From the "I wish I had said this" grab bag

Both of these worldviews, God-centered religion and atheistic communism, are opposed by a third and in some ways more radical worldview, scientific humanism. Still held by only a tiny minority of the world's population, it considers humanity to be a biological species that evolved over millions of years in a biological world, acquiring unprecedented intelligence yet still guided by complex inherited emotions and biased channels of learning. Human nature exists, and it was self-assembled. It is the commonality of the hereditary responses and propensities that define our species. Having arisen by evolution during the far simpler conditions in which humanity lived during more than 99 percent of its existence, it forms the behavioral part of what, in The Descent of Man, Darwin called the indelible stamp of our lowly origin. (Edward O. Wilson)

Ramen.

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Do Progressives think in terms of strategy or tactics?

First, some definitions:

Tactics, then, are isolated actions or events that take advantage of opportunities offered by the gaps within a given strategic system, although the tactician never holds onto these advantages. Tactics cut across a strategic field, exploiting gaps in it to generate novel and inventive outcomes. Tactics are usually used to spoil the running context.

Strategy is about choice, which affects outcomes. Organizations can often survive -- indeed do well -- for periods of time in conditions of relative stability, low environmental turbulence and little competition for resources. Virtually none of these conditions prevail in the modern world for great lengths of time for any organization or sector, public or private. Hence, the rationale for strategic management. The nature of the strategy adopted and implemented emerges from a combination of the structure of the organization (loosely coupled or tightly coupled), the type of resources available and the nature of the coupling it has with environment and the strategic objective being pursued.

Strategy is adaptable by nature rather than rigid set of instructions. In some situations it takes the nature of emergent strategy. The simplest explanation of this is the analogy of a sports scenario. If a football team were to organize a plan in which the ball is passed in a particular sequence between specifically positioned players, their success is dependent on each of those players both being present at the exact location, and remembering exactly when, from whom and to whom the ball is to be passed; moreover that no interruption to the sequence occurs. By comparison, if the team were to simplify this plan to a strategy where the ball is passed in the pattern alone, between any of the team, and at any area on the field, then their vulnerability to variables is greatly reduced, and the opportunity to operate in that manner occurs far more often. This manner is a strategy.

The question I want to ponder today is what a long-term Progressive political strategy looks like.  All progressives would agree that we need to do something about what we are doing to the environment.  Let's take a look at how the question of strategy and tactics plays itself out in this arena.  Recently, Greenpeace sent a ship, the Esperanza to shadow some Japanese whaling vessels.  Now, the Esperanza had to turn back because of fuel issues but this is a prime example of tactical moves.  There's a gap, and you exploit that gap to your ends which they did because even though they had to turn back, no small amount of ink and bandwidth was consumed in reporting on their actions and Japanese whaling in general. However, it doesn't scale well and isn't a long-term strategy.  It's something you do when you can do it, namely when a whaling fleet sets sail and you're in the position to do so.

Strategy, on the other hand, is longer-term and it is this that I wish to focus on.  So what would an environmental strategy look like?  Let me say, at the outset, that environmental issues are not my forte'.  What I know is from secondary and tertiary sources and not primary sources (meaning I don't tend to read journals written by people who studied environmental science).  So there will be much to criticize in this post but the specifics are less important than the overall picture.

So, what does an environmental strategy look like?  I would say that in order to formulate one, you have to look at the problem as clearly as you can.  I will take just one factor to keep things simple; carbon emissions.  We all know that a large part of the problem is that we burn fossil fuels to power our cars and our cities and that is just in the highly industrialized West.  The big problem is still coming on-line and that is China and India.  We (all of humanity) cannot afford for either China or India to live and drive huge gas-guzzling SUVs in any kind of numbers like Americans.  Yet, we have no right to pull the development ladder up and say "sorry, we recognize that your two great and ancient nations represent a full-third of humanity but you got to the industrialization party too late.  You really should've gotten this far in the early 20th century..."  So how do we address, long-term, the issue of Third World industrialization and all of its attendant issues (deforestation is another big one which, of course, leads to species extinction) while not doing some kind of paternalistic ladder-raising?  So we have three populations (American, Chinese and Indian) that need to be convinced to either accept some more inconvenience and pain (Americans--let's be honest, we could restructure our society so we don't have to drive so damn much) or to take a different industrialization track than the West (ideally, if they could just skip the 19th/20th century style of oil/coal power as a primary energy source this would go a long way). 

