kaus and Coulter update:

Still no sign of land.

The Mickster hasn't had anything to say about Coulter yet, but there have been a number of posts in the associated Fray section on Coulter (and right-wing tolerance of violent imagery). And not a few. For example, here are a dozen: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12. These type make up about 1/4 of all the Kausfiles posts since the Coulter-McVeigh quote of a week ago. (The others are about the New York Times or Kaus being irrelevant.)

Mickey, the pressure is building. Quick, think of a response!
posted by Quiddity at 8/30/2002 01:19:00 AM

Trivia:

Echaton notes a Bill O'Reilly / Gays / Conservative tussle. What happened is this:

O'Reilly gives an interview for the September issue of The Advocate. He tells the magazine he doesn't care much one way or the other about gay marriage.

This upsets conservatives.

One group reacting vigorously is the Concerned Women of America.

Who is (are?) the Concerned Women of America?

They are an antii-abortion, anti-cloning, anti-homosexual, Christian group. (The Christian orientation, a key determinant of their outlook, is not evident from their name.) When first encountering groups like this, an interesting test is to see what position, if any, they have on evolution. The CWoA does have one (or rather, several). For example, this is what they claim the Darwinists' plan for indoctrination is:

Present the lie about man and God to demean what was created in God’s image.

Begin pushing the envelope toward the real goal: belief in naturalism instead of God.

Establish a cloak of deception to desensitize the public.

Claim evidence that is not substantiated as fact.

Skew the facts and repeat the lie so that the true history is not known.

Sway public opinion by equating evolution with progressive, intellectual thought.

Vilify resistance to the agenda.

Utilize Hollywood in the communication of a lie.

Use the courts to bring evolution into education.

Punish the truth-tellers.

Here at uggabugga, we consider ourselves Darwinists, but frankly were unaware of the program as outlined by the CWoA. We obviously missed getting the memo from Central Darwinian Command. But now that we've had a chance to view it, we are not surprised to see that the last item is:

Punish the truth-tellers.

Yeah!      Absolutely. That's the number one topic whenever we meet. But how, we wonder, did the CWoA find out our secret? Somebody at the Trilateral Commission must have blabbed.  Or maybe it was the Bilderbergs.  Or maybe the Council on Foreign Relations.   Or...   (Read all about it here.)
posted by Quiddity at 8/29/2002 11:32:00 PM

posted by Quiddity at 8/29/2002 04:14:00 AM

Hey Kaus! Yeah, you!

Your mother wears army boots! Your sister is a thespian! And you openly matriculated in front of people at college!

Ahh. That felt good.
posted by Quiddity at 8/27/2002 08:10:00 PM

The essay defending Coulter in the Wall Street Journal Online - with a number of substitutions:

Our attention has been drawn recently to Adolf Hitler, the national socialist firecracker and best-selling author of "Mein Kampf." There are many surprising dimensions to the Hitler phenomenon. He has defied expectation, overturned prejudice even, in so many ways. He surprises, at the most basic level, by his effortlessly guilt-free flights of extroversion, his fierce national socialism.

We have been programmed to think that such impassioned outrage, and outrageousness, are permissible only by Communists, certainly not from honorable Austrian-born villagers. From Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, yes.   Adolf Hitler -- heaven forbid. He cannot claim that his affronts have been much exaggerated by his enemies -- he has certainly courted outrage, called modern art "degenerate," dreamed out loud that all Jews be obliterated, and once praised the Sturmabteilung (stormtroopers). It's merely that such effrontery sounds more palatable in the mouths of Communists. After all, why isn't he happily occupied practicing the peaceful arts, a painter of watercolors in Vienna as befits his heritage?

Well, Mr. Hitler isn't and it has upset a lot of entrenched opinions. Prejudices of this kind stem from a lazy assumption that really blistering free speech belongs more to critics of Germany's flaws than to celebrators of its virtues. The difference between Mr. Hitler and the Communists' fuming is surely very clear. They meant it literally, bombs and all. Mr. Hitler, on the other hand, acts out his thoughts in a kind of "what if" political theater, a tongue-in-cheek agitprop, and believes that most Germans understand the difference. Most Germans apparently do, as his book has topped the bestseller lists for many weeks now. Why then don't his infuriated critics get it?

