tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-70018708795344521322024-03-14T04:27:07.095-07:00Zacstravaganza!Zachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00977280731502216845noreply@blogger.comBlogger150125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7001870879534452132.post-55193372145232972292013-03-12T06:26:00.002-07:002013-05-22T07:39:04.441-07:00Reconciling Executive Power and Due Process in the Age of Drone Warfare<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The recent
disclosure of documents pertaining to the drone strike against terrorist Anwar
al-Awlaki have augured a grand debate
on when – if ever – it is legal for the government to kill a citizen of the
United States on the suspicion of terrorism. This controversy has spawned the
strangest of bedfellows: Obama administration loyalists and Republican hawks
are contending that the Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy does hold the
power to order the killing of a U.S. citizen; a faction of Tea Party
Republicans led by Senator Rand Paul and civil libertarian Democrats are arguing that
that the President’s wartime powers have gone too far.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>This debate
raises so many emotions, and has already raised so many accusations of
hypocrisy and lack of principle that one ought to cast aside for a moment one’s
partisan affiliation and try to analyze this controversy within the objective
standpoint of the law. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>When jurists
assess the limits of presidential power, they look to Justice Robert Jackson’s
concurrence in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.oyez.org/cases/1950-1959/1951/1951_744">Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer</a></i>, the 1952 case in which the Supreme Court decided that
President Truman had exceeded his Article II powers when he ordered the seizure
of the steel mills in the midst of the Korean War. Justice Jackson laid out a
formula to evaluate the separation of wartime powers between the legislative
and executive branches, because <a href="http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articlei">Article I § 8</a> states that Congress shall have
the power to declare war, but <a href="http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/commander_in_chief_powers">Article II § 2</a> states that the President shall be
the “Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy"; i.e., the President has the authority to command the troops as to the specifics of how they shall conduct the war.<br />
<br />
Justice Jackson explained that when the
President acts pursuant to an express or implied authorization of Congress, his
authority is at its maximum because the President has the inherent authority of
the Commander in Chief to wage war plus Congress’s declaration of war or
authorization of military force. When the President acts in absence of
Congressional authorization or denial of authority, he can only rely upon the
chief executive’s inherent military authority under the Commander in Chief
Clause. However, when the President acts in a manner “incompatible with the
expressed or implied will of Congress, his power is at its lowest ebb, for then
he can rely only upon his own constitutional powers minus any constitutional
powers of Congress over the matter". I.e. the President cannot wage war in
a manner explicitly prohibited by Congress. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>So far as drone
warfare goes, the Obama administration has relied upon the <a href="http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/PLAW-107publ40/html/PLAW-107publ40.htm">2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force</a> that Congress passed in the wake of the 9/11 attacks,
enabling the Bush administration to exert military power against the al-Qaeda
terrorist network. The 2001 AUMF explicitly authorizes the President: </div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">to
use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations,
or persons he determines planned, authorized, </span><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">committed,
or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored
such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of
international terrorism against the United States by such nations,
organizations or persons. </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_Oznz2mVjPSrpYO-ADJXCPahuSH3Tq4vxGjOPySTYN6_J4jsbvPGqGJg4LQUl93NZ05ZGJApl3sPMHHCllt451xB1STHtvL2fTqbhp1tNTmk_udDPwtLNzSTWBVD1hrh8j5r2lldZc1s/s1600/Anwar+al-Awlaki.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><o:p></o:p></i></div>
<em></em><br />
More than a decade later, the 2001 AUMF has allowed the Obama administration to continue waging land warfare against al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan, it has allowed the White House to order the commando operation in Pakistan that killed Osama bin Laden, and a multitude of drone strikes against al-Qaeda operatives in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia. According to Jackson’s concurrence in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co</i>. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">v. Sawyer, </i>the President’s authority to wage war against al-Qaeda terrorists is at its constitutional maximum. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisQbN0-6NYYU89vGvrzm89rp35Ay16ajycM2g6gxiEYIKq3SA0kwWhCIdjlI6gjSX7Uf39CIrGvxvOuktplxV1iiGObdDoYyBnocb3OYlxDa76OSMeoGpL-6_vg_Gd5jwzNI-w-VGUZCw/s1600/Anwar+al-Awlaki.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisQbN0-6NYYU89vGvrzm89rp35Ay16ajycM2g6gxiEYIKq3SA0kwWhCIdjlI6gjSX7Uf39CIrGvxvOuktplxV1iiGObdDoYyBnocb3OYlxDa76OSMeoGpL-6_vg_Gd5jwzNI-w-VGUZCw/s320/Anwar+al-Awlaki.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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<div style="text-align: left;">
Enter stage
left Anwar al-Awlaki. Born in New Mexico, Awlaki was a citizen of the United
States, according to the Fourteenth Amendment, and entitled to due process of
law. Though Awlaki long ago left American soil and took up residence in the remote
Shabwa territory of Yemen, where he gained prominence on YouTube and the official
al-Qaeda Internet magazine <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Insight</i>,
spreading his message that killing Americans, soldiers and civilians alike, is
“an Islamic duty.” But it would be a gross understatement to say that Anwar
al-Awlaki was persecuted for exercising his First Amendment rights. In his
emails, Awlaki solicited <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Hood_shooting">Major Nidal Malik Hassan</a> to shoot 13
and wounded 29 U.S. Army soldiers at the cafeteria at Ft. Hood. Awlaki recruited
and trained <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umar_Farouk_Abdulmutallab">Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab</a> a.k.a. “The Underwear Bomber” to detonate
plastic explosives aboard a Northwest Airlines Flight 253 from Amsterdam to
Detroit. Awlaki was also behind the foiled plot to send packages with
remotely-detonating <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_planes_bomb_plot">PETN explosives</a> to Jewish synagogues in Chicago, and Faisal
Shahzad’s <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Times_Square_car_bombing_attempt">attempted car-bombing of Times Square</a>. Hence by January, 2010, the
Obama administration queried the legality of applying military force to Anwar
al-Awlaki. </div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I will
agree with my civil libertarian compatriots like <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MwjvOxSgic">Rand Paul</a> and the <a href="http://www.aclu.org/national-security/predator-drone-foia">ACLU</a> that
the killing of Awlaki is troubling because the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments
promise citizens of the United States due process of law, the Sixth Amendment
promises the right of a criminal defendant to trial by jury, to confront one’s
incriminating witnesses, and to be represented by counsel, etc. When a U.S. citizen, e.g. <a href="http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/mcveigh/mcveightrial.html">Timothy McVeigh</a>, commits a terrorist attack killing other
U.S. citizens on American soil, the Bill of Rights prohibits the government
from summarily executing him. McVeigh was entitled to due process under law, so U.S.
Attorneys indicted Tim McVeigh in a federal court, a jury convicted him of 168
counts of murder, and a judge sentenced McVeigh to be executed by lethal injection.
Casting aside any questions about the legitimacy of the death penalty, that is
how the federal government ought to prosecute domestic terrorists according to
the Constitution. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>As former
Congressman Ron Paul has suggested, why didn’t the Department of Justice
prosecute Anwar al-Awlaki on terrorism charges like they did with Tim McVeigh?
There were some practical considerations. Unlike McVeigh – who was arrested by
Oklahoma State Troopers while he was driving on the highway – Awlaki chose to
hide in the remote hinterlands of civil war-ravaged Yemen, where the central
government has no de facto power, there is no functioning state that
could have arrested Awlaki and extradited him to the U.S. for criminal prosecution.
The rules of due process accorded to criminal defendants in the U.S. were duly
inapplicable. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Even had
Awlaki been waging his jihad from the mountains of Colorado or New Mexico,
where U.S. criminal law does apply, the other factor to be considered is that
Anwar al-Awlaki had created what is known to criminal law practitioners as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">exigent circumstances</i>. Awlaki had
intentionally created an emergency situation in which U.S. law enforcement
agents are allowed to take extraordinary measures to protect the safety of the
officer and the public – including the use of deadly force. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
Generally speaking, police officers
can’t just act as judge, jury, and executioner and simply shoot every suspected
criminal and shoot to kill. But if someone points a gun at a police officer, that
police officer is authorized by law to shoot that person - as they did to <a href="http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20130310/east-flatbush/police-fatally-shoot-allegedly-armed-teenager-brooklyn">Kimani Gray</a> in East Flatbush this week. If an armed robber has a gun in his
hands and appears to create an imminent threat, the NYPD is authorized to shoot
that armed robber. If <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/13/darrius-kennedy-shooting-nypd-defends-killing-man-knife-times-square_n_1772144.html">Darrius Kennedy</a> is wielding a butcher knife in a crowd in Times Square and threatening
to kill innocent bystanders, the NYPD is allowed – or more accurately, obligated – to shoot that person in order to subdue them. When FBI agents cornered on-the-lamb serial killer <a href="http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Standoff-continues-after-rampage-4354255.php">Kurt Myers</a> in a bar in Herkimer, New York, and Myers fired his shotgun at an FBI dog, FBI agents returned fire and killed Myers. In such an <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">exigent
circumstance</i>, the question about due process is not whether the police had
a warrant for the suspect’s arrest or whether the would-be cop killer was tried
by a jury of his peers – the question about due process is whether the police
adhered to the proper <a href="http://ksapublications.info/updates/Mar10PatrolGuideUpdate.pdf">protocol</a>. Did the police give the suspect proper notice
and an opportunity to surrender? Did the police reasonably believe that the suspect had drawn a deadly weapon? Did
the police reasonably anticipate an imminent threat to themselves or to the
public? Did the police use excessive force? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
So if the NYPC is licensed to shoot
to kill Darrius Kennedy as he is wielding a knife in Times Square, can the NYPD
shoot to kill Faisal Shahzad as he attempts to detonate his car bomb in Times
Square? If police officers were licensed to shoot to kill Kimani Gray when he
pointed a revolver in their face, couldn’t soldiers in the U.S. Army shoot to
kill Nidal Malik Hassan as he is shooting up their cafeteria at Ft. Hood? If
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is on a plane trying to detonate plastic explosives,
couldn’t an Air Marshall stand up and shoot to kill that terrorist? Absolutely.
In reality, the FBI arrested Shahzad at the airport as he was trying to leave
the country; Hassan and Abdulmutallab were tackled and subdued on the scene.
Shahzad and Abdulmutallab have been convicted and sentenced to life sentences
with no possibility of parole; Hassan is awaiting trial by court martial. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
So what about Anwar al-Awlaki, the
guy who reportedly commanded the Ft. Hood shooter, the “Underwear Bomber”, and
the attempted Times Square bomber? Two out of three of his most notable minions
have been apprehended and tried according to due process, why couldn’t a U.S.
Attorney have tried Awlaki <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">in absentia</i>?
