The Pope Looks Kinda Evil
I was flipping through Time today and saw a picture of the new pope. I hadn't seen his picture before. So, I guess I'm not the only one that noticed that he looks a little *demon posessed*, if not pretty much like Lucifer himself. Actually, I take that back. He looks like the "Emperor":http://www.starwars.com/databank/character/palpatine/ from Star Wars.
!http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/images/I13395-2005Apr24!
This is the pope.
!http://www.buzzflash.com/analysis/04/09/images/02emperor350.jpg!
This is the emperor.
!http://home.comcast.net/~rmpinol/blog/1_22_042105_pope_benedict.jpg!
This is the pope.
!http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v258/brian_stic/BSDracula.jpg!
This is dracula.
!http://static.flickr.com/5/10082343_2370b703ff_m.jpg!
This is the pope.
Actually, he kinda "looks like Lieberman":http://www.geocities.com/robertwgardner2000/palpatine.html too.
Death and Destruction Is Not The Goal
Mark Danner, professor of journalism and politics at the University of California at Berkeley and Bard College, wrote an excellent article on the situation in Iraq, Taking Stock of the Forever War. He delves pretty deeply into some history and offers some interesting and realistic possible motivations of Al Qaeda, besides the "nothing but death and destruction" line some "claim":http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20050913-085902-8369r.htm. He poses that the 9/11 attacks were basically a big recruiting poster, a fairly successful one that "continues today":http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/la-fg-zarqawi16sep16,1,5447857.story?ctrack=1&cset=true.
"In Holland, at one of the centers, the number of people who accepted Islam during the days that followed the [9/11 attacks] were more than the people who accepted Islam in the last 11 years."
Another interesting point he makes is that importance of "great spectacle" in their attacks. Their attacks always focus on diminishing American prestige and status with great spectacle rather than simply destroying military assets. They're fighting the war on a completely different battlefield than we are. He claims their current goal, after successfully baiting the US to invade an Islamic country, is civil war in Iraq. This will show that the US can be defeated and encourage more to fight once again against the Crusaders in their attempt to destroy the Islamic world.
Their current attacks are more focused on removing support for the US and current Iraq government and encouraging the 3 factions to fight against each other. They've started dressing up as Iraqi police officers before kill people. Make it so Iraqi's can't trust the police or each other and therefor live in terror. Islamic rule would be preferable.
"Thirty-five years of Saddam's brutal repression did not produce a single suicide bomber," "says":http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/07/AR2005050700152_2.html a former military officer who is now working as a driver."
I do think their goal is much more sophisticated than simple "death and destruction" or "evil," and I think our leaders do everyone a disservice when they try to shroud the terrorist's motivations in easily digested ugly words. And I do think that the sophistication and complexity of the situation is completely outside the scope of things the Bush administration is capable of comprehending or dealing appropriately with, on a level of subtlety that I don't think Bush even thinks exists.
Superdome Stories
Some interesting first hand accounts from the New Orleans & Superdome are popping up as well as the start of at least one "documentary":http://www.livejournal.com/community/debunkingwhite/256974.html.
* "Larry Bradshaw and Lorrie Beth Slonsky":http://www.cosmobaker.com/nola.html are paramedics from San Francisco. Their account includes being turned away from the Superdome, lied to, shot at and had their food and water stolen by police. Racial motivation is implicated. The police formed a wall across the bridge and fired at people as they tried to across the bridge flee to their city. ("CNN Interview Video":http://www.cnn.com/video/player/player.html?url=/video/us/2005/09/13/cooper.bridge.controversy.cnn )
* Paul’s Superdome Story.
* "George & Margaret":http://gayorbit.net/index.php?p=2975, New Zealanders in the Superdome.
* "Dumas Carter":http://blogs.citypages.com/blotter/2005/09/survivor_storie_5.asp, 30yo LOPD officer on duty at the Superdome.