By all accounts, they have tried long and hard to keep ranks closed against him to shut him out of the political game. Why would anybody even pretend to believe that Mr. Hitler wishes any real harm to the gypsies or wishes to remove all Jews from society? The answer, one suspects, is that he and his foes insist on different visions of Germany. His foes see a fragile society full of rifts and flaws, oppressions and simmering resentments that can turn into open strife any moment. Ergo, free speech, however offensive, belongs morally on their side as an instrument of social palliation. Mr. Hitler, as he has often demonstrated, inhabits a sturdier Germany with a self-confident unapologetic culture centered in the fatherland. In his Germany, political and personal, even ethnic quips get thrown about with abandon in fierce raillery, everybody laughs about it afterwards and the country is none the worse for wear.

Considering that most political organizations would prefer to filter out his kind, Mr. Hitler's very survival as a public figure has been his most startling trick, indeed has offered a kind of breathtaking spectacle. For much milder remarks than he daily defiantly serves up, we've seen veteran politicians hounded out of office. Yet there he still is enduring on the tightrope, however threadbare it may be by now, his Chaplinesque signature likeness precariously aloft, a shock of dark hair riffled by the breeze and nimbly gambading above the shark pool.

Friends and foes alike, at this point, have put down their banners and turned to gape at the pure principle of anti-gravity he has come to represent. He himself admits in a recent profile that no mainstream political party will accept him. So he chooses, he says, to talk directly to mainstream Germany over their heads, and book buyers have rewarded him handsomely for it. It's hard to know if this means that they applaud all of his harsher utterances, or simply his defiance and longevity in the face of adversity. Watching Mr. Hitler survive tenaciously on the tightrope, they're delighted to see it done.

Scary, isn't it?

Note: This is not as absurd a parallel as one might think. Hitler did use humor - of a mordant sort. He did have a bestseller (1933). He did make outrageous comments from time to time before assuming power - before people realized that he was serious.

Additional note:
We know that most people shy away from comparisons involving Hitler. We do too. But in this case it was felt to be warranted. All that was done in the rewrite above was replace various nouns (e.g. Hitler for Coulter, Germany for America, Mein Kampf for Slander, etc.) and personal pronouns. The Journal essay was a defense of Coulter's wild language. This substitution exercise was performed to show how the writer dismissed what she (or Hitler) actually said, that having a bestseller makes it all a big harmless joke, and therefore people shouldn't worry so much. We strongly disagree.
posted by Quiddity at 8/27/2002 07:42:00 PM

The NEA & the Washington Times "story":

Bob Somerby once again does serious journalistic spade-work. It's amazing that the Times article had any legs, but alas, that's what happened. Even Peter Beinart got fooled. For, as Rober Kuttner put it, "the column in the Times is about the most dishonest piece of journalism I’ve read in years".

Last week, we took a look at the NEA site dedicated to 9-11, and were impressed by the enormous amounts of lesson plans, links to other resources, and other packages for parents and teachers. For instance, here is an example from one of the papers:

The purpose of memorials is to bring people together to express their grief and at the same time to reduce feelings of isolation and vulnerability. In addition, these activities can help to increase feelings of security. Appropriate memorial activities may include listing the attributes of lost friends or loved ones; developing memory books; distributing memory ribbons; planting a flower or a tree; lighting candles; saying a prayer; creating a mural or collage about the life (lives) of the deceased; and writing a poem, story, or song about the person(s) who died.

Pretty subversive, huh?

While we admire what The Daily Howler has done, we are also saddened. This sort of chasing down lies shouldn't be necessary. After all, hasn't the Washington Times already demonstrated that it's an unreliable, biased newspaper? (Remember how they mishandled Clinton's post 9-11 speech?) They should be ignored. Same for Coulter. Same for Limbaugh. Same for Hannity. Same for O'Reilly.

The burden of proof - that they are reliable journalists - is on them. They have to demonstrate that they're honest reporters. Big ratings don't mean a thing - except that they have big ratings. The audience for these folks have already made their minds up. For them Fox is fair and balanced. There is no spin at the O'Reilly Factor. Rush is the voice of truth. Etc.

