Michel Foucault and Bradley Manning

I’m listening to tapes (tapes, not CDs) of a course from the Teaching Company entitled “The Self Under Siege.”  I just finished a lecture on Michel Foucault, a French philosopher who died in 1984.  According to the professor teaching the course, Foucault believed that information was always connected to power.  The information we receive is the information the authorities want us to receive.

I certainly don’t know enough about Foucault on the basis of one 45 minute lecture to pontificate, but the way Bradley Manning and Eric Snowden have been treated makes me think that Foucault was on to something.  Bradley Manning, a patriot who believed that our government was on the wrong track, may spend the rest of his life in jail for publicizing information about what our government has been doing in our name.  Snowden, who exposed the incredible power of our government to snoop on our private communications, is being attacked by the full power of the federal authorities.

Would I have done what those men did if I were in their position?  I don’t think I would have had the courage.

Voter fraud in North Carolina?

My latest issue of the Ballot Access News just arrived.  The lead article is on North Carolina changing the law to eliminate straight-ticket voting.  The article also included other changes in the election law.  North Carolina now has a Republican legislature and a Republican Governor.  Republicans are always saying they are trying to prevent voter fraud.

Ballot Access News listed the changes in the North Carolina election law.  How many of those changes relate to voter fraud, and how many relate to suppressing the Democratic vote?  You decide.

The “reform” bill:

1.   shrinks the early voting period from 17 to 10 days;

2.   makes it impossible for voters to register at a poll station during the early voting period; 

3.  repeals the provision that lets 16- and 17-year olds pre-register;

4.  eliminates the mandate for high school registration drives;

5.  repeals out-of-precinct voting;

6.  bans paying voter registration workers; 

7.  requires government-photo ID to vote at the polls, and student ID cards can’t be used.

It isn’t really about fraud, is it?

Barred owls and spotted owls

I do not like certain “animal rights” activists.  To some animal rights people, all animals should have an equal opportunity to live.  Perhaps each animal has a soul.  A house sparrow, under this philosophy, has an equal right to life as a whooping crane.  The species is not important, the individual animal is.

That brings us to the spotted owl, a bird species of the Northwest that is near extinction.  The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is considering killing a number of barred owls, a widespread species originally native to eastern United States.  Barred owls, which can even live in urban parks, are overwhelming the spotted owls, which have a very narrow range of habitat.  See <http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2013/07/killing_barred_owls_to_save_th.html>.

Some animal rights people object to this plan, which is being done as an experiment in controlled conditions.  According to an article in today’s Morning Call, they say the government should keep hands off, “and let the more dominant bird prevail, as nature intended.”  (I added the emphasis to draw attention to the stupidity of this.  Nature intended?  Really?)  

Humans have been screwing with nature since paleolithic times.  The reason the spotted owl is endangered is because logging damaged its habitat.  We are killing off entire species at an alarming rate--perhaps 1/3 in the next 100 years will be no more.  Since the dominant species on the earth is humankind, it is up to us to save species from extinction.  I am not ready to say goodbye to the spotted owl because some non-thinking animal rights activists are completely clueless about ecology.

Tomorrow:  A different kind of animal rights--protecting farm animals from abuse.

When do we stop killing Indians?

Remember the sequester?  When it happened, I noted that its effects, not all felt at once and not felt by all Americans, would be a rolling disaster.  Nowhere is this more true than on Indian reservations.  

Richard Zephier, the executive director of the Oglala Sioux tribe, summed it up:  “More people sick; fewer people educated; fewer people getting general assistance; more domestic violence; more alcoholism.”

On the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, the tribal police force is being cut 14 percent, and had to fire 14 officers.  Pine Ridge is one of the poorest reservations (and that says a lot), noted for alcoholism, meth addiction, youth gangs, and suicides.  Its schools are cutting back.  It is cutting a program to bring meals to the homebound elderly.  It is cutting back on mental health programs.

These are just a few examples from the New York Times editorial of July 24 (“Abandoned in Indian Country”) of how the sequester is affecting Indians.

