Great comedy here:
The Ten Least Successful Holiday Specials of All Time
By John Scalzi
An Algonquin Round Table Christmas (1927)
Alexander Woolcott, Franklin Pierce Adams, George Kaufman, Robert Benchley and Dorothy Parker were the stars of this 1927 NBC Red radio network special, one of the earliest Christmas specials ever performed. Unfortunately the principals, lured to the table for an unusual evening gathering by the promise of free drinks and pirogies, appeared unaware they were live and on the air, avoiding witty seasonal banter to concentrate on trashing absent Round Tabler Edna Ferber's latest novel, Mother Knows Best, and complaining, in progressively drunken fashion, about their lack of sex lives. Seasonal material of a sort finally appears in the 23rd minute when Dorothy Parker, already on her fifth drink, can be heard to remark, "one more of these and I'll be sliding down Santa's chimney." The feed was cut shortly thereafter. NBC Red's 1928 holiday special "Christmas with the Fitzgeralds" was similarly unsuccessful.
The Mercury Theater of the Air Presents the Assassination of Saint Nicholas (1939)
Listeners of radio's Columbia Broadcasting System who tuned in to hear a Christmas Eve rendition of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol were shocked when they heard what appeared to be a newscast from the north pole, reporting that Santa's Workshop had been overrun in a blitzkrieg by Finnish proxies of the Nazi German government. The newscast, a hoax created by 20-something wunderkind Orson Wells as a seasonal allegory about the spread of Fascism in Europe, was so successful that few listeners stayed to listen until the end, when St. Nick emerged from the smoking ruins of his workshop to deliver a rousing call to action against the authoritarian tide and to urge peace on Earth, good will toward men and expound on the joys of a hot cup of Mercury Theater of Air's sponsor Campbell's soup. Instead, tens of thousands of New York City children mobbed the Macy's Department Store on 34th, long presumed to be Santa's New York embassy, and sang Christmas carols in wee, sobbing tones. Only a midnight appearance of New York mayor Fiorello LaGuardia in full Santa getup quelled the agitated tykes. Welles, now a hunted man on the Eastern seaboard, decamped for Hollywood shortly thereafter.
Ayn Rand's A Selfish Christmas (1951)
In this hour-long radio drama, Santa struggles with the increasing demands of providing gifts for millions of spoiled, ungrateful brats across the world, until a single elf, in the engineering department of his workshop, convinces Santa to go on strike. The special ends with the entropic collapse of the civilization of takers and the spectacle of children trudging across the bitterly cold, dark tundra to offer Santa cash for his services, acknowledging at last that his genius makes the gifts -- and therefore Christmas -- possible. Prior to broadcast, Mutual Broadcast System executives raised objections to the radio play, noting that 56 minutes of the hour-long broadcast went to a philosophical manifesto by the elf and of the four remaining minutes, three went to a love scene between Santa and the cold, practical Mrs. Claus that was rendered into radio through the use of grunts and the shattering of several dozen whiskey tumblers. In later letters, Rand sneeringly described these executives as "anti-life."
The Lost Star Trek Christmas Episode: "A Most Illogical Holiday" (1968)
Mr. Spock, with his pointy ears, is hailed as a messiah on a wintry world where elves toil for a mysterious master, revealed to be Santa just prior to the first commercial break. Santa, enraged, kills Ensign Jones and attacks the Enterprise in his sleigh. As Scotty works to keep the power flowing to the shields, Kirk and Bones infiltrate Santa's headquarters. With the help of the comely and lonely Mrs. Claus, Kirk is led to the heart of the workshop, where he learns the truth: Santa is himself a pawn to a master computer, whose initial program is based on an ancient book of children's Christmas tales. Kirk engages the master computer in a battle of wits, demanding the computer explain how it is physically possible for Santa to deliver gifts to all the children in the universe in a single night. The master computer, confronted with this computational anomaly, self-destructs; Santa, freed from mental enslavement, releases the elves and begins a new, democratic society. Back on the ship, Bones and Spock bicker about the meaning of Christmas, an argument which ends when Scotty appears on the bridge with egg nog made with Romulan Ale.
Filmed during the series' run, this episode was never shown on network television and was offered in syndication only once, in 1975. Star Trek fans hint the episode was later personally destroyed by Gene Roddenberry. Rumor suggests Harlan Ellison may have written the original script; asked about the episode at 1978's IgunaCon II science fiction convention, however, Ellison described the episode as "a quiescently glistening cherem of pus."
Bob & Carol & Ted & Santa (1973)
This ABC Christmas special featured Santa as a happy-go-lucky swinger who comically wades into the marital bed of two neurotic 70s couples, and also the music of the Carpenters. It was screened for television critics but shelved by the network when the critics, assembled at ABC's New York offices, rose as one to strangle the producers at the post-viewing interview. Joel Siegel would later write, "When Santa did his striptease for Carol while Karen Carpenter sang 'Top of the World' and peered through an open window, we all looked at each other and knew that we television critics, of all people, had been called upon to defend Western Civilization. We dared not fail."
A Muppet Christmas with Zbigniew Brzezinski (1978)
A year before their rather more successful Christmas pairing with John Denver, the Muppets joined Carter Administration National Security Advisor Brezezinski for an evening of fun, song, and anticommunist rhetoric. While those who remember the show recall the pairing of Brzezinki and Miss Piggy for a duet of "Winter Wonderland" as winsomely enchanting, the scenes where the NSA head explains the true meaning of Christmas to an assemblage of Muppets dressed as Afghan mujahideen was incongruous and disturbing even then. Washington rumor, unsupported by any Carter administration member, suggests that President Carter had this Christmas special on a repeating loop while he drafted his infamous "Malaise" speech.
The Village People in Can't Stop the Christmas Music -- On Ice! (1980)
Undeterred by the miserable flop of the movie Can't Stop the Music!, last place television network NBC aired this special, in which music group the Village People mobilize to save Christmas after Santa Claus (Paul Lynde) experiences a hernia. Thus follows several musical sequences -- on ice! -- where the Village People move Santa's Workshop to Christopher Street, enlist their friends to become elves with an adapted version of their hit "In The Navy," and draft film co-star Bruce Jenner to become the new Santa in a sequence which involves stripping the 1976 gold medal decathlon winner to his shorts, shaving and oiling his chest, and outfitting him in fur-trimmed red briefs and crimson leathers to a disco version of "Come O Ye Faithful." Peggy Fleming, Shields and Yarnell and Lorna Luft co-star.
Interestingly, there is no reliable data regarding the ratings for this show, as the Nielsen diaries for this week were accidentally consumed by fire. Show producers estimate that one in ten Americans tuned in to at least part of the show, but more conservative estimates place the audience at no more than two or three percent, tops.
A Canadian Christmas with David Cronenberg (1986)
Faced with Canadian content requirements but no new programming, the Canadian Broadcasting Company turned to Canadian director David Cronenberg, hot off his success with Scanners and The Fly, to fill the seasonal gap. In this 90-minute event, Santa (Michael Ironside) makes an emergency landing in the Northwest Territories, where he is exposed to a previously unknown virus after being attacked by a violent moose. The virus causes Santa to develop both a large, tooth-bearing orifice in his belly and a lustful hunger for human flesh, which he sates by graphically devouring Canadian celebrities Bryan Adams, Dan Ackroyd and Gordie Howe on national television. Music by Neil Young.
Noam Chomsky: Deconstructing Christmas (1998)
This PBS/WGBH special featured linguist and social commentator Chomsky sitting at a desk, explaining how the development of the commercial Christmas season directly relates to the loss of individual freedoms in the United States and the subjugation of indigenous people in southeast Asia. Despite a rave review by Z magazine, musical guest Zach de la Rocha and the concession of Chomsky to wear a seasonal hat for a younger demographic appeal, this is known to be the least requested Christmas special ever made.
Christmas with the Nuge (2002)
Spurred by the success of The Osbournes on sister network MTV, cable network VH1 contracted zany hard rocker Ted Nugent to help create a "reality" Christmas special. Nugent responded with a special that features the Motor City Madman bowhunting, and then making jerky from, four calling birds, three French hens, two turtle doves, and a partridge in a pear tree, all specially flown in to Nugent's Michigan compound for the occasion. In the second half of the hour-long special, Nugent heckles vegetarian Night Ranger/Damn Yankees bassist Jack Blades into consuming three strips of dove jerky. Fearing the inevitable PETA protest, and boycotts from Moby and Pam Anderson, VH1 never aired the special, which is available solely by special order at the Nuge Store on TedNugent.com.
Wednesday, December 01, 2004
From washingtonpost.com:
Wal-Mart Loves Unions (In China)
By Harold Meyerson
Wal-Mart has finally found a union it can live with.
Up to now America's largest employer has opposed every effort of its employees to form a union. Wal-Mart doesn't recognize unions; it doesn't even recognize "employees." The proper Wal-Mart name for its workers is "associates," a term that connotes higher status and collegiality and that actually means lower pay and workplace autocracy. For the privilege of associating themselves with Wal-Mart, its employees are paid so little that many can't afford the health insurance the company generously allows them to buy. One study of health care in Las Vegas revealed that a plurality of that city's employed Medicaid recipients worked at Wal-Mart.
But that was the old Wal-Mart. Last week Wal-Mart announced that if its associates wanted a union to represent them, that would be hunky-dory -- as long as the union was affiliated with the All-China Federation of Trade Unions, a body dominated by the Chinese Communist Party. The official statement was simple and seemingly unambiguous: "Should associates request formation of a union, Wal-Mart China would respect their wishes."
Wal-Mart America has made no such declaration, of course. Why it deems its 20,000 Chinese associates who work in its 40 Chinese stores worthy of representation while its million U.S. employees can't be trusted with the right to represent themselves is a good question. Whence the Sinophilia and Americaphobia?
We can, I think, dismiss suspicions of anti-anyone-but-Chinese racism as such. The answer, then, must lie in Wal-Mart's preference for old-line communist-dominated unions in authoritarian communist states over any other kinds of unions anywhere else. America's unions, which Wal-Mart despises, have a long history of anticommunism, and today's AFL-CIO is the staunchest defender on the American political scene of democratic rights in communist nations such as China. For that matter, unions affiliated with reformed or post-communist parties outside of the few remaining communist states have gotten nowhere with Wal-Mart either. Only in China, with its inimitable blend of Dickensian capitalism and authoritarian communism, has Wal-Mart found a union to its liking.
And small wonder. Unions affiliated with the All-China Federation seldom push for wage increases or safer machinery. Indeed, the locals are often headed by someone from company management. Not that there isn't worker discontent in China: Every week brings accounts of spontaneous strikes, and now and then an occasional riot over such lifestyle impediments as unpaid wages. But the role of the state-sanctioned unions isn't to channel the discontent into achievable gains; it's to contain it to the employer's benefit.
The leaders of genuine workers' movements in China don't end up running the All-China Federation. They're to be found in prison, in exile or in hiding.
Besides, truly democratic unions in China would run counter to the truly undemocratic, one-party state. Allowing a democratic union movement to form would threaten both Dickensian capitalism and authoritarian communism, and diminish some of China's competitive advantage over other low-wage but not authoritarian nations in Southeast Asia, Central America and elsewhere. Such a development would be anathema to both the Politburo and Wal-Mart's board of directors. It would introduce the concept of free choice and the prospects of higher living standards not just to Wal-Mart's 20,000 Chinese store employees but to the far larger number of Chinese workers laboring in poverty-wage servitude to stitch clothing for the contractors, subcontractors and sub-subcontractors whose products fill Wal-Mart's shelves.
When a company such as Wal-Mart is so plainly comfortable with authoritarianism abroad, it tells you something about that company's values at home. Bentonville regards the prospect of employee free association and organization within its stores with the same fear and loathing that Beijing feels at the prospect of free elections in China. Anti-union American employers can't imprison pro-union workers, but exile is a real possibility. Troublemakers are free to go. According to Cornell labor relations professor Kate Bronfenbrenner, at least 5 percent of workers involved in unionization campaigns are fired, which is both quite illegal and quite routine: Companies would rather pay the nominal fines than pay their workers higher wages and lose the absolute control they hold over the work lives of their employees.
The noblest of the Bush administration's goals, surely, is that of spreading democracy. If it's serious about that task, though, there are places closer to home than the Middle East that could use a little democracy-spreading, and the American workplace is high on that list. Strengthening labor law would make it harder for employers such as Wal-Mart to thwart their workers' desire for an organized voice on the job. When America's largest employer feels more affinity for the political legacy of Mao Zedong than for that of Franklin D. Roosevelt, it's time to start democratizing our own back yard.
Wal-Mart Loves Unions (In China)
By Harold Meyerson
Wal-Mart has finally found a union it can live with.
Up to now America's largest employer has opposed every effort of its employees to form a union. Wal-Mart doesn't recognize unions; it doesn't even recognize "employees." The proper Wal-Mart name for its workers is "associates," a term that connotes higher status and collegiality and that actually means lower pay and workplace autocracy. For the privilege of associating themselves with Wal-Mart, its employees are paid so little that many can't afford the health insurance the company generously allows them to buy. One study of health care in Las Vegas revealed that a plurality of that city's employed Medicaid recipients worked at Wal-Mart.
But that was the old Wal-Mart. Last week Wal-Mart announced that if its associates wanted a union to represent them, that would be hunky-dory -- as long as the union was affiliated with the All-China Federation of Trade Unions, a body dominated by the Chinese Communist Party. The official statement was simple and seemingly unambiguous: "Should associates request formation of a union, Wal-Mart China would respect their wishes."
Wal-Mart America has made no such declaration, of course. Why it deems its 20,000 Chinese associates who work in its 40 Chinese stores worthy of representation while its million U.S. employees can't be trusted with the right to represent themselves is a good question. Whence the Sinophilia and Americaphobia?
We can, I think, dismiss suspicions of anti-anyone-but-Chinese racism as such. The answer, then, must lie in Wal-Mart's preference for old-line communist-dominated unions in authoritarian communist states over any other kinds of unions anywhere else. America's unions, which Wal-Mart despises, have a long history of anticommunism, and today's AFL-CIO is the staunchest defender on the American political scene of democratic rights in communist nations such as China. For that matter, unions affiliated with reformed or post-communist parties outside of the few remaining communist states have gotten nowhere with Wal-Mart either. Only in China, with its inimitable blend of Dickensian capitalism and authoritarian communism, has Wal-Mart found a union to its liking.
And small wonder. Unions affiliated with the All-China Federation seldom push for wage increases or safer machinery. Indeed, the locals are often headed by someone from company management. Not that there isn't worker discontent in China: Every week brings accounts of spontaneous strikes, and now and then an occasional riot over such lifestyle impediments as unpaid wages. But the role of the state-sanctioned unions isn't to channel the discontent into achievable gains; it's to contain it to the employer's benefit.
The leaders of genuine workers' movements in China don't end up running the All-China Federation. They're to be found in prison, in exile or in hiding.
Besides, truly democratic unions in China would run counter to the truly undemocratic, one-party state. Allowing a democratic union movement to form would threaten both Dickensian capitalism and authoritarian communism, and diminish some of China's competitive advantage over other low-wage but not authoritarian nations in Southeast Asia, Central America and elsewhere. Such a development would be anathema to both the Politburo and Wal-Mart's board of directors. It would introduce the concept of free choice and the prospects of higher living standards not just to Wal-Mart's 20,000 Chinese store employees but to the far larger number of Chinese workers laboring in poverty-wage servitude to stitch clothing for the contractors, subcontractors and sub-subcontractors whose products fill Wal-Mart's shelves.
When a company such as Wal-Mart is so plainly comfortable with authoritarianism abroad, it tells you something about that company's values at home. Bentonville regards the prospect of employee free association and organization within its stores with the same fear and loathing that Beijing feels at the prospect of free elections in China. Anti-union American employers can't imprison pro-union workers, but exile is a real possibility. Troublemakers are free to go. According to Cornell labor relations professor Kate Bronfenbrenner, at least 5 percent of workers involved in unionization campaigns are fired, which is both quite illegal and quite routine: Companies would rather pay the nominal fines than pay their workers higher wages and lose the absolute control they hold over the work lives of their employees.
The noblest of the Bush administration's goals, surely, is that of spreading democracy. If it's serious about that task, though, there are places closer to home than the Middle East that could use a little democracy-spreading, and the American workplace is high on that list. Strengthening labor law would make it harder for employers such as Wal-Mart to thwart their workers' desire for an organized voice on the job. When America's largest employer feels more affinity for the political legacy of Mao Zedong than for that of Franklin D. Roosevelt, it's time to start democratizing our own back yard.
From BreakPoint:
Kinsey on Film
Whitewashing the Truth
By Mark Gauvreau Judge
November 12, 2004
Maybe they just won’t ever get it. After the backlash from Janet Jackson’s exposure at the Super Bowl and the banishment of Howard Stern to satellite radio, Hollywood has decided that what America needs is more sex. Kinsey, a movie starring Liam Neeson as notorious post-World War II sex researcher Alfred Kinsey, has gotten wide positive coverage in the elite media, from the New York Times to Entertainment Weekly.
Unsurprisingly, the consensus is that in this age of neo-fascism, Kinsey is a brave portrayal of a forward-thinking rebel and liberator, a Prometheus of erotica. Star Neeson thinks it’s sad that “we can’t talk about sex” and calls the American attitude towards it as “schizophrenic.” We love the television shows like Sex and the City yet elect George W. Bush. Kinsey biographer Jonathan Gathorne-Hardy writes to the New York Times to complain about Kinsey critic Judith Reisman, who had the bad taste to point out that Kinsey was a pedophile who talked to rapists, robbers and murderers for his study. Gathorne-Hardy writes, “Just as in the late 1940s and early 50s, when Kinsey’s work was coming out, the far Republican and Christian Right are in the ascendant. Just as he was attacked by them then, so this film is being attacked now.”