Or why couldn’t Obama have sent a team of Special Forces to capture Awlaki in his
remote Yemeni sanctuary and bring him back to U.S. territory for criminal
prosecution like all of the other common criminals? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
The latter scenario might have been
vastly superior to the drone strike that did in fact kill Awlaki, for it would
have agreed with our system of due process and the rule of law. Many people
feel quite uneasy with the idea that the President of the United States can
simply order the assassination of suspected terrorists, let alone a U.S.
citizen. It sounds infinitely creepy.</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Nevertheless, was President Obama’s action
unconstitutional? Not at all, because Congress authorized this kind of action. The
President could rely on both the 2001 AUMF and his inherent military powers as
Commander in Chief. <o:p> </o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Was it illegal to shoot Anwar
al-Awlaki with a drone aircraft? No, there is no law on the
books adequately governing the use of flying robots. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p> </o:p><br />
<br />
Therefore, going back to<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co.</i>, according to the inherent authority under the Commander in Chief Clause plus the explicit authorization under the 2001 AUMF, President Obama's authority to order a drone attack against Anwar al-Awlaki was at its constitutional maximum. <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>What about the violations of the
constitutional protections of due process? The CIA saw Awlaki’s lethal
potential and deemed him an imminent threat. Even if the CIA did not know that
Awlaki had in his hand the detonator for a new bomb mailed from Yemen to Chicago
at the very moment the drone missile was launched, it was reasonable to believe
that he did. Even if it might have been possible for Special Forces to
helicopter into Awlaki’s compound to capture or kill him <em>Zero Dark Thirty</em>-style, such a mission might have been logistically impossible because it was reasonable for the CIA to believe
that Awlaki might have booby-trapped his lair to go out with a bang. In comparison, President Obama
reportedly considered simply <a href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=web&cd=3&ved=0CEAQFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wired.com%2Fdangerroom%2F2012%2F10%2Fbowden-bin-laden%2F&ei=Lzc_Uf2kHMaB0AGXzIHYAw&usg=AFQjCNHsxHxrS6P-i0gGUXF5zZI3HsKb-A&sig2=ti07waF2wmQMvlVmNgUddw&bvm=bv.43287494,d.dmQ">bombing Osama bin Laden’s Abottabad hideaway</a> with
cruise missiles but decided to pursue the riskier Special Forces mission. The Commander in Chief Clause of Article II
grants the President the authority to ultimately make these kind of decisions
on the optimal choice of military tactics.<o:p> </o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It appears that they most applicable question of
whether the government violated anyone’s due process in <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/10/world/middleeast/anwar-al-awlaki-a-us-citizen-in-americas-cross-hairs.html?pagewanted=all">the drone action against Anwar al-Awlaki</a> was whether the federal government applied excessive
force. It is quite a grave concern whether it was necessary for the CIA to also
kill Samir Khan – the editor of al-Qaeda’s online magazine <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Inspire</i>. It is also a question whether it was necessary to kill by
drone strike Awlaki’s son Abdulrahman when he came to Yemen a month later.<br />
<br />
But
was it excessive force to kill Anwar al-Awlaki by drone missile? Maybe. For comparison, civilians were killed in the 2011 raid
to capture or kill Osama bin Laden, tens of civilians have died as a result of the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan from 2001 through 2013. And it also
might require a willing suspension of disbelief to call a paid employee of al-Qaeda a “civilian.”<o:p> </o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>This is how a generally civil
libertarian-minded law student can be both concerned with the Obama
administration’s use of drone warfare but understand the legality of killing
Anwar al-Awlaki. It raises serious questions about legality and
constitutionality, but it appears that the President also raised his concerns
about this unique quandary, he asked for the Justice Department to research the
legality of using a drone strike against a U.S. citizen deemed to be an
imminent terrorist threat against Americans, and the DoJ gave him a memo of sound legal reasoning. Its conclusion that the President can legally order
the killing of a U.S. citizen anywhere in the world by flying robot sounds like somewhat Orwellian - but it is correct. According to the laws on the books,
the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki was legal. <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>So how is it that this law
student can be content with the Obama administration’s extrajudicial killing of
Anwar al-Awlaki while I howled at the Bush administration’s use of indefinite
detentions without trial at Guantánamo Bay and torture at Abu Ghraib? The
Constitution and statute make a distinction between the rights of an enemy
combatant who is still on the battlefield waging war against the United States
and a prisoner of war in U.S. custody, between a suspected murderer who is
still at large, posing an imminent threat against Americans and a suspected murderer sitting in a jail cell. The state can
kill the former without a trial by jury but not the latter. What the Obama administration did was
legal, whereas what the Bush administration did was illegal.<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
Though this author believes
that the Obama administration adhered to the law when it orderered a drone strike against Anwar al-Awlaki, that does not mean that this
author is blithely unconcerned with the law as it now stands. Tea Party
Republicans like Rand Paul and liberal Democrats such as myself are both
concerned about the laws on the books are such that the Department of Justice can produce a memo that
says that it is legal for the President of the United States to order a flying robot to kill a citizen of the United States. It sounds like a dystopian admixture of Judge Dredd and Robocop. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
But the fact is that there is no
statute adequately regulating the use of flying robots. The only way
for this to change is for Congress to pass a statute explicitly regulating the
use of drones. The most promising appears to be H.R. 637, the <a href="http://lofgren.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=785&Itemid=130">Preserving American Privacy Act</a>, sponsored by California
Democrat Zoe Lofgren and Texas Republican Ted Poe, which would regulate the use
of drones for domestic law enforcement purposes. This bill would bring sense of
due process into the realm of drone surveillance by requiring the police to
obtain a warrant or a court order to use this special technology to conduct a
search of a person’s property. It would also explicitly ban the use of
weaponized Unmanned Aerial Systems (i.e. Predator or Reaper drones) in U.S.
territory. This bill, if it ever becomes law, ought to assuage Rand Paul’s fear
that the President might order the summary execution of an unarmed American
citizen just sitting there at a café in Bowling Green, Kentucky. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
Another, thornier question is
whether the President ought to ever be able to order a drone strike to kill a
U.S. citizen overseas. There must be a system in place that allows a future
President to subdue a U.S. citizen shooting rockets or preparing plastic
explosives or otherwise waging war against the United States from an
impenetrable, ungovernable hideaway in the mountains of Pakistan, the deserts
of Yemen, or the jungles of the Congo where no state can arrest him and bring him to the United States for prosecution. But there
ought to be a system of due process in place to make sure that there is
sufficient intelligence documenting that this person is indeed an imminent
threat and to safeguard against abuses of the system. A few voices have
proposed the establishment of <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/security/2013/02/08/1560931/momentum-grows-for-targeted-killing-court/?mobile=nc">a secret intelligence tribunal</a> like the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court that grants or denies the executive
branch’s requests to wiretap U.S. civilians to establish due process for such a
drone strike. The prospect of such a Targeted Killings Act Court might sound medieval,
but it would be much less so than that of a chief executive that can order the
killing of a citizen without checks
and balances. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
It might also be worth revisiting
the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force. In the immediate shock and
trauma of 9/11, Congress seemed content to give the President carte blanche to
do whatever he wanted wherever he wanted with the U.S. military so long as he
could say he was fighting al-Qaeda. Eleven years later, some Democrats and
Republicans alike are concerned about the seemingly unchecked expansion of
presidential powers contained in that terse document. Americans have outgrown
the War on Terror hysteria of 9/11, and it is time for the Obama administration
to craft a new military and foreign policy that better reflects the constitutional system of checks and balances in 2013. </div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I
loathe to admit it, but the NRA is partially right – the Obama administration’s
proposed gun control package would not have prevented the Newtown Massacre.
Even if Congress were to close the gun show loophole, prohibit online sales of
firearms and ammunition, expand the sharing of mental health information with
the ATF and stiffen penalties for straw purchasers, these measures would not
have been enough to keep a deadly weapon out of the hands of Adam Lanza.<br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
Such measures might have
prevented the likes of Seung-Hui Cho from purchasing a Walther P22 and a Glock
19 (a Virginia judge had declared him to be mentally defective and ordered him
into outpatient treatment). They might have prevented Jared Loughner from
purchasing his 9 mm Glock at Sportsman’s Warehouse (he had failed an Army drug
test). But even universal background checks, with full sharing of all criminal
and mental health data of prospective gun buyers with the Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco and Firearms, would not have prevented Adam Lanza from getting his
hands on a .223 caliber Bushmaster AR-15 semi-automatic rifle. Because Adam
Lanza never bought this ultra-deadly weapon – his mother did. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But Nancy Lanza was able to pass a background
check, she was able to legally purchase a .223 caliber Bushmaster AR-15 –
therefore, Adam Lanza had access to a .223 caliber Bushmaster AR-15. Even had Adam Lanza been committed to outpatient care – as his mother had reportedly threatened to do – then he would not have been able to pass a federal background check, but when he came home he still would have been able to access her AR-15. As a
matter of public safety, the law can no longer tolerate this type of scenario. <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></div>
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The
tragedy at Newtown has brought attention to a glaring weakness in the federal
background check system: the prospective gun purchaser is obligated to
provide potentially disqualifying information about him- or herself, but he or
she has no obligation to provide information about a potentially disqualifying family
member who lives in the home. This loophole is a considerable problem, because
it allows people whom federal law has already deemed ineligible for gun
ownership to own guns – albeit indirectly, in someone else’s name. <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The Lanzas are not the only duo in
the canon of modern criminal law in which one person ineligible to purchase a
firearm was able to get their hands on a firearm via an eligible family member.
Ex-cons who cannot pass a background checks often obtain guns by having a wife
or girlfriend – who does not have a criminal record – buy one for them. The
background check is only specific to the person – not the address. <o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
Take the example of Erik Kenneth Dixon, who shot his sister and her
boyfriend with a .45 Glock at a baby shower in Landover, Maryland. As a matter
of law, Dixon was unable to legally purchase his gun – he had served almost
three years in prison for shooting at a man. However, Cathy Anderson – Dixon’s
girlfriend – had no criminal record, and so he had her buy the Glock for him. <o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
Or Nehemiah Griego, the 15-year-old in Albuquerque who shot and killed
his parents and his three siblings. Greg Griego, his father, was an ex-con and
a former gang member who could have never passed a federal background check.
But his wife, Sara Griego, didn’t have a criminal record, and she was able to
purchase a .223 caliber AR-15 assault rifle without a hitch. Though it wasn’t
Greg who committed the killings, had Sara been denied a federal background
check because of his record, then Nehemiah would not have been able to go on
his shooting rampage. <o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I could go on . . . <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just
the fact is that this is a known loophole that the criminal community openly and
unabashedly exploits. A quick search to a chatroom found a thread that started:<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
“<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">My wife went to Big 5 earlier
to buy me the Remington 770 7mm that's on sale for $369 and the Douche behind
the counter said that it's a felony for someone to buy a gun for their spouse
to use. Is this true? . . . I know she should have kept her mouth shut and just bought it she's kinda new to the game..."</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px;">
The online chorus of ex-cons then goes on to how
to effectively exploit one’s wife to evade the background checks. This is a
loophole so big they’re bragging about this on the Internet!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The NY SAFE Act recently signed into
law by Governor Andrew Cuomo has made a valiant effort to address the “family
member” loophole. Section 265.45 states that:</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">No
person who owns . . . a rifle, shotgun or firearm who resides with an
individual </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">who such
person knows or has reason to know is prohibited from possessing a firearm</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>. . . shall store [the gun] out of his or her immediate
possession <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>or control without </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">having
first securely locked [the gun] in an appropriate safe storage depository or </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>rendered it incapable of being fired by use of
a gun locking device. . .<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
In New York,
at least, for a lawful gun owner to fail to take due care to keep their guns
out of the hands of a problem son like Adam Lanza is now a Class A Misdemeanor.
That’s a good start. <o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>However, the Section 264.45 of the
NYS SAFE Act does not go far enough – because no safe is foolproof. More
importantly, humans err. Doug Golden was a law-abiding hunting enthusiast in
Arkansas who had amassed a formidable collection of two semi-automatic rifles,
a bolt-action rifle, and three shotguns. Doug dutifully kept his guns in a
lockable safe. But sometimes he left the key to the safe in the lock. And on
March 24<sup>th</sup>, 1998, Doug’s 11-year-old grandson Andrew Golden and his
friend Mitchell Johnson stole Doug’s gun collection, went to Westside High
School, and used Doug Golden’s guns to shoot 13 of their fellow students and 2
teachers. When Doug went to the police station to pick up Andrew, his grandson
said “Grandpa, I took your guns.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Federal background checks ought to
be strengthened by adding a line on the application asking for the names, ages,
and Social Security numbers of every other person who lives at the prospective
gun buyer’s address. This addition is not at all unduly intrusive – this is
basic information about the household which citizens willfully provide to the
federal government on every tax return and every Census questionnaire. The
federal government already knows who you live with. And if the government
doesn’t know because you haven’t paid your taxes, or you lied on your tax
returns, no, you shouldn’t be allowed to have a gun either. <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The
policy that needs to change is that the ATF ought to be able to take family
information into consideration when assessing whether a person is eligible to
purchase a firearm. A convicted murderer is already prohibited from purchasing
a shotgun – if that convicted murderer lives with his sister, she should be
prohibited from purchasing a shotgun too. A person who has attempted suicide
and has been involuntarily committed to outpatient treatment is barred from
buying a pistol – so should be her husband or her live-in boyfriend. This is basic
common sense. It ought to<a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="_GoBack"></a> be the law. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It
could be argued that such a policy would establish guilt by association, and
unfairly deprive innocent people of their Second Amendment rights. Indeed, it
would bar a number of people who have committed no crime, who are not by
themselves threats to society from owning firearms in their current residence.
