Ted Olson and the pushovers

-- by Dave

Why is it that foulmouthed left-wing bloggers seem to be the only people who have noticed that there's a peculiar set of political rules ruling the Beltway, particularly within media circles, these days?

Here's what we've noticed: For some reason, Democrats must be the model of decorum and civility and moderation and bipartisanship when it comes to governing; any deviance from this script brings on fainting spells and finger-wagging. Meanwhile Republicans can be as vicious and nasty and ruthless and nakedly partisan as they please, and their "toughness" is merely celebrated.

Just this morning, Sen. Patrick Leahy laid out in an L.A. Times op-ed what the Senate Judiciary Committee hoped to see from any forthcoming nominee to replace Alberto Gonzales as the nation's Attorney General. It's straightforward and thoughtful, largely in line with the bipartisan tone Democrats have adopted in making clear what they're hoping for from the White House in the wake of the mess over the firings of nine U.S. Attorneys that resulted in Gonzales' resignation. It concludes:

The president begins this process. Through his choice for attorney general, he can be a uniter or a divider. For the sake of the Department of Justice and its vital missions on behalf of the American people, this would be an excellent time to work with us to unite the nation.

"Work with us" has been the byword for Democrats on the nominee. But this same morning, a New York Times report gave us a clearer picture of the White House's idea of working with Democrats:

The White House is closing in on a nominee to replace Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, with former Solicitor General Theodore B. Olson considered one of the leading candidates, administration and Congressional officials said Tuesday.

Reports of Mr. Olson's candidacy suggested that President Bush, in choosing the third attorney general of his presidency, might defy calls from Democrats and choose another Republican who is considered a staunch partisan to lead the Justice Department. Mr. Gonzales is departing after being repeatedly accused of allowing political loyalties to blind him to independently enforcing the law.

"Clearly if you made a list of consensus nominees, Olson wouldn't appear on that list," said Senator Charles E. Schumer, the New York Democrat who led the Judiciary Committee effort to remove Mr. Gonzales. "My hope is that the White House would seek some kind of candidate who would be broadly acceptable."

Nominating Ted Olson is nothing short of a sharp stick in the eye to Democrats. Because they don't come any more partisan and power-grabbing and ruthless than Ted Olson. There isn't a more consummate Bush insider than Olson.

Olson's name was floated as a potential AG last March, when it first appeared that Gonzales was in trouble, and as I noted at the time, such a nomination would essentially be asking to replace Gonzales with Gonzales On Steroids, especially when it came to the executive-privilege claims the White House used to protect itself during the congressional investigations into the USA firings.

But then, as Tom Schaller observed at the time:

The GOP understands that real power has less to do with election results than legal maneuvering. In fact, conservative lawyers worked hard during the last decade to limit presidential power, before promptly reversing course after Mr. Bush won ...

And there's no one who understands this better than Ted Olson, who has a long and sordid legal career devoted largely to Nixonian manipulation of the law on behalf of Republicans. The classic example: Olson complained bitterly about the independent-counsel laws as being open to abuse when he was himself the subject of an IC investigation in the 1980s (a matter I explored in some detail for Salon). Yet in the 1990s, he was an ardent advocate of abusing the IC statutes in pursuit of President Clinton, as Joe Conason reported in some detail as well.

Those early years, as I reported, also raise considerable doubts about Olson's subsequent reputation for his superb legal acumen. His attempts to claim executive privilege for the Reagan White House -- which resulted in political disaster for Reagan -- were later described by a prominent Republican involved in the mess as "without a doubt the sloppiest piece of legal work I had seen in 20 years of being a lawyer."

Of course, much of the country remembers Olson as George W. Bush's advocate before the Supreme Court in the 2001 Florida election fight, wherein he also distorted and fabricated his way to one of the most dubious legal victories in history. When he was subsequently nominated to be the nation's Solicitor General, he once again distorted and misled his way through Senate confirmation hearings, effectively covering up his ugly partisan role in the Clinton witch hunt.

Subsequently during his tenure as SG (which ended in 2004) he played a key role as the White House's legal architect, and almost certainly was the brains behind its wide-ranging grab of executive powers:

Certainly in many other areas -- particularly the aggressive assertion of executive powers in setting up military tribunals and designating citizens "enemy combatants," as well as various surveillance powers under the so-called Patriot Acts -- the Bush White House has displayed all the signs of attempting to reacquire powers lost to the executive branch in the 1970s … a belated "Nixon's revenge," as it were. There is a high likelihood that Ted Olson has been one of the guiding lights in these acquisitions.

"Executive privilege" is especially an area near and dear to Olson's heart. And it is clear, from his record, that Olson believes such privilege should be nearly illimitable -- unless, of course, the president is a Democrat.

What his record especially suggests is that Olson may very well lead the Bush White House on a merry goose chase, attempting to extend executive privilege into areas where it was never intended, and where almost certainly legal mischief could turn up afoot. It has the makings of a real train wreck.

This is especially the case now, with a Roberts Court that likely would give this White House wide deference on such claims. With Olson in charge of the Justice Department, the White House would have a wide berth to pursue these executive-privilege claims with impunity.

Compare, if you will, Olson's track record with the criteria Leahy offers in his op-ed:

* Experience and sound judgment grounded in respect for the law and for the vibrant framework of checks and balances among co-equal branches of government.

* A proven track record of independence to ensure that he or she will act as a check on this administration's expansive claims of virtually unlimited executive power.

* The commitment and the personal attributes needed to regain credibility and the respect of the public, Congress and the Justice Department's workforce.

* A willingness to apply the law without fear or favor, without regard to partisan politics, and to stand up to the White House when necessary. The attorney general is the people's lawyer, not the president's.

* A commitment to restore vigilance and vitality to a civil rights division that has been run onto the rocks by misdirection and by shameful -- possibly even illegal -- efforts to replace dedicated career attorneys with applicants who were improperly hired for their political loyalty to the Bush administration.

* A respect for Congress' oversight role. At its best, the confirmation process can be a clarifying moment. It can also be a catalyst for resolving problems like the White House's refusal to provide witnesses and documents that are needed to answer questions about the U.S. attorneys scandal and the warrantless wiretapping program.

Now, there are many Republicans, good loyal conservatives, who would fit this description more than adequately. But if Olson really is the nominee -- and it's hard to say whether this is a mere trial balloon -- then it would be hard to envision someone who less meets the qualifications. On nearly every count, Olson fails, sometimes spectacularly.

We'll see if Olson is indeed the nominee; but even if he isn't, the fact that he's one of the favorites sends a message. The White House's response to Leahy and the Democrats is loud and clear, and one we've heard before: Go fuck yourselves. You want us to replace Gonzales, a reliable right-wing lackey? Fine; we'll give you a right-wing consigliere.

If Olson is nominated, watch for the Beltway media in the following days to briefly wring their hands about this rather naked poke in the eye but eventually come around to the conclusion that Bush's nomination is "bold" and represents his "resoluteness" or some such nonsense. Then the right-wing Wurlitzer will kick in and start reminding us what a swell fellow Ted Olson really is (I think you can hear Joe diGenova and Victoria Toensing winding up their grinders even as we speak).

Compare this, if you will, to the mass tut-tut coming from the Beltway over MoveOn.org's tough treatment of Gen. Petraeus for his report to Congress. And even more pointedly, it's worth noting Democrats' response to the assault -- namely, to cower and run from their own best advocates.

These, then, are the Bush Rules in action: Only Democrats have to be civil. "Bipartisanship" means acceding to the conservative agenda. And Republicans can be as vicious as they like, because then we'll just call it "toughness" or, if it's really ugly, "just a joke."

You'd think by now that Democrats would have figured out they're being played for patsies, that the calls for "civility" are just an obfuscatory demand for capitulation and a cover for the right to indulge in the lowest and meanest kind of discourse. But judging from the past week's events, it's clear they haven't.

So while I'd like to believe that Ted Olson finally will get the major public scrutiny he deserves -- particularly for his long history of misleading testimony before Congress, probably not a trait one would want in an Attorney General -- I'm also reminded that the last time Leahy and Co. had him in their sights, they wound up being outmaneuvered by Senate Republicans.

But then, they'll at least be applauded for their civility, won't they?

[Cross-posted at Firedoglake.]