The promotional posters for Kinsey declare, “Let’s Talk about Sex,” and yet, the possibility that Americans don’t need to talk about sex is ruled out of bounds. To do so would be to admit that America has not only thought about sex, but come to conclusions about sex which are at odds with them and with Kinsey. Such conclusions, according to Hollywood, just can’t be healthy. After all, “right-wing” opinions on sex are grounded in religious faith as well as reason and call for restraint. Indeed, those conclusions observe the wise paradox that restraint is a true form of liberation when it comes to sex, not to mention most other things in life. To most media elites, excess is always good; restraint, verboten.
Perhaps what’s so sad about the Kinsey film is that it’s such a cartoon. Like most movies about the 1950s – Pleasantville, Mona Lisa Smile, Dead Poets Society – it depicts America as an oligarchy of Neanderthals, with a few saintly progressives around to bring enlightenment. There seems to be no conception that a more accurate portrayal of the time would make for more nuance and better characters, and thus a better movie. Kinsey’s strongest and most insightful critic wasn’t some crabbed John Elmer Gantry terrified of sex, but Lionel Trilling, the brilliant literary critic, Columbiaprofessor and cold war liberal. In 1948 Trilling wrote a review of Kinsey’s report, and Trilling’s insights into Kinsey’s Sexual Behavior in the Human Male are still valid.
Trilling was no prude, and no conservative. He opens his piece praising the report. “[N]othing shows more clearly the extent to which modern society had atomized itself than the isolation in sexual ignorance which exists among us. We have censured the folk knowledge of the most primal things and have systematically dried up the social affections which might naturally seek to enlighten and release….probably our culture is unique in strictly isolating the individual in the fears that society has devised.” Further, Trilling writes that “perhaps only science could effectively undertake the task of freeing sexuality from science itself. Nothing so much as science has reinforced the moralistic
or religious prohibitions in regard to sexuality.”
So far, nothing that Dr. Ruth wouldn’t say. But then Trilling gets to the report itself. He notes that Americans – at least in 1948 – had a slavish attitude towards science, and the report claims to be nothing other than scientific observations and data. And yet the report “is full of assumptions and conclusions; it makes very positive statements on highly debatable matters and editorializes very freely.” The greatest flaw, according to Trilling, is “the question of whether the Report does not do harm by encouraging people in their
commitment to mechanical attitudes toward life.”
This mechanical attitude, of course, is where we are now. Any dissent from the idea that more sex is always better, and the more ubiquitous sex is in the media the better and healthier it is for puritanical America, is quickly renounced in the name of health and science. Hey, sex is good for you. Kinsey held that good sex means frequent sex. He wanted males to be able to match the ability of some animals to mate several times a day – “the more than daily rates which have been observed for some primate species could be matched by a large portion of the human population if sexual activity were unrestricted.”
Trilling objects to Kinsey’s report, not solely on the basis of morality, but with common sense and, yes, scientific observation, that frequent sex can be a sign of anxiety and neurosis – “adult intercourse may be the expression of anxiety; its frequency may not be so much robust as compulsive.”
Compulsive, or quick, behavior is not intrinsically better behavior, for the individual or for society. “By such reasoning,” Trilling writes, “the human male who is quick and intense in his leap to the lifeboat is natural and superior, however inconvenient and unfortunate his speed and intensity may be to the wife he leaves standing on the deck, as is also the man who makes a snap judgment, who bites his dentists finger, who kicks the child who annoys him….”
Trilling also nails Kinsey on his methodology. Kinsey did not use lie detectors in his tests. In such a test, Kinsey argued, “there is no way except to win voluntary cooperation through the establishment of that intangible thing known as rapport.” According to Trilling: “It might be asked why a thing which is intangible but real enough to assure scientific accuracy should not be real enough to be considered as having an affect on sexual behavior.”
Good point, and one that wasn’t addressed by Kinsey, or the movie about him. Sadly many who watch Kinsey will get the impression that Alfred Kinsey was a persecuted hero, a genius misunderstood by the prudish society in which he lived. But it wasn’t just religious moralists or uptight yokels who criticized Kinsey’s methods and research. Unfortunately, rather than show Kinsey the man, Kinsey the movie perpetuates Kinsey the myth and legend.
Mark Gauvreau Judge is a freelance writer who lives in the Washington, D.C. area. His most recent book, Damn Senators: My Grandfather and the Story of Washington’s Only World Series Championship (Encounter, 2003), is now available in paperback.
Kinsey on Film
Whitewashing the Truth
By Mark Gauvreau Judge
November 12, 2004
Maybe they just won’t ever get it. After the backlash from Janet Jackson’s exposure at the Super Bowl and the banishment of Howard Stern to satellite radio, Hollywood has decided that what America needs is more sex. Kinsey, a movie starring Liam Neeson as notorious post-World War II sex researcher Alfred Kinsey, has gotten wide positive coverage in the elite media, from the New York Times to Entertainment Weekly.
Unsurprisingly, the consensus is that in this age of neo-fascism, Kinsey is a brave portrayal of a forward-thinking rebel and liberator, a Prometheus of erotica. Star Neeson thinks it’s sad that “we can’t talk about sex” and calls the American attitude towards it as “schizophrenic.” We love the television shows like Sex and the City yet elect George W. Bush. Kinsey biographer Jonathan Gathorne-Hardy writes to the New York Times to complain about Kinsey critic Judith Reisman, who had the bad taste to point out that Kinsey was a pedophile who talked to rapists, robbers and murderers for his study. Gathorne-Hardy writes, “Just as in the late 1940s and early 50s, when Kinsey’s work was coming out, the far Republican and Christian Right are in the ascendant. Just as he was attacked by them then, so this film is being attacked now.”
The promotional posters for Kinsey declare, “Let’s Talk about Sex,” and yet, the possibility that Americans don’t need to talk about sex is ruled out of bounds. To do so would be to admit that America has not only thought about sex, but come to conclusions about sex which are at odds with them and with Kinsey. Such conclusions, according to Hollywood, just can’t be healthy. After all, “right-wing” opinions on sex are grounded in religious faith as well as reason and call for restraint. Indeed, those conclusions observe the wise paradox that restraint is a true form of liberation when it comes to sex, not to mention most other things in life. To most media elites, excess is always good; restraint, verboten.
Perhaps what’s so sad about the Kinsey film is that it’s such a cartoon. Like most movies about the 1950s – Pleasantville, Mona Lisa Smile, Dead Poets Society – it depicts America as an oligarchy of Neanderthals, with a few saintly progressives around to bring enlightenment. There seems to be no conception that a more accurate portrayal of the time would make for more nuance and better characters, and thus a better movie. Kinsey’s strongest and most insightful critic wasn’t some crabbed John Elmer Gantry terrified of sex, but Lionel Trilling, the brilliant literary critic, Columbiaprofessor and cold war liberal. In 1948 Trilling wrote a review of Kinsey’s report, and Trilling’s insights into Kinsey’s Sexual Behavior in the Human Male are still valid.
Trilling was no prude, and no conservative. He opens his piece praising the report. “[N]othing shows more clearly the extent to which modern society had atomized itself than the isolation in sexual ignorance which exists among us. We have censured the folk knowledge of the most primal things and have systematically dried up the social affections which might naturally seek to enlighten and release….probably our culture is unique in strictly isolating the individual in the fears that society has devised.” Further, Trilling writes that “perhaps only science could effectively undertake the task of freeing sexuality from science itself. Nothing so much as science has reinforced the moralistic
or religious prohibitions in regard to sexuality.”
So far, nothing that Dr. Ruth wouldn’t say. But then Trilling gets to the report itself. He notes that Americans – at least in 1948 – had a slavish attitude towards science, and the report claims to be nothing other than scientific observations and data. And yet the report “is full of assumptions and conclusions; it makes very positive statements on highly debatable matters and editorializes very freely.” The greatest flaw, according to Trilling, is “the question of whether the Report does not do harm by encouraging people in their
commitment to mechanical attitudes toward life.”
This mechanical attitude, of course, is where we are now. Any dissent from the idea that more sex is always better, and the more ubiquitous sex is in the media the better and healthier it is for puritanical America, is quickly renounced in the name of health and science. Hey, sex is good for you. Kinsey held that good sex means frequent sex. He wanted males to be able to match the ability of some animals to mate several times a day – “the more than daily rates which have been observed for some primate species could be matched by a large portion of the human population if sexual activity were unrestricted.”
Trilling objects to Kinsey’s report, not solely on the basis of morality, but with common sense and, yes, scientific observation, that frequent sex can be a sign of anxiety and neurosis – “adult intercourse may be the expression of anxiety; its frequency may not be so much robust as compulsive.”
Compulsive, or quick, behavior is not intrinsically better behavior, for the individual or for society. “By such reasoning,” Trilling writes, “the human male who is quick and intense in his leap to the lifeboat is natural and superior, however inconvenient and unfortunate his speed and intensity may be to the wife he leaves standing on the deck, as is also the man who makes a snap judgment, who bites his dentists finger, who kicks the child who annoys him….”
Trilling also nails Kinsey on his methodology. Kinsey did not use lie detectors in his tests. In such a test, Kinsey argued, “there is no way except to win voluntary cooperation through the establishment of that intangible thing known as rapport.” According to Trilling: “It might be asked why a thing which is intangible but real enough to assure scientific accuracy should not be real enough to be considered as having an affect on sexual behavior.”
Good point, and one that wasn’t addressed by Kinsey, or the movie about him. Sadly many who watch Kinsey will get the impression that Alfred Kinsey was a persecuted hero, a genius misunderstood by the prudish society in which he lived. But it wasn’t just religious moralists or uptight yokels who criticized Kinsey’s methods and research. Unfortunately, rather than show Kinsey the man, Kinsey the movie perpetuates Kinsey the myth and legend.
Mark Gauvreau Judge is a freelance writer who lives in the Washington, D.C. area. His most recent book, Damn Senators: My Grandfather and the Story of Washington’s Only World Series Championship (Encounter, 2003), is now available in paperback.
The Prophecy of C. S. Lewis
By Chuck Colson
November 29, 2004
C. S. Lewis was born on this date in 1898, and forty-one years after his death, one thing has become startlingly clear: This Oxford don was not only a keen apologist but also a true prophet for our postmodern age. For example, Lewis’s 1947 book, Miracles, was penned before most Christians were aware of the emerging philosophy of naturalism. This is the belief that there is a naturalistic explanation for everything in the universe. Naturalism undercuts any objective morality, opening the door to tyranny. In his book The Abolition of Man, Lewis warned that naturalism turns humans into objects to be controlled. It turns values into “mere natural phenomena”—which can be selected and inculcated into a passive population by powerful Conditioners. Lewis predicted a time when those who want to remold human nature “will be armed with the powers of an omnicompetent state and an irresistible scientific technique.” Sounds like the biotech debate today, doesn’t it? Why was Lewis so uncannily prophetic? At first glance he seems an unlikely candidate. He was not a theologian; he was an English professor. What was it that made him such a keen observer of cultural and intellectual trends? The answer may be somewhat discomfiting to modern evangelicals: One reason is precisely that Lewis was not an evangelical. He was a professor in the academy, with a specialty in medieval literature, which gave him a mental framework shaped by the whole scope of intellectual history and Christian thought. As a result, he was liberated from the narrow confines of the religious views of the day—which meant he was able to analyze and critique them. Lewis once wrote than any new book “has to be tested against the great body of Christian thought down the ages.” Because he himself was steeped in that “great body of Christian thought,” he quickly discerned trends that ran counter to it. But how many of us are familiar with that same panorama of Christian ideas “down the ages”? How many of us know the work of more than a few contemporary writers? How, then, can we stand against the destructive intellectual trends multiplying in our own day? The problem is not that modern evangelicals are less intelligent than Lewis. As Mark Noll explains in his book The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, the problem is that our sharpest intellects have been channeled into biblical scholarship, exegesis, and hermeneutics. While that is a vital enterprise, we rarely give the same scholarly attention to history, literature, politics, philosophy, economics, or the arts. As a result, we are less aware of the culture than we should be, less equipped to defend a biblical worldview, and less capable of being a redemptive force in our postmodern society—less aware, as well, of the threats headed our way from cultural elites. You and I need to follow Lewis’s lead. We must liberate ourselves from the prison of our own narrow perspective and immerse ourselves in Christian ideas “down the ages.” Only then can we critique our culture and trace the trends. The best way to celebrate Lewis’s birthday is to be at our posts, as he liked to say—with renewed spirits and with probing and informed minds.
For further reading and information: C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (HarperSanFrancisco, 2001 version). C. S. Lewis, Miracles (HarperSanFrancisco, 2001 version). C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man (HarperSanFrancisco, 2001 version). Charles Colson, “ The Oxford Prophet ,” Christianity Today, Charles Colson, “ Cultural Prophecy: Lewis learned from the greats ,” Boundless, Charles Colson, “ C. S. Lewis: Prophet of the Twentieth Century ,” Wilberforce Forum. James Tonkowich, M. Div., “ In Praise of Old Books ,” BreakPoint WorldView, March 2004. BreakPoint Commentary No. 040412, “ Everything Old Is New Again: C. S. Lewis and the Argument from Reason .” BreakPoint Commentary No. 031121, “ Three Died That Day: Reflections on November 22, 1963 .” Dr. Armand Nicholi, The Question of God: C. S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud Debate God, Love, Sex, and the Meaning of Life (Free Press, 2002). Mark A. Noll, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind (Eerdmans, 1994). Mark A. Noll, “ The Evangelical Mind Today ,” First Things, October 2004.
Chuck Colson is founder and chairman of BreakPoint Online, a Townhall.com member group.
©2004 BreakPoint Online
Tuesday, November 30, 2004
Some synchronicity here. The article dovetails with a conversation I had about this joint appearance just the other day. From The New York Times:
Who Is John Stott?
By David Brooks
Tim Russert is a great journalist, but he made a mistake last weekend. He included Jerry Falwell and Al Sharpton in a discussion on religion and public life.
Inviting these two bozos onto "Meet the Press" to discuss that issue is like inviting Britney Spears and Larry Flynt to discuss D. H. Lawrence. Naturally, they got into a demeaning food fight that would have lowered the intellectual discourse of your average nursery school.
This is why so many people are so misinformed about evangelical Christians. There is a world of difference between real-life people of faith and the made-for-TV, Elmer Gantry-style blowhards who are selected to represent them. Falwell and Pat Robertson are held up as spokesmen for evangelicals, which is ridiculous. Meanwhile people like John Stott, who are actually important, get ignored.
It could be that you have never heard of John Stott. I don't blame you. As far as I can tell, Stott has never appeared on an important American news program. A computer search suggests that Stott's name hasn't appeared in this newspaper since April 10, 1956, and it's never appeared in many other important publications.
Yet, as Michael Cromartie of the Ethics and Public Policy Center notes, if evangelicals could elect a pope, Stott is the person they would likely choose. He was the framer of the Lausanne Covenant, a crucial organizing document for modern evangelicalism. He is the author of more than 40 books, which have been translated into over 72 languages and have sold in the millions. Now rector emeritus at All Souls, Langham Place, in London, he has traveled the world preaching and teaching.
When you read Stott, you encounter first a tone of voice. Tom Wolfe once noticed that at a certain moment all airline pilots came to speak like Chuck Yeager. The parallel is inexact, but over the years I've heard hundreds of evangelicals who sound like Stott.
It is a voice that is friendly, courteous and natural. It is humble and self-critical, but also confident, joyful and optimistic. Stott's mission is to pierce through all the encrustations and share direct contact with Jesus. Stott says that the central message of the gospel is not the teachings of Jesus, but Jesus himself, the human/divine figure. He is always bringing people back to the concrete reality of Jesus' life and sacrifice.
There's been a lot of twaddle written recently about the supposed opposition between faith and reason. To read Stott is to see someone practicing "thoughtful allegiance" to scripture. For him, Christianity means probing the mysteries of Christ. He is always exploring paradoxes. Jesus teaches humility, so why does he talk about himself so much? What does it mean to gain power through weakness, or freedom through obedience? In many cases the truth is not found in the middle of apparent opposites, but on both extremes simultaneously.
Stott is so embracing it's always a bit of a shock - especially if you're a Jew like me - when you come across something on which he will not compromise. It's like being in "Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood," except he has a backbone of steel. He does not accept homosexuality as a legitimate lifestyle, and of course he believes in evangelizing among nonbelievers. He is pro-life and pro-death penalty, even though he is not a political conservative on most issues.
Most important, he does not believe truth is plural. He does not believe in relativizing good and evil or that all faiths are independently valid, or that truth is something humans are working toward. Instead, Truth has been revealed. As he writes:
"It is not because we are ultra-conservative, or obscurantist, or reactionary or the other horrid things which we are sometimes said to be. It is rather because we love Jesus Christ, and because we are determined, God helping us, to bear witness to his unique glory and absolute sufficiency. In Christ and in the biblical witness to Christ God's revelation is complete; to add any words of our own to his finished work is derogatory to Christ."
Politicians, especially Democrats, are now trying harder to appeal to people of faith. But people of faith are not just another interest group, like gun owners. You have to begin by understanding the faith. And you can't understand this rising global movement if you don't meet its authentic representatives.
Not Falwell, but Stott.
Who Is John Stott?
By David Brooks
Tim Russert is a great journalist, but he made a mistake last weekend. He included Jerry Falwell and Al Sharpton in a discussion on religion and public life.
Inviting these two bozos onto "Meet the Press" to discuss that issue is like inviting Britney Spears and Larry Flynt to discuss D. H. Lawrence. Naturally, they got into a demeaning food fight that would have lowered the intellectual discourse of your average nursery school.