But it would be inaccurate to say that such a policy is unfair. The
Constitution protects freedom of association, but if one chooses to live in the
same home with a person who is convicted of a violent crime, who is suffering
from severe mental illness, or both, that is a serious choice that the FBI and
ATF ought to be able to consider when adjudicating who can and cannot purchase
deadly weapons. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
Such a proposed change in
the law would not force anyone to give up their guns. If you live with your
ex-con boyfriend but you want to buy a shotgun, you can always move out, or you
can tell your boyfriend that he has to find a new place to live. You have to
choose who you love more: your ex-con boyfriend or your Smith & Wesson. The
Second Amendment does not mandate that society must tolerate your ex-con
boyfriend skirting around federal background checks to get a shotgun by using
his girlfriend as a straw (wo)man. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
Recent events have
demonstrated that a person can choose to live with her criminally insane son,
or a person can choose to live with a .223 Bushmaster AR-15 semi-automatic
rifle. It is gross negligence and reckless endangerment for a person to choose
both. Federal background checks ought to adopt this principle by taking account
of the criminal records, mental health records, and other potentially
disqualifying information about other people who live in a prospective gun
purchaser’s home. </div>
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<script src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" type="text/javascript"></script></div>Zachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00977280731502216845noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7001870879534452132.post-31845324397565853782012-12-29T18:18:00.001-08:002013-01-03T15:31:15.590-08:00No, the Second Amendment Does Not Guarantee a Right to Armed Revolution<script type="text/javascript">
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<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
In the contemporary
debate on the meaning of the Second Amendment, proponents of gun ownership
rights refer to two fundamental natural rights arguments to justify the
ownership of firearms: 1) the natural right to self-defense;
2) the natural right of revolution. The former has been endorsed by the Supreme
Court in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.lawnix.com/cases/dc-heller.html">District of Columbia v. Heller</a></i>
and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.oyez.org/cases/2000-2009/2009/2009_08_1521">McDonald v. Chicago</a></i>. The latter
is merely hyperbolic rhetoric in the real debate on gun control which must be put
to rest once and for all. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p> </o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<o:p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiY-eNJhg4bCzqyKw-3F0GYQ-5H5grAoIRH9gCAn2UpaHIrSJpCyh_HjPbGPHKeOs_hn1rPAU3igv5dCmq98yXoP4sd_nbvL3aUlfkqhndqhQWWOKMeaTc5C5Afd9Rc_WR1JQdH12ex09I/s1600/militia.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="234" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiY-eNJhg4bCzqyKw-3F0GYQ-5H5grAoIRH9gCAn2UpaHIrSJpCyh_HjPbGPHKeOs_hn1rPAU3igv5dCmq98yXoP4sd_nbvL3aUlfkqhndqhQWWOKMeaTc5C5Afd9Rc_WR1JQdH12ex09I/s320/militia.jpg" width="320" /></a></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
You can
see only the first of these two natural law justifications in the prefatory
clause of the Second Amendment: <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“</b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">[a] well regulated militia
being necessary to the security of a free state”</span></b><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"> and the operative clause: <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“the right of the people to keep and bear
arms shall not be infringed.”</b> The Second Amendment articulates a right to self-defense and preservation of life and liberty both as a collective and an individual sense, both as a member of a "well regulated militia" and as "a people." A person has a constitutional right to bear arms for the common defense as a member of a well regulated militia, and post-<em>Heller </em>and <em>McDonald</em>, as an individual. </span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"> To understand the Second Amendment, one must look to the Constitution's other references to the regulation of militias in Article I and Article II. The states ratified the Second Amendment and its
guarantee for the people to “to keep and bear arms” and raise a “well regulated
militia” only four years after the Constitutional Convention authored Article I
– which gave Congress the authority to “raise and support Armies” and to “provide
and maintain a Navy.” Article I § 8, also authorized
Congress <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“[t]o provide for calling forth
the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel
Invasions”</b> and </span></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><blockquote class="tr_bq">
“[t]o
provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for
governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United
States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers,
and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline
prescribed by Congress.”</blockquote>
</b> <span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">In the Commander in Chief Clause Article II, the Constitution authorized
the President as <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“Commander in Chief of
the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militias of the several
States, when called into the actual Service of the United States.”</b> </span><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"></span><br />
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"></span><br />
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"> In each and every one of the references to the “Militia”
or “Militias” in Articles I and II, the plain meaning of the text of the
Constitution is that the Founders envisioned a concomitant regulation of the
militias. The states would be able to train their own militias and
appoint their own officers to maintain law and order in their respective states, but Congress and the President would be able to call upon the militias to maintain federal
laws, suppress insurrections and repel invasions. Surely the Second Amendment forbids the militias or the people from engaging in insurrection or invasion of the United States, because the Second Amendment right to form a state militia exists so that the militias can quell insurgencies and invasions. </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">Read the Second Amendment again. Nowhere in the Second Amendment does it say that the the well regulated Militias of the several states – let alone each the people – have a
constitutional right to take up arms against the United States government.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">A well regulated Militia,
being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to
keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.</span></b><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"> Clearly,
the Founders wanted to explicitly protect the states’ rights to field their own
militias as central to the defense of the Republic. Historians attribute James
Madison’s inclusion of the Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights as an
overture to the Anti-Federalists who were concerned that the new federal
government would disband the state militias – concentrating all military power
in the hands of the federal Army and Navy. The Second Amendment was written in the aftermath of the American Revolutionary War, at a time when the Articles of Confederation was incapable of preserving the security of the Republic from British, French, or Spanish invasion, the Massachusetts militia was incompetent to quell <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shays'_Rebellion">Shay's Rebellion</a> (1786-87), and white settlers in the Virginia frontier and Ohio Territory were engaging in low-level warfare with the Native American tribes. </span><br />
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"></span><br />
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"> Massachusetts needed a militia because when Daniel Shays and his fellow agrarian revolters shut down the Commonwealth courthouses in Northampton and Springfield, the Boston mercantile class could not count on the toothless Articles of Confederation government to maintain law and order. Governor John Bowdoin had to organize a private militia. Just a few years after the ratification of the Second Amendment, President Washington would quell the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiskey_Rebellion">Whiskey Rebellion</a> (1791-94) by commanding militias from Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and New Jersey. States on the border needed to have militias because the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the British Colony of New Brunswick both claimed parts of what is now Northern Maine, Georgia and Spanish West Florida both claimed what is now Alabama and Mississippi. </span><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">The settlers needed to keep muskets to defend their outposts
from Lenapee and Kickapoo raiders. The right to bear arms as a member of a militia - if not as an individual - was “necessary for
the security of a free state” because there was still an impending fear of
subversion of the fledgling Republic to foreign monarchs and domestic insurrections, and the Founders wrote the Second Amendment to protect the right to self-defense independent of the United States Army and Navy. </span><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>However, the natural law Second Amendment-thumpers
must dispense with the notion that the “right of the people to keep and bear
arms” was ratified as an additional layer of checks and balances; i.e. the right
of the people to defend their natural liberties from an overbearing United
States government. Such an argument is directly contradicted in the text of the
Constitution itself. Article I gives Congress the authority to federalize the
state militias to “suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions.” Article II
gives the Commander in Chief supreme command over the Army and the Navy as well
as the militias when called to service. The difference between the Army, the
Navy and the militias is that Governors can call the militias into service too
to quell riots and fight forest fires, they are only federalized with explicit
Congressional or Presidential invocation of their Article I and Article II
powers. </span><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">Nowhere in the Constitution or
anywhere in the minutes of the Convention or the correspondence between Jefferson
and Madison and Adams and Hamilton is there any inkling of an idea that the
state militias can check the authority of the federal courts or the U.S. Army or Navy. </span><br />
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"></span><br />
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"> Moreover,
the Constitution explicitly prohibits any U.S. citizen from bearing arms against the United States. The Treason Clause in Article III
defines the crimes: <strong>“Treason against the
United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering
to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.” </strong>Without a doubt, the Second Amendment prohibits the people or the militias from levying war against the United States - the rare federal crime actually codified in the text of the Constitution. The
Confederates who took up arms against the Union seven decades later were
traitors, they were guilty of a crime which could be punishable by death upon
the testimony of two witnesses or confession, and conviction in
a federal court of law. If the Michigan Militia were to use their arsenal of
AK-47 and M16s and seize an armory from the Michigan National Guard, that would
be an act of treason.</span><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJitbZxnK6zVfHZBngWGX7bzU9a5ZVShpjSiJfA385AbpjfEJVZMPV3sF3LrwuGjqEJvtwXYzzxqZMjJEWEIIfKuA185zHSmtU7WLMoQpS_ktYWZF8ZHE9mfw3BKm3SjmIGUaUAdpwV5U/s1600/Barricades.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJitbZxnK6zVfHZBngWGX7bzU9a5ZVShpjSiJfA385AbpjfEJVZMPV3sF3LrwuGjqEJvtwXYzzxqZMjJEWEIIfKuA185zHSmtU7WLMoQpS_ktYWZF8ZHE9mfw3BKm3SjmIGUaUAdpwV5U/s320/Barricades.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> Conversely, t</span>he notion that Madison
included the Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights as a last layer of defense
of civil liberty in case the federal government exceeded its authority is without sufficient corroboration. There are some fragments of quotations from Jefferson and
the New Hampshire Constitution which might seem to convey such a natural right
to revolution against governmental power, but even the most committed
Originalist cannot possibly argue that a bloodthirsty quote from Thomas
Jefferson unincluded in the text of the U.S. Constitution trumps
the text of the Treason Clause in Article III. The Founders were concerned about the risk of
consolidated federal power, but they were even more worried about mob rule. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
So what if there is a natural
right to revolution against tyrannical governments more fundamental than the Second
Amendment? The Declaration of Independence surely espouses this radical notion,
and this is why so many Americans tend to smile upon decolonization movements