Death Wish

-- by Sara

It's no secret that the newspaper industry has fallen on very hard times. Their readership is ebbing as fast and visibly as the tide recedes before a tsunami -- quarter after quarter, there's less water underneath for them to stay afloat on, and everyone in the business knows there's a bigger disaster yet to come.

In the face of this, you'd think that they'd do everything they could to attract and hold those of us who are most likely to keep our subscriptions current: the educated, informed middle and professional classes who have a lively interest in the world, and enough income to be of interest to their advertisers. These days, "educated and informed" very often translates to centrist-to-progressive political leanings: the reason they call it "liberal education" is that the more of it you have, the more liberal you tend to become. Any paper wanting to stay in business in today's climate would get very tight these people, and do whatever it took to keep them on board.

One of the first things you'd do toward that goal is pack your op-ed page with a rich supply of centrist-to-progressive political opinion -- preferably balanced with a 50/50 mix of well-regarded, thoughtful conservative writers. (Jonah Goldberg does not qualify.) With all voices represented, the page projects a fairness that lends credibility to your entire paper. It sets up a real back-and-forth dialogue that leaves readers feeling well-informed, and gives them lots to talk to their friends about. And it keeps your other pack of can't-lose-'em readers -- the older folks who are lifelong newspaper readers, and who tend to be more conservative -- on the subscription lists as well.

What you would not do, on the other hand, is load up your op-ed page with a bunch of cranky conservative blowhards who make your paper sound exactly like everybody's angry old Uncle Louie after he's finished the first six-pack. (On the other hand, if you wanted to piss younger and middle-aged blue-chip readers off -- possibly badly enough to cancel their subscriptions for good -- that might be your first step.)

You'd think this would be a no-brainer. Evidently, it's not.

We can only assume that America's newspaper editors have a death wish, though. Because, it turns out, this is precisely what they've done. According to a comprehensive Media Matters study released yesterday, the vast majority of the country's papers have, in defiance of their own best interests, purged progressive and centrist columnists in overwhelming favor of conservative ones. "The results show that in paper after paper, state after state, region after region, conservative syndicated columnists get more space than their progressive counterparts," say the study's authors. "As Editor and Publisher paraphrased one syndicate executive noting, 'U.S. dailies run more conservative than liberal columns, but some are willing to consider liberal voices.'"

We knew long ago that we lost AM radio. But when it came to our daily paper, I suspect most of us were suffering in silence, figuring that it was just our own local rag that made our corn flakes settle with that familiar bilious burn every morning. (The Nexium people should pay royalties to Cal Thomas and Kathleen Parker.) Somewhere out there, other people were starting their day with bigger, better papers, which were no doubt more fairly balanced. Surely. It had to be.

Well, no. The summary of the Media Matters study makes it clear that newspaper editors across much of the country have written off the interests their liberal readership:

-- Sixty percent of the nation's daily newspapers print more conservative syndicated columnists every week than progressive syndicated columnists. Only 20 percent run more progressives than conservatives, while the remaining 20 percent are evenly balanced.

-- In a given week, nationally syndicated progressive columnists are published in newspapers with a combined total circulation of 125 million. Conservative columnists, on the other hand, are published in newspapers with a combined total circulation of more than 152 million.

-- The top 10 columnists as ranked by the number of papers in which they are carried include five conservatives, two centrists, and only three progressives.

-- The top 10 columnists as ranked by the total circulation of the papers in which they are published also include five conservatives, two centrists, and only three progressives.

-- In 38 states, the conservative voice is greater than the progressive voice -- in other words, conservative columns reach more readers in total than progressive columns. In only 12 states is the progressive voice greater than the conservative voice.

-- In three out of the four broad regions of the country -- the West, the South, and the Midwest -- conservative syndicated columnists reach more readers than progressive syndicated columnists. Only in the Northeast do progressives reach more readers, and only by a margin of 2 percent.

-- In eight of the nine divisions into which the U.S. Census Bureau divides the country, conservative syndicated columnists reach more readers than progressive syndicated columnists in any given week. Only in the Middle Atlantic division do progressive columnists reach more readers each week.

So, to recap: They eliminate progressive columnists, create op-ed pages that undermine their own credibility and alienate their most influential readers -- and then wonder and whine that their readership and revenue are tanking. Go figure.

Fortunately, out of all the media, local newspapers are easily the most responsive to consumer pressure. Compared to most things, fixing this particular inequity should be relatively quick and easy.

Local Democratic parties buy a lot of newspaper ads come election season (and small dailies rely heavily on this money). County leaders might meet with publishers, and tell them that if they don't start including Democratic-friendly views on their op-ed pages year-round, their election-season income is going to reflect that fact. (With off-year elections looming, this might be a good season in which to announce this.) Other progressive groups, like MoveOn, can point out that they represent X number of educated, affluent subscribers -- who will unsubscribe en masse if policies don't change. Progressive businesses can also call their sales reps, point out the discrepancy, and threaten to withhold their advertising until it changes. ("I don't want to support a paper that doesn't represent my views.") A coordinated push by a number of groups on several of these fronts can make a publisher see the writing on the wall in a matter of a few weeks. Get your netroots and liberal friends together this week, and you could be reading E.J. Dionne in your local gazette by Halloween.

We deserve to have op-ed pages that represent the full range of views present in the community. Liberals are no longer a minority in this country, not when 70% of Americans agree with our views on everything from the war to the environment to civil rights. It's time for our newspaper op-ed pages to reflect that fact -- for their own good, as well as ours.

And if they refuse to -- if publishers continue to choose their personal ideology over their mandate to serve their communities and their own economic self-interest -- then the laws of the free market dictate that they will die a mostly voluntary and entirely deserved death. Sic transit gloria mundi, and bring on the Internet news.

Another ugly race crime

-- by Dave

You all remember how Michelle Malkin led the wingnutosphere on one of its periodic torchbearing mob parties earlier this summer in whipping up racial angst over a particularly ugly black-on-white murder in which the victims were tortured and sexually assaulted. The mini-crusade was so successful that it became the talk of every neo-Nazi and white-supremacist site in the country (especially Stormfront) for the next couple of months.

What Malkin likes to use cases like this for -- as she has numerous other cases involving minorities harming whites, particularly when illegal immigrants (see the Adrienne Shelly case) and Muslims are involved -- is to establish, somehow, that these individual cases demonstrate something broader about the characteristics of the ethnic group to which the perpetrators belong. Namely, that they're innately criminal.

So I wonder if she'll even bother to mention this case (well, actually, I don't):

A black West Virginia woman was sexually assaulted, stabbed, and tortured while being held captive by her white abductors, one of whom told her, "That's what we do to niggers around here." The 23-year-old victim was freed Saturday after cops responded to the home of Frankie Brewster for a "welfare check on a female that was reportedly being held against her will." When cops arrived, Brewster claimed she was the only one home, but then the victim limped to the door and said, "Help me." According to six harrowing criminal complaints, the woman, who apparently had been held for more than a week, had four stab wounds in her left leg, bruised eyes, and had been repeatedly sexually assaulted and humiliated. The woman told police that she was forced to lick Brewster's "toes, vagina, and anal cavity." Brewster's son Bobby forced the woman to eat dog and rat feces, according to one complaint filed in Logan County Magistrate Court. The victim, who is now hospitalized, was raped at knifepoint, choked with a cable cord, and had her hair pulled and cut during the ordeal.

An Associated Press report has more details:

A woman who authorities said was sexually abused, beaten and stabbed while held captive for at least a week was repeatedly called a racial slur during the attacks, the victim's mother said.

Six people, all white, including a mother and son and a mother and daughter, have been arrested in connection with the alleged abduction of the 23-year-old black woman, sheriff's officials said Monday.

Authorities were still looking for two people they believe drove the woman to the home where she was abused, said Logan County Chief Deputy V.K. Dingess.

The FBI, which was asked by the sheriff's department to aid in the investigation, will look into whether a hate crime occurred.

The woman's abductors called her the N-word "every time they stabbed her," the woman's mother told The Charleston Gazette for a story published Tuesday.

The woman underwent surgery for leg wounds, Dingess told the paper.

Deputies found the woman Saturday after going to the home in Big Creek, about 35 miles southwest of Charleston, to investigate an anonymous tip.

One of the suspects, Frankie Brewster, was sitting on the front porch and told deputies she was alone, but moments later the woman limped toward the door, her arms outstretched, saying, "Help me," the sheriff's department said in a news release.