I have two comments.  First, I don’t expect members of Congress like Barletta and Toomey to care about Indians.  They are too busy keeping our borders secure to worry about descendants of the first Americans.

Secondly, when I hear how Republicans are “pro-life,” it’s almost too much to bear.

Weissport Blood Drive

The Lehighton Area Democratic Club sponsored a blood drive for the Miller-Keystone Blood Bank in Weissport this afternoon.  Weissport is a small town of about 600 residents on the bank of the Lehigh River.  The drive was co-sponsored by almost every business in town, including the  the beer distributor, an antique mall, Mario’s Pizza, and Central Lunch.  The latter two also provided a free lunch for the workers in the blood donor van.

Registration for the drive took place at Jacob’s United Church of Christ, which also provided restroom facilities.  Two of the parishioners were on hand the whole afternoon to set up, take down, and deal with problems.  Duane of the Democratic Club made the calls to the donors and coordinated the afternoon schedule.

I learned that you can’t give blood if you are on prednisone, but you can donate if you have tattoos or piercings if you got them more than two years ago.  I also learned that a cooperative and generous spirit is alive and well in tiny little Weissport.  We exceeded our goal by at least five pints.

What Does a Woman Want?

Sigmund Freud asked this question of Marie Bonaparte.  He said he was never able to answer it.

While I’m no expert on this question myself, I’m pretty sure it is not pictures of Anthony Weiner’s dick.

Al Sharpton

Jonah Goldberg’s essays occasionally appear in the Allentown Morning Call in a section  featuring a liberal and a conservative.  Goldberg is always “on the right,” and I agree with him perhaps one in a hundred times.  Today was one of those times.

Goldberg wrote about Al Sharpton.  I do not understand why Sharpton is featured on MSNBC, or appears on talk shows, or is ever taken seriously.  As Goldberg points out, he was a ringleader in the Tawana Brawley hoax, in which he accused (falsely) a district attorney and police officers of gang-rapping a fifteen-year-old in a racist attack in 1987.  Sharpton never apologized for attempting to wreck people’s lives.  I am a forgiving person, but I want people to be repentant before I forgive them.

Goldberg mentions two other incidents where Sharpton whipped up anti-Semitic rage, resulting in riots and deaths.

Why MSNBC gives this charlatan his own program is beyond me.  He is a self-important and pompous ass who has done evil and never apologized.  

On Fox “News” Glenn Beck brought disrepute to the whole network. The powers that be finally dumped him.  Sharpton does the same thing on MSNBC, but he’s still on the air.  As long as he is, I will not watch that channel.

"Photo ID helped a bit on that"

You probably have wondered whether Republican legislators really think that voter fraud is a big problem, and they must impose ID requirements to prevent it.  

Here is what Republican Party chair Rob Gleason said in an interview last week on a Pennsylvania Cable News Network.  Gleason said that the voter ID law helped to narrow Obama’s victory over Romney by five percent.

Gleason, quoted in the July 21 issue of the Morning Call, added,  “We probably had a better election.  I think photo ID helped a bit on that.”

This is a law that has nothing to do with fraud.  It has everything to do with disenfranchising Democrats.  Mr. Gleason understands that.  What is amazing is that he would publicly admit it.

Corbett's earrings

A front page article in today’s Morning Call (“Corbett Due for Extreme Makeover”)explains that Republican party strategists plan to change Corbett’s image and move him up in the polls.  Perhaps they will tout the accomplishment of allowing fracking companies to avoid a severance tax.  Maybe they will stress how forceful he was in the Sandusky investigation, or how he reduced our property taxes. They could also emphasize the cuts in education aid from kindergarten through college, causing 20,000 teachers to be laid off.  

Maybe they’ll publicize his efforts to reduce voting among the old and non-drivers.  They could discuss how he plans to sell the revenue-raising Wine and Spirits Shops.  They should mention his refusal to expand Medicaid.