and armed uprisings against brutal dictatorships in Kosovo, South Sudan, Libya, Syria, et al. In instances where a genocidal regime wages war against its own people
and threatens the very existence of an entire nation, most Americans look to the universal promise of the Declaration of Independence and sympathize
with the inherent right of the people to rebel against an oppressive government. <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But
that has no bearing on perceived slights to liberty within the realm of the
U.S. Constitution. If you think that income tax rates are too high or that the Affordable Care Act takes away your right to not have health insurance, you can agitate for change within the proper channels: you can run for office, you can vote in state and federal elections, you can mount a challenge in a federal court. But the Second Amendment does not give you a means to redress your grievances by armed force. No matter how much you disagree with a law, the Constitution provides for avenues to peacefully challenge the laws within the institutions of law and democracy – not by brute force. <span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">The Second Amendment says that a well regulated militia and the right of
the people to bear arms is “necessary to the security of a free state” – but that
free state is the United States of America. </span></div>
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<script src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" type="text/javascript"></script></div>Zachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00977280731502216845noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7001870879534452132.post-58569836616389545152012-12-12T22:38:00.000-08:002012-12-14T22:07:16.471-08:00Are the Proposition 8 Challengers Overplaying their Hand?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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With the recent news that the Supreme Court has
granted certiorari to a bevy of same-sex marriage cases; including <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hollingsworth v. Perry</i>, it looks like 2013 is already promising to be
a landmark year, politically and doctrinally. With the cases before it, the
highest court has the potential to entirely do away with all civil marriage laws in every state and the federal government which discriminate against gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender Americans. However, many same-sex marriage
proponents remain fearful that it might be too soon to go to the courts because
if any or all of these cases backfire and the Court upholds any one of those laws, America might be stuck with a noxious <em><a href="http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0478_0186_ZS.html">Bowers v. Hardwick</a></em>-like precedent for a generation. If the Supreme Court were to write an opinion considering and rejecting a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, that could prove calamitous to any future suits challenging state marriage laws in the federal courts. <br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px;">
To understand where the marriage equality movement
now stands, now, at the end of the year 2012, same-sex marriage is the law of
the land in 9 states and the District of Columbia. A lesbian couple can walk
into any City Hall in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa, Vermont, New Hampshire,
New York, Maine, Maryland, Washington State, and Washington, D.C. and successfully
apply for a marriage license, their marriage is recognized as valid according
to their state agencies and those of some (but not all) other states. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkHlVxVTiA2J6Gr8YAL8yda0OXc5Cd57aAZsAlIxeeqkZNSRJqEKu0fIh7eTVrPtm5NBdIhgcfVYpK8VnxxZQDb9GvWrvbdui-FnZ1jZOlEsvj5m1S_njOTl6dmIqUt6bU2PBfYtTqNVs/s1600/Gay+Marriage+2012.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="237" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkHlVxVTiA2J6Gr8YAL8yda0OXc5Cd57aAZsAlIxeeqkZNSRJqEKu0fIh7eTVrPtm5NBdIhgcfVYpK8VnxxZQDb9GvWrvbdui-FnZ1jZOlEsvj5m1S_njOTl6dmIqUt6bU2PBfYtTqNVs/s320/Gay+Marriage+2012.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px;">
However, despite the gay marriage insurgency over the past eight years, there is still plenty of work to be done. In 41 states, LGBT Americans are still denied the right to marry, in 36 states they can’t even get a civil union. According to federal government agencies like the IRS, the Federal Housing Administration, and the Veterans Administration, all those marriages in Boston and Seattle and Des Moines have never happened. Thanks to the federal Defense of Marriage Act, the federal government treats a married couple like legal strangers, and uses it to deny the approximately 1,100 federal rights and responsibilities afforded to couples in civil marriage. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px;">
Enter <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hollingsworth v. Perry</i>. Originally <em><a href="http://marriagetrial.com/">Perry v. Schwarzenegger</a>, </em>then <em><a href="http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/general/2012/02/07/1016696com.pdf">Perry v. Brown</a>, </em>this is the celebrated case by brought by Ted
Olson and David Boies challenging California’s Proposition 8, the 2008 ballot
initiative which California voters approved to ban same-sex marriage by
constitutional amendment. Olson and Boies consider this to be the civil rights
issue of our time (rightly so), and they see the potential for this case to
result in a Supreme Court decision establishing a constitutional right to
same-sex marriage, striking down each and every Defense of Marriage Act in
every state in the Union. Judging by their prior writings and public
pronouncements, it seems that there might be four Justices (Ginsburg, Breyer,
Kagan and Sotomayor) who might be likely to support such a bold declaration for
gay marriage rights. Though Justice Kennedy waxed eloquently in his majority
opinions in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/94-1039.ZO.html">Romer v. Evans</a> </i>and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/02-102.ZS.html">Lawrence v. Texas</a></i> about the “dignity
deserved by gay men and women”, it is unlikely that Kennedy might take such a
striking pronouncement in this case because
there are plenty of ways that the Court can make a decision leading to the
nullification of this repugnant amendment without answering the fundamental question. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px;">
First of all, the Court can deny the defendants
standing, because Governor Jerry Brown and Attorney General Kamala Harris
<a href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=web&cd=6&ved=0CGgQFjAF&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.huffingtonpost.com%2Fjerry-brown%2Fproposition-8-should-be-s_b_171544.html&ei=iSHKUKCmD8m42QWEp4D4AQ&usg=AFQjCNEJIFwfsJptyFj6sz7d4PShjzJqKA&sig2=Td4jwoT9G1YOTInLz6T3XQ&bvm=bv.1355272958,d.b2I">refuse to defend Prop. 8</a> – it is being defended by the coalition of anti-gay
activists who organized the ballot number. Generally speaking, this is not very
kosher – states have to defend their laws if they are going to appeal to the
Supreme Court. If SCOTUS decides to reject the appeal on these grounds, or
remand it back to a lower court and allow only the State of California to
appeal, and the State refuses, then Prop 8 has already been struck down by the
federal district court and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The effect would
be that gay marriage is legal in California once again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px;">
More likely, the Court might make a very narrow
ruling overturning Prop 8 essentially echoing Judge <a href="http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/general/2012/02/07/1016696com.pdf">Stephen Reinhardt’s opinion</a>
in the Ninth Circuit decision. Judge Reinhardt, ever cognizant of the politics
of the Court and the fact that Justice Anthony Kennedy is the swing vote, wrote
a decision which took pains to invoke Kennedy’s prior opinions in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/94-1039.ZO.html">Romer v. Evans</a> </i>and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/02-102.ZS.html">Lawrence v. Texas</a></i>. According to Reinhardt, the facts of this case
mirror that in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Romer</i>; after some
municipalities enacted ordinances banning discrimination against homosexuals,
Colorado voters approved a ballot initiative which would prohibit any such
anti-discrimination ordinances protecting the civil rights of homosexuals. In
that landmark decision, Kennedy wrote that there was no basis for this
referendum other than sheer “animus” against gay people; therefore, it failed
basic rational basis review and was unconstitutional. Reinhardt also reiterated
Kennedy’s emphasis on the fact that Coloradans had given gay people a civil
right and then taken it away for no rational purpose – much like the present
case in California. If consistency is a virtue, it appears most likely that
Justice Kennedy would write the majority opinion or at least a controlling
opinion along these lines. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px;">
It is also possible that the four liberal Justices
plus Kennedy might accept Olson and Boies’ argument that, lurking somewhere in
the penumbras of the Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments, the
Constitution protects the individual’s fundamental right to same-sex marriage.
Especially if you read Kennedy’s opinion in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/02-102.ZS.html">Lawrencev. Texas</a></i>, which stressed that “<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">[t]he
petitioners are entitled to respect for their private lives” and that, therefore,
“[t]he State cannot demean their existence or control their destiny</span>”, it
appears that Kennedy feels quite sympathetic to the fundamental injustice that
is perpetrated against same-sex couples nationwide by governmental denial of their
intimate relationships. If you read Justice Kennedy’s opinions in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Romer </i>and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Lawrence</i>, you cannot help but think that if it came down to it, he
would gladly write the decision that establishes a constitutional right to
same-sex marriage. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, to
do this would mean that – in one fell swoop – the Supreme Court would establish
gay marriage across the entire United States, ordering the legislatures of
every state and jurisdiction which has not already enacted such a law – i.e.
Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia,
Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan,
Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New
Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania,
Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, Texas,
West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming, and also Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin
Islands, Guam, the Northern Marianas Islands, American Samoa, the Tribal nations, the U.S. Armed Forces, and the federal government to amend their family codes immediately. Marriage equality would reign
supreme from sea to shining sea. <o:p> </o:p></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4MET3m-R8X1aFgWb2T2JPAkWX3Cprb7oHdP_y2USV_Bj31PSr13z_QcOXrdB79BeLSaMDmYEindn7F1I90HAIj_vGzOIibgUTUcKnnlzpDqeUZ27-hrTeInQrkcBfTvm5Y5Ipyig0VNc/s1600/Gay+Marriage+2030.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="237" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4MET3m-R8X1aFgWb2T2JPAkWX3Cprb7oHdP_y2USV_Bj31PSr13z_QcOXrdB79BeLSaMDmYEindn7F1I90HAIj_vGzOIibgUTUcKnnlzpDqeUZ27-hrTeInQrkcBfTvm5Y5Ipyig0VNc/s320/Gay+Marriage+2030.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px;">
However, there are reasons for such a bold move,
both jurisprudential and political at this point in time. First of all, it
seems that SCOTUS can affirm the Ninth Circuit’s theory as to why Prop 8 is
unconstitutional without addressing the broader issue of whether or not the
Constitution provides a fundamental right to same-sex marriage. According to
the Doctrine of Ripening, the Court is an inherently conservative institution
which ought to avoid constitutional issues if at all possible and to only
address those constitutional questions which are absolutely necessary to the
judicial review of a given law. In other words, the Court picks the
lowest-hanging fruit. So long as the Court can strike down Proposition 8 for
lack of standing or on the narrow <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Romer </i>precedent,
there is no need to reach for the lofty firmament of fundamental constitutional
rights. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px;">
Moreover, just imagine the political fallout if
five (maybe six) Justices on the Supreme Court issue such a sweeping decision
that allows LGBT Americans nationwide the right to marry. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px;">
For comparison, let’s compare status of legal same-sex marriage in 2013 to the status
of legal abortion in 1973 – the year that the Court decided <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Roe v. Wade</i>. When Justice Blackmun wrote
that landmark decision, finding a fundamental right to abortion in the penumbras
of the Third, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments, states had just
begun to liberalize their abortion laws. In 1967, Colorado, Oregon, and North
Carolina had paved the way for liberalizing the ban on abortion and allowing
doctors to carry out the procedure in the case of rape, incest, and medical emergencies threatening the life and health of the mother.