Besides being sexually assaulted, the woman had been stabbed four times in the left leg and beaten, Logan County sheriff's Sgt. Sonya Porter said. Her eyes were black and blue. The wounds were inflicted at least a week ago, deputies said.

During her capture, the woman was forced to eat rat and dog feces and drink from the toilet, according to the criminal complaint filed in magistrate court. She also had been choked with a cable cord and her hair was cut, it alleges.

"The things that were done to this woman are just indescribable," Porter said.

One of those arrested, Karen Burton, is accused of cutting the woman's ankle with a knife. She used the N-word in telling the woman she was victimized because she is black, according to the criminal complaint.

Deputies say the woman was also doused with hot water while being sexually assaulted.

"She wakes up in the middle of the night screaming, 'Mommy,"' the mother told the paper. "What's really bad is that we don't know everything they did to her. She is crying all the time."

Following Malkin's logic, I'd say it was time to start profiling poor white trash and think about locking them up in internment camps, wouldn't you?

Identifying the enemy

-- by Dave

Everywhere you turn, it seems, Republicans are repeating what's clearly going to be their main theme for the 2008 election: Democrats are traitors. They want us to lose in Iraq because they hate Bush so much they're willing to let the terrorists win. Next thing you know, Al Qaeda's gonna be blowing up the Peoria mall.

Something along those lines certainly was the message from Freddie Thompson in his interview with Fox's Sean Hannity the day after announcing his candidacy:

It really depends on which way you lean, Sean. If you’re committed against this war and to do something to further harm the president the way the Democrats seem to be in Congress, then anything that’s a mixed message is going to be seized upon in a negative way. But if you understand that this is part of a global conflict, and if we look weak and divided, and cannot get our own people together toward maximizing the advantages that we have – as we’re making progress in the Anbar province, and we’re making progress in getting some of these local tribal leaders, uh, going from the grassroots up, you might say, what we call it here in this country, and making some real progress on the ground, not necessarily in the capital, enough, but all over the country – if you can capitalize on that, you can really start to change things there. We’ve to take the opportunity to do that. Nobody knows what’s gonna happen. But if we look weak and divided in this country, we’re going to pay a heavy price for it in the future. We’re living in the era of the suitcase bomb, and they’re not going to go away. They’re here now, they’re armed and dangerous, and they’re trying to get weapons of mass destruction.

In an earlier interview with Hannity I saw replayed recently on Fox [still searching for the video], Thompson had gone even farther, saying that the Democrats in Congress were "dangerously close" to "rooting for our defeat" in Iraq.

As Dr. Denny at Scholars and Rogues points out, this is just flat-out fearmongering. It's also a gross distortion of the reality, to wit:

Republicans, both in the White House and Congress, are responsible for creating one of the most catastrophic military screwups in American history, largely through a toxic combination of incompetence, malfeasance, and mendacity. At this point, the actual grownups -- those who understand that the war in Iraq and our continued presence there makes us more vulnerable to future terrorist attack than if we remained, because it has exponentially fueled the underlying causes of terrorist recruitment -- are going to have to wrest control of the matter from them and begin seriously cleaning up the mess they've made.

Of course, Republicans don't want to hear such talk because it's not only the truth, but it makes clear that their looming removal from power is richly, even profoundly, deserved. Evidently their recourse is simple: Shout "traitor" and "stabbed in the back" long and loudly enough and maybe it'll stick. That has been largely their approach to liberal criticism of Gen. Petraeus's "stay the course" report to Congress.

The latest permutation of this meme is to identify liberals with terrorists. Thus we saw, after Osama bin Laden's recent video release, right-wing pundits from David Brooks to Fox News to even CNN's Kelli Arena comparing his remarks to those of a "left-wing blogger."

Of course, this kind of meme circulation starts at the top and works it way down to the rank and file. Thus here in the Northwest, we recently had a collection of College Republicans running a "humorous" contest at a fund-raising event identifying Democrats with terrorists.

Jim Camden at Spin Control, the Spokane Spokesman-Review's political blog, has the details:

The Washington State College Republicans held a demonstration Thursday on the Pullman campus to allow students to "Vote for Your Favorite Domestic Terrorist."

The choices were not Timothy McVeigh, Erik Rudolph and Ted Kaczynski, who have a pretty clear history of domestic terrorism, but a quartet of liberal public figures whom they don't much like: Jesse Jackson, Hillary Clinton, Michael Moore and Rosie O'Donnell.

The group billed it as a method of "poking fun at these figures," although a previous posting on Spin Control questioned the humor in it.

Asked how the group concluded that these four were candidates for "favorite domestic terrorist," CR President Daniel Schanze explained that all four have a history of making "anti-American remarks."

For example, Schanze said, Moore had the temerity to tell a German newspaper that Americans were "possibly the dumbest people on the planet."

... The others have said things that were condescending to their country or their countrymen, he added. "I think we were just responding equally."

Equating criticism with terrorism seems like a giant leap, even if the group was, as Schanze contends, just trying to inform the voters.

Reminded that domestic terrorism is a serious crime, Schanze seemed to backpedal. They never thought of it that way, he said. The title of the contest was just a come-on, sort of like the headline on a news story, he added.

But headlines are supposed to accurately reflect a story, just as this contest seems to accurately reflect the College Republicans' feelings about people who stray from their view of patriotism. Trying to judge which political opponent is the bigger domestic terrorist goes beyond Love It or Leave It to something akin to Love It or Go to Guantanamo.

The College Republicans were out on Terrell Mall for about four hours Thursday and had more than 150 students cast ballots. More than half marked their ballots for Clinton, with the rest going to Moore, O'Donnell and Jackson in that order.

As for the "humor" intended here, well, Camden probably said it all in his earlier post on this matter:

Used to be "poking fun" meant something between harmless joshing and a practical joke, not something between McCarthyism and accusing someone of a federal felony.

Even if this invidious talk gains traction, I'm hopeful that it won't be enough to overcome the public's anger at Republicans, at least in 2008. But its profoundly divisive long-term effects -- you know we're going to be hearing right-wingers explain away their disastrous rule in coming years this way -- is the kind of material on which fascist movements are built. And that's the real systemic danger that liberals are going to have to face down in the coming years as well.

Compassionate conservatism

-- by Dave

Spocko has yet another sample of the hateful rhetoric that continues to spew over the airways from San Francisco's KSFO-AM, home of right-wing shrieking harpy Melanie Morgan. This time it's from Morgan's sidekick, Lee Rodgers, talking on the anniversary of the Katrina disaster:

Last week while the rest of the country was wondering how the refugees from the Katrina flood were doing, Lee Rodgers of San Francisco radio station KSFO called them sniveling whiners and freeloaders and told them to shut the hell up and "Get off your butt and go to work." (audio link)

Rodgers: This two year pity party has gone on long enough and then some.

Rodgers: But two years later for God's sake people, solve your own bleeping problems, we're sick of hearing about you. And eh, and if you are sick and tired of the whining of the people in or from New Orleans about the government not doing enough for them and doing the rebuilding job for them. Maybe those people down there ought to stop their sniveling and whining and watch an example of self reliance right there in their own community. (audio link)

Rodgers: I don't wanna hear anymore of this crap from people in Louisiana saying "Gimmee, Gimmee, Gimmee." Shut the hell up. Solve your own problems. It's been two years, grow up. (audio link)

Melanie Morgan, the co-host, called New Orleans "a rathole " (excluding the French Quarter). Lee Rodgers call New Orleans a sewer.

Rodgers asks, "Is one hurricane supposed to be a permanent life long ticket on a bleeping gravy train? Come on!" (audio link)

Rodgers suggests that the displaced people, "Get the hell over it!"

Typical conservatives: After creating one of the greatest government foulups in history in both the immediate and the long-term responses to the Katrina disaster -- as the recent Campaign for America's Future report on the subject lays bare in some detail -- it's probably not surprising that they just want their victims to shut up and go away.

Two-years later, what has happened to better the plight of these African Americans? Practically nothing—as too much economic aid has made its way to contractors and developers instead of the people on the ground who need it most. The federal government immediately allocated $27 billion in emergency supplemental funding, an amount that has since risen to over $100 billion. But some of that money, for instance, has found its way to the builders of luxury condominiums near the University of Alabama football stadium—hundreds of miles inland.