This is why so many people are so misinformed about evangelical Christians. There is a world of difference between real-life people of faith and the made-for-TV, Elmer Gantry-style blowhards who are selected to represent them. Falwell and Pat Robertson are held up as spokesmen for evangelicals, which is ridiculous. Meanwhile people like John Stott, who are actually important, get ignored.
It could be that you have never heard of John Stott. I don't blame you. As far as I can tell, Stott has never appeared on an important American news program. A computer search suggests that Stott's name hasn't appeared in this newspaper since April 10, 1956, and it's never appeared in many other important publications.
Yet, as Michael Cromartie of the Ethics and Public Policy Center notes, if evangelicals could elect a pope, Stott is the person they would likely choose. He was the framer of the Lausanne Covenant, a crucial organizing document for modern evangelicalism. He is the author of more than 40 books, which have been translated into over 72 languages and have sold in the millions. Now rector emeritus at All Souls, Langham Place, in London, he has traveled the world preaching and teaching.
When you read Stott, you encounter first a tone of voice. Tom Wolfe once noticed that at a certain moment all airline pilots came to speak like Chuck Yeager. The parallel is inexact, but over the years I've heard hundreds of evangelicals who sound like Stott.
It is a voice that is friendly, courteous and natural. It is humble and self-critical, but also confident, joyful and optimistic. Stott's mission is to pierce through all the encrustations and share direct contact with Jesus. Stott says that the central message of the gospel is not the teachings of Jesus, but Jesus himself, the human/divine figure. He is always bringing people back to the concrete reality of Jesus' life and sacrifice.
There's been a lot of twaddle written recently about the supposed opposition between faith and reason. To read Stott is to see someone practicing "thoughtful allegiance" to scripture. For him, Christianity means probing the mysteries of Christ. He is always exploring paradoxes. Jesus teaches humility, so why does he talk about himself so much? What does it mean to gain power through weakness, or freedom through obedience? In many cases the truth is not found in the middle of apparent opposites, but on both extremes simultaneously.
Stott is so embracing it's always a bit of a shock - especially if you're a Jew like me - when you come across something on which he will not compromise. It's like being in "Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood," except he has a backbone of steel. He does not accept homosexuality as a legitimate lifestyle, and of course he believes in evangelizing among nonbelievers. He is pro-life and pro-death penalty, even though he is not a political conservative on most issues.
Most important, he does not believe truth is plural. He does not believe in relativizing good and evil or that all faiths are independently valid, or that truth is something humans are working toward. Instead, Truth has been revealed. As he writes:
"It is not because we are ultra-conservative, or obscurantist, or reactionary or the other horrid things which we are sometimes said to be. It is rather because we love Jesus Christ, and because we are determined, God helping us, to bear witness to his unique glory and absolute sufficiency. In Christ and in the biblical witness to Christ God's revelation is complete; to add any words of our own to his finished work is derogatory to Christ."
Politicians, especially Democrats, are now trying harder to appeal to people of faith. But people of faith are not just another interest group, like gun owners. You have to begin by understanding the faith. And you can't understand this rising global movement if you don't meet its authentic representatives.
Not Falwell, but Stott.
Monday, November 29, 2004
From The Chicago Sun-Times:
How Kerry whistleblower suffered for truth
By Mary Laney
This is the story of a military veteran whistleblower. He spoke out against someone he thought was dangerous for the nation, talked to local newspapers, and appeared on talk shows. In return, he was vilified by reporters, threatened by a political operative, fired by his company, and now he's broke.
His name is Steve Gardner. He's also known as "The 10th Brother," as in Band of Brothers. He's one of two members of Sen. John Kerry's 12 Vietnam swift boat crew members who refused to stand with Kerry at the Democratic Convention. The other man remained silent.
"They said I had a political agenda. I had no and have no political agenda whatsoever. I saw John Kerry on television saying he was running for the Democratic nomination for president, and I knew I couldn't ever see him as commander in chief -- not after what I saw in Vietnam, not after the lies I heard him tell about what he says he did and what he says others did."
Gardner explains he was sitting at home in Clover, S.C., when he first saw Kerry on television. It was before the primary races. For 35 years, Gardner says, he hadn't talked about his tour of duty in Vietnam. But when he saw Kerry talking about running, he says he got up, called the newspaper in town, called radio stations and "talked to anyone I could about why this man should never be president." Eventually he got a call from Adm. Roy Huffman, who had been in charge of the coastal division in Vietnam, reunited with other swift boat veterans, and the rest is, as they say, history.
Gardner's story is one that bears telling. He volunteered for the Navy, enlisting on his 18th birthday in February 1966. After training, he was shipped to Vietnam and served for two years as a gunner in the swift boat division. His superior, for four months, was none other than Lt. j.g. John F. Kerry.
"I had confrontations with him there. He nearly got us rammed by the VC one night because he wasn't watching the helm. I heard the motor coming close, turned on the spotlight, and the boat was only 90 feet away, coming fast. The VC was aiming an AK47 at us. I shot him out of the boat. We pulled a woman and a baby off the boat. Kerry wrote it up that we captured two VC and killed four more on the beach. None of that was true. The only thing true on Kerry's report was the date. The woman was catatonic and wouldn't call her baby VC and there were no VC on the beach. If we had seen that report before Kerry sent it up the chain of command, he would have been court-martialed and never allowed to run for office. And that's just the San Pan incident. There was much more. He is a self-aggrandizing bold-faced liar. I believe he caused the extension of that war."
Gardner told this story and others to radio stations and he wrote a piece for the local paper. Then, he says, he received a phone call from John Hurley, the veterans organizer for Kerry's campaign. Hurley, Gardner says, asked him to come out for Kerry. He told Hurley to leave him alone and that he'd never be for Kerry. It was then Gardner says, he was threatened with, "You better watch your step. We can look into your finances."
Next, Gardner said he received a call from Douglas Brinkley, the author of Tour of Duty: John Kerry and the Vietnam War. Brinkley told Gardner he was calling only to "fact check" the book -- which was already in print. "I told him that the guy in the book is not the same guy I served with. I told him Kerry was a coward. He would patrol the middle of the river. The canals were dangerous. He wouldn't go there unless he had another boat pushing him."
Days later, Brinkley called again, warning Gardner to expect some calls. It seems Brinkley had used the "fact checking" conversation to write an inflammatory article about Gardner for Time.com. The article, implying that Gardner was politically motivated, appeared under the headline "The 10th Brother."
Twenty-four hours later, Gardner got an e-mail from his company, Millennium Information Services, informing him that his services would no longer be necessary. He was laid off in an e-mail -- by the same man who only days before had congratulated him for his exemplary work in a territory which covered North and South Carolina. The e-mail stated that his position was being eliminated. Since then, he's seen the company advertising for his old position. Gardner doesn't have the money to sue to get the job back.
"I'm broke. I've been hurt every way I can be hurt. I have no money in the bank but am doing little bits here and there to pay the bills," he said.
All the millions of dollars raised by Gardner and his fellow Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, and all the proceeds from John O'Neill's book, Unfit for Command, go to families of veterans, POWs and MIAs.
And, even though Gardner is broke and jobless for speaking out, the husband and father of three says he'd do it all over again. He says it wasn't for politics. It was for America.
How Kerry whistleblower suffered for truth
By Mary Laney
This is the story of a military veteran whistleblower. He spoke out against someone he thought was dangerous for the nation, talked to local newspapers, and appeared on talk shows. In return, he was vilified by reporters, threatened by a political operative, fired by his company, and now he's broke.
His name is Steve Gardner. He's also known as "The 10th Brother," as in Band of Brothers. He's one of two members of Sen. John Kerry's 12 Vietnam swift boat crew members who refused to stand with Kerry at the Democratic Convention. The other man remained silent.
"They said I had a political agenda. I had no and have no political agenda whatsoever. I saw John Kerry on television saying he was running for the Democratic nomination for president, and I knew I couldn't ever see him as commander in chief -- not after what I saw in Vietnam, not after the lies I heard him tell about what he says he did and what he says others did."
Gardner explains he was sitting at home in Clover, S.C., when he first saw Kerry on television. It was before the primary races. For 35 years, Gardner says, he hadn't talked about his tour of duty in Vietnam. But when he saw Kerry talking about running, he says he got up, called the newspaper in town, called radio stations and "talked to anyone I could about why this man should never be president." Eventually he got a call from Adm. Roy Huffman, who had been in charge of the coastal division in Vietnam, reunited with other swift boat veterans, and the rest is, as they say, history.
Gardner's story is one that bears telling. He volunteered for the Navy, enlisting on his 18th birthday in February 1966. After training, he was shipped to Vietnam and served for two years as a gunner in the swift boat division. His superior, for four months, was none other than Lt. j.g. John F. Kerry.
"I had confrontations with him there. He nearly got us rammed by the VC one night because he wasn't watching the helm. I heard the motor coming close, turned on the spotlight, and the boat was only 90 feet away, coming fast. The VC was aiming an AK47 at us. I shot him out of the boat. We pulled a woman and a baby off the boat. Kerry wrote it up that we captured two VC and killed four more on the beach. None of that was true. The only thing true on Kerry's report was the date. The woman was catatonic and wouldn't call her baby VC and there were no VC on the beach. If we had seen that report before Kerry sent it up the chain of command, he would have been court-martialed and never allowed to run for office. And that's just the San Pan incident. There was much more. He is a self-aggrandizing bold-faced liar. I believe he caused the extension of that war."
Gardner told this story and others to radio stations and he wrote a piece for the local paper. Then, he says, he received a phone call from John Hurley, the veterans organizer for Kerry's campaign. Hurley, Gardner says, asked him to come out for Kerry. He told Hurley to leave him alone and that he'd never be for Kerry. It was then Gardner says, he was threatened with, "You better watch your step. We can look into your finances."
Next, Gardner said he received a call from Douglas Brinkley, the author of Tour of Duty: John Kerry and the Vietnam War. Brinkley told Gardner he was calling only to "fact check" the book -- which was already in print. "I told him that the guy in the book is not the same guy I served with. I told him Kerry was a coward. He would patrol the middle of the river. The canals were dangerous. He wouldn't go there unless he had another boat pushing him."
Days later, Brinkley called again, warning Gardner to expect some calls. It seems Brinkley had used the "fact checking" conversation to write an inflammatory article about Gardner for Time.com. The article, implying that Gardner was politically motivated, appeared under the headline "The 10th Brother."
Twenty-four hours later, Gardner got an e-mail from his company, Millennium Information Services, informing him that his services would no longer be necessary. He was laid off in an e-mail -- by the same man who only days before had congratulated him for his exemplary work in a territory which covered North and South Carolina. The e-mail stated that his position was being eliminated. Since then, he's seen the company advertising for his old position. Gardner doesn't have the money to sue to get the job back.
"I'm broke. I've been hurt every way I can be hurt. I have no money in the bank but am doing little bits here and there to pay the bills," he said.
All the millions of dollars raised by Gardner and his fellow Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, and all the proceeds from John O'Neill's book, Unfit for Command, go to families of veterans, POWs and MIAs.
And, even though Gardner is broke and jobless for speaking out, the husband and father of three says he'd do it all over again. He says it wasn't for politics. It was for America.
From The Rutherford Institute website:
Patriot Act II: Extending the Reach of the Police State
by John W. Whitehead
Originally published 10/11/2004
Understandably, many Americans, including members of Congress, reacted with fear to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Unfortunately, that panic attack on the part of our federal government resulted in Congress passing, almost unanimously, the USA Patriot Act—one of the most sweeping measures ever enacted in our nation’s history— a mere 45 days after 9/11. Sadly, most of those who voted for the Patriot Act admitted to not even reading the legislation.
At a massive 342 pages, the Patriot Act violates at least six of the ten original amendments known as the Bill of Rights—the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh and Eighth Amendments—and possibly the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments as well.
Following are just a few things the government can now do that it couldn’t before the Patriot Act was passed.
• The Patriot Act redefines terrorism so broadly that many non-terrorist political protest activities such as those of Greenpeace, the Environmental Liberation Front, Operation Rescue, protest marches or demonstrations and civil disobedience can be considered a terrorist act.
• The FBI can enter your home, search your personal effects and confiscate your personal property without informing you.
• The FBI can come to your place of employment, demand your personal records and question your supervisors and fellow employees, all without notifying you. Further, people are prohibited, under penalty of law, from telling you about it.
• The government can obtain access to your medical records, school records and practically every personal record about you.
• On mere designation by the Attorney General, you can be detained and questioned without the government having to show probable cause that you have committed any illegal act.
• The government can designate an American citizen an “enemy combatant” and incarcerate him or her indefinitely without the right to an attorney.
• The government can secretly demand to see records of books or magazines you’ve checked out in any public library and Internet sites you’ve visited. At least 545 libraries received such demands in the first year following passage of the Patriot Act.
• The government can investigate the activities of anyone who uses the Internet and intercept their e-mails.
Following are some, but not all, of the things government agents have done or attempted since passage of the Patriot Act.
• Secretly arrested and jailed more than 1,200 persons and refused to release their names.
• Tried to institute a nationwide system called TIPS that encouraged relatives, friends and neighbors to spy on their neighbors, friends and family and report any suspicious activity.
• Attempted to institute a national data bank to compile, in one central location, detailed personal data about every person residing in the United States, the so-called TIAS plan.
• Sent two FBI agents to the home of a retired telephone company worker in San Francisco to ask questions about his political beliefs because he mentioned in the locker room of his local gym that he thought the proposed war against Iraq was as much about oil as terrorism.
• Sent FBI agents to investigate and question a college freshman in North Carolina who had a poster on her bedroom wall at home that was critical of George Bush’s stance on capital punishment while he was governor of Texas.
• Made secret visits, seeking information about untold numbers of individuals at hundreds of American universities.
Understandably, it has become apparent that there is something seriously wrong with the Patriot Act and its enforcement. In response, four states and over 350 cities and counties have now passed resolutions to protect their residents from the Patriot Act.
However, this has not deterred the Bush Administration and some members of Congress from seeking to expand the powers of the government. For example, earlier this year, Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) sponsored a bill entitled “Tools to Fight Terrorism Act.” Dubbed Patriot Act II, when the provisions of Kyl’s bill were leaked, it caused a public outcry and was squashed almost immediately. But that same legislation, providing for the largest expansion of federal powers since the original Patriot Act, recently re-appeared as an amendment to the National Intelligence Reform Act of 2004. Although that particular amendment did not come up for a vote, thanks in part to the work of some dedicated civil liberties groups, it could easily resurface again. Some of its most alarming provisions include:
• Expansion of the government’s ability to obtain personal records and compel testimony without judicial oversight.
• Denial of bail to suspects the government has not proven as dangerous or at risk of flight.
• A new “administrative subpoena” provision that would allow the FBI to obtain records or testimony from people holding them. Additionally, it would allow the Attorney General to issue a “gag order” prohibiting the recipient of an administrative subpoena from telling anyone about it.
• Classification of 23 additional crimes that are punishable by the death penalty, as well as the creation of a death penalty for any federal crime that meets the Patriot Act’s broad definition of “terrorism”; this would bring the total number of crimes punishable by the death penalty up to 43.
• Creation of uniform driver’s licenses which could very well lead to a national identification card.
Beyond the sheer magnitude of government authority granted by these laws is the fact that virtually everything the government does under them is kept secret. “None of us really know,” notes Dr. Jim Cornehls of the University of Texas at Arlington, “if we have been investigated because most investigations are conducted under secrecy. I can speculate that I might have been a target of an investigation, but I cannot be certain and cannot find out. And if any of my co-workers were questioned about me, they would be breaking the law if they told me.”
As Thomas Paine once wrote: “It is the responsibility of the patriot to protect his country from its government.” Now is the time to act before the very act of patriotism becomes a crime.
Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. He can be contacted at johnw@rutherford.org.
Patriot Act II: Extending the Reach of the Police State
by John W. Whitehead
Originally published 10/11/2004
Understandably, many Americans, including members of Congress, reacted with fear to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Unfortunately, that panic attack on the part of our federal government resulted in Congress passing, almost unanimously, the USA Patriot Act—one of the most sweeping measures ever enacted in our nation’s history— a mere 45 days after 9/11. Sadly, most of those who voted for the Patriot Act admitted to not even reading the legislation.
At a massive 342 pages, the Patriot Act violates at least six of the ten original amendments known as the Bill of Rights—the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh and Eighth Amendments—and possibly the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments as well.
Following are just a few things the government can now do that it couldn’t before the Patriot Act was passed.
• The Patriot Act redefines terrorism so broadly that many non-terrorist political protest activities such as those of Greenpeace, the Environmental Liberation Front, Operation Rescue, protest marches or demonstrations and civil disobedience can be considered a terrorist act.
• The FBI can enter your home, search your personal effects and confiscate your personal property without informing you.
• The FBI can come to your place of employment, demand your personal records and question your supervisors and fellow employees, all without notifying you. Further, people are prohibited, under penalty of law, from telling you about it.
• The government can obtain access to your medical records, school records and practically every personal record about you.
• On mere designation by the Attorney General, you can be detained and questioned without the government having to show probable cause that you have committed any illegal act.
• The government can designate an American citizen an “enemy combatant” and incarcerate him or her indefinitely without the right to an attorney.
• The government can secretly demand to see records of books or magazines you’ve checked out in any public library and Internet sites you’ve visited. At least 545 libraries received such demands in the first year following passage of the Patriot Act.
• The government can investigate the activities of anyone who uses the Internet and intercept their e-mails.
Following are some, but not all, of the things government agents have done or attempted since passage of the Patriot Act.
• Secretly arrested and jailed more than 1,200 persons and refused to release their names.
• Tried to institute a nationwide system called TIPS that encouraged relatives, friends and neighbors to spy on their neighbors, friends and family and report any suspicious activity.