The old expression about earrings on a pig applies here.  It’s the one that says you can put earrings on a pig, but it is still a pig.

End of the world

The Atlantic magazine, in its July/August issue, asked various people the following question:  “How and when will the world end?”

I thought environmentalist Bill McKibben gave the best answer.  Here it is:

In a sense, the world as we knew it is already over.  We have heated the Earth, melted the Arctic, and turned seawater 30 percent more acidic.  The only question left is how much more fossil fuel we’ll burn, and hence how unfamiliar and inhospitable we’ll make our home planet.

Birds, with their tiny brains, never crap in their own nests.  Humans never learned that basic lesson.

Left and Right cooperate

It’s not always a good thing.  In the Thirties in Europe, Fascists and Communists and
sometimes worked together to bring down moderate governments.  Each thought that once the middle was destroyed, the way would be open for its side to take over.  

On the other hand, the left and right occasionally cooperate because of beliefs they hold in common.  

The Right in America distrusts government in general (unless it is benefiting the rich).   That distrust sometimes slips over into paranoia--refusing to cooperate with the Census Department, for example--but suspicion of government is ingrained in American culture.

The Left objects to data collection because of a commitment to civil liberties and the right to privacy.  Why does the N.S.A. need to know who we call and how long we talk, or maybe even what we say?  If that information is so important, then the agency should be required to get a warrant, and not from a rubber stamp FISA court.  The right to privacy is also ingrained in American culture.

Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R, WI) and Representative Zoe Lofgren (D, CA) (and my representative when we lived in San Jose) are sending a letter to the Justice Department asking that telecommunications companies be allowed to disclose information on demands by the government for data.  Sensenbrenner is the Chair and Lofgren is the ranking minority member of the House Judiciary Committee.  On most issues they are very far apart.  On the surveillance issue, they are close.  To me that’s a good thing.

The Drone That Killed My Grandson

That’s the title of an op-ed column in today’s Times by Nasser al-Awlaki. See <http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/18/opinion/the-drone-that-killed-my-grandson.html?_r=0>.  Nasser al-Awlaki’s son, an American citizen, was on a kill list of suspected terrorists, and he was killed in a drone strike in September 2011.

His 16-year-old grandson, an American citizen born in Denver, had lived with Nasser al-Awlaki in Yemen since he was 7.  The grandson was sitting with his teenage cousin and five other civilians (hard to tell the number after a drone strike) eating dinner at an outdoor cafe when the drone hit on Oct. 14, 2011.  Attorney General Holder said the grandson was not “specifically targeted.”  

He may not have been specifically targeted, but he was blown to pieces.

What kind of government kills its citizens without charging them with a crime, without a trial, without a day in court?

The American government.  The Obama administration.

Obamacare in New York

Here’s today’s headline in the New York Times, upper right corner:

HEALTH PLAN COST

FOR NEW YORKERS

SET TO FALL 50%

RATES FOR INDIVIDUALS

New Online Exchanges

to Open Door to Host 

Carriers in 2014.  

The drop in rates is a result of the online purchasing exchanges created by Obamacare, which is increasing competition among the insurance companies that are expecting a surge in new customers.

I doubt you’ll hear much about this on Fox “News.”

Card-carrying member of ACLU

ACLU was the first political group I joined, unless you count 4-H as a political group.  I was a freshman at Ursinus College, and my pol. sci. prof., Dr. Zucker, touted this group that defended free speech and press for everyone.  Impressed, I signed up.

There was a period in the Eighties when I dropped out over a dispute with my local chapter president, who was defending the right of prostitutes to solicit in our downtown San Jose neighborhood (that’s a story for another post), but I cooled down and rejoined after a few years.

During the 1988 election George Bush, recently in the White House hobnobbing with President Obama, used the ACLU membership of Michael Dukakis against him.  He noted that Dukakis said he was a “card-carrying member of the ACLU.”  Bush said this showed Dukakis was “out of the mainstream.”  I know Bush is old and on a wheelchair, but I still can’t stand the guy. 