Only in four states – New York, Washington, Hawaii, and Alaska – was abortion
outright legal. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoQTlvasrLhtbY7wF888rIqfOLmncwIzOdh39-GrTqWUYsLgTiCJfSDe4DRnHF_T3CXbaVdJ9HDeUQz5TXT4cc3aPori0CDmO_t8_KeEtf2VrnvatNyNBeNBZJz6GSHtyL_Liiagqu1yY/s1600/Abortion+Laws+prior+to+Roe+v.+Wade.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="237" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoQTlvasrLhtbY7wF888rIqfOLmncwIzOdh39-GrTqWUYsLgTiCJfSDe4DRnHF_T3CXbaVdJ9HDeUQz5TXT4cc3aPori0CDmO_t8_KeEtf2VrnvatNyNBeNBZJz6GSHtyL_Liiagqu1yY/s320/Abortion+Laws+prior+to+Roe+v.+Wade.jpg" width="320" /></a> </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="margin: 1em 0px;">
So in 1973 when Justice Blackmun, by judicial fiat,
declared abortion to be a fundamental right across the land, it energized the
pro-life movement into a political behemoth not just in the Heartland but even
in highly-Catholic, highly-Democratic states like Massachusetts, New Jersey,
Illinois and Pennsylvania. Historians credit this decision with splintering the
New Deal coalition, giving rise to organizations like the Christian Coalition
and the Moral Majority, and the Christian Right’s takeover of the Republican
Party. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Roe v. Wade </i>indirectly gave
rise to 12 years of Reagan and Bush and the appointment of four conservative Supreme
Court Justices – Scalia, Thomas, O’Connor, Kennedy – who tapered back <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Roe </i>as far as they could. What was a
stunningly progressive movement of liberalized abortion laws in the late 1960s
and early 1970s – even in states like Kansas, Arkansas, Alabama, and Mississippi
– stopped dead in its tracks. The pro-life movement and the growth of the
Christian Right swung the politics of those same states swung so far to the
right that, almost half a century later, it would be almost unthinkable that
the legislatures in Topeka, Little Rock, Birmingham and Jackson could ever take
such steps to advance human rights and the dignity of women on their own
volition today as they did 40 years ago. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px;">
So what would a sweeping decision in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hollingsworth v. Perry </i>do to the
movement for marriage equality? There are two schools of thought. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px;">
The first hypothesis is that, like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Brown v. Board of Education, Hollingsworth </i>could
establish a resounding opinion affirming the rights of same-sex couples that
resolves this question once and for all. Every loving couple in not just San
Francisco and West Hollywood but also Wichita, Caspar, Baton Rouge and
Chattanooga would be able to go to City Hall and get their marriage license and
live happily ever after. The End. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px;">
The second hypothesis, which I fear is more likely,
is that such a sweeping decision which changes the marriage laws of 41 states
in one fell swoop creates an enormous backlash which sets back the cause of
marriage equality, gay rights in a broader context – let alone liberal
politics. Adam and Steve would be able to get their marriage license at the Montgomery
City Hall, but there would be riots and lynch mobs outside. Maggie Gallagher and
Brian Brown and Phyllis Schlafly would hold rallies denouncing “judicial
activism” at the courthouse steps of every county seat in every Congressional
district in the country. It would look <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqbfWvUtw28">like this</a> all over Florida, Ohio, Michigan,
Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. Republicans would take back the Senate in 2014, in
2016 Marco Rubio would win much of the heavily Catholic industrial Midwest and Southwest,
and President Rubio would nominate replacements for Justices Breyer, Kennedy,
Scalia and Thomas who would make Robert Bork look like Leon Trotsky. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px;">
In so many words, for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hollingsworth v. Perry <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i>to establish
a constitutional right to same-sex marriage nationwide, at this juncture in
time, might counterintuitively be very, very bad for the marriage equality movement in the long run. <br />
<br />
When
it is most successful, social progress is a gradual process which reaps one
small victory at a time until, eventually, one day people look up and realize
that that once crazy radical idea has become the mainstream consensus. That is why this student of law and politics hopes
that the Court makes a decision in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hollingsworth
</i>which finds Proposition 8 to be unconstitutional – though along the narrow <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Romer v. Evans</i>-like grounds that applies
only to California. Mince no words – <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hollingsworth
v. Perry </i>would go down down in American history as one of the greatest – if not <em>the</em> greatest – courthouse victory for the gay rights movement thusfar. The population of the United States able to marry a person of the same sex would instantly double.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKjSAQck3EwD5Xa_6yNnrhoAYSUDO_7mhfLpNWKTqPMjowA7yUazcHOUbIpqD3Yz5xutJlxD9QJszHj8EV4lmrsAcwlnbaEVh0yhgNNVog15pGYIL8d9dJx5oUSqi90voV6EWu-D6aDzk/s1600/Gay+Marriage+Hollingsworth.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="237" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKjSAQck3EwD5Xa_6yNnrhoAYSUDO_7mhfLpNWKTqPMjowA7yUazcHOUbIpqD3Yz5xutJlxD9QJszHj8EV4lmrsAcwlnbaEVh0yhgNNVog15pGYIL8d9dJx5oUSqi90voV6EWu-D6aDzk/s320/Gay+Marriage+Hollingsworth.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px;">
2013 might yet be the most fruitful year in the
history of the marriage equality movement. It looks like marriage equality
statutes will be victorious at the statehouses in Illinois, Hawaii, Rhode
Island, and Delaware. The Colorado and Minnesota legislatures also appear to be
poised to pass civil union laws. 2013<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>might end with a total of 14 states plus the District of Columbia with
marriage equality, and civil union or strong domestic partnership laws in 5
others. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFquPXgK5JIzYF6o-4uN_4eqehcS51F9bxOjM__Y_0o0hiGuNQRYIJWGL617XyinsMrkwJHhhC1zD12wSXCiX5D6BFHWd65mwZ05Xxso2GovEnapqqjYHW6o2RlB1ua1yJWtXL_NbHk8M/s1600/Gay+Marriage+2013.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="237" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFquPXgK5JIzYF6o-4uN_4eqehcS51F9bxOjM__Y_0o0hiGuNQRYIJWGL617XyinsMrkwJHhhC1zD12wSXCiX5D6BFHWd65mwZ05Xxso2GovEnapqqjYHW6o2RlB1ua1yJWtXL_NbHk8M/s320/Gay+Marriage+2013.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4ZLrlaTOwQUA2hhe4nbY8S-PDv1OoTznnqFHujWkois5bQw0ZL2Ruzjx47MEEX8wIe63deKPHmE2oKMtj_Gkon-8sxhrxUpWIN-1BPzH9rt0Ne7_jFkzgAeTa5iuSftPtfy1qb9tgMdc/s1600/Gay+Marriage+Map+2013.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a> </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px;">
With the wind to its back, this is how the marriage equality
movement has to turn the map purple: activists have to lobby their state
senates, houses of representatives, and general assemblies to enact new laws
and overturn state Defense of Marriage Acts one at a time, one by one until
there’s something like 25 of them. At this rate, sometime around 2020 or 2025
there will probably be a majority of states, representing a clear majority of
the population, with some form of either same-sex marriage or civil unions on
the books. It’s only a matter of time. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVxnIqPeepb52Vc9CBWLPHghbN86ZepebxWjApOSttvBhqXr4EFjim1koq7soPAhhQobl_ev9-V9gkMu3_vqig0snD3dIo4bUWn7VvUQH1eazeLTK91E9gG3ubqOPcikpFH7P7l15YE2U/s1600/Gay+Marriage+2030.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="237" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVxnIqPeepb52Vc9CBWLPHghbN86ZepebxWjApOSttvBhqXr4EFjim1koq7soPAhhQobl_ev9-V9gkMu3_vqig0snD3dIo4bUWn7VvUQH1eazeLTK91E9gG3ubqOPcikpFH7P7l15YE2U/s320/Gay+Marriage+2030.jpg" width="320" /></a> </div>
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<br /></div>
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When that time comes that the
facts on the ground have shown that there is a consensus among the states and
among the American people that allowing same-sex couples to marry is a matter
of fundamental rights, and that those holdout states who are the outliers, then
would be the proper time to go in for the kill. Only when it’s apparent that this
new concept of a constitutional right to same-sex marriage has ripened and is
ready to be picked will it be time for Ted Olson and David Boies to argue
before the Supreme Court that a cute lesbian couple in Chattanooga denied a civil
marriage license are being denied their fundamental rights guaranteed by the
penumbras of the Third, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments. At that point, what is indeed a somewhat radical interpretation of the Constitution might look rather matter-of-fact. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; tab-stops: 406.5pt;">
Marriage rights advocates have
their heart in the right place, but they (we) all have to be patient. As Dr.
King once said, “the arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; tab-stops: 406.5pt;">
It’s only a matter of time until
the map looks like this:</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<script src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" type="text/javascript"></script></div>Zachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00977280731502216845noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7001870879534452132.post-40595082372080811402012-11-13T13:23:00.000-08:002013-02-12T07:43:55.281-08:00Some Constructive Criticism for the GOP in 2016<script type="text/javascript">
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">To: The Republican
Party</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">From: A Liberal
Democrat from New York</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Subject: Some
Constructive Criticism for 2016</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
As the Grand Ol’ Party is still smarting from last week’s
Election Day whipping, trying to figure out just what went so horribly wrong, optimists
ought to set their sights on put together a better campaign in 2016. As a
rabidly liberal Jewish Democrat from New York, I might be the last person whom
the RNC might look to for advice; I am not from a swing state, and I’m the kind of
person the RNC has completely written off. But since I respect some
conservative principles, and I see some inherent worth in the health of our
democracy by having a viable Republican Party, I feel obligated to lend some
frank advice. Judging by the extent of Republican losses last week, I might be
the best kind of person to listen to. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
New York is now taken for granted in the blue column, and
Democrats control every statewide office in Albany. This one-party
regime is a creation not so much because New York Democrats run a flawless
operation - boy, are we flawed – as because the New York Republican Party has,
as a whole, proven themselves to be a complete and total joke.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
But it wasn’t always that way. For years, New York state
politics was dominated by Nelson Rockefeller, the ultimate Establishment
Republican, and we elected Peekskill Republican George Pataki to the Governor’s
office three times. We sent moderate Republicans like Alfonse D’Amato and Jacob
Javits to the Senate, Hamilton Fish and Sherwood Boehlert to the House. Even in
New York City, the large majorities voted for Rudy Giuliani twice and Mike
Bloomberg thrice. We liked these moderate Republicans because they promised to
keep business booming and Wall Street roaring, to maintain law and order and
make sure the trains ran on time. College-educated, socially liberal suburbanites
felt comfortable pulling the lever for a Republican who would promise to advance
civil rights laws, protect our water and air from pollution, and reform
government from the taint of corruption. They were conservative – but not
reactionary. There's a big difference.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
But something went awry in the mid-2000s, when the New York
GOP all but conceded statewide races to the Democratic Party. The breaking
point came in the 2010 GOP gubernatorial race when New York Republicans were
given a choice between Rick Lazio – a telegenic former Congressman from Long
Island – and Carl Paladino – a Buffalo-area developer who reminded many
people of their inexplicably petulant, kinda racist
father-in-law with whom they struggle at every Thanksgiving to make pleasant
small talk. Paladino railed against the “Mosque at Ground Zero”, chastised Andrew Cuomo for attending the Gay Pride
Parade, proudly brandished his handgun in public and vowed to repeal the
assault weapons ban. Paladino was a running punch line to jokes that didn't even need a set-up. But given the choice between Lazio and Paladino, GOP primary
voters inexplicably gave their nomination to the right wing clown.
Paladino was trounced 34% to Cuomo’s 61%; his showing was so bad that the
Democratic candidate even prevailed in almost every Upstate county. The walking, talking fiasco that was Carl Paladino was an omen of
the GOP’s nation-wide ills in 2012. You didn't heed it.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
So what does that mean for the national Republican Party if
they want to have a chance at the White House in 2016? Well, first of all, try
fielding a candidate that could actually campaign in states like New York, New Jersey,
Massachusetts, Illinois, and California. It's not that we're self-centered, it's just that we're almost half the population of the United States. So long as you give the Democratic
Party 196 electoral votes for granted, you’re putting your party at a
monumental disadvantage. <u>Stop fielding such total losers.</u> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Speaking of total
losers, fuhgettabout Paul Ryan.</b> Mitt Romney didn’t lose this election alone
– Paul Ryan lost it too. Though subscribers to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The National Review </i>might ogle and fantasize at centerfolds of the
Ryan Budget Plan, its draconian cuts to popular social programs were
anathema to just about each and every swing voter. Ryan was a drag on the
ticket even more so because the “legitimate rape” fiasco extended to the Congressman
– <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/08/todd-akin-paul-ryan-redefining-rape">who had co-sponsored legislation with Todd Akin to narrow the definition of rape</a> to only cases where violent force was used. This was not just a campaign “gotcha!” moment or guilt-by-association. Paul Ryan is a man who wants to deny victims of rape legal protections if their rapist subdued them with Roofies or psychological coercion - but didn't actually use violent force against them - because that wouldn't be a <em>legitimate</em> rape, in his co-sponsors words. Paul Ryan will never be able to disown this. Besides, Ryan went to lose
his home state of Wisconsin by 4.6 points. Putting this loser on the top of the
ticket in 2016 would be as bone-headed a decision as the Democrats choice to
nominate Walter Mondale in 1984 after he and Carter got creamed four years’
prior. Why put
yourself through this again?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Republicans are famous for giving their presidential
nominations to the candidate who has waited patiently for his turn, usually the
Vice President of two-term Republican administration (Nixon, Bush I) or the
runner-up in the last primary campaign (McCain, Romney). According to that
standard, the GOP’s 2016 nominee would be... (drumroll please)... <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2009/10/21/65467/thune-rape-victims/?mobile=nc">Rick Santorum</a>. Chew on that for a
moment. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<strong>If you thought that
this election was a disappointment, imagine how bad this day will be four years
from now with Rick Santorum – or Rick Perry, or Newt Gingrich, or Michele
Bachmann at the top of the ticket.</strong> It would be a 20-point washout. Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden
would win Georgia, Arizona, Missouri, Montana, maybe even make competitive
races in Alabama and Utah, Democrats down the ticket would win filibuster
proof supermajorities in the Senate and House that would reign for a generation.