But then people say, "These stories and personalities get into the major media, like CNN." True. That's the fault of the major media, and they will have to keep their house in order on their own. They know the score. They know who the clowns are and who does serious work. If they bring on the crazies, it's their shame.
posted by Quiddity at 8/27/2002 05:56:00 PM

Kaus on Coulter:

Well, it looks as though the Mickster's approach is to avoid commenting about Coulter, and instead, blow kisses at Media Whores Online for recent "responsible" [his italics] behavior. Presumably, this neutralizes his earlier critique about connections between MWO, obscure leftist talk of violence, and actual violence.

Sorry Mr. K. - we're not buying it.
posted by Quiddity at 8/27/2002 05:33:00 AM

Bush speaking out (or not) on invading Iraq:

In the New York Times, we read:

"You've got the vice president making this detailed speech about why we should go to war," said Senator Chuck Hagel, a Nebraska Republican who has been a frequent critic of the administration on Iraq. "The president is not saying anything."

but...

"When Cheney talks, it's Bush," said William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard and a hard-liner on Iraq.

This is like the olden days when the monarch was inscrutable (because weak-willed, dim-witted, or worse) and it was the duty of lesser nobility and court officials to speak for him.
posted by Quiddity at 8/27/2002 05:17:00 AM

Bush's impeccable logic:

Forest fires are bad.

Forest fires only happen in forests.

No forests = no forest fires.

Perhaps Gale Norton showed him this:

In any event, Bush has signed on to the concept, and as he said on Saturday (Aug 24): "Forest policies have not focused on thinning, the clearing of the forest floor of built-up brush and densely packed trees that create the fuel for extremely large fires like those experienced this year."

posted by Quiddity at 8/26/2002 03:20:00 PM

Law-abiding Texans:

A U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics report out today has this headline:

U.S. CORRECTIONAL POPULATION REACHES 6.6 MILLION

One in 32 Adult Residents Incarcerated or Under Community Supervision

Which seems strange. After all, what nation wants to boast about having "one in 32" in jail, parole, or probation?

Fun fact:

Texas led the Nation at year end 2001 with 4,818 adults under correctional supervision per 100,000 adult State residents ...

That's nearly 5% - and considering that men constitute about 80% those "under correctional supervision", it means that in Texas, 7.7% of them are currently in the system (3854 / 50,000). That's one in 13.

Think about that. It's not one in 13 in the inner city. It's not one in 13 of an ethnic group. It's one in 13 of all men statewide.

Thanks to InstaPundit and TalkLeft for bringing this to our attention.

posted by Quiddity at 8/25/2002 07:43:00 PM

New York Times vs. the neoconservatives.

Recently the New York Times has come under attack for allegedly misrepresenting Kissinger's position on Iraq. The most recent assault was on Fox News Sunday, where a fat 15 minutes was devoted to the subject. On the show, impartial commentators Paul Gigot, Charles Krauthammer, and William Kristol all agreed that the Times was acting badly. The newspaper declined to send a representative, but Fox was able to find an ex-editor who didn't have much to say one way or another. What did the Times actually say? On August 16, the headline was:

Top Republicans Break With Bush on Iraq Strategy

And the relevant lines are:

Leading Republicans from Congress, the State Department and past administrations have begun to break ranks with President Bush over his administration's high-profile planning for war with Iraq, saying the administration has neither adequately prepared for military action nor made the case that it is needed.

Far from ruling out military intervention, Mr. Kissinger said the challenge was to build a careful case that the threat of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction calls for creation of a new international security framework in which pre-emptive action may sometimes be justified.

The New York Times said that Kissinger doesn't oppose the goal of toppling Hussein, or even how (military action), but that the planning was unsatisfactory. Thus, he was deemed to have "broken ranks" with Bush over his planning. Which Kissinger has.

Those who accuse the Times of misleading reporting are simply lying. But the important thing to note is that the critics are not out to clarify the Kissinger/Iraq issue. Their goal is to discredit the Times. Pure and simple.
posted by Quiddity at 8/25/2002 11:18:00 AM