The Pennsylvania ACLU is currently involved in two suits against the Corbett administration.  One would overturn the state’s law against gay marriage.  This is the law that Attorney-General Kathleen Kane will not defend; she says it is clearly unconstitutional in light of the recent Supreme Court decision.

The other lawsuit involves Pennsylvania’s voter ID law.  You know, the one that would disenfranchise thousands of old people, urban minorities, and students.  

I really do carry the membership card.  It’s right next to my driver’s license in my wallet.

The Opinion Rests on Air

One of the reasons the Court majority gave for striking down the law was that we were no longer a nation we were in 1965.  Maybe the nation isn’t, but Texas and Alabama and Mississippi--and yes, Pennsylvania--certainly seem to be.

Between 2006, when Congress reauthorized the Voting Rights Act, and 2013, when the Supreme Court declared pre-clearance unconstitutional, the Justice Department blocked thirty-seven electoral proposals as discriminatory.  

In its decision the Court said Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act (pre-clearance for changes) violated the “fundamental principle of equal sovereignty among the States.”  Judge Richard Posner, a real expert on the Constitution who teaches at the University of Chicago, said there is no such principle of constitutional law, and “the opinion rests on air.”

On the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington (Aug. 28), Advancement Project, a civil rights group, is planning a voter mobilization to protest voter suppression efforts.  I missed the March on Washington (parental objections), but I’ll be demonstrating on the 28th.  

Information and quotations for this post came from an article entitled “Fight Back for Voting Rights” in the July 22 issue of The Nation.  I love that magazine.

Sausage making

Last Friday the Times ran an obit for Dr. Alan Rosenthal, who was credited with improving state legislatures.   

You may have heard the old saying that you don’t want to observe either sausage making or legislative politics.  

After watching the Ohio legislature, Dr. Rosenthal decided to examine the metaphor of legislative sausage making more closely, so he visited a sausage factory.  He found that, compared to state legislative politics, sausage making was more efficient and more collaborative--and cleaner.  Check out <http://www.apsanet.org/~lss/Newsletter/Jan02/sausage.htm>.

Empathy and food stamps

“Researchers at the University of Michigan, in a 2010 study, found that American college students are 48 percent less empathetic than they were in 1979, with a sharper dip--61 percent--having occurred in the past decade.”  That’s a quote from a speech by  Mark Kingwell, a professor of philosophy at the University of Toronto.  You can find a reprint of the speech in the August issue of Harper’s.  

Kingwell is making the point that although we are more networked than ever, we seem to be growing less empathetic.

My gut feeling tells me that there is something wrong with the study.  I cannot imagine a group of teens and twenty-year-olds voting large sums of money to rich agribusinesses while cutting off food stamps for the poor.  I can’t imagine that same group denying a path to citizenship to immigrant workers while spending millions of dollars on fences and drones.  Do you really think a group of nine people of that age would scrap the Voting Rights Act?  Would younger men deny women the right to determine their own reproductive health or tell a gay couple they couldn’t marry?  

It is pretty obvious that old white men are the people lacking empathy.  The amount of cruelty in the the Supreme Court, in the U.S. House of Representatives, and in the state legislatures is astounding.  There are some really nasty people out there.  They are not college students.

Do it

A remake of the TV series “Starsky and Hutch,” featuring Owen Wilson and Ben Stiller, was released in theaters in 2004.  In the film the Stiller character (Starsky), uses a catch phrase over and over.  “Do it, do it, do it.”

Harry Reid is threatening to change the rules on filibusters.   Filibusters, once rare, have become quite common in the U.S. Senate.  Republicans, who oppose agencies like the E.P.A., are using delaying tactics in an unprecedented way to block Presidential nominees to head those agencies.  

Reid’s threat to change the rules on filibusters is causing great distress among Republican members.  Note that the Republicans could still filibuster the old way (see “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington”), but they  could not block votes indefinitely.

All Reid needs is a majority vote.  Do it.  Do it.  Do it.