Just how bad has it been? Rick Perlstein reports that it's "incompetence by a factor of five". And as Digby described in detail, the root cause of the administration's failure was its Rovean exploitation of every facet of government for political gain, and consistently at the expense of good governance.

No wonder their cheerleaders want us to just shut up. Next comes the hands over the ears and the "La la la la la la I can't hear you!"

Mostly, you have to be impressed with the deep feeling for the plight of their fellow Americans. Is this what they call compassionate conservatism?

Of whales and heritage

[Photo courtesy Keith Thorpe/Peninsula Daily News]

-- by Dave


While I've never eaten any part of any whale myself, I've talked to people who have, including native people for whom whale meat is part of their traditional subsistence diet, as well as some Japanese consumers of the stuff. And the truth about gray-whale meat is that it tastes like shit. Almost literally, I'm told.

This could be because grays tend to get their food from the sea bottom, often close to shore amid the muck. In contrast, humpback whales -- whose meat is indeed considered remarkably tasty -- mostly eat some distance from shore, their diet consisting largely of krill (tiny shrimp) and small fish.

So one of the dirty little secrets of the Makah Tribes' successful 1999 hunt, when they managed to harpoon and eventually kill a gray whale and bring it back to shore for butchering, was that most of the animal (like one that had been accidentally killed a few years before) ended up in the local landfills. According to my sources, most people took a few bites, maybe served a few meals of the stuff, but hardly anyone actually ate their full share of the whale meat. Most folks stored it in their freezers, and then eventually tossed it out after awhile.

In other words, the hunt may have proved a point, but they also wasted that animal -- which, as far as I understand these things, is somewhat the antithesis of the "cultural traditions" the hunt was supposedly intended to revive.

Now it's happened again, after two rogue whaling boats harpooned and killed a migrating gray whale who happened to pass near shore yesterday morning; it wandered off and sank somewhere in the Pacific after authorities intervened. The hunt was neither permitted by the federal government nor was it sanctioned by the tribe. What seems to have happened is that some of the yahoo elements involved in pushing for a hunt decided they had a right to kill the whale even without such sanction -- and perhaps were trying to push the envelope in order to get some progress on their long-negotiated return to whaling.

Well, it's certainly true that the Makah Nation has a treaty right to hunt and kill whales. It's one of the very few American tribes that does. As I explored in my 1998 piece for Salon on the situation, the Makahs' whaling push is occurring at an unusual nexus of the fight over treaty rights and the desire of some nations to resume whaling as a commercial enterprise. But that doesn't mean any tribesman has the right to go out and kill himself a whale.

The tribes have pushed hard to go hunt another whale, but it's occurring in an environment in which scientists are increasingly concerned about the health of the eastern Pacific gray-whale population, whose numbers have been declining amid signs of malnutrition. Killing another gray whale at this juncture probably is an environmentally irresponsible thing to do in such a context, especially for a creature that only recently has climbed off the endangered-species list. (Humpbacks, which in fact were the Makahs' traditional whale-hunt object -- though grays apparently were harvested in lean years -- actually pass by Neah Bay much farther offshore and are still very much an endangered species, so hunting them is out of the question.)

Much of the push has come as advocacy for reviving the tribe's heritage as whalers, which seems a reasonable, even admirable enough objective: the evisceration of their heritage has played a significant role in the oppression of native peoples in America since they came into contact with whites. Reviving that heritage has been an important part of many tribes' efforts to combat the poverty and alchoholism that afflicts so many modern reservations.

And the resumption of a ritualistic tribal hunt did have at least some palliative effect on the tribe, as Robert Sullivan rather richly describes in his book about the 1999 incident, A Whale Hunt. To what extent it actually revived the tribe's cultural heritage, however, remains something of an open question.

As I noted in my 1998 piece:

Traditional Makah whalers -- who were chosen braves from a few select families -- underwent rigorous preparation for the hunt that included long steam-lodge sessions and enduring nettle treatments. But only a few of the modern Makah hunting group are partaking of such rigors; they were chosen mainly for their strength. Several enjoy party-animal reputations, guys in desperate need of something constructive to do -- but hardly the leading young men of the village.

There is a reason the old Makah hunters were considered so heroic: The hunts were extraordinarily dangerous, requiring the highest level of skills as canoeists and harpoonists. None of the current group of Makahs has displayed any of these skills. In fact, they are such poor canoeists that they plan to have the traditional cedar canoe towed by powerboat to the whale's vicinity -- at which point they plan to row out to meet the beast, armed with their paddles, harpoons ... and, of course, the traditional high-powered rifle that will perform the final dispatch.

The Makahs' defenders explain away their variance from original traditions as a necessary accommodation to modernity, saying that modern Makah have the same right to modern weaponry as anyone else. Be that as it may, it's also clear from descriptions of traditional hunts that the whole enterprise was bound up with an appreciation for, even a love of, the animal being hunted. Warrior purification, according to these accounts, was about making a man worthy of taking the life of such a great beast; and when a whale was caught, they believed it gave itself up to them as a gift to the tribe, and it was honored at the subsequent feast accordingly.

This was mostly lacking at the 1999 hunt, and it was strikingly absent from yesterday's whale killing. The perpetrators -- a number of men working in two boats -- did nothing to honor this whale when they shot and harpooned it. They just wasted it.

They may have believed they were standing up for their rights as Makah, but all they effectively did was demolish whatever moral high ground the tribe may have occupied by claiming the hunt was about their tribal heritage. It was a simple act of provocation and hooliganism, the kind of act that historically has always rebounded against native people.

What will happen, of course, is that this killing will play into the hands of the Makahs' many critics, including the execrable Paul Watson, who charged like a grandstanding bull into the china shop of the situation in 1998 and drove the tribes into a rigid defense of their right to kill a whale. And their decision to do so had much less to do with reviving their heritage than with defending their legal rights.

Because whatever one may say about reviving tribal heritage, those goals remain fuzzy and amorphous at best. The one really concrete aspect of any tribe's efforts to improve the daily lives of its people, however, lies within its treaty rights.

Treaty rights, which have the binding power of constitutional law, are the cornerstone of any tribe's economic and social well-being, as well as their ability to defend and restore their proud heritage. The environmental activists involved in the situation in 1998-99, when the sides were taking shape in this battle, focused on dismissing the tribes' cultural concerns while ignoring the very real matter of the Makahs' treaty rights -- and thus earned a fully deserved reputation on the reservation as arrogant and disrespectful.

The Makahs are not a wealthy tribe. Because they are stuck in the most remote corner of the lower 48 states -- driving to the reservation can be a real ordeal -- their ability to partake in the recent casino bonanza enjoyed by so many other of their fellow Northwest tribes is virtually nonexistent. (It must also be something of a blow to their traditional pride; the Makahs were a powerful and wealthy tribe, in no small part because of their superior skill as mariners, before the white man's arrival.)

And you can't help but see, when you drive around the reservation lands, that they are just as susceptible as anyone else to economic demands; over the past generation, they've allowed large tracts of their traditional forestlands to be utterly wiped out in clear-cutting operations that are noteworthy for their lack of sound conservation practices, but which no doubt have provided tribal members with some form of incomes. Tribal heritage is cheap talk compared to the need to put food in people's mouths.

Still, there is nothing good to be had from wasting animals, particularly not one so sentient and graceful as a gray whale. That alone should give tribal members pause, especially now that one has been wasted so wantonly.

There is middle ground to be had in this fight, but it requires the whales' advocates to acknowledge that the Makah treaty rights are the critical factor in this situation, as they are in the case of Inuit whale hunts as well (which seem not to draw the same kind of protest, mostly because those are true subsistence hunts). Those treaty rights are a real economic asset and not to be lightly dismissed.

And it will require the tribes recognizing that they live in a big world in which the killing of a great sentient beast like a whale sharply conflicts with the values of their neighbors.

Finding that middle ground, I suspect, will require coming up with a way to allow the Makahs to exercise their right to hunt, and to do so in a way that benefits them economically and socially -- but perhaps nonlethally for the whales. That, however, will also require coming up with real economic incentives to do so.

Whether the warring factions ever come to such terms is speculative at best, and under the current circumstances, it's unlikely. The death of this gray whale could become an opportunity for a change in the dialogue -- or it could become just another notch in the escalating conflict at our northwesternmost corner.