If the GOP nominates any of 2012’s fire-breathing runners-up, they would be committing
hari-kari and might as well just declare their retirement from electoral politics.
Republicans had a real chance to win the White House and the Senate, and this band of nincompoops, through their own humiliatingly stupid, piggish conduct and - I'm sorry - their kooky beliefs about penises and vaginas, just cost you a perfectly winnable election. You do not owe them anything. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">If the 2012 elections
stand for anything, it is that Republicans who espouse retrograde views on race,
ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation are now forever doomed – even in
Bible Belt states like Indiana and Missouri. </b>If they have ever tried to
minimize the pain and suffering of victims of rape, they're done. Toast. If the GOP
puts up a “fresh face” like <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2009/10/21/65467/thune-rape-victims/?mobile=nc">John Thune</a> or Bob “<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/07/bob-mcdonnell-virginia-mandatory-ultrasound-bill_n_1327707.html">transvaginal ultrasound</a>” McDonnell, it will
make little to no difference. Most swing voters, especially in Colorado, Nevada, and New
Hampshire, are thoroughly libertarian on social issues. The Chamber of Commerce,
laissez faire wing of the Republican Party needs to acknowledge that the
Christian Right’s influence over a GOP candidate is now a veritable kiss of
death in these pivotal states and that the nominating committees ought to heed
the Scriptural admonition about putting new wine in old bottles. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
It’s a good thing that smart conservatives were able to
acknowledge that Romney ticket lost so badly in no small part because they had
an abjectly awful showing amongst Hispanics, Asians, and – no surprise here –
African-Americans. <strong>Take this moment to approach
the Birthers and the Minutemen and Sheriff Joe Arpaio and other racists hiding in plain view and
promptly throw them under the bus. </strong>The enormous turnout among racial
minorities for Obama was not just because they were enamored with the first
biracial President – it’s because they were also thoroughly turned off by the
Romney campaign’s blatantly <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EklQJIKBFfI">race-baiting tacti</a><u><span style="color: blue;">cs</span></u> and much of the Republican
platform. Seriously, for your own good, cut it out. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">However, fielding a
token member of a racial minority group such as Bobby Jindal, Nikki Haley, or
Susana Martinez is no silver bullet to the Republican Party’s gaping,
festering sore on matters of race</b>. Some of the most hateful, bigoted
comments in the 2012 campaign season came from none other than <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/14/herman-cain-islamic-center-of-murfreesboro-extremism_n_899499.html">Herman Cain</a>. People
aren’t stupid, and we understand that for the RNC to go search for a dark-skinned
candidate committed to
spewing derogatory bile on illegal immigrants and food stamp recipients is just
playing a game of tokenism. Voters can see through this charade. See, e.g., the
electoral fate of <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/10/allen-west-patrick-murphy_n_2109313.html">Allen West</a>, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2012/11/07/republican-mia-love-concedes-to-democrat-jim-matheson-in-utah/">Mia Love</a>. See, also, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsxpoOhMZfk">Alberto Gonzalez</a>. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">So if the Republican
Party ever wants to see the inside of the White House again, they have to elect
a moderate-to-libertarian conservative who promises competence, strong
leadership, and greater fealty to working across party lines to solve America’s
problems than to Tea Party ideology.</b> A successful candidate must have some
experience working in foreign policy or at least demonstrate enough interest in
global affairs so as to go toe-to-toe with Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden for the
title of Commander in Chief. A successful candidate pitching to professionals anywhere within commuting distance of a metropolitan area must be able to express genuine interest in improving public transit and not bash those who use it as some "<a href="http://gothamist.com/2012/02/03/newt_gingrich_if_you_ride_the_subwa.php">subway-riding elite</a>." He or she must be able to relate with families who are working their butts off to send their kids through college or young professionals struggling to pay off their student loans without deriding us as "<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/rick-santorum-takes-heat-for-snob-comment-against-president-obama/2012/02/27/gIQADiXteR_story.html">snobs</a>." It would help
if that candidate hails from a fairly cosmopolitan state or at least has experience working together with racial minorities and immigrant communities with cultures unlike his or her own.
It would help if that candidate is able to negotiate with union groups in a
decidedly non-antagonistic manner, or at least show some sensitivity to working
class concerns. The candidate must acknowledge that global warming is quite real, that it is man-made, that it is a threat to national security and that America needs to drastically overhaul our energy infrastructure to mitigate the threat of future Sandys and Katrinas. Unless the GOP can mature enough to satisfy the above, they will
slowly atrophy into a regional minority party that can only win elections in the former Confederacy, the Mormon West, and the depopulating Great Plains. </div>
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<script src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" type="text/javascript"></script></div>Zachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00977280731502216845noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7001870879534452132.post-44803434387599872192012-11-08T20:26:00.001-08:002012-11-09T18:01:51.315-08:00¡Viva la Estadidad de Puerto Rico!<script type="text/javascript">
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="color: black;"> Now that the long, drawn out 2012 campaign season has come
and gone, we partisans have taken down our lawn signs and recovered from our
Election Night hangovers, it’s time for the members of our democratic
government to come together and implement the expressed will of the
people.</span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">First order of business: Puerto Rico. Yes, Puerto Rico.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On Election Day,
Puerto Rican voters addressed a <span id="goog_287011511"></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/"><span style="color: blue;">two-part referen<span id="goog_287011512"></span></span></a><u><span style="color: blue;">dum</span></u> on the unincorporated
territory’s relationship with the United States government. On the first
question, the voters first voted as to whether to keep the current status as an
unincorporated U.S. territory, and then in the second question, whether to
retain their status as a territory of the U.S., whether to declare
independence, or to join the Union as a full-fledged state. It appears that more
than 937,955, or 54 percent of the voters said “No” on the first question –
indicating that they were discontent with the present territory status. Almost
500,000 voters chose to leave the second question blank, but of those who did
vote, 805,155, or 61 percent of the electorate, chose statehood. For comparison’s
sake, President Obama won 50 percent of the popular vote in the presidential election,
and this has been interpreted as a broad electoral mandate. So 54 percent of
the Puerto Rican electorate voting against the status quo, and 61 percent
voting for statehood should be interpreted as nothing less than an unambiguous mandate
for change. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">Likewise, the voting returns showed another unambiguous
mandate for change: Latino voters showed that they are abandoning the
Republican Party in droves, not the least because they are alienated by the GOP’s
increasingly <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/08/27/1124892/-GOP-Racism-Boehner-Says-Out-Loud-He-Hopes-Blacks-and-Latinos-Won-t-Show-Up-This-Election">vocal disdain</a> for Latino voters. In the past three
election cycles, the GOP standard-bearers have suffered in the past two
presidential elections as their share of the Latino vote dropped from 40% for
George W. Bush in 2004 to 31% for John McCain and 27% for Mitt Romney – all the
while the Latino share of the electorate has soared. This cannot be explained
away because law-and-order Republicans want to enforce immigration laws. Over
the past few years, Republican demagoguery on this issue has taken a
turn for the shrill and patently offensive; i.e. Arizona’s racial-profiling <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/24/us/politics/24immig.html?_r=0">SB1070</a>, even worse copycat statutes in <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/alabama-law-drives-out-illegal-immigrants-but-also-has-unexpected-consequences/2012/06/17/gJQA3Rm0jV_story.html">Alabama</a>, <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2011/apr/14/nation/la-na-georgia-immigration-20110415">Georgia</a>, and <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/01/south-carolinas-immigration-law-weighs-on-latinos-minds-before-gop-primary/">South Carolina</a>, <a href="http://www.startribune.com/local/north/99283739.html?refer=y">English-Only resolutions</a>, calls for <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/01/06/house-republicans-introduce-repeal-birthright-citizenship-amendment/">a Constitutional amendment to end birthright citizenship</a>, <a href="http://articles.cnn.com/2011-04-28/politics/anchor.baby_1_immigration-fight-illegal-immigrants-anchor-babies?_s=PM:POLITICS">“anchor babies”</a>, <a href="http://univisionnews.tumblr.com/post/30049595426/sheriff-arpaio-speak-rnc">Sheriff Joe Arpaio</a>'s prominent role at the Republican National Convention, etc. Latino alienation extended to GOP standad bearer Mitt Romney because he unabashedly <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/25/mitt-romney-arizona-immigration-law-sb1070-scotus_n_1624618.html">pandered to these xenophobic forces</a> to win his party's nomination. </span><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"><a href="http://miamiherald.typepad.com/nakedpolitics/2012/11/obama-picking-the-republican-lock-in-florida-by-getting-big-cuban-and-even-bigger-pr-support.html">Exit polling data</a> evinces that the GOP's alienation of Latino voters has not just been a phenomenon confined to immigrant
communities; this trend has led thoroughly-assimilated Latino-Americans, and
even Puerto Ricans – who are unquestionably U.S. citizens – to by and large reject the
Republican brand. </span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">Enter Puerto Rico. What
with the Grand Ol’ Party’s post mortem soul searching, the Puerto Rican
statehood plebiscite offers an opportunity for President Obama to work together
with the Party of Lincoln on a major issue in what could be a rare moment of
bipartisanship, and perhaps set a reconciliatory tone for a productive second
term. The GOP ought to jump at the chance, not only because it is the right
thing to do, but because supporting Puerto Rican statehood is the least that
Republicans can do to set the record straight and demonstrate that they do
support at least one Latino community’s quest to expand their rights as U.S.
citizens. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>This is where all of the rest of us Americans come in. In
order for Puerto Rico to join the Union and become the 51st state, the other 50
have to agree to that – not as individual states, but as a nation. According to
<a href="http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articleiv">Article IV</a> of the Constitution, Congress has the power to admit new states the
Union; Congress doesn’t <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">have to</i> admit
states to the Union. It <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">can</i>, and it
has rarely declined. Though America hasn’t admitted a new state to the Union
since the admission of Alaska and Hawaii in 1959, the framework for doing so
would be the Enabling Act of 1802, by which Ohio became a state. In order to
admit a new state, Congress would likewise pass an Enabling Act which
authorizes the people of a given territory to frame a constitution. There would
also be some requirements for a successful candidate for admission: the people
of the would-be state have to hold a constitutional convention to decide by
majority whether to form a state constitution and a state government, and the
state constitution must be republican (lower case R) in nature. Upon Congress’
acceptance of that constitution, the territory would be admitted to the Union
as a new state, and its residents would gain all of the rights and responsibilities
that his newfound status entails. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="color: black;">Upon the official certification of the results of the
Puerto Rican referendum, the ball will be in Congress’ court. This should
really be a no-brainer. Congress ought to pass an Enabling Act immediately and unanimously. </span></span><span style="color: black;">There
is no question about population; w<span style="mso-themecolor: text1;">ith
roughly </span>3,706,690 permanent residents, Puerto Rico would be the 29<sup>th</sup>-most
populous state – with more people than Iowa, Kansas, Mississippi or
Connecticut. Unlike statehood for the District of Columbia, there is no
suggestion that statehood would thwart the intent of the Founding Fathers. There
is no question of loyalty; <span style="mso-themecolor: text1;">Puerto
Ricans are already American citizens, they already serve in the military, and
they vote in primary elections.</span> Most importantly, a clear majority of
Puerto Ricans have now exercised their franchise to signify that they want to
be full-fledged members of the American experience.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> <span style="color: black;"> </span></span><span style="color: black;">So <span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">far, the cause of Puerto Rican statehood has been
most publicly championed by liberal Democrats like President Obama, and some of the very most populist members of the House: Bronx Representatives
<a href="http://serrano.house.gov/">José Serrano</a> and <a href="http://velazquez.house.gov/index.shtml">Nydia Velázquez</a>, and Chicago Congressman <a href="http://gutierrez.house.gov/">Luis Gutíerrez</a></span>.