The immigration reform bill

In one of my local government classes, l assigned the students to boost turnout in a downtown San Jose precinct that was overwhelmingly Latino.  A local librarian in the precinct spoke to the class, and she told us not to wear either red or blue, since those were gang colors.  Some students were dubious about the project, but they all participated, and we were rather proud of ourselves.

We went out in pairs on three Saturday mornings to register voters, and we did GOTV on election day.  Some of the people on whose doors we knocked would say, “ We can’t register, we don’t have papers.”  I had the urge to say, “Don’t tell us that; you don’t know who we are,” but I guess we didn’t look much like INS officials.

The people to whom we spoke were poor, but they were hard-working people.  They were not criminals; they were “status offenders.”  That is, they had committed no crimes except their status made them illegal.  Under the Republican demands in the House of Representatives, they will never be allowed to be citizens, because that would be “amnesty,” and conservative Republican House members are opposed to amnesty.

I feel bad for the Senators who worked to craft a bill that won overwhelming support in the Senate, but I am not all that disappointed that the Immigration Reform Bill will die.  First of all, making people wait 13 years to gain citizenship is ridiculous.  I don’t even think I’ll be here in 2026.

Secondly, the whole “border surge” is a vast pork barrel boondoggle. $46 billion will be spent in the next ten years on technology that will benefit aerospace and security companies and border states.  $7.5 billion will be set aside to build a 700 mile high-tech fence.  The proposed Senate bill waives legal requirements to get the fence built, including E.P.A. restrictions.  The Border Patrol would become the nation’s largest law enforcement agency, and, like the prison guards’ union in California, it will lobby for more.  The bill specifies how many drones will be used, and the cost of the drones will be $252 million.  This after intensive lobbying by the company that builds the drones.

My view is that if the House fails to adopt the Senate’s bill, it is probably a good thing.  I certainly support citizenship for all the immigrants who are here, but I think the price of this bill is way too high.

"The Color of Law"

Here’s a copy of a fax I’m sending out tomorrow.

To:  Fax # 212-630-5883

To:  Permissions Department

Conde Nast Publications

750 3rd Ave., 3rd Floor

New York, New York 10017

From:  Roy Christman

Democratic Information Center

110 S. First St.

Lehighton, PA 18235

We would like to make 138 photocopies of “The Color of Law” by Louis Menand, pp. 80, 82, and 84-88, in the July 8 &15 issue of The New Yorker.  

Pennsylvania has 111 Republican members of the State House of Representatives and 27 Republican members of the state Senate for a total of 138 Republicans.  Most of those Republican members, along with the Governor, have been engaging in various voter suppression schemes.

We are a group of volunteers, operating as the Community Outreach Association, who run the Carbon County Democratic Information Center.  We are not an official party organ, but we are activists who believe that the right to vote is fundamental.  We also believe that many Republicans in the state legislature have no idea of the struggles of the Sixties.  Mr. Menard’s article, we hope, may enlighten them.  (Incidentally, we are not asking to copy the photograph that accompanies the article.)

We heard on the recording that you usually require a three-month delay.  We hope you will make an exception, since in three months restrictive legislation may already be in place.

Thank you.

[By the way, if you would like to read Mr. Menand’s article, it is at <http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2013/07/08/130708crat_atlarge_menand>.  I do recommend it, but it will make you angry at the U.S. Supreme Court and the legislative suppression efforts.]

Quantitative Easing

I took one course in economics.  I thought it was boring, hated it, and got a C.  Last econ. course I ever took.

That’s why I need people like Matt Taibbi, regular writer for Rolling Stone, to explain such topics as Quantitative Easing.  I’ll get to that in a minute, but let me quote one paragraph from Taibbi’s June 6 article entitled “The Mad Science of the National Debt.”

Here’s a quick and easy rule:  Any time any politician, pundit, TV talking heard or self-proclaimed financial expert starts comparing the U.S. federal budget to anything other than the U.S. federal budget, that person is automatically full of shit and should be instantly voted off the conversational island, if not outright beheaded.