And as always, it seems that innocents, like unsuspecting migrating whales, are the victims of the crossfire.

The swiftboating of American journalism

-- by Dave

Every time I hear a professional journalist bleat about how unreliable and unprofessional bloggers are, it's difficult refrain from indulging a low mordant chuckle. It's not as though the public is falling for this high-and-mighty "we're professionals with standards that matter" schtick much anymore.

As Sam Smith of Scholars and Rogues points out, the bloom has long since departed that particular rose:

-- A 2004 Gallup Poll says “Americans rate the trustworthiness of journalists at about the level of politicians and as only slightly more credible than used-car salesmen.”

-- Only about one in five Americans “believe journalists have high ethical standards, ranking them below auto mechanics but tied with members of Congress.”

-- Only “one in four people believe what they read in the newspapers.”

-- Chicago Tribune Editor Charles M. Madigan says: “If you are a journalist, you should probably just assume that you come across as a liar.”

-- A 1999 American Society of Newspaper Editors survey said that “53 percent of the public view the press as out of touch with mainstream America, while 78 percent think journalists pay more attention to the interests of their editors than their readers.”

-- About 22 percent of respondents to a 2003 Pew survey said they thought “the unethical practices of [Jayson] Blair, which included fabricating sources and events, occur frequently among journalists, while 36 percent said they thought wrongdoing happened occasionally. Another 58 percent believed journalists didn’t care about inaccuracies.”

The fact is that the utter failure of the professional media in America to adequately perform its function as truth-tellers and guardians of the public interest in the past decade has had catastrophic consequences for the country, beginning with 9/11 and continuing through the Iraq war. And it's been that failure which is largely responsible for the rise of the blogosphere and related Web media, especially as the way more and more Americans are getting their information.

Indeed, we've been its sharpest critics, and blogs and sites devoted primarily to media criticism -- particularly those on the left, including The Daily Howler and Media Matters, as well as Eschaton or Hullabaloo -- have become some of the most successful, visible and effective voices on behalf of progressives, especially because they recognize the role the media have in fomenting right-wing crap aimed primarily at demonizing and belittling progressives and their causes.

If you've read these sites over the years, you can't help but be impressed by the mounting evidence of a serious dysfunction in the former profession of ink-stained wretches. The basic pathology is a simple failure to be committed to the truth based on known facts, a pathology that embodies itself in the false middle reporting that offers its audience a fake "balance" between the factual and the fraudulent. But now I think it's reaching the point of metastasis: an epidemic of crisis proportions.

Because now, thanks to figures like CNN's Lou Dobbs and Fox's Bill O'Reilly, it's possible to run completely bogus information and successfully pawn it off as real without paying any consequences whatsoever. Indeed, they can now fob off this false reporting as the highlight of their news broadcasts.

Exhibit A: Alex Koppelman's riveting Salon piece (which, unfortunately, seems to have attracted very little blogospheric attention) on the phenomenal case of the grotesque misreportage, by Dobbs and others, of the cases of two border-patrol agents who were convicted of shooting an escaping border crosser.

You all remember the CNN broadcasts about the case, complete with their own "Border Betrayal" logo, such as the piece in the video above. But as Koppelman explains, the facts of the case are almost completely at variance with the cold facts of the case, particularly as they've emerged in court.

That, however, has not stopped Dobbs and the anti-immigrant crowd:

How did Ramos and Compean get reinvented as right-wing heroes? The answer lies in the way Americans get their information, from a fragmented news media that makes it easier than ever to tune out opposing views and inconvenient truths. When people seek "facts" only from sources with which they agree, it's possible for demonstrable untruths to enter the narrative and remain there unchallenged. The ballad of Ramos and Compean is a story that one side of America's polarized culture has gotten all wrong and that much of the other side -- and the rest of the country -- has never even heard.

A number of people, as Koppelman reports, have played leading roles in this, but Dobbs is unquestionably at the fore:

There are five major players in the transformation of Ramos and Compean from cops who tried to cover up a bad shooting into martyred heroes of the great conservative pushback against illegal immigration. The most important of them is Lou Dobbs, the host of CNN's "Lou Dobbs Tonight." Three other players -- journalist Sara A. Carter, activist Andy Ramirez and union official T.J. Bonner -- are previously obscure figures who appeared on Dobbs' show. The fifth is Jerome Corsi, the conservative commentator who coauthored the book, "Unfit for Command," that launched the Swift-boating of John Kerry. Corsi pushed the cause of Ramos and Compean on the Internet while Dobbs was pushing it on TV. All of them have served as megaphones for the right-wing's counter-narrative of the case.

Lou Dobbs, whose show straddles the line between news and advocacy, has nearly doubled his ratings in the past two years by taking a strong stand against illegal immigration. Almost nightly, he includes an opinionated segment on immigration under such rubrics as "Border Betrayal" and "Busted Border." As soon as he noticed the Ramos and Compean story in August 2006, he became the prime mover in its coverage. His program has so far featured more than 100 segments on the Ramos and Compean case, including interviews with both agents that have been clipped and rebroadcast in other episodes.

Dobbs set the tone for his approach to the Ramos and Compean case with his first segment about the agents, on Aug. 9, 2006. (CNN did not respond to a request for an interview with Dobbs.) He introduced a short interview with Ignacio Ramos by saying, "Support is flooding in from all across the country tonight for two Border Patrol agents in Texas who could be sentenced to 20 years in prison for shooting a Mexican drug smuggler. Amazingly, federal prosecutors allowed the smuggler to walk free." The next day, Dobbs ended a second segment on the agents with one of his famous audience polls. The question for viewers was, "Do you believe the Justice Department should be giving immunity to illegal alien drug smugglers in order to prosecute U.S. Border Patrol agents for breaking administrative regulations? ... Yes or no."

Dobbs has been helped along by his CNN Headline News cohort, Glenn Beck, who actually used the occasion of a report on Ramos and Compean to cast his lot with the John Birch Society. Koppelman details the activities of a number of similarly lesser figures, but notes that one in particular has played a behind-the-scenes role in much of the broader reportage: Jerome Corsi.

Yep, that Jerome Corsi. The fellow behind the "Swift Boat Veterans" scam that crippled John Kerry. His views on immigration, of course, are also well known; he teamed up with Minutemen leader Jim Gilchrist awhile back to write a book about the threat to the nation posed by immigrants. Note that back then, Corsi was evincing deep concern about the plight of border crossers in, er, less than convincing fashion:

"Politicians who believe that illegal immigration can be ignored must realize that Mexicans and others are dying every day along our nation's borders," adds Corsi, whose book "Unfit for Command" played a key role in convincing the American people to reject John Kerry's 2004 presidential bid. "These economic refugees are often abandoned and left to die by the human traffickers and Mexican soldiers who smuggle them across the border. It's nothing less than a tragedy."

But when two Border Patrol agents turn out to be among the people shooting at border crossers, Corsi evidently is not all that sympathetic. To wit, from Koppelman:

Lou Dobbs garners more than 800,000 viewers nightly, and he and guests like Bonner have been primarily responsible for the right's reshaping of the Ramos and Compean story. The case, however, has also been a focus of right-wing obsession on the Internet. Reporter Jerome Corsi has been instrumental in advancing the narrative on the Web. A reporter for WorldNetDaily, Corsi is best-known for his role in the Swift-boat movement. His latest book is "The Late Great USA: The Coming Merger With Mexico and Canada," a long conspiracy theory in which he claims to expose secret plans for a "North American Union" that would combine the three countries into one.

Corsi's most important contribution to the reworked conservative version of the Ramos and Compean case is to attempt to absolve the agents of a coverup. In reality, the incident was only discovered, and the agents prosecuted, because Border Patrol Agent Rene Sanchez, hundreds of miles away in Arizona, heard about it through his mother-in-law. In Corsi's version, however, Ramos and Compean's supervisors knew about the shooting as soon as it happened. Corsi relies on an early, ambiguous memo written by the Department of Homeland Security officer who investigated the shooting; the memo lists the agents' two supervisors among the Border Patrol personnel who were either at the location, helped destroy evidence, "and/or knew/heard about the shooting." The memo apparently refers to the known fact that the supervisors were at the scene of the shooting after it occurred but were not aware that it had occurred. At trial, the defense never tried to claim that the supervisors were present during the shooting, the investigator didn't testify that the supervisors were present at the shooting or had knowledge of it, and the supervisors took the stand themselves to insist they'd had no knowledge of the shooting till after Ramos and Compean were arrested. Compean himself admitted at one internal Border Patrol disciplinary hearing that he didn't report the shooting to his bosses because he didn't want to get in trouble.