Now, the technologies are out there to be used (the amount of carbon I use getting to and from work is minimal because I bicycle, take the bus and take light-rail and none of those are exotics or novel) and there's the potential of solar power to really provide the vast majority of our energy needs (get cars, buses and trucks off of fossil fuels and onto electricity, use regional solar power plants to provide power to cities and, incidentally, our vehicles except airplanes which will need to use fossil fuels for the foreseeable future).  But how do we convince people to change their lives?  My co-workers largely look at me as if I were insane for riding to work, yet they all say they are concerned about the environment--just before they get in their SUV to drive the five miles to their home.  This is the kind of strategic thinking and talking about that I hope to see more of from Progressives. 

As an aside (sort of) Barack Obama was more right than wrong when he said that for the last quarter century, the Republicans were the party of ideas.  They have spent the last quarter century thinking about how to frame their political wants and desires in a way that is palpable and how to counter Liberal and Progressive voices or make them outright irrelevant.  But now, it's the Progressives' turn.  We have the gap in the American body politic (tactics) let's exploit it by beginning to really do evidence-based politics where we try to come up with real solutions for real world problems.


Cheers

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The ultimate betrayal? Really? No, not really Virginia.

NOW-New York State Press Releases

And so it comes to this.  Ted Kennedy, the liberals' liberal has betrayed women (No one asked me) when he endorsed Barack Obama?

According to NOW-NY:  "Women have just experienced the ultimate betrayal. "  This is the final, horrible logic of identity politics come to fruition.  No where in the press release is there anything about how Kennedy's endorsement was for a candidate who is less qualified than Clinton.  And the over-the-top language?  Ultimate betrayal?  Not endorsing a female candidate for President is the worst thing that the Massachusetts senator could do to women?  Really?  Do they actually believe that?

Later they go on to say:  "This latest move by Kennedy, is so telling about the status of and respect for women’s rights, women’s voices, women’s equality, women’s authority and our ability..."  Again, I ask really?  What does it tell?  Only that NOW-NY backs Hillary Clinton because she's a woman first and foremost.  Is it possible that, even taking very cynical realpolitik into account, that Barack Obama is the most electable Democrat running?  Might it even (gasp) be possible that he is imminently qualified to be POTUS? 

Now, if I were a race-woman then this paragraph would begin by accusing NOW-NY of racism because they are supporting a white woman for POTUS instead of a black man.  But I loathe identity politics with such a deep and abiding passion that I refuse to indulge that thought, even though it crossed my mind for maybe a minute.  I do not believe that NOW-NY had racist intentions, just that in their rush to be feminist (a cause I absolutely support) they have merely gone to the other side of the coin.  So let me make this clear:  If Hillary Clinton is the nominee (and I hope she is not for purely political and policy reasons) I will vote for her (what other choice do I have) and I will be well-aware that I am casting a historic vote and if we wake up on the first Wednesday in November and discover that we have elected a female POTUS I will be proud and happy and joyful because she is a woman and it is about damn time we elected a woman.  But it would be indefensible for me, as a feminist, to support Hillary Clinton merely because she is a woman.  It is no different, in either style or substance, than someone voting against her because she is a woman.  I support Barack Obama because I want a POTUS I can believe in.  In the last decade of last century, there was a man I believed was that politician.  I remember remarking to my parents that I finally 'got it' about their love of John F. Kennedy.  And then Bill let me down.  He let me down in policy ways and he let me down by being politically stupid.  But I still want a President I believe in.  Watching Obama, I really understand what people mean when they talk about Kennedy.  Do I think he would make a perfect candidate?  No.  Do I think he would make a perfect President?  No.  But, I am not looking for perfection, just someone competent and in whom I can believe--at least a little.  At present, I believe Obama when he talks about wanting to heal the divisions in America.  I believe him when he talks about trying to rise above the politics of personal destruction.  So far, so good.  I am, of course, painfully aware that he is a black man and that if he is the nominee I will have the opportunity to cast a historic vote and if he is elected I will be living through a historical event that I will be able to tell my granddaughter.  But I will not be voting for Obama because he is a black man, I will merely be voting for him because I believe he can do the job and happy that, finally, I get to cast a vote for a black man for POTUS. 