The government can manipulate the economy by fiscal policy (taxing and spending, done by Congress) or by monetary policy (influencing the money supply, done by the Federal Reserve Board).  Since Congress is completely paralyzed and full of fools like Paul Ryan, almost the entire burden of fighting this recession has devolved to the Federal Reserve Board.  Bernanke and the Board have put billions into the economy under the innocuous-sounding program known as Quantitative Easing.  The money involved so far dwarfs the Obama stimulus plan.  And what happens when QE slows down?  Well, that could be a problem.  

If you’d like to read the article, go to <http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-mad-science-of-the-national-debt-20130522>.  I believe if Matt Taibbi had been my econ. teacher, I might have gotten an A.

Sikhs in the U.S. Armed Forces

Until 1974 Sikhs were allowed to serve in in the U.S. military with unshorn hair and beards.  They are renowned warriors, and there had never been any problems.  In the 1980s, however, the military decided to be more strict about appearance, and Sikhs had to petition to serve.  Most were denied.  The sad thing is that Sikhs want to serve because of their traditions and because they want to show that they are loyal Americans.z

One excuse was that the helmets wouldn’t fit over the hair, and gas masks wouldn’t work with beards.  Both of those are bogus.

Major Kamaljeet Singh Kalsi is working to change the policy.  Major Kalsi, who received a bronze star for his actions in Afghanistan, has some street cred.  You can read about his effort in today’s Times at <http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/08/us/taking-on-rules-so-other-sikhs-join-the-army.html?_r=0>.

I have a personal interest in this.  When we lived in San Jose, I had a number of Sikhs in my classes.  One of them, Mohinder Mann, became a close personal friend.  I was invited to a Sikh religious ceremony, and I thought it was wonderful.  Part of the ceremony involves the partaking of a meal.  How cool is that?

Since the British, Canadian, and, of course, Indian, armies allow Sikhs to serve with beards and uncut hair, it would seem to be a no-brainer that the U.S. would also accept them in the armed forces.  I was unaware that we had so many recruits that we could turn away people who want to serve.

Who told you I was paranoid?

My friend Jeremy operates a cottage industry making tee shirts.  The first one I ordered says “Who told you I was paranoid?  Was it the government?”  

I thought it was really funny, but now I’m not so sure.  I am sending a package to my grandson in Chico tomorrow.  According to information that came to light last week, that piece of mail will be photographed.  No, the Post Office won’t open it (I hope), but it will photograph the outside of the envelope.  The United States Postal Service photographed approximately 160 billion pieces of mail last year.

This is an agency that has talked about closing down on Saturdays for lack of money.  It is an agency I’ve defended in the past.  I do my best to support it.  And now I find out that the USPS has enough funds to photograph every piece of mail sent in the U.S.  I’m getting very paranoid.  

Tattoos

“Bodies of Subversion:  A Secret History of Women and Tattoo” by Margot Mifflin was reviewed last Thursday in the Arts section of the New York Times.  The review included a photo of the tattooed boobs of an 83-year-old woman. That was a photo I really wish I had never seen.

I know this will be hard for 18-year-olds to grasp, but really, you won’t always look like that.  Your tattoos won’t either. 

Who was that masked man?

When I was seven, in 1949, our neighbors Edward and Ruth bought a television set.   My parents didn’t get a TV until the Sixties, when I was away at college.  (Many members of our family have been “late adopters.”)  The upshot was that on Thursday nights, if I remember correctly, I was allowed to walk up Big Creek Pike to visit with Edward and Ruth and watch The Lone Ranger and Tonto vanquish bad guys.

They were great role models--loyal to each other, defending the weak against injustice, never mean, never cruel.  I now know that Jay Silverheels was playing a stereotype, but at the time I was convinced that if Indians were like Tonto, they were to be emulated.  I also don’t think the Lone Ranger ever shot anyone.  He was always able to shoot the gun out of the bad guy’s hand.

