Old news

I want to link to a couple of items from today's paper, so let me first reassure you that I'm not trying to turn into Will Bunch and don't intend to make a daily dose of local news a regular feature.

Neither of these stories, mind you, is anywhere near as important as this or this or this, but I haven't yet gotten to the point where I can discuss those without sliding into a profanity-filled tirade. I can't yet offer any more helpful comment than to point out that these people are perverse and monstrous and, based on their own words, their own admission, the question is not how long they should be allowed to remain in office but how long they should be forced to rot in jail. These motherless bast...

OK, no. See? Still a bit too sputtery to discuss all of that. Soon, though. For now I'll just stick to a couple quickie notes from today's paper.

- - -

Here's the AP's follow story on the government-sponsored research on using sewage sludge to try to neutralize lead-contaminated soil.

The mix of human and industrial wastes from sewage-treatment plants was spread on the lawns of nine low-income families in Baltimore and a vacant lot next to an elementary school in East St. Louis, Ill., to test whether lead in the soil from chipped paint and car exhausts would bind to it.

The research conducted in 2001 and 2002 was funded by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Agriculture Department and the Environmental Protection Agency.

The idea being tested here might be a good one. The way it is being tested is troublesome for two big reasons, neither of which has anything to do with the ickiness of sludge. The foul smell here comes from something else.

First, and most obviously, this is a test, an experiment. This research was being conducted to find out whether or to what extent, if any, mixing such sludge with contaminated soil might be effective in neutralizing the toxic lead present there. The people conducting this research, in other words, were doing so because they do not yet already know whether or to what extent this might be effective. That's what "research" and "experiment" mean. Yet when they arranged for this research with those nine families in Baltimore and the hundreds of families whose children attend that East St. Louis school, the researchers didn't present the technique as experimental -- they told those families that they already knew that this method would be effective. They didn't already know this. What they told those families was not true.

Second, the researchers also reassured those families, with greater confidence than they could claim, that they were certain the sludge itself posed no additional threat. That was probably true, but not the certainty it was presented to be. Those families had the right to be informed of the distinction between pretty sure and certain.

The research being conducted here was worthwhile, noble even. These families were already living in a toxic environment and the researchers hoped, suspected and believed that they might have a way to help with that. That's what they should have told these families.

The most scandalous thing here has nothing to do with the researchers or with sludge. The deeper scandal is the problem those researchers were trying to address: That it is not unusual in this country for poor, black children to live their lives surrounded by the toxic threat of lead. Researching a potential way to neautralize that toxin is one step up. Conducting that research dishonestly and unethically is two steps back.

- - -

The other piece of news from today's paper isn't really new, just an astonishing bit of local history from 40 years ago -- a look back at former Delaware Gov. Russell W. Peterson's decision to end the military occupation of the City of Wilmington.

This is one of those things that I initially had to read and re-read to convince myself that I'd read it right. The what? In the rioting that followed the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. 40 years ago, Delaware's Gov. Charles L. Terry Jr. called in the National Guard to patrol the city. OK, I get that. That happened in a lot of cities in the spring of 1968. But in Wilmington, the National Guard troops stayed for nine and a half months. The troops patrolled the city until Terry was voted out of office.

Peterson, a Republican of the sort that's much harder to find these days, campaigned on the promise that he would end the military occupation of this American city. Peterson's speech, given just before taking office, strikes me as worth quoting today:

What has happened in Wilmington is a warning not only to the citizens of Delaware but to all Americans. The deeply disturbing fact is that many citizens not only favored, but demanded the military patrols.

American tradition says, “It can’t happen here.”

Our experience in Delaware tells us that, to an alarming extent, it has happened here. History tells us that when people voluntarily accept military controls, for any reason, they often end up losing their own freedom.

Comments

[Ursula L]

Ah. I found Teresa's exact quote:

"I deeply resent the way this administration makes me feel like a nutbar conspiracy theorist."

Teresa Nielsen Hayden

Somehow, I imagine Teresa's deep resentment as a towering fury combined with scathing contempt which should send mere mortals running for their lives, delivered with an authority we could only dream of possessing.

[Dash]

No, no one else has the military might to threaten us, but we don't have the military might to invade every country that refuses to cooperate. If a country is maintaining cordial diplomatic and trade relations and giving us what we want when we ask, it makes any condemnation they make ring hollow.

Our military budget is the largest on the planet. I think it's larger than everyone else's combined, but I don't have a cite for that. True, we can't invade or punish the entire rest of the planet, but countries that think to oppose us can't be sure that they won't be the one chosen for punishment.