The onus is now on the Party of Lincoln to follow suite. <span style="mso-themecolor: text1;">When the House of Representatives
voted on Serrano’s <a href="http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/111/hr2499">Puerto Rico Democracy Act</a> i</span>n the 110<sup>th</sup>
Congress – essentially a symbolic resolution which supported the holding of the
Puerto Rican plebiscite, it passed 223 to 189, with Democrats voting 184 “yeas”
and 40 “nays”, and Republicans voting almost inversely, 39 “yeas”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and 129 “nays.” This was a grave mistake, and
it ought not be repeated. This time, with Puertorriqueños awaiting an Enabling
Act so that they can hold a statehood convention, the whole world is watching.</span> <span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span><o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
<div style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="color: black;">The second island state could even be a fertile
ground for Republican voters. <span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">Much
of the predominantly Catholic population holds traditional views on marriage, sexuality,
and abortion, and one of the main reasons why Puerto Ricans oppose statehood is
that they do not want to pay federal income taxes. </span>For the past four
years, the office of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">gobernador </i>was
held by</span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27sG47P-fvs"> Luis Fortu</a><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27sG47P-fvs">ño</a> <span style="color: black;">– a Scott Walker-type
conservative who cut government spending, privatized public employee pensions,
slashed personal income taxes by a half and corporate income taxes by a third,
and joined Republican governors in calling for the repeal of Obamacare. </span></span><span style="color: black;">Pue</span><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"><span style="color: black;">rto Rico could be a real swing state –
that is, so long as Congressional Republicans join their Democratic colleagues
in passing an Enabling Act. If there is any meaningful GOP opposition to any votes
on Puerto Rican statehood, expect it to create an indelible memory in Puerto
Rican politics for generations.</span> </span><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">What
with the explicitly non-partisan nature of Puerto Rican statehood, this is
truly Republican’s opportunity to lose. Unlike Serrano’s bill – which was
really just a non-binding resolution – an Enabling Act in this next session of
Congress would in fact pave the way for Puerto Rico to embark on the road to
statehood. This is a roll call vote which will be watched very closely; it
might very well be one of the most consequential votes for the political future
of individual lawmakers’ careers but also for the viability of the Republican
Party among Latino voters. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">There
simply is no viable rationale for any U.S. lawmaker to defy the express will of
the Puerto Rican electorate. Even if lawmakers condition their support for
statehood on the adoption of English as the official language, they indicate
their latent prejudice against the Spanish-speaking population as being
somehow un-American. See, e.g., <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/election-2012/post/santorum-says-puerto-rico-should-adopt-english-if-it-hopes-to-be-state/2012/03/15/gIQAAeBKFS_blog.html">Rick Santorum</a><span style="color: black;">'s ill-advised reservation that
Puerto Rico </span></span><span lang="EN" style="color: black; mso-ansi-language: EN;">“should comply
with this and every other federal law – and that is that English must be the
main language"; </span><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"><span style="color: black;">Rep.</span> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerto_Rico_Democracy_Act">Dan Burton</a>'s <span style="color: black;">insertion of language into the Puerto Rico Democracy Act expressing </span></span><span style="color: black;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">that “any official language requirements
of the Federal Government shall apply to Puerto Rico”</span><span style="mso-themecolor: text1;">. </span><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">Such insistence that Puerto Ricans speak English </span></span><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;"><span style="color: black;">indicates these lawmakers’ ignorance
of the fact that Puerto Ricans study English in every grade of public school. It also indicates such politicians' ignorance of the law; there is no official language of the United States, let alone a
linguistic prerequisite for states’ admission to the Union.</span> Louisiana became the 18th state in the Union as a bilingual Anglophone-Francophone state, and Hawaii became the 50th with English and Hawaiian as official state languages. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">Any other
argument for suppressing the will of this Election Day’s referendum would
simply be grasping at straws. Because Puerto Ricans are already American
citizens through and through, there is no question whatsoever about illegal
immigration. Many Puerto Rican residents do not want to have to pay federal income
taxes – but a clear majority of voters have expressed their consent to do so. With
the next wave of reapportionment in 2022, some states will lose House seats and
electoral votes to make way for Puerto Rico’s Congressional delegation – but
those states would already be losing House seats and electoral votes to other
states with faster-growing populations. Some mainland Americans have even
expressed concern with violating the present symmetry of the 50 stars on the
American flag – such a lame rationale for denying 3 million U.S. citizens their
civil rights isn’t even worth a serious response. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">So when
the referendum votes are officially certified, and President Obama and Senate
leader Harry Reid call for a Puerto Rican Statehood Enabling Act – and you can
bet that Democratic Congressmen will be tripping over each other trying to be
the original sponsor of this bill – the Republican Caucus in the House and Senate
ought to follow suite. The GOP has to support Puerto Rican statehood not just
because it’s the right thing to do, but it might be the first best opportunity
for Republican officeholders to demonstrate that they are for expanding the
rights of citizenship to a rapidly-growing Latino constituency. And once that
door is open, perhaps the open-minded members of the Party of Lincoln might put
bipartisanship and compromise back in their vocabulary and realize just how
great it feels to be on the right side of progress on civil rights. This could be the harbinger of even greater legislative efforts to come. Maybe, just
maybe, working together on Puerto Rican statehood might inspire enough Republicans to reach across the aisle
and work with the President to pass an immigration reform bill that allows
another huge swath of Latinos living and working in our country to realize their
full potential as American citizens. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="https://twitter.com/ZacMadu" class="twitter-follow-button" data-show-count="false">Follow @ZacMadu</a>
<script src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" type="text/javascript"></script></div>Zachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00977280731502216845noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7001870879534452132.post-40878155224467657012012-10-11T23:11:00.000-07:002012-10-14T18:15:25.761-07:00Ought there be a Limit on Free Speech in the Subway?<script type="text/javascript">
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
The subway is a
public forum of sorts; it is a place where people of all races, religions, and classes
intermingle, where commuters read their newspapers, gripe about the weather,
and sometimes even wade into vigorous debate about the grand issues of the day.
Without a doubt, the subway is a part of the public sphere where speech is protected
by the First Amendment – to a reasonable degree. <a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="_GoBack"></a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
However, subway cars, platforms, stairwells and tunnels were
built by cities to move people from point A to point B as quickly and safely as
possible. Speech activities are not as protected on the subway to the degree
that they are in the public square. Likewise, the <a href="http://www.mta.info/nyct/rules/rules.htm#disorderly">New York MTA</a> prohibits canvassing,
soliciting, leafleting, blasting loud music, and any other sort of disorderly
conduct “which may cause or tend to cause annoyance, alarm, or inconvenience to
a reasonable person or create a breach of the peace.” And the unwritten rules
of subway etiquette include that one ought to refrain from giving co-riders eye
contact – let alone get up in peoples’ faces and egg on a fight.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
Enter stage right the ‘<a href="http://freedomdefense.typepad.com/">American Freedom Defense Initiative</a>' (i.e. professional Islamophobe author Pamela
Geller) and (her) now-infamous “Civilized Man” ad hanging in certain New York,
San Francisco, and Washington public transit stations specifically selected for
their proximity to Jewish and Muslim communities. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCt-haGRl4BrXqjhecLvtKvBC00My4azr5rAwn6GCgmx5GPDN83nlM1bzQTWlPbWx0KQB0tTtft19ypUr0zPI1NOjKV_g0-WXbavEXTfXmB-NU3ZzEhPT4ZqqYzWiF7rcQArY8yBbO6vw/s1600/Civilized+Man.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCt-haGRl4BrXqjhecLvtKvBC00My4azr5rAwn6GCgmx5GPDN83nlM1bzQTWlPbWx0KQB0tTtft19ypUr0zPI1NOjKV_g0-WXbavEXTfXmB-NU3ZzEhPT4ZqqYzWiF7rcQArY8yBbO6vw/s320/Civilized+Man.jpg" width="320" /></a> </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
You don’t have to try very hard to connect the dots in
Geller’s crude analysis. Geller all but explicitly proclaims: “Muslims are a
bunch of savages”, or “Palestinians are a bunch of uncivilized sub-humans”; “Israeli
Civilization is at war with them, so you should fight them too.” Why does she
want to do this? Pamela Geller runs a blog <em><a href="http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/">Atlas Shrugs</a></em> where she documents her thesis that all Muslims are violent
“savages” and that Judeo-Christian White America ought to take the offensive
against these <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">undermenschen</i> in a
Clash of Civilizations. There is not enough sectarian warfare in the United
States for Geller to make a convincing argument, so Geller stitched together a
message unarguably intended to offend, to provoke vandalism, and to create for
herself more opportunities to find photos of Muslims standing around, looking
angry and menacing <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">in your subway! </i>Like
the “Innocence of Muslims” YouTube video, this is a perfect example of trolling
– the “Civilized Man” poster was made for the express purpose of pushing people
to commit acts of violence. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
Not without ample justification, the New York MTA originally
rejected Geller’s “Civilized Man” ads, citing the agency’s advertising
policy which prohibits any advertisement <strong>“that demean(s) an individual or group
of individuals on account of race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry,
gender, age, disability, or sexual orientation.”</strong> However, Geller’s AFDI sued
the MTA, pleading for a preliminary injunction to strike down the “no
demeaning” standard. <br />
<br />
Quite consequently, the MTA had already been in the business of selling ad space to groups - including Geller's - advocating certain positions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Witness the progress of the spillover of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on US metro transit authorities over the past few years: <br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
A pro-Palestinian group put this poster went up in Washington-area trains and buses in 2011. The policy objective of the above is radical by any standard. But of course this is political speech protected by the First Amendment. It’s even gosh darn polite. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif2UX9md1bP2lj56G9QolnKvUjDts2WLrFQOWljQwvHpwEQ8Gs677SjUlnez7LbZqCZHQFJY0eVO-UOMfSeYZqt6lk82XFGivyADQ2CouzQmluz0YXohR7ApSvq9bSVBwnZ63fWUjWmWM/s1600/AidtoIsrael.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif2UX9md1bP2lj56G9QolnKvUjDts2WLrFQOWljQwvHpwEQ8Gs677SjUlnez7LbZqCZHQFJY0eVO-UOMfSeYZqt6lk82XFGivyADQ2CouzQmluz0YXohR7ApSvq9bSVBwnZ63fWUjWmWM/s1600/AidtoIsrael.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
Another pro-Palestinian group decided to push the envelope a little further. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihuByGrlz8qJ9bNvA7Gnh5eCrCaxKAFZ-_A37biLA0wuJqW9W6Csn7wO0FvEkbOqmEhd2aPgIK5zVevKaouia1Pwn4SZcRqti3euIx_1XDzo7Vwil3vz5t4aFHFzzHLLq153S_UO2gwxE/s1600/Palestinians+poster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihuByGrlz8qJ9bNvA7Gnh5eCrCaxKAFZ-_A37biLA0wuJqW9W6Csn7wO0FvEkbOqmEhd2aPgIK5zVevKaouia1Pwn4SZcRqti3euIx_1XDzo7Vwil3vz5t4aFHFzzHLLq153S_UO2gwxE/s320/Palestinians+poster.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
This ad generated plenty of controversy in the New York metro region; the MTA received thousands of complaints, my local Assemblyman Robert Castelli made a push to get the MTA to take the posters down from Metro-North stations, reasoning that though “there is no offensive language in the message”, “by its very nature, it is inflammatory an directs a negative message toward Israel and her people.” The MTA didn’t budge. Some Zionist groups went berserk. <br />
<br />
