Month: September 2011

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Brandon Darby

The narrative: 8 dangerous anarchists from Austin, Texas travel to Minneapolis in August 2008 intending to sew chaos, destruction, and mayhem during the Republican National Convention. Thank God a trusted, patriotic FBI informant was among the radicals to help the police and FBI intervene in the nick of time, saving property and lives, and preserving the safety and security of Sarah Palin.

It’s a simple, comprehensible narrative. And American justice is about narratives, not facts, not truth. The narrative is compelling to frightened American juries and judges. You can’t be too careful. The two boys, who did not commit a crime– at least nothing that was defined as a crime before 9/11– were convicted, locked up for two and four years.

The truth is more complex. Yes, the boys assembled some Molotov cocktails at the house they stayed in in Minneapolis during the Republic National Convention in 2008. But they never used them. It’s not clear that they ever had any serious intent of using them. In a rational world, they never broke the law. They no more broke the law with their assembled bombs than any member of the NRA broke the law by carrying a concealed handgun. Is a concealed handgun alarming? Only to a rational person.

But what role did FBI informant Brandon Darby play in all this? Would they have ever even build the Molotov Cocktails if he hadn’t organized the trip to Minneapolis in the first place. Did he hector them, tirelessly trying to persuade them that the depths of depravity they saw in Minneapolis– and it was depraved (police phalanx, tear gas, batons)– called for something stronger than a protest sign.

PBS– the only U.S. network that does any serious journalism anymore– aired a documentary recently– “Better This World”– that offered a compelling glimpse of the dynamics of homeland insecurity, paranoia, manipulation, and the use of informants by the FBI. Brad Crowder and David McKay come off as youthful, passionate, and naïve.

Brandon Darby, the informant, is cynical, manipulative, and dishonest. The results are appalling.

 

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Oh oh oh! My Sharia!

Shariah is a mortal threat to the survival of freedom in the United States and in the world as we know it.” Newt Gingrich, quoted in NY Times, 2011-09-01

One has to grant the possibility that one day Newt Gingrich will be telling a rapt television audience, maybe on Jon Stewart, that he alone warned America about danger; he alone saw it coming. And he was mocked.

Tennessee recently pass a law making it a felony to follow Sharia law. Does that make sense on any level at all? Let’s say a man divorces his wife according to Sharia law. Will the police arrest him and force him to remarry her, and then go to court and get a regular old Christian or secular humanist divorce? It’s mind-blowing.

So, let’s get on with the mockery. Somehow, 300 million Americans will soon be living under laws that require amputations and veils and polygamy. Well, at least they might require a mahr, which is a lump sum payment due to the wife when the husband dies or divorces her.

According to Abed Awad of Rugers University, Sharia law is also:

a methodology through which a jurist engages the religious texts to ascertain divine will.

So I have a really simple solution to the threat of Sharia Law. Let’s have all the states pass laws that make it illegal to appeal to religious doctrines or texts in support of any legal or legislative proceeding. How about that?

But wait— didn’t Newt Gingrich also just say something about it being a bad thing that God was being driven out of public life? Sounds like he doesn’t really mind religious bigotry intolerance– he just wants to make sure that he’s the one carrying the torch.

And aren’t both Rick Perry and Michelle Bachmann campaigning on the idea of bringing religion back into the White House? They don’t seem shy about it either. Of course, that’s the Christian religion, so that would not be intolerant or bigoted, because it is the right religion.

Is there anything in Sharia like this new policy in Arizona– in a supposedly “Christian” nation? All visitors to prisoners in state prisons will have to pay a $25 fee each visit.

This sounds familiar. Sounds like something in a Dickens’s novel. Sounds like something from an era of heartless soul-crushing cruelty.

My my my my Sharia!

David Brooks, an otherwise sensible conservative, really thinks Rick Perry has a serious shot at winning the next presidential election. Perry is opposed to Social Security, thinks Franklin Roosevelt ruined the country, ridicules science, gives state jobs to any of his major contributors who want one, and loves macho posturing and quips.

His solution to the hardship caused ranchers and farmers by the drought over Texas this year: a prayer meeting.

I suspect Perry will crumble once he encounters the relentless scrutiny of the media given a national campaign. At this stage– and it’s early– I think Romney actually has a better chance of being the nominee, and a better chance of beating Obama.

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The Look and the Sound of Silence

The ending of “The Graduate” is a legend now.  And I suspect it’s about time someone made the traditional attempt to “debunk” the mythological greatness of it and attack the whole strange sequence as mediocre, confusing, or trivial.

Personally, I think it holds up extremely well.  In fact, I dare say, it seems stronger and more allusive today to me than ever before, while the rest of the second half of the movie does, at times, seem aimless and rote.  The uncanny momentum of the first half, up to when Elaine learns about the affair, suddenly deflates and wanders, until it seems to gather itself up again into some kind of  raucous crescendo with the wedding.

But it can’t be denied that part of the marvelous impact of that last scene on the bus  is due to the expectation of the Hollywood ending, the happy music, the smiles, the suggestion that all is now well.  With expectations like that in place, the first encounter with that long, lingering, ambiguous take is rather stunning.  And it shifts the viewer’s perception from that empty, trivial, inauthentic kitsch to the rich complex authentic possibilities of their relationship– not all unicorns and hazy meadows.

Some commentators feel that the ending is therefore sad and pessimistic.  I don’t think it goes that far.  I don’t think we encounter a fateful, tragic mistake.  What we have is the real possibility that they will work things out but only after actually learning to cope with life beyond the magic hysteria of their escape from stultifying bourgeois conformity.  Maybe Benjamin becomes an environmental activist.  Maybe Elaine becomes a feminist.

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Kidnapping: Military Contractors

If private contractors were hired to fly victims of “extraordinary rendition” out of the country, to places like Syria– yes, indeed– so they could be tortured– under what legal mechanism have they succeeded in not being arrested and charged with kidnapping?

They were. Some of them were enthusiastic. Some of them were reluctant. Almost all of them complied. They trusted that a lying, scheming amoral government would cover their asses. And pay them well. And they did.

We’ve seen a glimpse of “legal mechanism”. The Federal Government has intervened in court cases begging the judges to refuse to hear the cases because it would “endanger national security”. Most judges– so far– to their everlasting disgrace– have complied. If I was a U.S. citizen I’d be organizing some kind of campaign to have those judges impeached.

I cannot express, in words, my contempt for the judge who accepted that rationale and informed the victim and the victim’s family: all of the most sacred rights you are entitled to as a human being can be disposed of in an instant because Dick Cheney wet his pants at the thought of the Moslem hoards rolling down the streets of Palos Park, Illinois.

Everything that people have fought for for a thousand years, from the Magna Carta to the Bill of Rights and the Constitution and the Civil Rights Act of 1965–everything–is tossed out the window with that simple phrase. National Security.

And all the lying scumbags in the Republican Party with their obscene little flag pins in their lapels and their tearful demonstrations of patriotism and loyalty should be impeached. And the complicit scumbags in the Democratic Party who tsk-tsked the left wing about having to be responsible and after all we can’t be seen as “soft” on terror…. impeach them all.

They won’t be impeached. They will be re-elected to office by a people who do not deserve democracy.

There is no “war” on terror.

There was no crisis. There was no emergency.

There was a dramatic attack and many casualties, but there was absolutely nothing in 9/11 to justify the hysterical, overwrought panic that turned weasels like Dick Cheney into whimpering simpering bed-wedding weasels like Dick Cheney.