• Attempted to institute a national data bank to compile, in one central location, detailed personal data about every person residing in the United States, the so-called TIAS plan.
• Sent two FBI agents to the home of a retired telephone company worker in San Francisco to ask questions about his political beliefs because he mentioned in the locker room of his local gym that he thought the proposed war against Iraq was as much about oil as terrorism.
• Sent FBI agents to investigate and question a college freshman in North Carolina who had a poster on her bedroom wall at home that was critical of George Bush’s stance on capital punishment while he was governor of Texas.
• Made secret visits, seeking information about untold numbers of individuals at hundreds of American universities.
Understandably, it has become apparent that there is something seriously wrong with the Patriot Act and its enforcement. In response, four states and over 350 cities and counties have now passed resolutions to protect their residents from the Patriot Act.
However, this has not deterred the Bush Administration and some members of Congress from seeking to expand the powers of the government. For example, earlier this year, Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) sponsored a bill entitled “Tools to Fight Terrorism Act.” Dubbed Patriot Act II, when the provisions of Kyl’s bill were leaked, it caused a public outcry and was squashed almost immediately. But that same legislation, providing for the largest expansion of federal powers since the original Patriot Act, recently re-appeared as an amendment to the National Intelligence Reform Act of 2004. Although that particular amendment did not come up for a vote, thanks in part to the work of some dedicated civil liberties groups, it could easily resurface again. Some of its most alarming provisions include:
• Expansion of the government’s ability to obtain personal records and compel testimony without judicial oversight.
• Denial of bail to suspects the government has not proven as dangerous or at risk of flight.
• A new “administrative subpoena” provision that would allow the FBI to obtain records or testimony from people holding them. Additionally, it would allow the Attorney General to issue a “gag order” prohibiting the recipient of an administrative subpoena from telling anyone about it.
• Classification of 23 additional crimes that are punishable by the death penalty, as well as the creation of a death penalty for any federal crime that meets the Patriot Act’s broad definition of “terrorism”; this would bring the total number of crimes punishable by the death penalty up to 43.
• Creation of uniform driver’s licenses which could very well lead to a national identification card.
Beyond the sheer magnitude of government authority granted by these laws is the fact that virtually everything the government does under them is kept secret. “None of us really know,” notes Dr. Jim Cornehls of the University of Texas at Arlington, “if we have been investigated because most investigations are conducted under secrecy. I can speculate that I might have been a target of an investigation, but I cannot be certain and cannot find out. And if any of my co-workers were questioned about me, they would be breaking the law if they told me.”
As Thomas Paine once wrote: “It is the responsibility of the patriot to protect his country from its government.” Now is the time to act before the very act of patriotism becomes a crime.
Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. He can be contacted at johnw@rutherford.org.
From The Rutherford Institute website:
Kinsey and the Sexual Revolution: Are We Better Off?
By John W. Whitehead
November 18, 2004
A half century ago, Alfred C. Kinsey turned conventional mores on their heads by shining a spotlight on male and female sexual behaviors, deviant and otherwise. Now Kinsey is back—this time in the movie Kinsey, where actor Liam Neeson affectionately portrays the sexologist.
Kinsey, a professor at Indiana University, published his landmark 1948 book, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (funded mainly by the Rockefeller Foundation), after ten years of research and some 9,000 interviews. “Not since the Darwinian theory split the world wide open,” wrote Newsweek, “has there been such a scientific shocker.”
Kinsey’s name quickly became a household word. Within ten days of the book’s release, the publisher ordered a sixth printing, making a phenomenal 185,000 copies in print. The strong interest in the book was especially significant since it was an 804-page factual tome. The book became a bestseller, with generally positive reviews. Polls taken of ordinary Americans showed that not only did they agree with his evidence, they also believed such studies were accurate and useful.
The August 1953 planned date of publication for Kinsey’s next book, Sexual Behavior in the Human Female, was so anticipated that journalists dubbed it “K-Day.” In the Female volume, Kinsey addressed the subject of religion, noting that religious women tended to have less sexual experience and to achieve orgasm less often than nonreligious women. He used this data to suggest that inhibitions about premarital sex caused unhealthy sexual relations in marriage. Although the initial reception to the book was positive, however, many also criticized it. “It is impossible to estimate the damage this book will do to the already deteriorating morals of America,” Billy Graham pronounced.
To a culture that has become so frank about sexuality that our television programming now revolves around sensuous dating reality shows, America’s wide-eyed reaction to Kinsey’s work might seem overdone. But as the past 56-plus years have shown, Kinsey’s studies on human sexuality have influenced American attitudes more fundamentally than the work of other great sexual theorists, including Sigmund Freud. And Hugh Hefner, who later founded the Playboy empire, regarded Kinsey as a hero, a man who more than anyone else had pointed out what he saw as the hypocrisy of daily American life.
The shock value in Kinsey’s work was to be found in the variety of sexual experiences he reported, as well as the explicit nature of the research itself. In compiling an inventory of garden-variety sexual code breakers, Kinsey eagerly sought out groups whose members operated in the shadowlands of America. Here he found homosexuals, sadomasochists, voyeurs, exhibitionists, pedophiles, transsexuals, transvestites and fetishists of various stripes. However, Kinsey’s later critics have often pointed out that his methodology and data were flawed and that the people he interviewed may have lied, exaggerated or remembered inaccurately.
Cloaked in the cultural authority of science, Kinsey was always quick to note that he “never suggested what should or should not be done in human behavior.” But, unbeknownst to the general public, Kinsey was not simply a compiler of data who reported facts with scientific disinterest. He was also a man of secrets. “Beginning with his childhood,” writes biographer James H. Jones, “Kinsey had lived with two shameful secrets: he was both a homosexual and a masochist.” As such, Kinsey approached his work with a missionary zeal. “Kinsey loathed Victorian morality,” notes Jones. “He wanted to undermine traditional morality, to soften the rules of restraint, and to help people develop positive attitudes toward their sexual needs and desire. Kinsey was a crypto-reformer who spent his every waking hour attempting to change the sexual mores and sex offender laws of the United States.”
His “everybody’s doing it” conclusion proved to be a behavior-affecting argument. As author Paul Robinson writes:
One can also sense Kinsey’s influence in the increasing tolerance with which the sexual activities of the young, especially the unmarried young, are contemplated. As with homosexuality, this liberalizing influence has stemmed in part from a simple empirical discovery, namely that a great deal of sexual activity, among young and old alike, occurs outside marriage.
A nation addicted to polls and public opinion allowed Kinsey’s research to dictate its morals. Kinsey, however, was not alone in affecting the moral landscape. Numerous factors contributed to changing sexual mores in American society. Activists such as Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, and cultural movements laid the groundwork for the change in sexual behavior. World War I also impacted sexual behavior. Even more dramatic cultural change occurred with World War II and its devastating effects on sexual mores. Added to these factors was Kinsey’s clinical approach, which would remove the mystery of sexual behavior and its connection to the institution of marriage.
Ideas have consequences in the way we live and act, both in our personal lives and in the culture as a whole. And half a century later, we see the consequences of the work of Kinsey and others. Besides the escalation in divorce and the unsettling residue of broken families, we continue to deal with the AIDS epidemic, a surge in sexual openness and a catastrophic confusion regarding sex and gender roles.
These are issues that should not be treated lightly, and the consequences are often tragic. The rate of suicide among adolescents and young adults has nearly tripled since the 1950s. Every year in the U.S., approximately 5,000 young people between the ages of 15 and 24 kill themselves; 30 percent of these cases are related to confusion over sexual orientation. In fact, while suicide is the third leading cause of death among young people (more youth die by suicide than from all natural causes combined), gay, lesbian, and bisexual teens are at a high risk for suicide. It is, in fact, the number one cause of death for gay teens. Sexual confusion causes higher dropout rates, higher levels of drug and alcohol abuse, parental rejection, hopelessness and prostitution.
No longer anchored or guided by religious values or traditional ideas about sex in the context of marriage, open sexuality, as advocated by Kinsey in his influential studies, and competing messages of proper sexual fulfillment seem to have left thousands of children—and adults—floundering. As novelist and social commentator Tom Wolfe has said:
There’s a lot of soul searching going on these days—people literally searching for their own souls. Now I think we’re heading deeper and deeper into the shadow of the eclipse of all values. What is so interesting is the degree to which perfectly traditional Christian belief as of, say, 1955, is now ridiculed as right-wing bigotry! Take, for example, the idea that abortion is evil. Or for that matter, the idea that premarital cohabitation is evil—these days, that’s the standard form of American courtship!
So, are we better off post-Kinsey? You be the judge.
Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. He can be contacted at johnw@rutherford.org.
Kinsey and the Sexual Revolution: Are We Better Off?
By John W. Whitehead
November 18, 2004
A half century ago, Alfred C. Kinsey turned conventional mores on their heads by shining a spotlight on male and female sexual behaviors, deviant and otherwise. Now Kinsey is back—this time in the movie Kinsey, where actor Liam Neeson affectionately portrays the sexologist.
Kinsey, a professor at Indiana University, published his landmark 1948 book, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (funded mainly by the Rockefeller Foundation), after ten years of research and some 9,000 interviews. “Not since the Darwinian theory split the world wide open,” wrote Newsweek, “has there been such a scientific shocker.”
Kinsey’s name quickly became a household word. Within ten days of the book’s release, the publisher ordered a sixth printing, making a phenomenal 185,000 copies in print. The strong interest in the book was especially significant since it was an 804-page factual tome. The book became a bestseller, with generally positive reviews. Polls taken of ordinary Americans showed that not only did they agree with his evidence, they also believed such studies were accurate and useful.
The August 1953 planned date of publication for Kinsey’s next book, Sexual Behavior in the Human Female, was so anticipated that journalists dubbed it “K-Day.” In the Female volume, Kinsey addressed the subject of religion, noting that religious women tended to have less sexual experience and to achieve orgasm less often than nonreligious women. He used this data to suggest that inhibitions about premarital sex caused unhealthy sexual relations in marriage. Although the initial reception to the book was positive, however, many also criticized it. “It is impossible to estimate the damage this book will do to the already deteriorating morals of America,” Billy Graham pronounced.
To a culture that has become so frank about sexuality that our television programming now revolves around sensuous dating reality shows, America’s wide-eyed reaction to Kinsey’s work might seem overdone. But as the past 56-plus years have shown, Kinsey’s studies on human sexuality have influenced American attitudes more fundamentally than the work of other great sexual theorists, including Sigmund Freud. And Hugh Hefner, who later founded the Playboy empire, regarded Kinsey as a hero, a man who more than anyone else had pointed out what he saw as the hypocrisy of daily American life.
The shock value in Kinsey’s work was to be found in the variety of sexual experiences he reported, as well as the explicit nature of the research itself. In compiling an inventory of garden-variety sexual code breakers, Kinsey eagerly sought out groups whose members operated in the shadowlands of America. Here he found homosexuals, sadomasochists, voyeurs, exhibitionists, pedophiles, transsexuals, transvestites and fetishists of various stripes. However, Kinsey’s later critics have often pointed out that his methodology and data were flawed and that the people he interviewed may have lied, exaggerated or remembered inaccurately.
Cloaked in the cultural authority of science, Kinsey was always quick to note that he “never suggested what should or should not be done in human behavior.” But, unbeknownst to the general public, Kinsey was not simply a compiler of data who reported facts with scientific disinterest. He was also a man of secrets. “Beginning with his childhood,” writes biographer James H. Jones, “Kinsey had lived with two shameful secrets: he was both a homosexual and a masochist.” As such, Kinsey approached his work with a missionary zeal. “Kinsey loathed Victorian morality,” notes Jones. “He wanted to undermine traditional morality, to soften the rules of restraint, and to help people develop positive attitudes toward their sexual needs and desire. Kinsey was a crypto-reformer who spent his every waking hour attempting to change the sexual mores and sex offender laws of the United States.”
His “everybody’s doing it” conclusion proved to be a behavior-affecting argument. As author Paul Robinson writes:
One can also sense Kinsey’s influence in the increasing tolerance with which the sexual activities of the young, especially the unmarried young, are contemplated. As with homosexuality, this liberalizing influence has stemmed in part from a simple empirical discovery, namely that a great deal of sexual activity, among young and old alike, occurs outside marriage.
A nation addicted to polls and public opinion allowed Kinsey’s research to dictate its morals. Kinsey, however, was not alone in affecting the moral landscape. Numerous factors contributed to changing sexual mores in American society. Activists such as Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, and cultural movements laid the groundwork for the change in sexual behavior. World War I also impacted sexual behavior. Even more dramatic cultural change occurred with World War II and its devastating effects on sexual mores. Added to these factors was Kinsey’s clinical approach, which would remove the mystery of sexual behavior and its connection to the institution of marriage.
Ideas have consequences in the way we live and act, both in our personal lives and in the culture as a whole. And half a century later, we see the consequences of the work of Kinsey and others. Besides the escalation in divorce and the unsettling residue of broken families, we continue to deal with the AIDS epidemic, a surge in sexual openness and a catastrophic confusion regarding sex and gender roles.
These are issues that should not be treated lightly, and the consequences are often tragic. The rate of suicide among adolescents and young adults has nearly tripled since the 1950s. Every year in the U.S., approximately 5,000 young people between the ages of 15 and 24 kill themselves; 30 percent of these cases are related to confusion over sexual orientation. In fact, while suicide is the third leading cause of death among young people (more youth die by suicide than from all natural causes combined), gay, lesbian, and bisexual teens are at a high risk for suicide. It is, in fact, the number one cause of death for gay teens. Sexual confusion causes higher dropout rates, higher levels of drug and alcohol abuse, parental rejection, hopelessness and prostitution.
No longer anchored or guided by religious values or traditional ideas about sex in the context of marriage, open sexuality, as advocated by Kinsey in his influential studies, and competing messages of proper sexual fulfillment seem to have left thousands of children—and adults—floundering. As novelist and social commentator Tom Wolfe has said:
There’s a lot of soul searching going on these days—people literally searching for their own souls. Now I think we’re heading deeper and deeper into the shadow of the eclipse of all values. What is so interesting is the degree to which perfectly traditional Christian belief as of, say, 1955, is now ridiculed as right-wing bigotry! Take, for example, the idea that abortion is evil. Or for that matter, the idea that premarital cohabitation is evil—these days, that’s the standard form of American courtship!
So, are we better off post-Kinsey? You be the judge.
Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. He can be contacted at johnw@rutherford.org.
From the Chronicles magazine website:
WHAT BECAME OF CONSERVATIVES?
by Paul Craig Roberts
I remember when friends would excitedly telephone to report that Rush Limbaugh or G. Gordon Liddy had just read one of my syndicated columns over the air. That was before I became a critic of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration and the neoconservative ideologues who have seized control of the U.S. government.
America has blundered into a needless and dangerous war, and fully half of the country's population is enthusiastic. Many Christians think that war in the Middle East signals "end times" and that they are about to be wafted up to heaven. Many patriots think that, finally, America is standing up for itself and demonstrating its righteous might. Conservatives are taking out their Vietnam frustrations on Iraqis. Karl Rove is wrapping Bush in the protective cloak of war leader. The military-industrial complex is drooling over the profits of war. And neoconservatives are laying the groundwork for Israeli territorial expansion.
The evening before Thanksgiving, Rush Limbaugh was on C-SPAN TV explaining that these glorious developments would have been impossible if talk radio and the conservative movement had not combined to break the power of the liberal media.
In the Thanksgiving issue of National Review, editor Richard Lowry and former editor John O'Sullivan celebrate Bush's re-election triumph over "a hostile press corps." "Try as they might," crowed O'Sullivan, "they couldn't put Kerry over the top."
There was a time when I could rant about the "liberal media" with the best of them. But in recent years, I have puzzled over the precise location of the "liberal media."
Not so long ago I would have identified the liberal media as The New York Times and The Washington Post, CNN and the three TV networks, and National Public Radio. But both the Times and the Post fell for the Bush administration's lies about WMD and supported the U.S. invasion of Iraq. On balance, CNN, the networks and NPR have not made an issue of the Bush administration's changing explanations for the invasion.
Apparently, Rush Limbaugh and National Review think there is a liberal media because the prison torture scandal could not be suppressed and a cameraman filmed the execution of a wounded Iraqi prisoner by a U.S. Marine.
Do the Village Voice and The Nation comprise the "liberal media"? The Village Voice is known for Nat Hentoff and his columns on civil liberties. Every good conservative believes that civil liberties are liberal because they interfere with the police and let criminals go free. The Nation favors spending on the poor and disfavors gun rights, but I don't see the "liberal hate" in The Nation's feeble pages that Rush Limbaugh was denouncing on C-SPAN.
In the ranks of the new conservatives, however, I see and experience much hate. It comes to me in violently worded, ignorant and irrational emails from self-professed conservatives who literally worship George Bush. Even Christians have fallen into idolatry. There appears to be a large number of Americans who are prepared to kill anyone for George Bush.
The Iraqi War is serving as a great catharsis for multiple conservative frustrations: job loss, drugs, crime, homosexuals, pornography, female promiscuity, abortion, restrictions on prayer in public places, Darwinism and attacks on religion. Liberals are the cause. Liberals are against America. Anyone against the war is against America and is a liberal. "You are with us or against us."
This is the mindset of delusion, and delusion permits no facts or analysis. Blind emotion rules. Americans are right, and everyone else is wrong. End of the debate.
That, gentle reader, is the full extent of talk radio, Fox News, The Wall Street Journal editorial page, National Review, The Weekly Standard and, indeed, of the entire concentrated corporate media where non-controversy in the interest of advertising revenue rules.
Once upon a time, there was a liberal media. It developed out of the Great Depression and the New Deal. Liberals believed that the private sector is the source of greed that must be restrained by government acting in the public interest. The liberals' mistake was to identify morality with government. Liberals had great suspicion of private power and insufficient suspicion of the power and inclination of government to do good.