Corsi is implying that the supervisors perjured themselves at trial. Contacted by Salon, Corsi stood by his scenario.

Unfortunately, there's been little attention paid yet to Koppelman's report, which is damning indeed, and should be broadly viewed by Dobbs' journalistic peers as an indictment of his journalistic standards. But that hasn't happened. Dobbs continues to play the story as factual, and Ramos and Compean are still martyrs of the nativist right.

Sam Smith, I think, has the perspective right on what's happened: The consolidation and commoditization of the nation's media in the past twenty years and more has significantly diminished its capacity to police itself, particularly when the offenders are major media figureheads and work for ratings-driven organizations like major broadcast news networks and major newspapers:

Regardless of publisher perception or economic reality, though, it’s painfully clear that coverage has deteriorated and that cost-cutting and revenue-rage has been at the core of the problem. A concern for the public interest may continue to exist in the newsroom as an inherent artifact of the essential character common in those drawn to the profession (hard reporting is like teaching - nobody is in it for the money), but it will never again be a primary motivator for the dominant organizations of the industry (if, in fact, it ever was).

The result is a news landscape driven by the logic of profit, not by the logic of public and community interest. Established networks, newspapers and magazines are therefore failing in their mission to provide reliable coverage of the events that shape the lives of their constituents.

This explain what’s happening with the news industry, but what does this have to do with “objectivity”? A couple things, actually. First, historically “journalist” has been a profession with canonized ethics and codes of conduct. It has been the physical embodiment of what reporting was, and objectivity was, in some measure, equivalent to the canons in other professions - like the Hippocratic Oath for doctors or the Lawyer’s Oath for attorneys. If the reporter came through a journalism school these principles were ingrained in his or her education from the first day of class; reporters who arrived in the newsroom via other paths got a quick and heavy dose of on-the-job training.

There’s nowhere else I’m aware of where these principles are being taught, so as the traditional institutions fade, so also do the professional codes that defined the activities of those who worked there.

Second, those codes seems to matter less and less even in the legacy organizations. Review the SPJ ethics code, then see how well you think the people at FOX, CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, and even places like USA Today are adhering to them. Those reporters may not be the models of professional behavior we wish they were, but they’re smart enough to know that while they’re not going to get fired for trampling an ethics code, they’re out the door the instant ratings and readership slip.

'Swiftboating', since the Kerry campaign, has come to representing a kind of pirating of the truth for partisan purposes. It's often seen primarily as a kind of campaign tactic, a way of undermining an opponent's message.

But it cannot succeed without the acquiesence of a lazy and compliant media dedicated more to ratings, horse races and beauty contests than to their duties as guardians of the public discourse. What 'Swiftboating' really reflects is the abject failure of journalists to reject this for the obvious propaganda strategy it is and to fulfill their obligations to truthfulness.

And it can't be any more painfully manifested than in the phony reportage on Ramos and Compean.

What's Lynching Got To Do With The Price of Cotton?

-- by Sara

Via Will Shetterly, this Livejournal entry, written last month by loligo:

As early as 1940, social scientists noticed that if you looked at the history of the Deep South, whenever cotton prices fell, lynchings tended to jump. The link seems to pass what one of my professors used to call "the intra-ocular trauma test" ("It hits you right between the eyes!"), but in the decades since then, the size, the meaning, and indeed the very existence of that link have been debated.

Today we have many more sophisticated statistical techniques on hand than we did in the 1940's. In 1990 in the American Sociological Review, Stewart Tolney and E.M. Beck published what is probably the definitive study of the cotton/lynching connection for the years 1882-1930. Importantly, they controlled for price changes due to inflation (among many other variables). They found that when they examined the price of cotton in constant dollars, falling prices meant more lynchings and rising prices meant fewer. However, when the price of cotton rose as part of general inflation, lynchings increased.

In the "King Cotton" regions of the South in that era, there was a dramatic economic gulf between the major planters and employers on the one hand (all white), and the day laborers, sharecroppers, and tenant farmers on the other (some white and some black). Predictably, the black workers were on average even poorer than the whites. So when cotton prices dropped, white and black workers shared all the typical stressors of poverty, though in differing amounts. But this economic pressure brought about another stressor for African-Americans that was completely absent for whites: increased risk of being murdered by an angry mob.

...[T]his study of lynchings shows that race can play a dynamic role in the maintenance of class systems. It certainly worked out well for the white elite, didn't it, that poor whites chose to ally themselves with wealthy whites in racial oppression of poor blacks, rather than making common cause with the blacks against their economic oppressors? I don't know much about the history of progressive movements in the US, but Tolnay & Beck say that there was a brief time at the beginning of the Populist movement when whites and blacks *were* starting to work together... before someone, somewhere stirred shit up, and the Populist movement became radically racist, and the first great wave of lynchings was unleashed.

The "brief wave" was indeed at the very beginning, back in the 1880s when the first Populist stirrings were starting to rise out of a series of financial panics that left American farmers in dire straits. In the years after the Civil War, as James Loewen has pointed out, there was hardly a town of any size in the country that didn't have at least a handful of African-Americans trying to make a go of it -- often, quite successfully. They were the Populist movement's natural allies -- until that "first great wave of lynchings," which really began to take off around 1890, gathered momentum, and swept throughout the South for the next 60 years. (In the North and West, this is also when sundowning began in earnest.)

It's old news that economic stress increases tension between the various working classes in America. But this study brings up a couple points that shed some new light on where we find ourselves today.

First, the study is striking in that it shows very directly how a poorly-performing economy correlates with extreme forms of racial violence. Whether it's violence against African-Americans in the South during the lynching years, Asians on the West Coast in the first part of the 20th century, or Mexicans in today's faltering market, a depressed white working class always means those just below them in the economic pecking order are sitting ducks for a wave of vigilante violence. The more you look at the history, the clearer it appears that the cause-and-effect relationship is both ubiquitous and inevitable. It's a fact of American life that whenever the economy tanks, people of color are going to pay the price in blood.

Right now, of course, the wealth gap in this country is yawning ever-wider. It's as big now as it was during the 1920s heyday of sundowning and lynching across the country. And so we shouldn't be surprised to find "Minutemen" and other racists threatening (and, occasionally, actually committing) violence against Mexican workers -- usually without much regard for their legal status. When you get this many have-nots, there are only two ways to go. They're either going to turn on each other -- or organize.

Which brings me to my second point. This kind of violence has always been instigated with a hard shove from the economic royalists, who would rather have the lower classes killing each other on the courthouse lawns rather than going inside the courthouses to challenge the structural inequalities they find so profitable. We know the Minutemen are backed by wealthy supporters, who are using the group to promote exactly the same kind of racial scapegoating that tore apart the early Populists -- and, no doubt, for exactly the same reasons. Now, as ever, divide-and-conquer is proving to be a handy-dandy little trick that never fails to prevent people with similar economic interests from recognizing their common concerns, and pulling together for real, long-term change.

We've seen this trick so many times before that you'd think we'd be onto it by now. But, now as ever: when the price of cotton falls, the number of lynchings rises. And somehow, the people who actually created both the gross inequalities and the racial animosities that lead to this kind of violence never seem to be the ones who actually end up swinging on the end of the rope.

------------------------

Back last June, I wrote a piece on how the ghosts of that wave of lynching still haunt communities throughout the South; and the ways that some of these towns are starting to confront that past -- and move beyond it at long last -- using the truth and reconciliation process. My homie Lower Manhattanite over at The Group News Blog has written a story from the inside about the ways this old history lingers on, poisoning families and communities even to this day. It's long -- his stuff always is -- but, even more than usual, it's worth every minute of your time.

It's Freddie. Of Hollywood.

-- by Dave

So now we find out that Fred Thompson's real name is Freddie.

It's been a family secret for many, many years, uncovered only by the most diligent reporting. Few people know this. But Fred Thompson's actual first name isn't Fred.

It's really Freddie. No, seriously.

Official marriage, birth and divorce records in Alabama and Tennessee show that the newest Republican presidential contender was born Freddie Dalton Thompson. (His mother, who lives outside Nashville, refuses to explain how this came to be.)