About the torture discussions: it's good to have admissions because, as others have noted, that puts it on the record.

And, just for the record, as a patriotic American, I fully support every damn thing Jesurgislac has said on this thread.

[LL]

RE "The most scandalous thing here has nothing to do with the researchers or with sludge. The deeper scandal is the problem those researchers were trying to address: That it is not unusual in this country for poor, black children to live their lives surrounded by the toxic threat of lead. Researching a potential way to neautralize that toxin is one step up. Conducting that research dishonestly and unethically is two steps back."

Maybe I didn't read the other posting (or the story linked to) carefully enough. I do, of course, agree with the above. It is a scandal (that few seem to care about) that really pretty harmful industrial manufacturing facilities are placed adjacent to black neighborhoods for the very reason that those neighborhoods don't have enough rich people to make sure that doesn't happen. It's not always black neighborhoods, of course, the common denominator is poor.

RE revelations about Bushco: I kinda wish I could be outraged, but I'm just not surprised. I have always assumed Bush et al were as corrupt, if not more so, than any administration before, so I always expected the worst and was surprised that various revelations about them were not even more heinous. Bush did not distinguish himself in Texas (except as a major-league dumbass), so his tenure as president hasn't demonstrated anything I didn't expect, really.

[LL]

Just want to remind the non-Americans (and some of the Americans) that 300 million people didn't vote for Bush. First, the Voting Age Population of the U.S. is about 207 million people. The rest are people not yet old enough to vote. Break that down further to the people who actually bother to vote. In 2004 (per Wikipedia, sorry I don't have a better source, but it's quick and sounds about right, from my memory of other, better sources), 120 million people voted in the pres. election. 62 million voted for Bush, 59 million voted for Kerry. Whatever our idiot president claimed afterwards, he did not have a mandate. He did not win by a landslide. A majority of people in the U.S. in 2004 either did not want him to continue to be president or didn't care enough to vote on it. It is because of the peculiarities of the electoral system that Bush was reelected. Not saying he didn't win fair and square (as much as that is possible when Karl Rove was running the campaign), but just wanted to point that out.

Most of us don't support Bush. We don't enable him. We think he's an idiot and that almost everyone he's ever hired is incompetent. We just didn't have quite enough votes to get him fired. And there's no chance of impeachment. None. Whoever is thinking of that can stop right now. Ain't gonna happen.

And I do disagree that "the rest of the world enabled" us. That just doesn't make any sense. Yeah, some govts have helped us rendition people, among other things. But everyone else seems to have made their dislike of our policies and methods pretty damn clear. And they are encouraged to continue to do so. Hell, the rest of the world (and hopefully, our own military) are the only reasons Bush hasn't given the go-ahead to invade Iran already. Not everyone in America approves of the way Bush and his toadies in Congress have used our military strength. He and his friends squandered almost every speck of goodwill America had right after Sept. 11, 2001. For that alone, he should be ashamed. But I have a feeling he's not.

[Jeff]

other than Colin Powell

Colin [PTS] Powell stood before the UN and knowingly lied about WMDs. He did so knowing the cost of his lies, he did so regardless of the cost to his reputation*. I have no sympathy for Colin [PTS] Powell -- he should be shipped to the Hague with his buddies.

* or, rather, what the cost to his reputation would be in a sane and moral world.

[Kristy]

True, we can't invade or punish the entire rest of the planet, but countries that think to oppose us can't be sure that they won't be the one chosen for punishment.

This is accurate. And it fits back in with why I still paid my taxes. I was mostly playing devil's advocate, because it seemed like all the cool kids were yelling at R. Mildred.

[Dash]

Cowboy Diva, what to do? Join MoveOn.Org or some grass roots organization. Organize for your candidate, and, importantly, pressure your candidate/party to make the appropriate assurances about torture and human rights. Join the ACLU, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, or the National Religious Campaign Against Torture (see the sidebar in this very blog) or the special interest group that suits your politics. Push for accuracy in voting (that's something that happens at the state level, and that's something you can influence). Register voters and volunteer with your party at the polls. Do get-out-the-vote stuff. Figure out what you want to tell your grandkids when they ask you, 40 years hence, what you did to reverse the moral decline in America.

For those of you who are not American, it might help to recognize just how cut off Americans are in terms of information. Our media, particularly the broadcast media, engage to a large degree in happy talk--or manufactured outrage, "OH NOES! They're saying 'Happy Holidays!' instead of 'Merry Christmas!'!!!11!!"--and mouthing the corporate line. The great Helen Thomas's book, Watchdogs of Democracy?, gives an account of how this came about. It is difficult to get accurate information, even for those of us who want to.