Liberals became Benthamites (after Jeremy Bentham). They believed that as the people controlled government through democracy, there was no reason to fear government power, which should be increased in order to accomplish more good.
The conservative movement that I grew up in did not share the liberals' abiding faith in government. "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
Today it is liberals, not conservatives, who endeavor to defend civil liberties from the state. Conservatives have been won around to the old liberal view that as long as government power is in their hands, there is no reason to fear it or to limit it. Thus, the Patriot Act, which permits government to suspend a person's civil liberty by calling him a terrorist with or without proof. Thus, pre-emptive war, which permits the president to invade other countries based on unverified assertions.
There is nothing conservative about these positions. To label them conservative is to make the same error as labeling the 1930s German Brownshirts conservative.
American liberals called the Brownshirts "conservative" because the Brownshirts were obviously not liberal. They were ignorant, violent and delusional, and they worshipped a man of no known distinction. Brownshirts' delusions were protected by an emotional force field. Adulation of power and force prevented Brownshirts from recognizing implications for their country of their reckless doctrines.
Like Brownshirts, the new conservatives take personally any criticism of their leader and his policies. To be a critic is to be an enemy. I went overnight from being an object of conservative adulation to one of derision when I wrote that the U.S. invasion of Iraq was a "strategic blunder."
It is amazing that only a short time ago, the Bush administration and its supporters believed that all the United States had to do was to appear in Iraq and we would be greeted with flowers. Has there ever been a greater example of delusion? Isn't this on a par with the Children's Crusade against the Saracens in the Middle Ages?
Delusion is still the defining characteristic of the Bush administration. We have smashed Fallujah, a city of 300,000, only to discover that the 10,000 U.S. Marines are bogged down in the ruins of the city. If the Marines leave, the "defeated" insurgents will return. Meanwhile, the insurgents have moved on to destabilize Mosul, a city five times as large. Thus, the call for more U.S. troops.
There are no more troops. Our former allies are not going to send troops. The only way the Bush administration can continue with its Iraq policy is to reinstate the draft.
When the draft is reinstated, conservatives will loudly proclaim their pride that their sons, fathers, husbands and brothers are going to die for "our freedom." Not a single one of them will be able to explain why destroying Iraqi cities and occupying the ruins are necessary for "our freedom." But this inability will not lessen the enthusiasm for the project. To protect their delusions from "reality-based" critics, they will demand that the critics be arrested for treason and silenced. Many encouraged by talk radio already speak this way.
Because of the triumph of delusional "new conservatives" and the demise of the liberal media, this war is different from the Vietnam War. As more Americans are killed and maimed in the pointless carnage, more Americans have a powerful emotional stake that the war not be lost and not be in vain. Trapped in violence and unable to admit mistake, a reckless administration will escalate.
The rapidly collapsing U.S. dollar is hard evidence that the world sees the United States as bankrupt. Flight from the dollar as the reserve currency will adversely impact American living standards, which are already falling as a result of job outsourcing and offshore production. The United States cannot afford a costly and interminable war.
Falling living standards and inability to impose our will on the Middle East will result in great frustrations that will diminish our country.
WHAT BECAME OF CONSERVATIVES?
by Paul Craig Roberts
I remember when friends would excitedly telephone to report that Rush Limbaugh or G. Gordon Liddy had just read one of my syndicated columns over the air. That was before I became a critic of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration and the neoconservative ideologues who have seized control of the U.S. government.
America has blundered into a needless and dangerous war, and fully half of the country's population is enthusiastic. Many Christians think that war in the Middle East signals "end times" and that they are about to be wafted up to heaven. Many patriots think that, finally, America is standing up for itself and demonstrating its righteous might. Conservatives are taking out their Vietnam frustrations on Iraqis. Karl Rove is wrapping Bush in the protective cloak of war leader. The military-industrial complex is drooling over the profits of war. And neoconservatives are laying the groundwork for Israeli territorial expansion.
The evening before Thanksgiving, Rush Limbaugh was on C-SPAN TV explaining that these glorious developments would have been impossible if talk radio and the conservative movement had not combined to break the power of the liberal media.
In the Thanksgiving issue of National Review, editor Richard Lowry and former editor John O'Sullivan celebrate Bush's re-election triumph over "a hostile press corps." "Try as they might," crowed O'Sullivan, "they couldn't put Kerry over the top."
There was a time when I could rant about the "liberal media" with the best of them. But in recent years, I have puzzled over the precise location of the "liberal media."
Not so long ago I would have identified the liberal media as The New York Times and The Washington Post, CNN and the three TV networks, and National Public Radio. But both the Times and the Post fell for the Bush administration's lies about WMD and supported the U.S. invasion of Iraq. On balance, CNN, the networks and NPR have not made an issue of the Bush administration's changing explanations for the invasion.
Apparently, Rush Limbaugh and National Review think there is a liberal media because the prison torture scandal could not be suppressed and a cameraman filmed the execution of a wounded Iraqi prisoner by a U.S. Marine.
Do the Village Voice and The Nation comprise the "liberal media"? The Village Voice is known for Nat Hentoff and his columns on civil liberties. Every good conservative believes that civil liberties are liberal because they interfere with the police and let criminals go free. The Nation favors spending on the poor and disfavors gun rights, but I don't see the "liberal hate" in The Nation's feeble pages that Rush Limbaugh was denouncing on C-SPAN.
In the ranks of the new conservatives, however, I see and experience much hate. It comes to me in violently worded, ignorant and irrational emails from self-professed conservatives who literally worship George Bush. Even Christians have fallen into idolatry. There appears to be a large number of Americans who are prepared to kill anyone for George Bush.
The Iraqi War is serving as a great catharsis for multiple conservative frustrations: job loss, drugs, crime, homosexuals, pornography, female promiscuity, abortion, restrictions on prayer in public places, Darwinism and attacks on religion. Liberals are the cause. Liberals are against America. Anyone against the war is against America and is a liberal. "You are with us or against us."
This is the mindset of delusion, and delusion permits no facts or analysis. Blind emotion rules. Americans are right, and everyone else is wrong. End of the debate.
That, gentle reader, is the full extent of talk radio, Fox News, The Wall Street Journal editorial page, National Review, The Weekly Standard and, indeed, of the entire concentrated corporate media where non-controversy in the interest of advertising revenue rules.
Once upon a time, there was a liberal media. It developed out of the Great Depression and the New Deal. Liberals believed that the private sector is the source of greed that must be restrained by government acting in the public interest. The liberals' mistake was to identify morality with government. Liberals had great suspicion of private power and insufficient suspicion of the power and inclination of government to do good.
Liberals became Benthamites (after Jeremy Bentham). They believed that as the people controlled government through democracy, there was no reason to fear government power, which should be increased in order to accomplish more good.
The conservative movement that I grew up in did not share the liberals' abiding faith in government. "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
Today it is liberals, not conservatives, who endeavor to defend civil liberties from the state. Conservatives have been won around to the old liberal view that as long as government power is in their hands, there is no reason to fear it or to limit it. Thus, the Patriot Act, which permits government to suspend a person's civil liberty by calling him a terrorist with or without proof. Thus, pre-emptive war, which permits the president to invade other countries based on unverified assertions.
There is nothing conservative about these positions. To label them conservative is to make the same error as labeling the 1930s German Brownshirts conservative.
American liberals called the Brownshirts "conservative" because the Brownshirts were obviously not liberal. They were ignorant, violent and delusional, and they worshipped a man of no known distinction. Brownshirts' delusions were protected by an emotional force field. Adulation of power and force prevented Brownshirts from recognizing implications for their country of their reckless doctrines.
Like Brownshirts, the new conservatives take personally any criticism of their leader and his policies. To be a critic is to be an enemy. I went overnight from being an object of conservative adulation to one of derision when I wrote that the U.S. invasion of Iraq was a "strategic blunder."
It is amazing that only a short time ago, the Bush administration and its supporters believed that all the United States had to do was to appear in Iraq and we would be greeted with flowers. Has there ever been a greater example of delusion? Isn't this on a par with the Children's Crusade against the Saracens in the Middle Ages?
Delusion is still the defining characteristic of the Bush administration. We have smashed Fallujah, a city of 300,000, only to discover that the 10,000 U.S. Marines are bogged down in the ruins of the city. If the Marines leave, the "defeated" insurgents will return. Meanwhile, the insurgents have moved on to destabilize Mosul, a city five times as large. Thus, the call for more U.S. troops.
There are no more troops. Our former allies are not going to send troops. The only way the Bush administration can continue with its Iraq policy is to reinstate the draft.
When the draft is reinstated, conservatives will loudly proclaim their pride that their sons, fathers, husbands and brothers are going to die for "our freedom." Not a single one of them will be able to explain why destroying Iraqi cities and occupying the ruins are necessary for "our freedom." But this inability will not lessen the enthusiasm for the project. To protect their delusions from "reality-based" critics, they will demand that the critics be arrested for treason and silenced. Many encouraged by talk radio already speak this way.
Because of the triumph of delusional "new conservatives" and the demise of the liberal media, this war is different from the Vietnam War. As more Americans are killed and maimed in the pointless carnage, more Americans have a powerful emotional stake that the war not be lost and not be in vain. Trapped in violence and unable to admit mistake, a reckless administration will escalate.
The rapidly collapsing U.S. dollar is hard evidence that the world sees the United States as bankrupt. Flight from the dollar as the reserve currency will adversely impact American living standards, which are already falling as a result of job outsourcing and offshore production. The United States cannot afford a costly and interminable war.
Falling living standards and inability to impose our will on the Middle East will result in great frustrations that will diminish our country.
From The New York Times:
U.S. fans to get the Beatles they knew
By Allan Kozinn
November 21, 2004
The clamor began on this side of the Atlantic the moment EMI released the Beatles' albums on CD in 1987. American collectors who in their youth wore out copies of albums with titles like "Meet the Beatles," "Something New," "Beatles '65" and "Yesterday and Today" were unable to find those discs.
What EMI had done was eminently sensible. The label, together with Apple, the Beatles' company, had decided that on CD the Beatles recordings would follow the British discography, using the songs, album titles, cover art and liner notes that the group and its producer, George Martin, assembled and approved inthe 1960s. These were the Urtext. They were also the versions available in most of the world.
But they were not the albums American collectors knew, and, given the size of the American market, that is not an insignificant point. It may be that the British albums followed the history of the Beatles as most of the world -- and not least, the Beatles themselves -- knew it. But for millions of listeners in the United States, the history of the band's music unfolded a bit differently, and when the first CDs were released, American fans discovered albums that bore only a vague resemblance to those they knew.
Many listeners have been dissatisfied ever since and have filled fan magazines and Beatles-related Web sites with pleas for the release of the albums they knew and loved. With the release Tuesday of "The Capitol Albums, Vol. 1" (Capitol), a set that brings together "Meet the Beatles," "The Beatles' Second Album," "Something New" and "Beatles '65," all from 1964, these collectors can begin to rest easy.
The label has gone the extra mile in dealing with fan obsessiveness. It has used the Capitol masters from the 1960s, rather than remixing the tracks or recompiling them from the existing CDs. That was necessary because Capitol's postproduction methods yielded a sound quite unlike that of the British recordings.
It was easy to find the Capitol discs objectionable. They seemed to trample on the Beatles' creative intentions, and for all the wrong reasons. Where the British albums typically offered 14 tracks, Capitol's offered 10 or 12. It was also Capitol's policy to treat singles as drawing cards: If you liked the hit, you would buy the album. The Beatles took a different view. With only a handful of exceptions, they adhered to a policy of keeping albums and singles separate.
Because the Beatles produced an album every six months in those early days, as well as a few singles (and even, in one case, a four-song EP), Capitol's policies made it possible to release three LPs for every two released in England. That approach persisted until 1967, when even Capitol's executives realized that dissecting and redistributing the songs on "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" would be seen as an act of cultural vandalism.
Capitol had some sound issues as well. American listeners, Capitol executives believed, liked a bit more reverb than British producers used. Maybe they were right: Disc jockeys back then sounded as though they were broadcasting from echo chambers, and hit records often sounded that way, too. So Capitol's engineers added reverb to the original recordings.
Having ignored the American discs all these years, my memory was that these techniques yielded a horrifyingly muddy sound. But revisiting them on CD, I found that songs like "Roll Over Beethoven" (real stereo, with reverb added), "She Loves You," "You Can't Do That" and "I'll Get You" (all duophonic) actuallysound more vibrant than the British versions.
No doubt some unbidden nostalgia has been creeping in. Tampered with though it may be, this is the sound so many of us fell in love with in 1964. And although the albums were cobbled together, they flow in a way that has its own logic, if only that of deeply ingrained memory.
U.S. fans to get the Beatles they knew
By Allan Kozinn
November 21, 2004
The clamor began on this side of the Atlantic the moment EMI released the Beatles' albums on CD in 1987. American collectors who in their youth wore out copies of albums with titles like "Meet the Beatles," "Something New," "Beatles '65" and "Yesterday and Today" were unable to find those discs.
What EMI had done was eminently sensible. The label, together with Apple, the Beatles' company, had decided that on CD the Beatles recordings would follow the British discography, using the songs, album titles, cover art and liner notes that the group and its producer, George Martin, assembled and approved inthe 1960s. These were the Urtext. They were also the versions available in most of the world.
But they were not the albums American collectors knew, and, given the size of the American market, that is not an insignificant point. It may be that the British albums followed the history of the Beatles as most of the world -- and not least, the Beatles themselves -- knew it. But for millions of listeners in the United States, the history of the band's music unfolded a bit differently, and when the first CDs were released, American fans discovered albums that bore only a vague resemblance to those they knew.
Many listeners have been dissatisfied ever since and have filled fan magazines and Beatles-related Web sites with pleas for the release of the albums they knew and loved. With the release Tuesday of "The Capitol Albums, Vol. 1" (Capitol), a set that brings together "Meet the Beatles," "The Beatles' Second Album," "Something New" and "Beatles '65," all from 1964, these collectors can begin to rest easy.
The label has gone the extra mile in dealing with fan obsessiveness. It has used the Capitol masters from the 1960s, rather than remixing the tracks or recompiling them from the existing CDs. That was necessary because Capitol's postproduction methods yielded a sound quite unlike that of the British recordings.
It was easy to find the Capitol discs objectionable. They seemed to trample on the Beatles' creative intentions, and for all the wrong reasons. Where the British albums typically offered 14 tracks, Capitol's offered 10 or 12. It was also Capitol's policy to treat singles as drawing cards: If you liked the hit, you would buy the album. The Beatles took a different view. With only a handful of exceptions, they adhered to a policy of keeping albums and singles separate.
Because the Beatles produced an album every six months in those early days, as well as a few singles (and even, in one case, a four-song EP), Capitol's policies made it possible to release three LPs for every two released in England. That approach persisted until 1967, when even Capitol's executives realized that dissecting and redistributing the songs on "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" would be seen as an act of cultural vandalism.
Capitol had some sound issues as well. American listeners, Capitol executives believed, liked a bit more reverb than British producers used. Maybe they were right: Disc jockeys back then sounded as though they were broadcasting from echo chambers, and hit records often sounded that way, too. So Capitol's engineers added reverb to the original recordings.
Having ignored the American discs all these years, my memory was that these techniques yielded a horrifyingly muddy sound. But revisiting them on CD, I found that songs like "Roll Over Beethoven" (real stereo, with reverb added), "She Loves You," "You Can't Do That" and "I'll Get You" (all duophonic) actuallysound more vibrant than the British versions.
No doubt some unbidden nostalgia has been creeping in. Tampered with though it may be, this is the sound so many of us fell in love with in 1964. And although the albums were cobbled together, they flow in a way that has its own logic, if only that of deeply ingrained memory.
From Mere Comments, the Touchstone magazine blog:
MY BIG FAT “SINGLE-ISSUE” VOTE
By James Kushiner
If you so happen to be one of those “single issue” voters on pro-life issues, like me, and perhaps a few million other thoughtful and concerned Christians in this country, then Christianity Today has a word for you: unwise.
In the interest of wising up, read their November lead editorial (“For Whom Would Jesus Vote? Single-issue politics is neither necessary or wise”). You will learn that CT agrees with the wisdom of a document from the National Association of Evangelicals called “For the Health of the Nation: An Evangelical Call to Civic Responsibility.” CT says that it encourages evangelicals of all political stripes to work together not just for the sanctity of human life, but also for religious freedom, family life, the poor, peacemaking, and creation care. While sanctity-of-life issue will always be of vital interest to Christians, today's context demands that believers engage a broad spectrum of issues.
(It's not clear whether the last sentence is CT or the NAE speaking. It doesn't matter.) We have already argued in “First Things First” that such a list of issues gives no biblical guidance as to the priority of some issues over others. Thus it does not help voters make truly biblical decisions, and worse, misleads them into treating secondary and prudential questions as if they were as important as the primary and certain.
The Bible is crystal clear that the sanctity of human life and marriage are the pillars of human society. Destroy them and you ruin everything on that “broad spectrum of issues.” It is not crystal clear on other matters, like what the government should do about poverty.
Well, where doesCT stand on the matter of abortion and related pro-life issues? We read in various paragraphs of the editorial that:
1) they are “of vital interest to Christians.”
2) “abortion is the wrongful taking of innocent human life and a grave sin.”
3) “the sanctity of human life is a given.”
4) “abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem-cell research, and like issues should be prime concerns for us all.”
5) “Abortion is a monstrous tragedy for the nation.”
But number 4 is followed by: “But we can't stop there. Jesus is Lord of all.” And then comes another appeal, from the NAE, that “while individual persons and organizations may rightly concentrate on one or two issues, faithful evangelical civic engagement must champion a biblically balanced agenda.” Number 5 is followed by another But: “but our Christian commitment to a culture of life does not permit us the luxury of abandoning other important issues.”