NOW-NY has succumbed to what many committed activists do; the sirens' lure of identity politics where what you are becomes who you are and thus constrains your movements because you have to do certain things.  As a woman, I'm 'supposed' (using NOW-NYs' logic) to support Clinton because she's a woman.  If I bother to actually study her politics that's all well and good and no one should hold it against me if I do.  But I'm 'supposed' to support her because she's a Democrat (I have a feeling that if it was Condi Rice running, she would not have NOW-NYs' backing but I could be wrong) and a woman.  Nowhere is the idea that there are other, more pressing, political calculations to make. 

Now, I want to be clear, I think Hillary Clinton is an inspiring figure.  However, if you like the sound of President John McCain then Clinton is the Democrat you want him to run against.  The GOP base may not turn out because there's no love lost between them and McCain, unless by doing so they can prevent Clinton from getting into the White House.  Clinton is beatable and obviously so, Obama is not quite so beatable.  But as a woman I'm not 'supposed' to take that kind of realpolitik into consideration.  Well, this woman does because this woman wants to see a Democrat in the White House and a Democratic Congress.  Above electing a black man (which I'd love to see) or a woman (which I'd love to see), I want our nation to stop this destructive slide we are on and I think that a Democrat in the White House is our best, last chance for doing so.  The Democratic party is famous for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory (2004 Presidential election anyone) and this is one year we can't afford to do that (we couldn't in 2004 either but we did anyway.  John Kerry?  Really, he's the best we could come up with?).

NOW-NY is out to lunch but, in the making lemonade from lemons department, hopefully this will be yet another nail in the coffin of identity politics.

Cheers

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Barack Obama, you had me at 'Yes, we can change"

Obama speech: 'Yes, we can change' - CNN.com

I didn't hear the speech, I read it and now I wish I had heard it first.  This was a great American speech.  I hope that twenty years from now, they'll teach this speech.  But that's not what this is about. 

This is about how Barack Obama got me to believe him.  I'm willing to suspend disbelief because he really appears to be the real deal.  A more or less pragmatic Progressive.  I don't expect him to be ideologically pure.  I expect that there are places that folks can make many mountains out of molehills.  I'm sure that all manner of swiftboating will take place.  Yet, I think this man can be the next President of the United States. 

We're up against decades of bitter partisanship that cause politicians to demonize their opponents instead of coming together to make college affordable or energy cleaner. It's the kind of partisanship where you're not even allowed to say that a Republican had an idea, even if it's one you never agreed with.

That's the kind of politics that is bad for our party, it is bad for our country, and this is our chance to end it once and for all.

We're up against the idea that it's acceptable to say anything and do anything to win an election. But we know that this is exactly what's wrong with our politics. This is why people don't believe what their leaders say anymore. This is why they tune out. And this election is our chance to give the American people a reason to believe again.

But let me say this, South Carolina. What we've seen in these last weeks is that we're also up against forces that are not the fault of any one campaign, but feed the habits that prevent us from being who we want to be as a nation.

It's the politics that uses religion as a wedge and patriotism as a bludgeon, a politics that tells us that we have to think, act and even vote within the confines of the categories that supposedly define us, the assumption that young people are apathetic, the assumption that Republicans won't cross over, the assumption that the wealthy care nothing for the poor and that the poor don't vote, the assumption that African-Americans can't support the white candidate, whites can't support the African-American candidate, blacks and Latinos cannot come together.

We are here tonight to say that that is not the America we believe in.

That took me over the edge.  This cuts to the core of what has been wrong in this country for most of my adult life. As much as it pains me to cut Clinton out of this picture, but I think that the smart ticket is Obama-Edwards (poor John, always the Veep candidate).  I think that Clinton anywhere on the ticket is too much of a lightning rod and 'd like my son to live some part of his life in a world where a Bush or Clinton wasn't in the Executive, so far his entire twenty-one years has been spent with either a Bush or a Clinton in the White House.  None of which is to say that if she's the nominee I won't support her. 

This is a politics of hope.  A belief that the American people, while not always the sharpest knives in the drawer, can break out of being sheeple when the chips are down.  The country is in a mess, no question about that.  We let conservative ideas dominate the available dialog of solutions for a generation, that didn't work out so great.  There's a space open in the body politic, I hope, for us to turn away from the brink and bring a more compassionate sanity to our politics. 