Oh, and the broadcast media? I except Comedy Central's The Daily Show, of course. They've actually been really sort of responsible, in a comedy-show kind of way. Actually often in a professional-journalist kind of way, e.g., "let's check what this politician said about this very same thing last year."

(Those who live in saner countries might think I'm joking about the outrage over people saying "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas." I'm not.)

[Amaryllis]

It's not always black neighborhoods, of course, the common denominator is poor.

Yeah. Last summer, it was
arsenic in a South Baltimore park and surrounding neighborhoods
which the chemical company responsible for the pollution concealed for 30 years.
But again, as long as you're not serving dirt for dinner, you should be okay. Probably.

'Somehow, I imagine Teresa's deep resentment' as being utterly meaningless, full of contempt at anyone pointing out that she is merely a part of the system that finds so unacceptable (I'm pretty sure she has the means to leave America and live comfortably somewhere else - Canada comes to mind), delivered with all the authority that the power of deleting any opposing opinion in any forum under her control provides.

Sometimes, I wonder where people like Teresa (according to google's first entry, born in 1956) were during such trivial things as Vietnam, the dirty wars in South and Central America, Iran-Contra - a full list of such American achievements till 1992 would make me sound like a nutbar conspiracy theorist, except for the fact that so much of the information I would be quoting was openly published, and is available from the National Archives. Anyone familiar with a DC terrorist bombing from my teenage years? It happened when Teresa was 20 years old - 'In September 1976 in Washington, D.C., Michael Townley, a U.S. national and a bomb expert employed by Chile's secret police, recruited five anti-Castro Cubans to help him carry out an assassination. The assassins placed a bomb under the car of Orlando Letelier, Allende's former defense minister. The bomb killed Letelier and Ronni Moffitt. Both victims worked at the Institute for Policy Studies.' http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/1998_cr/h980917-chile.htm And for the bonus point - guess who was the head at the time of one of Townley's former employers? That's right, you had to be crazy to point that America elected its first secret police president in 19988, a secret police chief who just happened to have an ex-employee (or not so ex - always a matter of perspective, isn't it?) running around DC with professionally manufactured explosive devices. Do read more - fascinating stuff with connections to other terrorists involved in bombing airliners (follow the Cubana link), media dirty tricks involving such people as Buckley and Novak, etc. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letelier_case

One of the fundamental problems, not only with America but essentially any human society, is just how easy it is to lament what happens, without taking any personal risk in opposing it. A charge which can be applied to most of us, myself included, of course.

Except that I left America (love it or blah, blah, blah), providing at least the feeling of being able to wash my hands of what happens there.

Which is an illusion, except that it isn't - the paradox of anyone that has left their country of birth behind.

Maybe, when her towering moral outrage grows towering enough to actually convert itself to such an action, she can feel that paradox for herself. Until then, I'm pretty sure her 1040 was filed properly.

[Ursula L]

No, no one else has the military might to threaten us, but we don't have the military might to invade every country that refuses to cooperate. If a country is maintaining cordial diplomatic and trade relations and giving us what we want when we ask, it makes any condemnation they make ring hollow.

We don't have the military might to successfully invade and occupy every other nation on the world.

But the US does have the military might to invade and unsuccessfully occupy any handful of nations that opposes us. Which would be horribly destructive to that nation, even if the US ultimately fails.

And we have the ultimate supply of weapons of mass destruction. Enough nuclear weapons to wipe out the planet. Any nation or group of nations opposing the US has to take that into account. If the US gets crazy enough, it can wipe out any and all nations that oppose us. Which is a horribly scary thing, even for anyone living in the US, because no one person or nation should have that type of power.

And even scarier for people living outside the US, who might want to oppose us, but who do so knowing the US will (as it is now) start wars of aggression based on lies. And that we'll keep fighting a war we can't win, as a matter of wicked, stubborn pride. And that the war will be taken to their homes, killing hundreds of thousands or millions of people there, while the people of the US sit safe at home, and whine about or celebrate war (depending on individual political leanings) without anyone in the US experiencing what war really is. Even US soldiers fighting the war - they know their families are safe at home, protecting them from one of the worst aspects of actually living through a war, which is knowing the danger applies to every one of your family and friends.

[Izzy]

So, Anonymous Poster, nobody can complain about, or resent deeply, the country in which they live unless they're willing to:

a) Pick up everything they own, say goodbye to friends and family, and leave,
or
b) Form an armed and, um, tax-avoidant militia?