The editorial ends: “While single-mindedness in following Christ is always wise, single-issue voting may not be.”
So how should abortion affect our vote? Every Christian will agree with CT that “faithful evangelical civic engagement must champion a biblically balanced agenda.” But what is that balance? How is it expressed in the voting booth? Why is a balance in which life issues have the most weight unwise? Why is opposition to “a grave sin” and “a monstrous tragedy” to be treated as if it were of the same importance as differences over (apparently) welfare payments or the minimum wage? This the editorial does not explain.
The editorial makes much of its case negatively. It has you in mind, single-issue voters, when it says, “Many Christians think they at least know for whom the Lord would not vote, based on one issue.”
After mentioning senatorial candidate Alan Keyes's remark about Jesus not voting for opponent Barack Obama because of his anti-life vote in the Illinois Senate, CT notes James I. Lamb, executive director of the pro-life group Lutherans for Life, also thinks he knows. “A candidate who favors abortion should be disqualified from receiving a Christian's vote.”
If this sounds like what a number of Roman Catholic bishops have said, it's because they have. But CT seems to muddy the Catholic waters as well. In invoking Cardinal Ratzinger's much-publicized and misunderstood clarification about “proportionality,” CT, ignoring the ample commentary by Catholic bishops, effectively resorts to misrepresentation by asking a question designed to frame the issue as they prefer to see it: “But how do you measure whether a candidate's goodon other issues outweighs his or her bad on the question of human life?”
The reader is supposed to think that Cardinal Ratzinger agrees that single-issue voting is unwise. But for Ratzinger the sort of “proportionality” which might allow someone to vote for a “pro-choice” candidate comes into play only when the alternative is doing something demonstrably worse than allowing or creating an abortion holocaust.
As some Catholics have rightly pointed out, it's hard to imagine a scenario today in which the Christian would be morally free to not vote for a pro-life candidate or to vote for a pro-choice candidate when a pro-life candidate is running. It certainly wouldn't be okay just because the Christian thinks the pro-choice candidate has better tax, education, welfare, medical, and/or environmental programs.
Read the editorial for yourself. See if you gain some moral clarity about your responsibility as a Christian in the voting booth. It seems entirely designed from beginning to end to assert the folly of those who vote “single-issue” (in this case, for George W. Bush), without a word of warning for those who might go too far in the other direction and who do not give life issues the weight even CT gives them, if only rhetorically. While telling readers what it thinks “unwise,” it does not tell them what wisdom is. (I will be surprised if the editorial was approved by executive editors J. I. Packer, Timothy George, and Thomas Oden.)
The editorial effectively muddies the waters for those whose consciences cannot endure the thought of supporting the slaughter of innocents, and salves the consciences of those who wish to vote for a candidate who is “pro-choice.”
The subtext of this editorial (and most other pieces decrying single-issues voters that I have read) seems to be “single-issue” equals “simple-minded.”
Single-issue, simple-minded, voter? No, not me. Just for the record, I've changed my mind. I am going to vote based on my concerns on a number of top-priority issues, not just abortion. Such as:
Human embryonic experimentation and research.
Human cloning.
Euthanasia.
Assisted suicide.
Defense of marriage as a man-woman institution. With the acceptance of gay-marriage as a constitutional right, public schools eventually will have to accept this redefinition of marriage and teach it. The traditional view will be termed “religious doctrine” and ruled as unsuitable for public schools, and perhaps considered as “hate speech.”
The appointment of federal court and Supreme Court justices who respect the sanctity of life and marriage.
The appointment of federal court and Supreme Court justices who respect freedom of religion in the public square.
Rolling back the activist judicial state that is demonstrably increasingly anti-religious.
After 1973, “single-issue voting” meant “voting against abortion.” But even then the wisest saw that they were not voting on a single issue, but against a legal, moral, and social evil that would express itself in more and more ways as people grew used to it. The other evils above have come in under the dark wings of that beast.
The list grows, and this evil affects matters like poverty policy as well. Over time, it will cheapen our society's view of all human life. If an unborn child has no right to live till birth, will people begin to ask why he has a right to food, housing, and education once he's born? Is a society indifferent to the claims of the vulnerable unborn likely to be one that cares much about the vulnerable born?
If Christianity Today can't see Brave New World lurking, and the need for Christians to vote against it as a “single issue,” it has lost its vision of “faithful evangelical civic engagement.”
MY BIG FAT “SINGLE-ISSUE” VOTE
By James Kushiner
If you so happen to be one of those “single issue” voters on pro-life issues, like me, and perhaps a few million other thoughtful and concerned Christians in this country, then Christianity Today has a word for you: unwise.
In the interest of wising up, read their November lead editorial (“For Whom Would Jesus Vote? Single-issue politics is neither necessary or wise”). You will learn that CT agrees with the wisdom of a document from the National Association of Evangelicals called “For the Health of the Nation: An Evangelical Call to Civic Responsibility.” CT says that it encourages evangelicals of all political stripes to work together not just for the sanctity of human life, but also for religious freedom, family life, the poor, peacemaking, and creation care. While sanctity-of-life issue will always be of vital interest to Christians, today's context demands that believers engage a broad spectrum of issues.
(It's not clear whether the last sentence is CT or the NAE speaking. It doesn't matter.) We have already argued in “First Things First” that such a list of issues gives no biblical guidance as to the priority of some issues over others. Thus it does not help voters make truly biblical decisions, and worse, misleads them into treating secondary and prudential questions as if they were as important as the primary and certain.
The Bible is crystal clear that the sanctity of human life and marriage are the pillars of human society. Destroy them and you ruin everything on that “broad spectrum of issues.” It is not crystal clear on other matters, like what the government should do about poverty.
Well, where doesCT stand on the matter of abortion and related pro-life issues? We read in various paragraphs of the editorial that:
1) they are “of vital interest to Christians.”
2) “abortion is the wrongful taking of innocent human life and a grave sin.”
3) “the sanctity of human life is a given.”
4) “abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem-cell research, and like issues should be prime concerns for us all.”
5) “Abortion is a monstrous tragedy for the nation.”
But number 4 is followed by: “But we can't stop there. Jesus is Lord of all.” And then comes another appeal, from the NAE, that “while individual persons and organizations may rightly concentrate on one or two issues, faithful evangelical civic engagement must champion a biblically balanced agenda.” Number 5 is followed by another But: “but our Christian commitment to a culture of life does not permit us the luxury of abandoning other important issues.”
The editorial ends: “While single-mindedness in following Christ is always wise, single-issue voting may not be.”
So how should abortion affect our vote? Every Christian will agree with CT that “faithful evangelical civic engagement must champion a biblically balanced agenda.” But what is that balance? How is it expressed in the voting booth? Why is a balance in which life issues have the most weight unwise? Why is opposition to “a grave sin” and “a monstrous tragedy” to be treated as if it were of the same importance as differences over (apparently) welfare payments or the minimum wage? This the editorial does not explain.
The editorial makes much of its case negatively. It has you in mind, single-issue voters, when it says, “Many Christians think they at least know for whom the Lord would not vote, based on one issue.”
After mentioning senatorial candidate Alan Keyes's remark about Jesus not voting for opponent Barack Obama because of his anti-life vote in the Illinois Senate, CT notes James I. Lamb, executive director of the pro-life group Lutherans for Life, also thinks he knows. “A candidate who favors abortion should be disqualified from receiving a Christian's vote.”
If this sounds like what a number of Roman Catholic bishops have said, it's because they have. But CT seems to muddy the Catholic waters as well. In invoking Cardinal Ratzinger's much-publicized and misunderstood clarification about “proportionality,” CT, ignoring the ample commentary by Catholic bishops, effectively resorts to misrepresentation by asking a question designed to frame the issue as they prefer to see it: “But how do you measure whether a candidate's goodon other issues outweighs his or her bad on the question of human life?”
The reader is supposed to think that Cardinal Ratzinger agrees that single-issue voting is unwise. But for Ratzinger the sort of “proportionality” which might allow someone to vote for a “pro-choice” candidate comes into play only when the alternative is doing something demonstrably worse than allowing or creating an abortion holocaust.
As some Catholics have rightly pointed out, it's hard to imagine a scenario today in which the Christian would be morally free to not vote for a pro-life candidate or to vote for a pro-choice candidate when a pro-life candidate is running. It certainly wouldn't be okay just because the Christian thinks the pro-choice candidate has better tax, education, welfare, medical, and/or environmental programs.
Read the editorial for yourself. See if you gain some moral clarity about your responsibility as a Christian in the voting booth. It seems entirely designed from beginning to end to assert the folly of those who vote “single-issue” (in this case, for George W. Bush), without a word of warning for those who might go too far in the other direction and who do not give life issues the weight even CT gives them, if only rhetorically. While telling readers what it thinks “unwise,” it does not tell them what wisdom is. (I will be surprised if the editorial was approved by executive editors J. I. Packer, Timothy George, and Thomas Oden.)
The editorial effectively muddies the waters for those whose consciences cannot endure the thought of supporting the slaughter of innocents, and salves the consciences of those who wish to vote for a candidate who is “pro-choice.”
The subtext of this editorial (and most other pieces decrying single-issues voters that I have read) seems to be “single-issue” equals “simple-minded.”
Single-issue, simple-minded, voter? No, not me. Just for the record, I've changed my mind. I am going to vote based on my concerns on a number of top-priority issues, not just abortion. Such as:
Human embryonic experimentation and research.
Human cloning.
Euthanasia.
Assisted suicide.
Defense of marriage as a man-woman institution. With the acceptance of gay-marriage as a constitutional right, public schools eventually will have to accept this redefinition of marriage and teach it. The traditional view will be termed “religious doctrine” and ruled as unsuitable for public schools, and perhaps considered as “hate speech.”
The appointment of federal court and Supreme Court justices who respect the sanctity of life and marriage.
The appointment of federal court and Supreme Court justices who respect freedom of religion in the public square.
Rolling back the activist judicial state that is demonstrably increasingly anti-religious.
After 1973, “single-issue voting” meant “voting against abortion.” But even then the wisest saw that they were not voting on a single issue, but against a legal, moral, and social evil that would express itself in more and more ways as people grew used to it. The other evils above have come in under the dark wings of that beast.
The list grows, and this evil affects matters like poverty policy as well. Over time, it will cheapen our society's view of all human life. If an unborn child has no right to live till birth, will people begin to ask why he has a right to food, housing, and education once he's born? Is a society indifferent to the claims of the vulnerable unborn likely to be one that cares much about the vulnerable born?
If Christianity Today can't see Brave New World lurking, and the need for Christians to vote against it as a “single issue,” it has lost its vision of “faithful evangelical civic engagement.”
From World Magazine:
Moral values 101
Evangelicals need not apologize for focusing on single issues
by Joel Belz
Please read this as an unambiguous call for evangelical Christians to set aside all embarrassment over putting such an emphasis on issues like abortion, homosexuality, and traditional marriage.
"Life is more complicated than that," say our liberal critics. "Reality is more nuanced. There are too many shades of gray to allow folks to reduce the public debate to those few issues."
"Evangelical Christians run the risk," I heard one evangelical leader say last week right after the election, "of allowing themselves to look simple-minded." Christianity Today devoted its main editorial during the recent electoral frenzy to a warning against "single-issue politics."
The condescending arrogance of such a caution is rooted in two giant falsehoods:
Falsehood No. 1 is the assertion that abortion, homosexuality, and marriage are just not the black-and-white issues some of us would like to suggest they are. They all probably need—ahem—a good bit more discussion.
Falsehood No. 2 is the assumption that those of us who harp on abortion, homosexuality, and marriage have never given thought to issues like poverty and economic justice, to racism and minority rights, to war and international fairness, to healthcare and environmental concerns.
Both those falsehoods have gotten lots of ink and airtime since the discovery by the media, right after the Nov. 2 election, that "moral values" had played a big part in motivating those who voted for President Bush. Neither comprehending what this was all about, on the one hand, nor being willing, on the other hand, to concede such moral high ground to Mr. Bush's backers, many in the media and on the Democratic left have repeatedly stressed these two points. But like so many falsehoods, they sound much more plausible than they really are.
So what makes the debate about abortion, homosexuality, and traditional marriage quite different from the debate about the other issues? The answer is amazingly simple—and don't let anyone talk you out of that fact! The answer is that on the issues of abortion, homosexuality, and marriage, one side is claiming that certain behavior is just plain wrong, while the other claims it is not only right, but to be defended. On the other issues, the debate is not about right and wrong, but about extent and about appropriate methodology.
Where, for example, among mainstream conservatives or evangelical Christians do you find those who are affirming the moral rightness of racism? Where do you find those who say we should expand oppression of the poor, or withhold justice from them? Most of us, to be sure, might be rightly charged with having insufficient concern for the ravages of racism or for walking by on the other side of the road when we see our brothers and sisters in need. But that is quite different from proclaiming that disinterest as a virtue.
Yet that is precisely what defenders of abortion, homosexual rights, and new forms of marriage are doing. They are saying that the act of killing human babies is behavior that should be defended. They are saying that those committed to homosexual behavior should be encouraged to take pride in that choice. And they are saying that same-sex marriages might well be models of commitment from which heterosexuals might properly learn.
Let's quit pussyfooting. Besides claiming that all the wisdom of human history concerning such matters has been wrong, these assertions are outrages against our basic humanity. What is there to discuss about killing a baby? Or, as a friend of mine noted several years ago, anybody who's ever played with Tinkertoys knows that homosexual behavior just doesn't work. And the claim that Heather Has Two Mommies is preposterously false on the face of it; nobody in biological history ever had two moms or two dads.
So here's a word to our liberal critics:
Nail us to the wall for having overly hard hearts. Hang us out to dry for sometimes seared consciences. Demonstrate for all to see that we are inconsistent when we may have used the government to feather our own nests while opposing programs that would have improved the lots of others. We confess our hypocrisy—sometimes inadvertent, sometimes too calculating.
But don't ask us to pretend that wobbling carelessly around the road, or even crossing the middle line sometimes, is the same as deliberately driving at 80 miles an hour the wrong way on a one-way street. Some "moral values" deserve a good bit of discussion. Some need none at all.
Moral values 101
Evangelicals need not apologize for focusing on single issues
by Joel Belz
Please read this as an unambiguous call for evangelical Christians to set aside all embarrassment over putting such an emphasis on issues like abortion, homosexuality, and traditional marriage.
"Life is more complicated than that," say our liberal critics. "Reality is more nuanced. There are too many shades of gray to allow folks to reduce the public debate to those few issues."
"Evangelical Christians run the risk," I heard one evangelical leader say last week right after the election, "of allowing themselves to look simple-minded." Christianity Today devoted its main editorial during the recent electoral frenzy to a warning against "single-issue politics."
The condescending arrogance of such a caution is rooted in two giant falsehoods:
Falsehood No. 1 is the assertion that abortion, homosexuality, and marriage are just not the black-and-white issues some of us would like to suggest they are. They all probably need—ahem—a good bit more discussion.
Falsehood No. 2 is the assumption that those of us who harp on abortion, homosexuality, and marriage have never given thought to issues like poverty and economic justice, to racism and minority rights, to war and international fairness, to healthcare and environmental concerns.
Both those falsehoods have gotten lots of ink and airtime since the discovery by the media, right after the Nov. 2 election, that "moral values" had played a big part in motivating those who voted for President Bush. Neither comprehending what this was all about, on the one hand, nor being willing, on the other hand, to concede such moral high ground to Mr. Bush's backers, many in the media and on the Democratic left have repeatedly stressed these two points. But like so many falsehoods, they sound much more plausible than they really are.
So what makes the debate about abortion, homosexuality, and traditional marriage quite different from the debate about the other issues? The answer is amazingly simple—and don't let anyone talk you out of that fact! The answer is that on the issues of abortion, homosexuality, and marriage, one side is claiming that certain behavior is just plain wrong, while the other claims it is not only right, but to be defended. On the other issues, the debate is not about right and wrong, but about extent and about appropriate methodology.
Where, for example, among mainstream conservatives or evangelical Christians do you find those who are affirming the moral rightness of racism? Where do you find those who say we should expand oppression of the poor, or withhold justice from them? Most of us, to be sure, might be rightly charged with having insufficient concern for the ravages of racism or for walking by on the other side of the road when we see our brothers and sisters in need. But that is quite different from proclaiming that disinterest as a virtue.
Yet that is precisely what defenders of abortion, homosexual rights, and new forms of marriage are doing. They are saying that the act of killing human babies is behavior that should be defended. They are saying that those committed to homosexual behavior should be encouraged to take pride in that choice. And they are saying that same-sex marriages might well be models of commitment from which heterosexuals might properly learn.
Let's quit pussyfooting. Besides claiming that all the wisdom of human history concerning such matters has been wrong, these assertions are outrages against our basic humanity. What is there to discuss about killing a baby? Or, as a friend of mine noted several years ago, anybody who's ever played with Tinkertoys knows that homosexual behavior just doesn't work. And the claim that Heather Has Two Mommies is preposterously false on the face of it; nobody in biological history ever had two moms or two dads.
So here's a word to our liberal critics:
Nail us to the wall for having overly hard hearts. Hang us out to dry for sometimes seared consciences. Demonstrate for all to see that we are inconsistent when we may have used the government to feather our own nests while opposing programs that would have improved the lots of others. We confess our hypocrisy—sometimes inadvertent, sometimes too calculating.
But don't ask us to pretend that wobbling carelessly around the road, or even crossing the middle line sometimes, is the same as deliberately driving at 80 miles an hour the wrong way on a one-way street. Some "moral values" deserve a good bit of discussion. Some need none at all.