Read the speech.  It's really quite amazing.

Cheers

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Contractual Obligations

This is going to be very meta-. Since Matthew and I are doing this little project, neither of us having any idea what we're doing, I thought it might be useful—if only on my part—to make a longer preliminary statement. I do this, in part, because misunderstandings can arise in these discussions, particularly if the issue is race, one is black and one has a significant parting-of-the-ways with what could be called ideological orthodoxy. I am not a political conservative. By any reasonable definition, I am a Socialist for most practical economic purposes. I am a social libertarian meaning that unless there is some compellingly good reason for a non-harmfulact or substance to be illegal, it should not be illegal. I am, on principle, on board with the idea that you get to end your own life as you choose. I believe that the war-on-drugs is a massive and tragic failure. I believe that a woman's right to make decisions about her own reproductivity is an inherent right. I believe that marriage should be a contract that people can enter into and if some wish to impose religious ceremony or meaning on it, bully for them. Since there is no reason why two women or two men could not enter into such a contract, I strongly support gay marriage. I oppose the death penalty on a number of fronts although, to be perfectly honest, not categorically. If someone were to, for instance, release smallpox back into the ecology, death would be a fate altogether too good for them. I believe that it is indicative of racism that so many black men are on death row, relative to their representation in the population as a whole. I am no fan of free-market capitalism (regulated capitalism is another story).

In other words, I am a pretty typical left-coast Progressive. That said, my views on race and multiculturalism, in its strongest forms, are not in keeping with Progressive orthodoxy. Why this is so is the subject of this post.

Firstly, it would be helpful to define what I mean when I use terms like 'justice' and 'social contract' because they're very relevant.

I am a Rawlsian Liberal. Meaning that I take a lot of my thinking about Justice from John Rawls' seminal work, “A Theory of Justice”. In it, he articulates the idea of justice as fairness. As a thought experiment, he asks us to imagine creating a society ex nihilo. We get to make a truly just society, wipe the slate clean and start all over. Everyone involved in the negotiation starts from exactly the same place, as equals. The really clever bit is this, no one knows where they will end up in the social hierarchy; meaning that you don't know whether you will be rich or poor, in the ethnic majority or an ethnic or religious minority. No one knows if they will be male or female. The set of rules that this group of self-interested parties would come up with for ordering a society will tend to be a just one. There is a great deal more to it than that, of course. (It's a difficult book, it took me a long time to get through it because it's very dense but well worth the read. )

One cannot help but notice that this assumes a social contract which is the other grounding assumption I make. I believe that humans order society by sets of agreements between parties. We form coalitions, build alliances, have hierarchies, etc. All of these are relational and, ultimately, contractual arrangements. This may be a good thing or it may not be, for my purposes this is simply what is and what we have to work with if we desire to see great social justice and equality.

There is one last important grounding assumption I feel the need to confess. I believe that human beings are animals and that means that we are what we are because evolution. Whatever transcendence we may attain, however brief, we carry our Pleistocene past with us. We are not creatures of the city so much as we are creatures of the village. This also means that we are neither angels nor are we monsters. This means that there are practical limits to the perfectability of humans and thus, to our societies. I think we are not there. This is not it, there's a lot of work to do, but I think a better world is possible just very difficult to obtain and it can only be so much better.

Again, I felt the need to put this out there first before going to the meat of the matter. So here we go.

In order for there to be racial progress, and I think most folks would say that things have ground to some kind of impasse to some degree, we must re-envision what it is we are trying to achieve. We have to re-think what the struggle is about and this will change how we go about thinking about solving the problem. This is not my parent's civil rights struggle. They were involved in the Struggle during the 40's, 50's and 60's in Alabama. That is not where my life is lived, it is not really the life lived by any black folks in America today. This struggle is different and, to some degree, the greater part of it must take place within the black community. It pains me to write that. It pains me deeply to write it. But it must be said. This is not to say that this work is the whole of the thing, merely that it is a large part of the thing.