* "They Bombed the Levees":http://dissent.blogspot.com/2005/09/they-heard-bombs.html sacrificing homes to save a tourist trap.
Paul's comparison to Lord of the Flies seems to be a common theme. The "Bradshaw/Slonsky account":http://www.cosmobaker.com/nola.html perhaps sums it up well:
"This was a process we saw repeatedly in the aftermath of Katrina. When individuals had to fight to find food or water, it meant looking out for yourself only. You had to do whatever it took to find water for your kids or food for your parents. When these basic needs were met, people began to look out for each other, working together and constructing a community."
Unfortunately Arthur Lawson, the Sheriff of "Gretna":http://www.city-data.com/city/Gretna-Louisiana.html across the bridge "didn't seem to get care":http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/10/national/nationalspecial/10emt.html. His only motivation seemed to be protecting his little kingdom. If people die, they die, but they can't mess up my town on the way out.
"Just as dusk set in, a Gretna Sheriff showed up, jumped out of his patrol vehicle, aimed his gun at our faces, screaming, "Get off the fucking freeway". A helicopter arrived and used the wind from its blades to blow away our flimsy structures. As we retreated, the sheriff loaded up his truck with our food and water."
China Goes Green, Drops Communism
China is going to build "the world's first genuinely eco-friendly city", Dongtan. It will be built on what is currently farmland near Shanghai and be about 3/4 the size of Manhattan. China plans to use it a model for future eco-friendly development in China.
"Priority projects include the process of capturing and purifying water in the landscape to support life in the city. Community waste management recycling will generate clean energy from organic waste, reducing landfills that damage the environment. Combined heat and power systems will provide the technology to source clean and reliable energy. Dongtan will be a model ecological city, and its buildings will help to reduce energy use, making efficient use of energy sources and generating energy from renewable sources."
That's something we can't really do here, right? Just decide to up and build a new Manhattan somewhere? I would point to possible benefits of communism, except "China isn't communist anymore":http://www.itconversations.com/shows/detail669.html, private property is now protected by their constitution. George Gilder thinks it's because China is run by engineers instead of lawyers.
Real Campaign Finance Reform
In the US we should be pretty aware that the outcome of our elections are largely influenced by how much money each candidate can raise. Whoever can raise the most money has the most chance of swaying the uninformed 'swing' voter, or hiring the best advisor that can dice the polls to figure out which issues will give them the slight majority. Politics becomes about raising money.
Every time I heard desperate pleas for money from politicians I wonder, what do you need my money for? To buy back public airwaves from the people we licensed them to? To pay even higher priced consultants to slice and dice the polls? I thought I voted with my vote, not my dollars. What about those that don't have dollars? Seems to me they have much less of a vote in this democracy. Hell, if you have enough money you can just fund your own campaign, al. la. Ross Perot. Not exactly equal opportunity.
h2. It's morally wrong for politicians to accept money from people. Period.
I feel it is morally wrong for elected officials to accept money that isn't their salary. When an elected official accepts money from someone, any human is going to feel obliged to treat this person differently than the person that has contributed nothing. It's common courtesy. But this is in conflict with their responsibility to represent all of their electorate equally, not based on how much money they have. In fact, since everyone else does it, all elected officials are effectively required to to accept gifts to compete. Why do we force our elected officials to be beggars?
I know the current reality of our election campaign system is mired in a much different arrangement, but still my "naive, absent of reality" opinion is that _money_ should not be a factor in our elections, and it's the responsibility of the government we've created to ensure that happens. Elections are the one thing we can all agree is the responsibility of our self-government, the one thing that makes the rest of our democracy work. But the reality in the US today is that even though we all have a 'vote', those with money can use that money to make their 'vote' much more valuable that those without any money. The "McCain/Feingold reforms":http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d107:H.R.2356:a may make this even worse, as now campaigns need these extra "vote with your dollars" votes even more. We need to fix that.
h2. How do we fix it?