CAMPUS CONFORMISTS
By George Will
Republicans Outnumbered In Academia, Studies Find
— New York Times, Nov. 18
Oh, well, if studies say so. The great secret is out: liberals dominate campuses. Coming soon: "Moon Implicated in Tides, Studies Find."
One study of 1,000 professors finds that Democrats outnumber Republicans at least seven to one in the humanities and social sciences. That imbalance, more than double what it was three decades ago, is intensifying because younger professors are more uniformly liberal than the older cohort that is retiring.
Another study, of voter-registration records, including those of professors in engineering and the hard sciences, found nine Democrats for every Republican at Berkeley and Stanford. Among younger profs, there were 183 Democrats, six Republicans.
But we essentially knew this even before The American Enterprise magazine reported in 2002 of examinations of voting records in various college communities. Some findings about professors registered with the two major parties or with liberal or conservative minor parties:
Cornell: 166 liberals, 6 conservatives.
Stanford: 151 liberals, 17 conservatives.
Colorado: 116 liberals, 5 conservatives.
The nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics reports that in 2004 the top two institutions in terms of employee per-capita contributions to presidential candidates were the University of California system and Harvard, both of which gave about 19 times more money to John Kerry than to George Bush.
But George Lakoff, a linguistics professor at Berkeley, denies that academic institutions are biased against conservatives. The disparity in hiring, he explains, occurs because conservatives are not as interested as liberals in academic careers. Why does he think liberals are like that? "Unlike conservatives, they believe in working for the public good and social justice."
That clears that up.
A filtering process, from graduate-school admissions through tenure decisions, tends to exclude conservatives from what Mark Bauerlein calls academia's "sheltered habitat." In a dazzling essay in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Bauerlein, professor of English at Emory University and director of research at the National Endowment for the Arts, notes that the "first protocol" of academic society is the "common assumption" — that, at professional gatherings, all the strangers in the room are liberals.
It is a reasonable assumption, given that in order to enter the profession, your work must be deemed, by the criteria of the prevailing culture, "relevant." Bauerlein says various academic fields now have regnant premises that embed political orientations in their very definitions of scholarship:
"Schools of education, for instance, take constructivist theories of learning as definitive, excluding realists (in matters of knowledge) on principle, while the quasi-Marxist outlook of cultural studies rules out those who espouse capitalism. If you disapprove of affirmative action, forget pursuing a degree in African-American studies. If you think that the nuclear family proves the best unit of social well-being, stay away from women's studies."
This gives rise to what Bauerlein calls the "false consensus effect": Due to institutional provincialism, "people think that the collective opinion of their own group matches that of the larger population."
There also is what Cass Sunstein of University of Chicago, calls "the law of group polarization." Bauerlein explains: "When like-minded people deliberate as an organized group, the general opinion shifts toward extreme versions of their common beliefs." They become tone-deaf to the way they sound to others outside their closed circle of belief.
When John Kennedy brought to Washington such academics as Arthur Schlesinger Jr., John Kenneth Galbraith, McGeorge and William Bundy and Walt Rostow, it was said that the Charles River was flowing into the Potomac.
Academics, such as the next secretary of state, still decorate Washington, but academia is less listened to than it was. It has marginalized itself, partly by political shrillness and silliness that have something to do with the parochialism produced by what George Orwell called "smelly little orthodoxies."
Many campuses are intellectual versions of one-party nations — except such nations usually have the merit, such as it is, of candor about their ideological monopolies. In contrast, American campuses have more insistently proclaimed their commitment to diversity as they have become more intellectually monochrome.
They do indeed cultivate diversity — in race, skin color, ethnicity, sexual preference. In everything but thought.
Sunday, November 28, 2004
From The American Spectator Online:
Intellectuals Who Doubt Darwin
By Hunter Baker
Uncommon Dissent:
Intellectuals Who Find Darwinism Unconvincing
Edited by William A. Dembski
(ISI Books, 366 pages, $28; $18 paper)
WACO, Texas -- At one time, the debate over Darwin's theory existed as a cartoon in the modern imagination. Thanks to popular portrayals of the Scopes Trial, secularists regularly reviewed the happy image of Clarence Darrow goading William Jennings Bryan into agreeing to be examined as an expert witness on the Bible and then taking him apart on the stand. Because of the legal nature of the proceedings that made evolution such a permanent part of the tapestry of American pop culture, it is fitting that this same section of the tapestry began to unravel due to the sharp tugs of another prominent legal mind, Phillip Johnson.
The publication of his book, Darwin on Trial, now appears to have marked a new milestone in the debate over origins. Prior to Johnson's book, the critics of evolution tended to occupy marginalized sectarian positions and focused largely on contrasting Darwin's ideas with literalist readings of the Genesis account. Johnson's work was different. Here we had a doubter of Darwin willing to come out of the closet, even though his credentials were solid gold establishment in nature. He had attended the finest schools, clerked for Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren, taught law as a professor at highly ranked Berkeley, and authored widely-used texts on criminal law. Just as Darrow cross-examined the Bible and Bryan's understanding of it, Johnson cross-examined Darwin and got noticed in the process. He spent much of the last decade debating the issue with various Darwinian bulldogs and holding up his end pretty well.
PHILLIP JOHNSON, AND a number of others, raised enough doubts about the dominant theory to cause a number of intellectuals to take a hard look, particularly at the gap between what can be proven and what is simply asserted to be true. Since that time, authors with more technical backgrounds, like mathematician/philosopher William Dembski and biochemist Michael Behe, have published books providing even more powerful critiques of the neo-Darwinian synthesis based on intelligent design theory. Behe's work has been particularly disturbing to evolution advocates because he seems to have proven that organic machines at the molecular level are irreducibly complex and therefore could not have been the products of natural selection because there never would have been any intermediate working mechanism to select. Now, the two team up as Dembski edits and Behe contributes to a bracing collection of controversial writings titled Uncommon Dissent: Intellectuals Who Find Darwinism Unconvincing.
Dembski displays the intellectual doggedness of the group of contributors when he uses his introductory essay to ruthlessly track down and scrutinize the footnotes offered by those who would refute Behe's case. Reference after reference claiming to have decisively defeated Behe turns out to be inadequate to the task. What passes for refutation is instead a collection of question-begging and "just-so stories." Right away, Dembski sets the tone for the book. Nothing will be uncontested. The pro-evolution community will be made to fight for every inch of intellectual real estate without relying on the aura of prestige or the lack of competent critics to bolster their case.
The best way to read the book is by beginning at the end and perusing the profiles of the contributors. There, the reader will be able to select essays from representatives of a variety of disciplines, including mathematics, philosophy, biochemistry, biophysics, chemistry, genetics, law, and medicine. The most enjoyable in terms of sheer brio are the essays by Dembski, Behe, Frank Tipler, Cornelius Hunter, and David Berlinski. Tipler's essay on the process of getting published in a peer-reviewed journal is particularly relevant and rewarding because it deals with one of the biggest strikes against Intelligent Design. ID theorists have had a notoriously difficult time getting their work published in professional journals. Tipler, a professor of mathematical physics at Tulane, crankily and enjoyably explains why.
TOP HONORS, HOWEVER, go to David Berlinski's essay, "The Deniable Darwin," which originally appeared in Commentary. The essay is rhetorically devastating. Berlinski is particularly strong in taking apart Richard Dawkins' celebrated computer simulation of monkeys re-creating a Shakespearean sentence and thereby "proving" the ability of natural selection to generate complex information. The mathematician and logician skillfully points out that Dawkins rigged the game by including the very intelligence in his simulation he disavows as a cause of ordered biological complexity. It's clear that Berlinski hits a sore spot when one reads the letters Commentary received in response to the article. Esteemed Darwinists like Dawkins and Daniel Dennett respond with a mixture of near-hysterical outrage and ridicule. Berlinski's responses are also included. At no point does he seem the slightest bit cowed or overwhelmed by the personalities arrayed against him.
For the reader, the result is simply one of the most rewarding reading experiences available. Berlinski and his critics engage in a tremendous intellectual bloodletting, with Berlinski returning fire magnificently. In a particularly amusing segment, Berlinski, constantly accused of misperception, writes, "For reasons that are obscure to me, both [Mr. Gross] and Daniel Dennett carelessly assume that they are in a position to instruct me on a point of usage in German, my first language." Though his foes repeatedly accuse Berlinski of being a "creationist," the tag has little chance of sticking to a man arguing for little more than agnosticism on the question of origins and who disavows any religious principles aside from the possible exception of hoping to "have a good time all the time." One suspects that the portion of the book occupied by the Berlinski essay and subsequent exchanges will gain wide currency.
For far too long, the apologists for Darwin have relied on a strategy of portraying challengers as simple-minded religious zealots. The publication of Uncommon Dissent and many more books like it, will severely undermine the success of such portrayals. During the past decade, it has become far too obvious that there are such things as intellectuals who doubt Darwin and that their ranks are growing. The dull repetition of polemical charges in place of open inquiry, debate, and exchange may continue, but with fewer and fewer honest souls ready to listen.
Hunter Baker is a Ph.D. student at Baylor University and contributes to the Reform Club.
Intellectuals Who Doubt Darwin
By Hunter Baker
Uncommon Dissent:
Intellectuals Who Find Darwinism Unconvincing
Edited by William A. Dembski
(ISI Books, 366 pages, $28; $18 paper)
WACO, Texas -- At one time, the debate over Darwin's theory existed as a cartoon in the modern imagination. Thanks to popular portrayals of the Scopes Trial, secularists regularly reviewed the happy image of Clarence Darrow goading William Jennings Bryan into agreeing to be examined as an expert witness on the Bible and then taking him apart on the stand. Because of the legal nature of the proceedings that made evolution such a permanent part of the tapestry of American pop culture, it is fitting that this same section of the tapestry began to unravel due to the sharp tugs of another prominent legal mind, Phillip Johnson.
The publication of his book, Darwin on Trial, now appears to have marked a new milestone in the debate over origins. Prior to Johnson's book, the critics of evolution tended to occupy marginalized sectarian positions and focused largely on contrasting Darwin's ideas with literalist readings of the Genesis account. Johnson's work was different. Here we had a doubter of Darwin willing to come out of the closet, even though his credentials were solid gold establishment in nature. He had attended the finest schools, clerked for Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren, taught law as a professor at highly ranked Berkeley, and authored widely-used texts on criminal law. Just as Darrow cross-examined the Bible and Bryan's understanding of it, Johnson cross-examined Darwin and got noticed in the process. He spent much of the last decade debating the issue with various Darwinian bulldogs and holding up his end pretty well.
PHILLIP JOHNSON, AND a number of others, raised enough doubts about the dominant theory to cause a number of intellectuals to take a hard look, particularly at the gap between what can be proven and what is simply asserted to be true. Since that time, authors with more technical backgrounds, like mathematician/philosopher William Dembski and biochemist Michael Behe, have published books providing even more powerful critiques of the neo-Darwinian synthesis based on intelligent design theory. Behe's work has been particularly disturbing to evolution advocates because he seems to have proven that organic machines at the molecular level are irreducibly complex and therefore could not have been the products of natural selection because there never would have been any intermediate working mechanism to select. Now, the two team up as Dembski edits and Behe contributes to a bracing collection of controversial writings titled Uncommon Dissent: Intellectuals Who Find Darwinism Unconvincing.
Dembski displays the intellectual doggedness of the group of contributors when he uses his introductory essay to ruthlessly track down and scrutinize the footnotes offered by those who would refute Behe's case. Reference after reference claiming to have decisively defeated Behe turns out to be inadequate to the task. What passes for refutation is instead a collection of question-begging and "just-so stories." Right away, Dembski sets the tone for the book. Nothing will be uncontested. The pro-evolution community will be made to fight for every inch of intellectual real estate without relying on the aura of prestige or the lack of competent critics to bolster their case.
The best way to read the book is by beginning at the end and perusing the profiles of the contributors. There, the reader will be able to select essays from representatives of a variety of disciplines, including mathematics, philosophy, biochemistry, biophysics, chemistry, genetics, law, and medicine. The most enjoyable in terms of sheer brio are the essays by Dembski, Behe, Frank Tipler, Cornelius Hunter, and David Berlinski. Tipler's essay on the process of getting published in a peer-reviewed journal is particularly relevant and rewarding because it deals with one of the biggest strikes against Intelligent Design. ID theorists have had a notoriously difficult time getting their work published in professional journals. Tipler, a professor of mathematical physics at Tulane, crankily and enjoyably explains why.
TOP HONORS, HOWEVER, go to David Berlinski's essay, "The Deniable Darwin," which originally appeared in Commentary. The essay is rhetorically devastating. Berlinski is particularly strong in taking apart Richard Dawkins' celebrated computer simulation of monkeys re-creating a Shakespearean sentence and thereby "proving" the ability of natural selection to generate complex information. The mathematician and logician skillfully points out that Dawkins rigged the game by including the very intelligence in his simulation he disavows as a cause of ordered biological complexity. It's clear that Berlinski hits a sore spot when one reads the letters Commentary received in response to the article. Esteemed Darwinists like Dawkins and Daniel Dennett respond with a mixture of near-hysterical outrage and ridicule. Berlinski's responses are also included. At no point does he seem the slightest bit cowed or overwhelmed by the personalities arrayed against him.
For the reader, the result is simply one of the most rewarding reading experiences available. Berlinski and his critics engage in a tremendous intellectual bloodletting, with Berlinski returning fire magnificently. In a particularly amusing segment, Berlinski, constantly accused of misperception, writes, "For reasons that are obscure to me, both [Mr. Gross] and Daniel Dennett carelessly assume that they are in a position to instruct me on a point of usage in German, my first language." Though his foes repeatedly accuse Berlinski of being a "creationist," the tag has little chance of sticking to a man arguing for little more than agnosticism on the question of origins and who disavows any religious principles aside from the possible exception of hoping to "have a good time all the time." One suspects that the portion of the book occupied by the Berlinski essay and subsequent exchanges will gain wide currency.
For far too long, the apologists for Darwin have relied on a strategy of portraying challengers as simple-minded religious zealots. The publication of Uncommon Dissent and many more books like it, will severely undermine the success of such portrayals. During the past decade, it has become far too obvious that there are such things as intellectuals who doubt Darwin and that their ranks are growing. The dull repetition of polemical charges in place of open inquiry, debate, and exchange may continue, but with fewer and fewer honest souls ready to listen.
Hunter Baker is a Ph.D. student at Baylor University and contributes to the Reform Club.
From The American Conservative:
The Mirage of Mideast Peace
by Pat Buchanan
George W. Bush says he has piled up lots of political capital and is now willing to spend it. Tony Blair is coming here to press Bush to spend that capital on the Middle East conflict. And George H.W. Bush says Blair’s message has been received “loud and clear”: “Blair is correct, 100 percent correct. And I think he will find the president a willing and able partner, particularly if there is a change in leadership in the [Palestine Liberation Organization] that we can deal with more openly and with more confidence.”
Hopes have thus been revived that, with Arafat passing on, at long last, a Mideast peace may be possible.
I do not believe it. I do not believe President Bush has the capital or will to make peace between Israel and the Palestinians. And before he starts down this road other presidents have traveled before, he should study the obstacles before him and decide whether it is not an endeavor that will consume all his capital and avail him nothing.
The elements of a just peace are known. Clinton was close at Camp David. Barak came close at Taba. Those elements are these:
An independent viable Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza with its capital in East Jerusalem. No Palestinian leader, no Arab leader, could sign on to less than this and survive. But the new state must be demilitarized. No fighter aircraft, artillery, or tanks.
While the state would have sovereignty over Islam’s “Noble Sanctuary” or Temple Mount, the Western Wall and Jewish holy places would remain under Israeli control.
There also will likely have to be an international military presence in Palestine and long-term aid for the state, which would have to co-operate with Israel against all terrorist activity.
Is such a solution attainable? The answer, it seems to me, is almost surely no. The obstacles are too great. What are they?
First and foremost, Ariel Sharon. With Arafat gone, Sharon no longer has the old excuse for refusing to talk to the Palestinians—that he cannot negotiate with a terrorist. But having crushed the intifada, why should Sharon negotiate now with anyone?
His Sharon Plan—surrender Gaza in return for U.S. support of his security fence, annexation of all major Israeli settlements on the West Bank, and a united Jerusalem as Israel’s eternal capital—has already been accepted by George W. Bush in a presidential letter.
Nor could Sharon give up West Bank settlements, even were he disposed to do so. His plan to exit Gaza has already split his coalition and provoked calls for his assassination. Hundreds of rabbis have urged Orthodox soldiers to defy orders to remove settlers from Gaza.
Sharon is prime minister because he campaigned against Barak’s policy of trading “land for peace.” And if he is going through hell to get Israelis to yield Gaza, does anyone think he could, or would, try to convince Israelis to abandon West Bank settlements he himself implanted and pledged to retain forever?
It does not appear Sharon has any intention of doing so. As Dov Weissglas, his deputy, told the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz, the idea of the now-famous Bush letter to Sharon was this:
Get America to sign on to Israel’s annexation of wide swatches of the West Bank, to rejection of Palestinians’ right of return, to a Greater Jerusalem as Israel’s eternal capital, and to a security wall incorporating Palestinian land. Then embalm the “peace process” indefinitely.
Sharon has already been given everything he wants by the president of the United States. Why negotiate with the Palestinians? For what? He has it all.
If the president backs off his letter and demands that Sharon accede to a viable Palestinian state, not divided by settlements or chopped into bantustans by Israeli security roads, what does Bush do when Sharon defies him and says no?
Will he denounce Sharon and risk a firestorm from the Jewish community, Democrats, AIPAC, neocons, the Republican Right, talk radio, and fundamentalist Christians for whom support of Israel is biblical command? Why would Bush get into a bloody losing brawl like that?