Will I go to see the new Lone Ranger movie?  The one where Johnny Depp plays a different stereotype.  The one where a bad guy cuts open a victim and eats his heart.  The one full of explosions and violence and computer-generated graphics.  No thanks.  I have my standards. 

Duty to Revolt

We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.
...
But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security.  [emphasis added].

It is good to be reminded that we were born of revolution.  The Founding Fathers, by the standards of the day, were traitors to their English overlords.  Luckily they won their revolution.

Names of the Dead

Whenever an American service member is killed in the Afghan War or related operations, the New York Times runs a small box in the News Section called “Names of the Dead.”  I always feel an obligation to read it.  Today’s text reads:  “ROGERS, Justin R., 25, Sgt., Army; Barton, N.Y.; 101st Airborne Division.”

Yesterday Curtis W. Tarr, director of the Selective Service System from 1970 to 1972, died of complications of pneumonia.  He was 88.

What Mr. Tarr did was reduce the number of medical and student deferments.  This tended to concentrate the minds of young Americans, since any male of draft age might be called up to serve.  One of the main reasons why so many college-age young men  opposed the Vietnam War was because they didn’t want to die.  When Nixon instituted an all-volunteer army, much of the opposition to the war vanished.

It is time to bring back the draft.  It is ignoble and undemocratic for a small group of men and women to carry the burden of national military service.  We call them heroes and honor them in ceremonies, but bottom line, most of the people who die in Afghanistan are from what Romney called the 47%. 

I wonder if we would even be in Afghanistan if any American had an equal opportunity to serve.  The draft is so unpopular that no politician that I know of--Democrat or Republican--is advocating its return.  Nevertheless, it is the only fair way to equalize the burden of national defense.  It is time we brought it back.  If we had, ROGERS, Justin, might be alive today.

What Morsi doesn't get

Forming a democratic government is never easy.  Everybody understands the part about majority rule.  Morsi mentioned it in his speech tonight--he was elected by the people in a fair and democratic election.  

There are two more prerequisites, however.  One is minority rights.  The majority can’t decide a country’s religion or regulate its press, even if 99% would like to.  Unfortunately, many people in this country don’t understand that either, but the Founding Fathers did.  Some of those rights they wrote into the original Constitution (no bill of attainder, no ex post facto law), and the rest they agreed they would put into amendments, hence the Bill of Rights. 

To defuse the majority tyranny that can result from concentrated power, they included a federal system and separation of powers.  They may have gone overboard, creating deadlock that makes action almost impossible, but that’s a subject for another post.

The second prerequisite is to recognize that political opponents are not disloyal.  The concept of the “loyal opposition” is difficult.  The most important election in our history was in 1800.  John Adams turned over the country to Thomas Jefferson, a man he loathed.  Whether or not Morsi would have peacefully handed over Egypt to his opponents in a free election is speculation, but his attitude toward his opponents makes me doubt this.

We do need to cut Egypt some slack.  After all, 150 years ago, the Battle of Gettysburg was raging.  We haven’t been the best model of a democracy.

Coal

The Allentown Morning Call ran an editorial cartoon this morning with five panels.  The first was of a terrorist, labeled Al-Qaida.  The second showed a figure labeled Iran with the caption “nuclear weapons.”  The third, “genocide,” had a rendering of Assad, labeled Syria.  The fourth, with a guy labeled “Europe,” was entitled Financial Calamity.  The last  panel featured an excited Obama yelling, “Coal is threatening the planet.”

Fast forward to the year 2113.  Very few of us will be alive, but think ahead 100 years.  Do you think Al-Qaida will still be around?  Do you think people will be worried about Iran having nuclear weapons?  Will Syria even exist?  Will anyone remember 2013 European economic problems?

What about global climate change?  Will that be a problem 100 years from now?  You betcha.

I’m sure this cartoonist thought he was being clever.  He wasn’t. 100 years from now, the global population will look back and wonder why our priorities were so screwed up.