It is time for the black community, particularly the black intelligentsia, to abandon the strong form of multiculturalism. The strong form states that cultures are sacrosanct. All cultures are sacrosanct and have rights that transcend the rights of people within those cultures. Such that if one is a person of goodwill one is obligated never to criticize a culture except for the dominant one. What this has meant is that a number of things that really shouldn't be tolerated are tolerated and I am talking about things that have been going on in the black community, certainly as long as I have been aware.

Afrocentrism must die.

I will start with the most ridiculous (yes, that's the word I'm using) idea that I think does harm to race relations in America and that is Afrocentrism. At the core of this ideology is the idea that black children will only identify with figures of historical note or with various achievements if the people who performed these feats are of the same color. So the fact that someone built the pyramids is secondary to the idea that these people were black (which they weren't—these were not sub-Saharan Africans). Aristotle did not get his ideas from the library at Alexandria because when he lived,

Obama gives a valiant talk

Obama Takes on Homophobia, Anti-Semitism and Xenophobia at MLK's Church

It was a pointed statement to black parishioners in the pews. He did not hold back.

For most of this country's history, we in the African-American community have been at the receiving end of man's inhumanity to man. And all of us understand intimately the insidious role that race still sometimes plays - on the job, in the schools, in our health care system, and in our criminal justice system.

And yet, if we are honest with ourselves, we must admit that none of our hands are entirely clean. If we're honest with ourselves, we'll acknowledge that our own community has not always been true to King's vision of a beloved community.

We have scorned our gay brothers and sisters instead of embracing them. The scourge of anti-Semitism has, at times, revealed itself in our community. For too long, some of us have seen immigrants as competitors for jobs instead of companions in the fight for opportunity.

Every day, our politics fuels and exploits this kind of division across all races and regions; across gender and party. It is played out on television. It is sensationalized by the media. And last week, it even crept into the campaign for President, with charges and counter-charges that served to obscure the issues instead of illuminating the critical choices we face as a nation.

This was a courageous statement on the part of Senator Obama.  It would be a foolish person who would contend that his words are not necessary or that it took great political courage to make this statement.  It's long since past time that a politician of national stature would stand up and say this in the black community.  What's more, this should go some distance from Obama's earlier gaffe of appearing with an ex-gay minister. 

I wonder, though, if Obama just cost himself no small portion of the black vote with this speech.  Not that the national media will take much note of this since it doesn't play into the dominant narrative du jour.

Cheers

Jacqui

Candidate Huckleberry: Worth the price

NIV Bible (Leather cover): $13.59

Left Behind Boxed Set: $22.00

Nominating a completely unelectable religious fanatic: Priceless

There are some things in life you need to think about, for everything else there's religion.

Huckabee equates homosexuality with bestiality (again)

Election Central | Talking Points Memo | Huckabee Directly Equates Homosexuality With Bestiality

Now, I'm not surprised that he said this:

 

QUESTIONER: Is it your goal to bring the Constitution into strict conformity with the Bible? Some people would consider that a kind of dangerous undertaking, particularly given the variety of biblical interpretations.

HUCKABEE: Well, I don’t think that’s a radical view to say we’re going to affirm marriage. I think the radical view is to say that we’re going to change the definition of marriage so that it can mean two men, two women, a man and three women, a man and a child, a man and animal. Again, once we change the definition, the door is open to change it again. I think the radical position is to make a change in what’s been historic.

The sad thing is that he'll pay no political price for this. 

The Raw Story | Huckabee: Amend Constitution to be in 'God's standards'

The Raw Story | Huckabee: Amend Constitution to be in 'God's standards'

So Mike Huckabee came right out and stated that we should amend the Constitution to be in line with "God's standards". Now, while this is troubling (yes, Virginia, there really are theocrats) let's at least give Huckabee the courage of his convictions. Personally, I like my Christo-fascists out-front where I can see them. The crypto-Christo-fascists are the scary ones.