As Gen. Brent Scowcroft, national security adviser to Bush I, told the Financial Times, “When I first heard Sharon was getting out of Gaza I was having dinner with Condi [Rice] and she said, ‘At least that’s good news,’ … and I said, ‘That’s terrible news. … Sharon will say ‘I want to get out of Gaza, finish the wall [Israel’s security fence] and say I’m done.” Exactly.
Sharon will not budge and Bush lacks the will to push him. As General Scowcroft says, “Sharon just has him wrapped around his little finger .... I think the president is mesmerized.”
Let no one get his hopes up about a Mideast peace. As ever, it is a mirage.
The Mirage of Mideast Peace
by Pat Buchanan
George W. Bush says he has piled up lots of political capital and is now willing to spend it. Tony Blair is coming here to press Bush to spend that capital on the Middle East conflict. And George H.W. Bush says Blair’s message has been received “loud and clear”: “Blair is correct, 100 percent correct. And I think he will find the president a willing and able partner, particularly if there is a change in leadership in the [Palestine Liberation Organization] that we can deal with more openly and with more confidence.”
Hopes have thus been revived that, with Arafat passing on, at long last, a Mideast peace may be possible.
I do not believe it. I do not believe President Bush has the capital or will to make peace between Israel and the Palestinians. And before he starts down this road other presidents have traveled before, he should study the obstacles before him and decide whether it is not an endeavor that will consume all his capital and avail him nothing.
The elements of a just peace are known. Clinton was close at Camp David. Barak came close at Taba. Those elements are these:
An independent viable Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza with its capital in East Jerusalem. No Palestinian leader, no Arab leader, could sign on to less than this and survive. But the new state must be demilitarized. No fighter aircraft, artillery, or tanks.
While the state would have sovereignty over Islam’s “Noble Sanctuary” or Temple Mount, the Western Wall and Jewish holy places would remain under Israeli control.
There also will likely have to be an international military presence in Palestine and long-term aid for the state, which would have to co-operate with Israel against all terrorist activity.
Is such a solution attainable? The answer, it seems to me, is almost surely no. The obstacles are too great. What are they?
First and foremost, Ariel Sharon. With Arafat gone, Sharon no longer has the old excuse for refusing to talk to the Palestinians—that he cannot negotiate with a terrorist. But having crushed the intifada, why should Sharon negotiate now with anyone?
His Sharon Plan—surrender Gaza in return for U.S. support of his security fence, annexation of all major Israeli settlements on the West Bank, and a united Jerusalem as Israel’s eternal capital—has already been accepted by George W. Bush in a presidential letter.
Nor could Sharon give up West Bank settlements, even were he disposed to do so. His plan to exit Gaza has already split his coalition and provoked calls for his assassination. Hundreds of rabbis have urged Orthodox soldiers to defy orders to remove settlers from Gaza.
Sharon is prime minister because he campaigned against Barak’s policy of trading “land for peace.” And if he is going through hell to get Israelis to yield Gaza, does anyone think he could, or would, try to convince Israelis to abandon West Bank settlements he himself implanted and pledged to retain forever?
It does not appear Sharon has any intention of doing so. As Dov Weissglas, his deputy, told the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz, the idea of the now-famous Bush letter to Sharon was this:
Get America to sign on to Israel’s annexation of wide swatches of the West Bank, to rejection of Palestinians’ right of return, to a Greater Jerusalem as Israel’s eternal capital, and to a security wall incorporating Palestinian land. Then embalm the “peace process” indefinitely.
Sharon has already been given everything he wants by the president of the United States. Why negotiate with the Palestinians? For what? He has it all.
If the president backs off his letter and demands that Sharon accede to a viable Palestinian state, not divided by settlements or chopped into bantustans by Israeli security roads, what does Bush do when Sharon defies him and says no?
Will he denounce Sharon and risk a firestorm from the Jewish community, Democrats, AIPAC, neocons, the Republican Right, talk radio, and fundamentalist Christians for whom support of Israel is biblical command? Why would Bush get into a bloody losing brawl like that?
As Gen. Brent Scowcroft, national security adviser to Bush I, told the Financial Times, “When I first heard Sharon was getting out of Gaza I was having dinner with Condi [Rice] and she said, ‘At least that’s good news,’ … and I said, ‘That’s terrible news. … Sharon will say ‘I want to get out of Gaza, finish the wall [Israel’s security fence] and say I’m done.” Exactly.
Sharon will not budge and Bush lacks the will to push him. As General Scowcroft says, “Sharon just has him wrapped around his little finger .... I think the president is mesmerized.”
Let no one get his hopes up about a Mideast peace. As ever, it is a mirage.
Cultural Enrichment—With a Vengeance
By Thomas Fleming
When I heard this morning on the news that a deerhunter from Minnesota had killed several Wisconsians who told him to take his deerstand off their property, I immediately surmised that some suburban nerd from the “Twins” had gone postal. The killer did turn out to be from Minneapolis, but his name Chai Vang, combined with his picture, indicated that his home lay much farther away. Mr. Vang chased the locals through the woods, shooting them one by one as they ran. At the end there were five dead (including one woman) and three wounded.
From the name, my best guess is that Mr. Vang is a Hmong. At the age of 36 when he went on his killing spree, Van would have been born near the end of the Southeast Asian War that brought so many Hmong immigrants, allies in our war against Communism, to the United States. They have not had an easy time of it. The Hmong were a primitive people, scarcely touched by the higher civilizations of China, France, or Thailand. Arriving in the States with neither job skills nor a knowledge of English, they took menial jobs, at first, before learning, as so many did, that welfare pays and crime pays even better. “Christian” do-gooders imported them by the busload into Wausau, Wisconsin, a quiet little city that had known little welfare dependency and still less crime. The Hmong changed all that.
There had been a large Hmong population and one of them worked for us. As his quality of work declined and he was found to have misappropriated equipment and supplies, he was dismissed but not before going to his supervisor to whom he uttered the ominous threat: “Good thing we not in my country or I have to kill you.” Not “might kill you” or “would feel justified in killing you” but “have to kill you.
I have some respect for the crude ethic of vengeance that animates the Hmong conscience, though none for their highly deficient work ethic. But even if I preferred their way of life to ours, it would not change the fact that they can not live with us. And what is true of the Hmong is equally true of many other non-European ethnic groups, and far more true of Muslims.
Wayne Allensworth said it best, at our editorial meeting in San Antonio two weeks ago. The reason we should not foolishly trying to fight terrorism in Iraq is because we need to be fighting it on the border. A few years ago our principal complaint was that Third World aliens were committing crimes, sucking up welfare, and undermining our culture. By now, however, our undefended northern and southern borders are permitting an influx of Islamic terrorists who can spread across the United States, going from Mosque to Mosque, from Islamic Center to Islamic School, all of which are so many cells for fomenting a fanatical religious ideology whose primary purpose is the destruction of our religion and culture—and those who defend them.
Growing up in Wisconsin as a child, I always looked upon Minnesotans as aliens. Here in Illinois, the locals turn up their noses at the people of Wisconsin as “cheeseheads.” Lutherans make fun of Evangelicals who ridicule both Lutherans and Catholics. It is all, more or less in fun. What is not so funny is the presence of millions of aliens, legal and illegal, who understand nothing of our legal and constitutional system, who are willing to work until they found out how easy it is not to work, and who, if challenged, revert to an ancestral code of blood that leaves five decent people from small-town Wisconsin dead. No news here, just another everyday story in Neocon America.
By Thomas Fleming
When I heard this morning on the news that a deerhunter from Minnesota had killed several Wisconsians who told him to take his deerstand off their property, I immediately surmised that some suburban nerd from the “Twins” had gone postal. The killer did turn out to be from Minneapolis, but his name Chai Vang, combined with his picture, indicated that his home lay much farther away. Mr. Vang chased the locals through the woods, shooting them one by one as they ran. At the end there were five dead (including one woman) and three wounded.
From the name, my best guess is that Mr. Vang is a Hmong. At the age of 36 when he went on his killing spree, Van would have been born near the end of the Southeast Asian War that brought so many Hmong immigrants, allies in our war against Communism, to the United States. They have not had an easy time of it. The Hmong were a primitive people, scarcely touched by the higher civilizations of China, France, or Thailand. Arriving in the States with neither job skills nor a knowledge of English, they took menial jobs, at first, before learning, as so many did, that welfare pays and crime pays even better. “Christian” do-gooders imported them by the busload into Wausau, Wisconsin, a quiet little city that had known little welfare dependency and still less crime. The Hmong changed all that.
There had been a large Hmong population and one of them worked for us. As his quality of work declined and he was found to have misappropriated equipment and supplies, he was dismissed but not before going to his supervisor to whom he uttered the ominous threat: “Good thing we not in my country or I have to kill you.” Not “might kill you” or “would feel justified in killing you” but “have to kill you.
I have some respect for the crude ethic of vengeance that animates the Hmong conscience, though none for their highly deficient work ethic. But even if I preferred their way of life to ours, it would not change the fact that they can not live with us. And what is true of the Hmong is equally true of many other non-European ethnic groups, and far more true of Muslims.
Wayne Allensworth said it best, at our editorial meeting in San Antonio two weeks ago. The reason we should not foolishly trying to fight terrorism in Iraq is because we need to be fighting it on the border. A few years ago our principal complaint was that Third World aliens were committing crimes, sucking up welfare, and undermining our culture. By now, however, our undefended northern and southern borders are permitting an influx of Islamic terrorists who can spread across the United States, going from Mosque to Mosque, from Islamic Center to Islamic School, all of which are so many cells for fomenting a fanatical religious ideology whose primary purpose is the destruction of our religion and culture—and those who defend them.
Growing up in Wisconsin as a child, I always looked upon Minnesotans as aliens. Here in Illinois, the locals turn up their noses at the people of Wisconsin as “cheeseheads.” Lutherans make fun of Evangelicals who ridicule both Lutherans and Catholics. It is all, more or less in fun. What is not so funny is the presence of millions of aliens, legal and illegal, who understand nothing of our legal and constitutional system, who are willing to work until they found out how easy it is not to work, and who, if challenged, revert to an ancestral code of blood that leaves five decent people from small-town Wisconsin dead. No news here, just another everyday story in Neocon America.
Music for Gift-Giving
By David Menconi, News and Observer
Brian Wilson, "Smile" (Nonesuch). Any other year, the Boston Red Sox winning a World Series would qualify as the year's most unexpected event. But in 2004, the return of Beach Boys main man Brian Wilson's long-abandoned masterpiece trumps everything else on the miracle scale -- especially because it's wonderfully, improbably beautiful, a cinematic pop symphony about American music. This is Wilson's version of "Rhapsody in Blue," "Fanfare for the Common Man" and "West Side Story" all rolled into one.
U2, "How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb" (Interscope). The world's most righteous rock band is at it again. Don't be put off by the iPod commercial, because nobody does uplifting, anthemic arena rock as well as U2. The first single, "Vertigo," is a bit more rambunctious than the rest of the album, but it's all feel-good positivity that improves with each listen.
Green Day, "American Idiot" (Warner Bros.). If current events have left someone on your list feeling out of sorts, this honest-to-God operatic concept album by the bratty über-punk trio might fit the bill. The storyline isn't entirely coherent; but when it comes to fast, loud and catchy, nobody else comes close. The title track is as perfect a song as this year yielded.
Ben Harper and the Blind Boys of Alabama, "There Will Be a Light" (Virgin). The jam-band superstar and the venerable gospel ensemble fit together surprisingly well, and they've never sounded better. Think of church as a raucous pickin' party in a living room, and that's "There Will Be a Light." You can also throw in tickets to the Blind Boys' Jan. 31 concert at UNC-Chapel Hill's Hill Hall.
Usher, "Confessions" (La Face). Every year brings a record so omnipresent that, for better or worse, it becomes the year's definitive soundtrack. Where 2003 belonged to Beyonce, Usher has owned 2004 with a string of chart-topping R&B hits including "Burn," "Yeah!" and the "Confessions" title track. Resistance is useless, especially now that this album is out in an expanded special edition with four extra songs (including the Alicia Keys duet "My Boo," yet another No. 1 hit).
Chris Stamey, "Travels in the South" (Yep Roc). After spending the past decade making other acts sound good as a producer, Stamey returns as a recording artist on his first solo album since 1991. Impeccably crafted guitar-pop with brainy lyrics and classic-rock flourishes, "Travels in the South" is catchier than the flu; plus it was recorded at Stamey's own Chapel Hill studio. Buy locally!
Tift Merritt, "Tambourine" (Lost Highway). One of Stamey's former production clients is local-gal-made-good Merritt, who has been a favorite among alternative-country fans for the past five years. She evolves from country torch singer to soul siren on her latest album, a breakthrough just waiting to happen.
James Taylor, "A Christmas Album" (Hallmark). Most Christmas albums fall short because they're too happy. Taylor understands better than most that the season involves as much wistful melancholia as holiday cheer, which gives depth to the likes of "Winter Wonderland" and "The Christmas Song." But it's not all somber; Taylor's duet with Natalie Cole on "Baby, It's Cold Outside" is downright playful. "A Christmas Album" is available at Hallmark Gold Crown shops instead of record stores.
Beastie Boys, "To the 5 Boroughs" (Capitol). For the old-school hip-hop devotee who pines for the genre's late-'80s glory days. The lyrical content is up-to-date (and political), while the sonics are vintage and cool.
Burning Brides, "Leave No Ashes" (V2). For crushing volume to go with the catchiness, there's Burning Brides. Imagine Cheap Trick wed with Motorhead's bludgeoning tendencies.
Various artists, "Left of the Dial: Dispatches From the '80s Underground" (Rhino). The '80s-oldies radio format has fostered the mistaken impression that the Me Decade's music was nothing but lighter-than-air Cheese Whiz. There was a lot more to '80s rock than Kajagoogoo and Soft Cell, however. The four-disc "Left of the Dial" mines the era's college-radio playlists for the likes of R.E.M., the Pixies, Replacements, Camper Van Beethoven and Robyn Hitchcock.
By David Menconi, News and Observer
Brian Wilson, "Smile" (Nonesuch). Any other year, the Boston Red Sox winning a World Series would qualify as the year's most unexpected event. But in 2004, the return of Beach Boys main man Brian Wilson's long-abandoned masterpiece trumps everything else on the miracle scale -- especially because it's wonderfully, improbably beautiful, a cinematic pop symphony about American music. This is Wilson's version of "Rhapsody in Blue," "Fanfare for the Common Man" and "West Side Story" all rolled into one.
U2, "How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb" (Interscope). The world's most righteous rock band is at it again. Don't be put off by the iPod commercial, because nobody does uplifting, anthemic arena rock as well as U2. The first single, "Vertigo," is a bit more rambunctious than the rest of the album, but it's all feel-good positivity that improves with each listen.
Green Day, "American Idiot" (Warner Bros.). If current events have left someone on your list feeling out of sorts, this honest-to-God operatic concept album by the bratty über-punk trio might fit the bill. The storyline isn't entirely coherent; but when it comes to fast, loud and catchy, nobody else comes close. The title track is as perfect a song as this year yielded.
Ben Harper and the Blind Boys of Alabama, "There Will Be a Light" (Virgin). The jam-band superstar and the venerable gospel ensemble fit together surprisingly well, and they've never sounded better. Think of church as a raucous pickin' party in a living room, and that's "There Will Be a Light." You can also throw in tickets to the Blind Boys' Jan. 31 concert at UNC-Chapel Hill's Hill Hall.
Usher, "Confessions" (La Face). Every year brings a record so omnipresent that, for better or worse, it becomes the year's definitive soundtrack. Where 2003 belonged to Beyonce, Usher has owned 2004 with a string of chart-topping R&B hits including "Burn," "Yeah!" and the "Confessions" title track. Resistance is useless, especially now that this album is out in an expanded special edition with four extra songs (including the Alicia Keys duet "My Boo," yet another No. 1 hit).
Chris Stamey, "Travels in the South" (Yep Roc). After spending the past decade making other acts sound good as a producer, Stamey returns as a recording artist on his first solo album since 1991. Impeccably crafted guitar-pop with brainy lyrics and classic-rock flourishes, "Travels in the South" is catchier than the flu; plus it was recorded at Stamey's own Chapel Hill studio. Buy locally!
Tift Merritt, "Tambourine" (Lost Highway). One of Stamey's former production clients is local-gal-made-good Merritt, who has been a favorite among alternative-country fans for the past five years. She evolves from country torch singer to soul siren on her latest album, a breakthrough just waiting to happen.
James Taylor, "A Christmas Album" (Hallmark). Most Christmas albums fall short because they're too happy. Taylor understands better than most that the season involves as much wistful melancholia as holiday cheer, which gives depth to the likes of "Winter Wonderland" and "The Christmas Song." But it's not all somber; Taylor's duet with Natalie Cole on "Baby, It's Cold Outside" is downright playful. "A Christmas Album" is available at Hallmark Gold Crown shops instead of record stores.
Beastie Boys, "To the 5 Boroughs" (Capitol). For the old-school hip-hop devotee who pines for the genre's late-'80s glory days. The lyrical content is up-to-date (and political), while the sonics are vintage and cool.
Burning Brides, "Leave No Ashes" (V2). For crushing volume to go with the catchiness, there's Burning Brides. Imagine Cheap Trick wed with Motorhead's bludgeoning tendencies.
Various artists, "Left of the Dial: Dispatches From the '80s Underground" (Rhino). The '80s-oldies radio format has fostered the mistaken impression that the Me Decade's music was nothing but lighter-than-air Cheese Whiz. There was a lot more to '80s rock than Kajagoogoo and Soft Cell, however. The four-disc "Left of the Dial" mines the era's college-radio playlists for the likes of R.E.M., the Pixies, Replacements, Camper Van Beethoven and Robyn Hitchcock.
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