But Thompson was known as Freddie growing up in Lawrence County, Tenn. And he used the Freddie name all the way through college and all the way through law school.

Given that we've already taken to the "Frederick of Hollywood" moniker, I wonder if Thompson's image isn't going to be morphing into another shape ...



Nightmare on Elm Street, indeed.

A Rendezvous With Destiny

-- by Sara

One of the most important tasks confronting us as we rebuild American progressivism is reclaiming our own long, rich heritage. It's astonishing, when you look through popular history books or watch what's presented on TV (if you watch the so-called "History Channel," you easily get the idea that American history started in 1941 and ended in 1945), to realize that there's a vast, deep, and important current of liberal history that has flowed straight down the memory hole.

We may be the first Enlightenment nation -- but all traces of that radical impulse have been carefully, consciously excised from the stories we tell ourselves about who we are, and what's desirable and possible in the world. Other generations have faced down these same tyrants -- and yet we can't even name most of them, let alone recount how how they did it. And it costs us, because without those stories, we have far less confidence in our ability to fight that battle once again.

(If you're looking for a basic education, David Sirota's Labor Day post offers an excellent book list to start with.)

A week ago, I invoked two of these lost liberals -- Robert Ingersoll and Ernestine Rose, rock stars of their day whose words and example are now utterly lost to modern Americans. Today, in celebration of Labor Day, I'd like to do some more of this -- this time, by resurrecting one of the greatest liberal speeches we've ever forgotten.

Franklin Roosevelt gave this speech when he accepted the nomination at the 1936 Democratic Convention in Philadelphia. It describes our current crisis at least as well as it described the one America faced then. Among other things, the speech included a sentence-- "This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny" -- that became the rallying cry of the GI generation as they moved ahead to rebuild first the country, and then the world.

I offer it as a reminder that we have been here before, and fought our way back. And also how essential it is, at moments like these, to have Democratic leaders who are willing to stand before the country and tell us exactly how we got here, name those responsible, and explain specifically how we're going to defeat them. We're not going to make it through this without an FDR of our own to shine the light.

Here's the speech.

Senator Robinson, Members of the Democratic Convention, My Friends: Here, and in every community throughout the land, we are met at a time of great moment to the future of the nation. It is an occasion to be dedicated to the simple and sincere expression of an attitude toward problems, the determination of which will profoundly affect America.

I come not only as a leader of a party, not only as a candidate for high office, but as one upon whom many critical hours have imposed and still impose a grave responsibility.

For the sympathy, help and confidence with which Americans have sustained me in my task I am grateful. For their loyalty I salute the members of our great party, in and out of political life in every part of the Union. I salute those of other parties, especially those in the Congress of the United States who on so many occasions have put partisanship aside. I thank the governors of the several states, their legislatures, their state and local officials who participated unselfishly and regardless of party in our efforts to achieve recovery and destroy abuses. Above all I thank the millions of Americans who have borne disaster bravely and have dared to smile through the storm.

America will not forget these recent years, will not forget that the rescue was not a mere party task. It was the concern of all of us. In our strength we rose together, rallied our energies together, applied the old rules of common sense, and together survived.

In those days we feared fear. That was why we fought fear. And today, my friends, we have won against the most dangerous of our foes. We have conquered fear.

But I cannot, with candor, tell you that all is well with the world. Clouds of suspicion, tides of ill-will and intolerance gather darkly in many places. In our own land we enjoy indeed a fullness of life greater than that of most nations. But the rush of modern civilization itself has raised for us new difficulties, new problems which must be solved if we are to preserve to the United States the political and economic freedom for which Washington and Jefferson planned and fought.

Philadelphia is a good city in which to write American history. This is fitting ground on which to reaffirm the faith of our fathers; to pledge ourselves to restore to the people a wider freedom; to give to 1936 as the founders gave to 1776 - an American way of life.

That very word freedom, in itself and of necessity, suggests freedom from some restraining power. In 1776 we sought freedom from the tyranny of a political autocracy - from the eighteenth-century royalists who held special privileges from the crown. It was to perpetuate their privilege that they governed without the consent of the governed; that they denied the right of free assembly and free speech; that they restricted the worship of God; that they put the average man's property and the average man's life in pawn to the mercenaries of dynastic power; that they regimented the people.

And so it was to win freedom from the tyranny of political autocracy that the American Revolution was fought. That victory gave the business of governing into the hands of the average man, who won the right with his neighbors to make and order his own destiny through his own government. Political tyranny was wiped out at Philadelphia on July 4, 1776.

Since that struggle, however, man's inventive genius released new forces in our land which reordered the lives of our people. The age of machinery, of railroads; of steam and electricity; the telegraph and the radio; mass production, mass distribution - all of these combined to bring forward a new civilization and with it a new problem for those who sought to remain free.

For out of this modern civilization economic royalists carved new dynasties. New kingdoms were built upon concentration of control over material things. Through new uses of corporations, banks and securities, new machinery of industry and agriculture, of labor and capital - all undreamed of by the Fathers - the whole structure of modern life was impressed into this royal service.

There was no place among this royalty for our many thousands of small-businessmen and merchants who sought to make a worthy use of the American system of initiative and profit. They were no more free than the worker or the farmer. Even honest and progressive-minded men of wealth, aware of their obligation to their generation, could never know just where they fitted into this dynastic scheme of things.

It was natural and perhaps human that the privileged princes of these new economic dynasties, thirsting for power, reached out for control over government itself. They created a new despotism and wrapped it in the robes of legal sanction. In its service new mercenaries sought to regiment the people, their labor, and their property. And as a result the average man once more confronts the problem that faced the Minute Man.

The hours men and women worked, the wages they received, the conditions of their labor - these had passed beyond the control of the people, and were imposed by this new industrial dictatorship. The savings of the average family, the capital of the small-businessmen, the investments set aside for old age - other people's money - these were tools which the new economic royalty used to dig itself in.

Those who tilled the soil no longer reaped the rewards which were their right. The small measure of their gains was decreed by men in distant cities.

Throughout the nation, opportunity was limited by monopoly. Individual initiative was crushed in the cogs of a great machine. The field open for free business was more and more restricted. Private enterprise, indeed, became too private. It became privileged enterprise, not free enterprise.

An old English judge once said: "Necessitous men are not free men." Liberty requires opportunity to make a living - a living decent according to the standard of the time, a living which gives man not only enough to live by, but something to live for.

For too many of us the political equality we once had won was meaningless in the face of economic inequality. A small group had concentrated into their own hands an almost complete control over other people's property, other people's money, other people's labor - other people's lives. For too many of us life was no longer free; liberty no longer real; men could no longer follow the pursuit of happiness.

Against economic tyranny such as this, the American citizen could appeal only to the organized power of government. The collapse of 1929 showed up the despotism for what it was. The election of 1932 was the people's mandate to end it. Under that mandate it is being ended.

The royalists of the economic order have conceded that political freedom was the business of the government, but they have maintained that economic slavery was nobody's business. They granted that the government could protect the citizen in his right to vote, but they denied that the government could do anything to protect the citizen in his right to work and his right to live.

Today we stand committed to the proposition that freedom is no half-and-half affair. If the average citizen is guaranteed equal opportunity in the polling place, he must have equal opportunity in the market place.

These economic royalists complain that we seek to overthrow the institutions of America. What they really complain of is that we seek to take away their power. Our allegiance to American institutions requires the overthrow of this kind of power. In vain they seek to hide behind the flag and the Constitution. In their blindness they forget what the flag and the Constitution stand for. Now, as always, they stand for democracy, not tyranny; for freedom, not subjection; and against a dictatorship by mob rule and the over-privileged alike.

The brave and clear platform adopted by this convention, to which I heartily subscribe, sets forth that government in a modern civilization has certain inescapable obligations to its citizens, among which are protection of the family and the home, the establishment of a democracy of opportunity, and aid to those overtaken by disaster.

But the resolute enemy within our gates is ever ready to beat down our words unless in greater courage we will fight for them.

For more than three years we have fought for them. This convention, in every word and deed, has pledged that the fight will go on.

The defeats and victories of these years have given to us as a people a new understanding of our government and of ourselves. Never since the early days of the New England town meeting have the affairs of government been so widely discussed and so clearly appreciated. It has been brought home to us that the only effective guide for the safety of this most worldly of worlds, the greatest guide of all, is moral principle.