Self-imposed exile from Butch-Femme.com

I recently left Butch-Femme.com, most likely for the final time.  In my three years, I tried to be a positive presence and while a lot of my posts there were academic or, at least, intellectual they were also, I hope, entertaining.  I wasn't the most popular person there, but my personality isn't one that is driven toward popularity at any rate.  About a month ago, I started a thread on BF where I asked a question about the over-the-top religiosity in the current American Presidential campaign.  In the last few days, a newcomer came into the thread and started ripping on myself and another poster, Matthew, who consistently have tried to use reason and rational argument in our postings.  This poster was insulting (to put it mildly) and the end came for me when she claimed that my posts were coming from the perspective of  'dead white men' and that there was nothing 'black or brown' about my rhetoric.  I know racism when I see it and this was easily the most racist thing said to me on BF.com.  What's more, all of these wonderful, liberal/progressive and allegedly oh-so-open-minded lesbians just sat back and watched.  No cries were raised in my defense or in the defense of Matthew, even while these women were patting themselves on the back for how 'open-minded' and 'tolerant' they putatively are. This was the straw that broke the camel's back.   All points of view are not respected, despite whatever rhetoric is used.  Rather, what is respected is fuzzy-thinking, platitudes and spiritual posturing.  Clear and reasonable thought is put-up with but is not tolerated and certainly not protected in the same way.  If this poster had said to any of a number of other BF member what she said to me, she would have been pilloried and rightly so. 

However, there is more to my leaving than merely a few incidents with a few fanatically New Age posters.  In the course of my three years there, I witnessed people doing everything they possibly could to avoid ever being in error.  By this I do not mean that folks did their homework to make sure that they had their facts straight.  Rather, they took a position that 'all world views are true to those that hold them' which, in one sense, is entirely true.  People do not believe things that they believe to be false.  However, to acknowledge the latter is not to endorse the strong relativism that has become part and parcel of the American Left.  Because if everyone is entitled to their world view and all world views are equally true (well, except a scientific or rational world view.  Say that you believe that the Virgin Mary appears in your tortilla, THIS is to be respected.  Say that humans share a recent common ancestor with chimps, and no such respect is forthcoming) then you need never be wrong.  The logic of this (if you can call it that) is straightforward.  If the person you disagree with can never be wrong, you can never be wrong.  It doesn't matter how contra-factual the statement is, if you believe it, it's true, and therefore it cannot be wrong. 

To offer up another example from BF.com, someone posted some New Age poppycock about a polar flip that is supposed to occur on 12 December 2012.  Now, at some point the magnetic poles will flip but this will not be a physical shift of the planet, merely the magnetic poles.  It has happened before, it will happen again.  Another poster, picking up the theme, claimed that the map of the Earth would change (it won't) and that this would be a sign of 'the final alien invasion' (I am not making this up, I swear).  So, it was left to me to point out what a polar shift entailed, why the map of the Earth won't change and why this has nothing to do with the orbital direction of the planet.  But did it make any difference?  No, of course it didn't!   Folks are still convinced that this has to do with the Mayan calendar, alien invasions and the planet literally being turned upside down!

At some point, I had an epiphany that folks not only dislike being wrong but that this particular sub-culture is obsessed with never having to admit to error.  From the 'if I don't call you wrong, you don't call me wrong' to the embrace of ignorance as a sign of moral strength and mature wisdom, it became clear to me that the worst thing that could ever happen was that one might have to say "I was wrong" or "I was in error".  And so, by unspoken agreement, a mythology has become an ideology.  The mythology is that we can get through life without having to admit error.  The ideology is multicultural relativism. 

Let me be clear that when I talk about multicultural relativism, I am talking about bromides like the idea that Native Americans are one with the Earth (they aren't, ask the Anasazi--oh, that's right, you can't they wiped themselves out in an environmental disaster), Indigenous People are holistic thinkers, etc.  What's more, the 'we love this' attitude, which I do not dispute or doubt, covers over the elephant in the progressive living room; these ideas are the very essence of racism.  It does not matter that one is coming from the perspective of "this is something to celebrate", the moment you start to say "well, Asians have an affinity for calculus and I respect people who can do calculus so that's wonderful" you have engaged in a stereotype and have made a statement that is, at its heart, racist.  (As a quick aside which I'll take up in another blog post, racism is not just what the guys in white sheets do)  It is racist because it attributes to a group qualities more appropriately adhering to individuals.  Saying "Indigenous People" are holistic thinkers dehumanizes the people talked about.  It does not matter if one is talking about ones' in-group, if one attributes this to something that people of group X are, because they are members of that group, it is still racism and still dehumanizing.  Wrapping it up in nice language doesn't change that equation at all.

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers - Greatest Hits - Don't Come Around Here No More