That's...good to know. Yeah. 'Kay.

[Rum Sodomy & the Lash]

But the US does have the military might to invade and unsuccessfully occupy any handful of nations that opposes us. Which would be horribly destructive to that nation, even if the US ultimately fails.

Um, which handful of nations? The dark days of Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and the British Empire are over. The worst we have nowadays are Iran and North Korea (the "axis of evil" in Bush's imaginations). If you're talking about the U.S. invading the U.K. or France (which it won't) against that nation's government's will, you're talking about total devastation for all of the countries involved.

And we have the ultimate supply of weapons of mass destruction. Enough nuclear weapons to wipe out the planet. Any nation or group of nations opposing the US has to take that into account. If the US gets crazy enough, it can wipe out any and all nations that oppose us.

So does Russia, and France, and I think Britain too. Hell, even Pakistan and India have enough nuclear weapons to rain devastation on entire regions at once. The problem is that I'm not sure that anyone in any of those nation's governments is actually as crazy as people seem to think they are. Bush and his company might be a self-righteous, self-serving creep, but he's certainly not dumb enough to destroy the entire world just because some member of Parliament somewhere criticizes U.S. policies or tries to embargo the U.S. Certainly if we were to destroy any country that wasn't completely isolated from the world, the economic backlash alone would wipe out the U.S. itself. Again, people who talk about the U.S. suddenly going crazy and colonizing the entire planet tend to ignore the fact that such a thing would be so disastrous to the country that it would dwarf WWII, even if the U.S. won outright. Yeah, there are plenty of reasons that governments around the world don't speak out against the U.S.'s policies, but the threat of the U.S. firing nuclear weapons at Paris and Berlin and London and Madrid and Tokyo and Ottawa and Canberra is certainly not one of them.

[R. Mildred]

"OH NOES! They're saying 'Happy Holidays!' instead of 'Merry Christmas!'!!!11!!"--and mouthing the corporate line.

That's not actually unique to America - I know that it's been rife in most of the major european countries since about the 80's and that in fact it's at least as old as the protocols of the elders of zion, which itself is more of a collection of pre-existing far right memes form the 19th cneutry than anything else.

So while we are massively insular, we aren't the only ones*, first nations are pretty much defined by their massively debilitating rectal cranial inversion.

Yeah, there are plenty of reasons that governments around the world don't speak out against the U.S.'s policies, but the threat of the U.S. firing nuclear weapons at Paris and Berlin and London and Madrid and Tokyo and Ottawa and Canberra is certainly not one of them.

Except you have a second problem involved with a country having a genuinely "anti-american" foreign policy, which is that there are some countries who have the nukes to make "military interventions" stupid (ignoring of course Cuba) but who don't have the economic leverage to be able to survive "soft" economic imperialism backed up by the WTO and the World Bank.

* which in no way means that it's not bad for us to be like that, but we ain't special either in our evil doing or our goodness. So as much as it pains me, as the far right lackey I am, to admit it (because as everyone knows, WE'RE #1! USA! USA!) even as complete and utter evil bastards we are merely mediocre and average, being neither genius nor retard in regard to our massive dysfunctionalities as a nation, compared to the various and myriad dysfunctions of other nations.

Not that I don't agree with all the people disagreeing with me though, we have already impeachd one president for blowjobs, as opposed to setting up a little extra-legal camp for HIV+ haitian refugees or anything meaningful, so I reckon it's pretty much mandatory at this point to have Dick Cheney's mutilated corpse attached to a meat hook and suspended outside the Capitol Building. Which of course is, imho, pretty much the only natural result of any truly fair trial focused on the various things the current regime has gotten up to.

Sic Semper Tyrannus and all that.

Question to the Liberals then: is capital punishment then Just (capital J "just", as in "Justice"), even when it's being applied to Always Lawful Evil Baby Eating Lizard Men From Outer Space such as Dick Cheney?

Discuss.

[pat greene]

Anonymous poster, I do not know Teresa Nielsen Hayden personally (I wish I did) so I can not speak for her. But for myself and others my (and TNH's age), and everyone who has spent the last n years speaking out about this stuff to people around us, I would like to say, as Jesu said so eloquently to R. Mildred...

Fuck you.

So you left. Good on you. Maybe I should just call you a gutless coward for not having the cojones to stay and try to fight.

I'm not going to, though: everyone's story is different, and the reasons I stay (and do not for one moment think I have not thought of leaving) do not apply to you, and the reasons you have for being able to leave do not apply to me.