We do not see faith, hope, and charity as unattainable ideals, but we use them as stout supports of a nation fighting the fight for freedom in a modern civilization.

Faith - in the soundness of democracy in the midst of dictatorships.

Hope - renewed because we know so well the progress we have made.

Charity - in the true spirit of that grand old word. For charity literally translated from the original means love, the love that understands, that does not merely share the wealth of the giver, but in true sympathy and wisdom helps men to help themselves.

We seek not merely to make government a mechanical implement, but to give it the vibrant personal character that is the very embodiment of human charity. We are poor indeed if this nation cannot afford to lift from every recess of American life the dread fear of the unemployed that they are not needed in the world. We cannot afford to accumulate a deficit in the books of human fortitude.

In the place of the palace of privilege we seek to build a temple out of faith and hope and charity.

It is a sobering thing, my friends, to be a servant of this great cause. We try in our daily work to remember that the cause belongs not to us, but to the people. The standard is not in the hands of you and me alone. It is carried by America. We seek daily to profit from experience, to learn to do better as our task proceeds.

Governments can err, presidents do make mistakes, but the immortal Dante tells us that Divine justice weighs the sins of the cold-blooded and the sins of the warm-hearted on different scales.

Better the occasional faults of a government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.

There is a mysterious cycle in human events. To some generations much is given. Of other generations much is expected. This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.

In this world of our in other lands, there are some people, who, in times past, have lived and fought for freedom, and seem to have grown too weary to carry on the fight. They have sold their heritage of freedom for the illusion of a living. They have yielded their democracy.

I believe in my heart that only our success can stir their ancient hope. They begin to know that here in America we are waging a great and successful war. It is not alone a war against want and destitution and economic demoralization. It is more than that; it is a war for the survival of democracy. We are fighting to save a great and precious form of government for ourselves and for the world.

I accept the commission you have tendered me. I join with you. I am enlisted for the duration of the war.

Happy Labor Day. Don't just barbecue. Organize. We have our own rendezvous with destiny. And we are also enlisted for the duration of the war.

Crossposted at The Group News Blog.

The new 'sundown towns'

-- by Dave

I've been reporting off and on about various local efforts to drive out Latino immigrants, or at least make their presence unwelcome, that have been occurring at various locales around the country, usually accompanied by hateful behavior and demonization targeting Latinos in the community.

It's become self-evident that a trend is taking shape. Nezua at the Unapologetic Mexican the other day pulled up a New York Times piece from earlier this month that laid out the scope and nature of the trend:

It’s in places like Carpentersville where we may be witnessing the opening of a deep and profound fissure in the American landscape. Over the past two years, more than 40 local and state governments have passed ordinances and legislation aimed at making life miserable for illegal immigrants in the hope that they’ll have no choice but to return to their countries of origin. Deportation by attrition, some call it. One of the first ordinances was passed in Hazleton, Pa., and was meant to bar illegal immigrants from living and working there. It served as a model for many local officials across the country, including Sigwalt and Humpfer. On July 26, a federal judge struck down Hazleton’s ordinance, but the town’s mayor, Lou Barletta, plans to appeal the decision. “This battle is far from over,” he declared the day of the ruling. States and towns have looked for other ways to crack down on illegal immigrants. Last month, Prince William County in northern Virginia passed a resolution trying to curb illegal immigrants’ access to public services. Waukegan, another Illinois town, has voted to apply for a federal program that would allow its police to begin deportation charges against those who are here illegally. A week after the Senate failed to pass comprehensive immigration reform, Arizona’s governor, Janet Napolitano, signed into law an act penalizing businesses that knowingly hire undocumented immigrants. “One of the practical effects of this failure” to enact national immigration reform, Napolitano wrote to the Congressional leadership, “is that Arizona, and states across the nation, must now continue to address this escalating problem on their own.” Admittedly, the constitutionality of many of these new laws is still in question, and some of the state bills and local ordinances simply duplicate what’s already in force nationally. But with Congress’s inability to reach an agreement on an immigration bill, the debate will continue among local officials like those in Carpentersville, where the wrangling often seems less about illegal immigration than it does about whether new immigrants are assimilating quickly enough, if at all. In Carpentersville, the rancor has turned neighbor against neighbor. Once you scrape away the acid rhetoric, though, there’s much people actually agree on — but given the ugliness of the taunts and assertions, it’s unlikely that will ever emerge.

That's especially the case because the anti-immigrant campaign has dredged up the ugliest side of the American psyche:

Many of the Hispanic residents I spoke with achieved citizenship as a result of the national amnesty offered in 1986, but they’d grown up in households where their parents instructed them to be measured and cautious in their activities. That may, in part, have accounted for the low voter turnout in Carpentersville. Indeed, early on, Roeser told me he was “surprised the Hispanic citizens didn’t get more vocal, saying, ‘This is our town too.’ ” But some of that changed when, the day before the election, 2,000 families in town received a flier. It read, in part:

Are you tired of waiting to pay for your groceries while Illegal Aliens pay with food stamps and then go outside and get in a $40,000 car?

Are you tired of paying taxes when Illegal Aliens pay NONE!

Are you tired of reading that another Illegal Alien was arrested for drug dealing?

Are you tired of having to punch 1 for English?

Are you tired of seeing multiple families in our homes?

Are you tired of not being able to use Carpenter Park on the weekend, because it is over run by Illegal Aliens?

Are you tired of seeing the Mexican Flag flown above our Flag?

If you are as tired as me then let’s get out and Vote for the: All American Team ... Finally a team that will help us take back our town!

This tract, which was sent out by a key supporter of Sigwalt and Humpfer, and with the knowledge of Humpfer, became a marker of sorts, a moment when the wedge was driven so deep (one resident told me, “It’s kind of like the Grand Canyon”) that there would be no easy reconciliation. Most Hispanics didn’t learn of the flier until after the election, but it so offended many of them — especially those who were American citizens and had a foothold in the middle class — that even those who’d never been politically active began heading out to the village meetings to gauge firsthand the mood of their neighbors. What so alarmed them is that it felt less like a debate on illegal immigration than it did a condemnation of Hispanic culture.

Much of the recent discussion of immigration has focused on the immigrants' alleged criminality, a claim that is not borne out by the actual research, which shows clearly that Latino immigrants are largely law-abiding and conservative arrivals. That hasn't stopped the nativists, however, who never saw a handy falsehood they could bear to stop using -- even when it's been clearly disproven:

Sigwalt and Humpfer’s main arguments for ridding the town of illegal immigrants come down to this: their presence has led to both rising crime and overcrowded schools. As it turns out, however, the crime rate in Carpentersville has actually been cut in half over the past 10 years; and while the schools were, indeed, overcrowded four to five years ago (when Antonia Garcia moved her family out), class sizes have now been reduced — although it did require the passage of a tax referendum.

This is all too reminiscent of the "sundown town" phenomenon -- the trend throughout much of non-urban America from 1890-1960 to drive out nonwhites by attempting to forbid them to live within their borders, either by excluding them from housing or from having ordinances that forbade them from setting foot in their towns after dark.

And contrary to common conception, the vast majority of these towns were outside the South, in the Northeast and the Midwest and the West particularly. The South used Jim Crow laws to oppress nonwhites; the rest of the nation simply forced them out of their communities.

And, as I've noted previously, it is not be mere coincidence that many of the places where anti-immigrant scapegoating is reaching a fever pitch happen to be the same reaches of the country where there used to be "sundown" signs in abundance. These were defended white communities that saw the arrival of nonwhites as an "invasion" that threatened their well-being; and though most of these communities have effectively erased all memories of their old sundown signs and ordinances, their longtime tradition of being "defended" communities remains very much intact. That's why they find it so easy to propose and pass laws that attempt to keep out Latinos.

However, their efforts may in this day and age prove futile. As the SPLC's Mary Bauer has explained, measures like these have little chance of remaining on the books because they are so clearly unconstitutional and violate numerous state and federal laws, as well as their clearly vicious intent. What uniformly happens to the laws is that they are overturned, and the communities are forced to pay very costly compensation for their efforts.

More importantly, they've effectively erected racial walls within their communities. And they'll be paying for those -- in distrust, disharmony, and a gaping social divide -- for years to come.