I would start by making it illegal for elected officials or those running for elected office to accept gifts or money from any private, corporate, religious or non-profit entity. All election campaigns should be 100% publicly funded. Arguments about the cost of that are silly. If we can all agree that elections are a primary responsibility of government, then we can agree that this responsibility can require commensurate funds.
Second, instead of charging station owners for a license to broadcast on our airwaves, then them charging us back to them for the right to conduct the people's business on those airwaves, lets just not give it to them in the first place. The license comes with the burden of broadcasting election commercials. Decrease the license fee if you need to. I'm fine with our government bearing the financial brunt of that burden, whatever it may be. The 2004 Presidential and Senatorial campaigns spent about "$4 billion dollars":http://www.opensecrets.org/pressreleases/2004/04spending.asp. Considering we pay about "$300 billion":http://civilliberty.about.com/od/uspoliticsandpolicies/i/e2004NatDebt.htm per year to service our nation debt ("incurred almost solely by Regan/Bush I/Bush II":http://www.ctj.org/html/debt0603.htm), I wouldn't have any issues if the cost to do this ran into the $10-20 billion/year range. It should be one of our government's main roles to equalize the situation, to remove money from the equation as much as possible.
Third, I would pay these elected officials a lot more. If senators made $5 million a year, they would have a harder time being swayed by the $250,000 yatch some lobbyist could give their nephew. If we're going to do this we should make their salaries on the same level as corporate leaders of similar stature. Perhaps we should even tie their salaries to the average of corporate leader's salaries; it could serve as incentive to make sure businesses prosper. But we should pay them enough that other people's money won't sway them. Again, paying our elected officials is one of the few things we can all agree our government should be responsible for, the comparatively miniscule about of money required to pay them well shouldn't be a factor.
h2. But if you don't give money ...?
A question I'm not sure about, how to you qualify to have your campaign funded? I think it should be as open and available to anyone that wants to run as possible. But it shouldn't be _too_ easy either. Being a public official requires _work_, so _work_ should be required to become one. I just would like that _work_ to be something other than raising money. Being good at getting people to part with their money doesn't necessarily mean they'll be a good elected representative.
Currently we show support by giving money. If you can't give _money_ to candidates to express support, how do we ensure that the people running, and spending public money on those campaigns, aren't running a boondoggle and actually have or could get some support among the electorate? (Even if a big chunk the money we spent on publicly funded election campaigns was wasted on boondoggles, we'd still have a better system that we have today, imo. The machinery of democracy is a better place than most to throw some cash around.)
Perhaps a solution would be to provide the option of altering the distribution of campaign contributions derived your own taxes? If you didn't alter it, as most people would do, your tax contributions allotted for campaigns would be split evenly among all the campaigns. If you really cared about a campaign, you could direct some of your already allocated tax dollars specifically to that campaign.
Also, what about the rich using their own money to outspend competitors? Do we ban people from spending their own money on their campaigns as well?
What do you think?
The Katrina Timeline
Think Progress has put together a well-documented Katrina Timeline that shows how our nation's leaders responded to the Katrina crisis. Pretty amazing. Rumsfeld went to a baseball game while they bombed levees to save higher priced real estate, Condoleezza went shopping on 5th Avenue while people were being raped in the convention center, Bush diverted helicopters and firemen to serve as props in photo ops as 30 elderly died in a nursing home after being neglected for a week.
God Outdoes Terrorists Yet Again
On the way back home from Burning Man after hearing some updated news from my mom on the situation in New Orleans, perhaps it's strange but I wondered what the headline in "The Onion":http://www.theonion.com/content/node/40305 was. So clever, those Onion editors. They always have a way of being funny while touching some truth. I also liked under the subheading, "White Foragers Report Threat Of Black Looters", "Radio stations still in operation are advising store owners and white people in the affected areas to locate firearms in sporting-goods stores in order to protect themselves against marauding blacks looting gun shops."