And unless you know Ms. Nielsen Hayden personally, and I strongly doubt you do, you have no business whatsoever passing judgment on her decisions on such a personal matter.

[pat greene]

Fred, thank you so much for the addition on the sludge story. I was trying to formulate a response to various people's comments in the other thread that would say that without being snide and or rude, and utterly failing. So I said nothing.

'Maybe I should just call you a gutless coward for not having the cojones to stay and try to fight.'
Please do - and look at how well those fighting the good fight have done, properly filed 1040s and all.

'...you have no business whatsoever passing judgment on her decisions on such a personal matter.'
Of course I do - the same way that I have passed judgment on a man I have never met, named John Yoo. He is a contemptible figure, who deserves to lose his tenured position on a law faculty (though he is fighting the good fight, in his eyes), and deserves to be tried in front of a court of law, and treated as the war criminal he is, proven through his own words as recorded on official documents.

Do I expect this to happen? Of course not - because people such as yourself and all the rest who have thought of opposing the evil that their government has been engaged in (engagement in growing measure, mind you), are still waiting for someone else to handle the problem.

The problem is not someone else, a fact you probably realize, otherwise you might be spending more time saying 'fuck you' to someone like the vice president, who after all, himself enjoys a hearty 'fuck you' on the floor of the Senate.

What I think will be surprising to any number of self-considered 'good' Americans is just how little other people in other nations care about such 'goodness' at a political level. Nothing denigrating at the personal level, mind - most people on this planet live in fairly appalling political systems, and they just do their best to get along - and extend the same courtesy to others.

If you wish to argue you are trapped, you have more of my sympathy than you might guess. Because to even sketch out that trap in 1986 (from credit cards to mandatory IDs for employment to drug testing - I won't bore you with my thoughts from that time) would make you seem insane to your fellow citizens then.

Oh well, generally they just thought I was an obnoxious person who had no idea about their individual circumstances, and no place in judging them. Nothing new - I have been hearing that sort of fuck you all my life, basically, and I'm sure you'll agree - it hasn't changed a thing, neither in my opinion nor in the actions of others.

[Jesurgislac]

Oh well, generally they just thought I was an obnoxious person who had no idea about their individual circumstances, and no place in judging them.

How odd. Why did they think that, do you suppose?

[Ryan]

Because that's what THEY were, obviously!

Because I am obnoxious, of course. I have never begrudged anyone their opinion - my parents worked for a couple of three letter agencies you may have heard of - I turned down a chance to work at one of them, actually, in part because it would make my leaving the U.S. behind a lot more complicated.

And calling Bush our first secret police candidate in 1980, and our first secret police president in 1988 was another example of just how obnoxious I could be, even in the most polite company, like that of the military officers in the neighborhood.

My children haven't learned how to be good Americans, either. Unfortunately, the way they pretty much caused one of their roughly same aged American Catholic cousins to break down when describing some of the biblical contradictions they have been familiar with since nursery school was not one of my proudest moments - my obnoxiousness tends to hinge on the political. Religious beliefs aren't worth much time, and respecting just about everyone's mass of contradictory illusions (at least according to those that believe them, the other beliefs are false) is just a simple way to go through life with other people. But my children seem to have believed that facts are a form of normal discourse, and not actually rude and vulgar behavior when talking with someone who believes what she believes because she grew up that way, and not because she had actually ever thought about her faith.

Listening to people say how they can't change their society is not really acceptable where my children are growing up - Germans don't have the luxury of protesting how they weren't responsible for invading other countries, torturing and killing the innocent, or basically, how it was all just a band of criminals (thanks, Benedict - at least in Germany, your words are recognized for what they mean - absolution for mere followers of the Nazis, which just happens to include most, though not all, of the Catholic Church in Germany) responsible for an entire nation losing its morality in the pursuit of worldly gain.

Bother you? It sure as hell bothers me - not that I can do anything about it, right? Just like everyone else, we are good people caught up in a bad system. If it only wasn't for the Poles, the Czechs, the Hungarians, the East Germans showing us how hollow that excuse really is.

But again, I'm obnoxious. Maybe I should be politer - somehow, I don't think it would change anything at all, especially for people who seem to spend time every day at a computer writing among themselves. Nice way to change the world. Oh wait, that was another obnoxious remark, wasn't it?

[Jesurgislac]

Even with all this accumulated knowledge, when will these dummies learn to use a name online?

Howdy, folks! You should see the White House; they'll be cleaning it for months.