Just like the legitimate debate over Israel and Palestine’s borders has been hijacked by racial extremists on both sides, Pamela Geller sought to throw a Molotov cocktail into the debate to extinguish all civil discussion. Completely bypassing reasonable dialogue on U.S. foreign policy, Geller appealed to the vilest of strategies in political rhetoric:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>thinly-veiled white supremacy. <br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span> </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRulLcBUe30IPhpikDKWDmcoC33GspRjK7GsQXXBQAZ7Qd5IXaJgNAOEk3-RerUhQoih8VFiDlzwAEtGjAnzOscGFP8ELkSnK856KsMrj06fzbpH1nclB0_RZqi5QvCGE502JZAgZ62fc/s1600/JihadAd.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRulLcBUe30IPhpikDKWDmcoC33GspRjK7GsQXXBQAZ7Qd5IXaJgNAOEk3-RerUhQoih8VFiDlzwAEtGjAnzOscGFP8ELkSnK856KsMrj06fzbpH1nclB0_RZqi5QvCGE502JZAgZ62fc/s1600/JihadAd.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Surely there is a difference between Geller’s ad and the prior two not just in perspective but also in tone and substance. The first two might be thought-provoking, particularly controversial. But the “Civilized Man” ad went out of its way to be offensive. Unfortunately/fortunately (depending on your perspective), that's not a distinction that the First Amendment permits the government to make.</div>
In <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.nysd.uscourts.gov/cases/show.php?db=special&id=198">American Freedom Defense Initiative v. MTA</a></i>, U.S. District Judge
Paul Engelmayer ruled for Geller, reasoning that the MTA had created a public
forum, the MTA had sold ad space to pro-Palestinian groups, the MTA can’t
engage in viewpoint discrimination and allow ads espousing one opinion and
rejecting those of another. If the MTA is going to sell ad space, the state may not put its thumb on the scale of the free marketplace of ideas and allow one viewpoint but prohibit another. The majesty of the First Amendment entails that if the city is going to grant the NAACP a permit to parade in Central Park, it has to also grant a permit to the <a href="http://www.festivaldc.com/blog/?p=8938">Aryan Nation</a>.<br />
<br />
Moreover, the MTA “no-demeaning” rule was only
applicable to language demeaning of members of the enumerated groups, and thus it was not narrowly-tailored to meet any justifiable end. As
Engelmayer reasoned, according to the MTA rule an advertiser would be perfectly
free to state “Southerners are bigots”; “Upper West Siders are elitist snobs”;
“Fat people are slobs”; “Blondes are bimbos” or “Lawyers are sleazebags” –
language demeaning of certain classes of people – so long as it did not demean
classes of people on the basis of race, religion, gender, sexual orientation,
etc. The MTA policy regulated the content of speech in a way that was not
inconsistent with the First Amendment. The ads went up last month. <br />
<br />
In <a href="http://www.americanfreedomlawcenter.org/cases/33/afdi-et-al-v-washington-metropolitan-area-transit-authority.html"><em>American Freedom Defense Institute v. WMATA</em></a>,Pamela Geller waged a slightly different lawsuit against the Washington-area public transit authority, which refused to put up her “Savage” ads not for demeaning language but for security reasons. WMATA lawyer Philip Straub invoked the then-still-ongoing mob violence and terrorist attacks on U.S. diplomatic personnel aroused by the “Innocence of Muslims” YouTube video. He even <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>cited the Department of Homeland Security, which had notified the transit authorities that such an ad could increase the threat of terrorism in the Washington metro. According to Straub, DHS advised WMATA that the “Savage” ad “could not be displayed in our system until passions have cooled somewhat.” </div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
Straub also argued that they agency
could reject the “Civilized Man” ad under the “fighting words” doctrine. It is
not difficult to see how Geller’s ad can be interpreted as falling into this
category of “fighting words.” As Justice Frank Murphy articulated the exception
to the First Amendment in the classic case <a href="http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0315_0568_ZS.html"><em>Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire</em></a><em>:</em><br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<strong>There are certain well-defined and
narrowly limited classes of speech, the prevention and punishment of which have
never been thought to raise any constitutional problem. These include the lewd
and obscene, the profane, the libelous, and the insulting or “fighting” words
which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate
breach of the peace.</strong></blockquote>
Referring to Palestinians/Arabs/Muslims as “savages” is unarguably
insulting, profane and libelous. But Geller did much more than that – but she
called for subway passengers to side with Israel in the war against those
“savages”. How ought we engage in such ethno-sectarian warfare against the
“savages”? The AFDI’s innuendo-filled call to arms is reminiscent of the anti-Tutsi
propaganda Radio Mille Collines’ broadcast during the Rwandan genocide; it came
in coded phrases; “Cut down the tall trees!” and “Exterminate the cockroaches!”
The ad doesn’t give explicit instructions – it doesn't say "Punch a Muslim!" or "Graffiti a mosque!" it lets its readers come to their
own conclusions. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
In the end, U.S. District Court Judge
Rosemary Collyer granted the American Freedom Defense Institute’s request for a
preliminary injunction on the grounds that the WMATA’s fear of mob violence in
the DC Metro was too vague and speculative. According to the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0395_0444_ZO.html">Brandenburg</a> </i>Test, the government cannot
restrict speech unless it carries: <br />
<span style="background-color: orange;">1. the <strong>intent</strong> to incite violence; </span><br />
<span style="background-color: orange;">2. the
violence must be <strong>imminent</strong>; and </span><br />
<span style="background-color: orange;">3. there must be a distinct <strong>likelihood</strong> that the
speech will proximately cause violence.</span> <br />
<br />
Geller’s ad fulfills the Intent
element, but even though the Department of Homeland Security had feared the
possibility of terrorist reprisals, the mere fact that that the transit
authority feared that someone <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">could</i>
be whipped into violence was insufficient grounds for censorship. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">In the wake of these rulings, the transit authorities of New
York, DC, and elsewhere are posed with a quandary; so long as they sell ad
space along subway tunnels and the sides of buses, is there any way or the
state agencies to regulate content without running afoul of the Constitution?
According to Judge Engelmayer and Collyer’s decisions, say the local Neo-Nazi
organization wants to put up a recruitment poster saying “Those greedy,
hook-nosed shysters took your job and took your house. Take one of their silly hats!” Suppose the Klu Klux Klan wants to put up ads saying: “Those lazy bums are
mugging you and stealing your hard-earned tax dollars to buy crack and grape
soda. Fight back!” Is the MTA powerless to resist? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Must our trains and buses become receptacles
for the absolutely most scurrilous vitriol? Do we subway commuters have to participate
in this sociological experiment against our will? </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
In response to the federal court
decision, the New York MTA board adopted by a vote of 8-0 a new policy banning
any advertisement that the MTA board <span style="color: black;"><strong>“reasonably
foresees would imminently incite or provoke violence or other immediate breach
of the peace.”</strong> Essentially, the new rule would ban “trolling” in the limited
public forums of subway ad space. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="color: black;">But when
is speech “trolling”? It’s hard to lay out scientific parameters, but society
has caught wind of the subset which gets its perverse kicks by throwing out incendiary
words <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">just short </i>of being “fighting
words” per se. </span>Indeed, the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">sine
qua non </i>of trolling is that it doesn’t explicitly exhort the masses to
commit murder and mayhem, but it drives right up to that line of sowing hatred
and provoking violence with full knowledge that that is enough to achieve the
intended result. And <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">just before</i> a
troller actually becomes a co-conspirator in the violence which will foreseeably
ensue, the yellow-bellied bastards tweak their speech just enough so that it is
protected speech and they can hide behind the aegis of the First Amendment. <span style="color: black;">Trolling is rather amorphous, inherently vague and
difficult to define – but it is certainly identifiable on a case by case basis.
Like how Justice Potter Stewart defined pornography, “I know it when I see it.”</span><span style="color: black;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="color: black;">Harvard
Law Professor Alan Dershowitz immediately cried foul at the MTA’s new
anti-trolling rule. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span>“A. it’s
clearly unconstitutional” he said, and “B. it incentivizes people to engage in
violence. What it says to people, is that if they don’t like ads, just engage
in violence and then we’ll take the ads down.” <br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">I’m afraid that Dershowitz might be right on this one. According to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Brandenburg v. Ohio</i>, the government cannot punish even inflammatory speech unless that speech is directed to inciting, and is likely to incite, imminent lawless action. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even if Geller’s“Civilized Man” ad or Bacile’s “The Innocence of Muslims” were created with the express intent of inciting Muslims to violence, even if a violent reprisal is reasonably foreseeable, it’s very difficult burden for the state to prove that any such violence is both <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">likely </i>and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">imminent</i>. Because it is indeed carefully threaded so as to comply with constitutional law, trolling might be just as much protected speech as is picketing a military funeral or burning an American flag.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So the sad fact of the matter is that Pamela Geller is like a bad case of anal warts – polite society might not have any effective remedy to make her go away, and we’re going to have to learn to live with her uncomfortable, obnoxious presence. Part of the deal of living in a free society is that we have to tolerate ideologues of intolerance, whether they be the Klu Klux Klan, the Aryan Nation, the Thirteenth Tribe, or the American Freedom Defense Initiative. </span></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
The silver lining is that even
though Pamela Geller and her cohorts of hatemongers may have won their First
Amendment case, it’s a very Pyrrhic victory. In winning the right to put up the
“Civilized Man” poster, now the ‘American Freedom Defense Initiative’ has only
won the opportunity to compete in the marketplace of ideas. And <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/15/books/review/the-crisis-of-zionism-by-peter-beinart.html?pagewanted=all">their ideas are losing</a>. Big time. Mainstream liberal and even conservative Jewish voices including <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/25/opinion/the-sin-of-sowing-hatred-of-islam.html">Rabbi Richard Jacobs</a> – the leader of the Reform movement,
the <a href="http://mondoweiss.net/2012/06/jewish-federation-branch-cancels-pamela-geller-event-after-interfaith-outcry.html">Jewish Federation</a>, the <a href="http://www.adl.org/main_Extremism/pamela-geller-stop-islamization-of-america.htm?Multi_page_sections=sHeading_2">Anti-Defamation League</a>, et al., are unanimously horrified
by how low Geller has stooped in her so-called “pro-Israel” advocacy. Pamela
Geller may have won the battle to put up her racist placards, but in doing so,
she’s really helping <a href="http://www.rjchq.org/">the Jewish Right</a> lose the war for the hearts and minds of
America’s Jewish youth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> W</span>hen
self-proclaimed defenders of Israel denigrate Palestinians as “savages”, and
make crude appeals to “civilization” i.e. white solidarity, they have lost an
entire generation of American Jews. Thanks to this “Civilized Man” ad, showing
just how race-baiting and fear-mongering “pro-Israel” advocacy can be, many
Jews are probably going to be much more wary of the Jewish Right and its Willie Horton-like scare tactics. <br />
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
When the dust has settled, it looks
like Geller’s foray into the marketplace of ideas may just completely backfire.
The ruckus over the despicable “Savage” ads are encouraging fair-minded Jews to
speak up, to call out Islamophobia and racism amongst our own ranks, and we're much less scared of advocating for for a sane, peaceful diplomatic policy in the Levant for fear of being labeled "anti-Israel." When I
read the literature of America’s new voices, I hear calls for <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joshua-stanton/islamophobia-is-not-pro-israel_b_1911485.html">a new identity of Jewish Americans</a> based
on tolerance, reconciliation and peaceful relations with other faiths and
cultures. Most important of all, Pamela Geller may have inadvertently highlighted the imperative for
civil negotiations over the Mideast conflict, leading to an independent Israel
and Palestine, living together, side by side, in security and in peace. </div>
</div>
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<script src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" type="text/javascript"></script></div>Zachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00977280731502216845noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7001870879534452132.post-69481649349728106372012-04-07T09:05:00.002-07:002012-04-08T19:22:42.342-07:00Renegade Mali Soldiers Pledge to Step Down, Feign Magnanimity<script type="text/javascript">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL6LkitCrqjwoVPMIsgnXzeYoP0nLxZ7dyY-8fGXEqkHrTON4gRuvDI47zXNBaBkd2UWvkQ5nRiKAHQDUlmFapuBzPtCodfFvMWDqaSJsZxT3qs-Gep-r-sLhkEHahOWWRPBW3X7v5y-E/s1600/Amadou+Sanago+2" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL6LkitCrqjwoVPMIsgnXzeYoP0nLxZ7dyY-8fGXEqkHrTON4gRuvDI47zXNBaBkd2UWvkQ5nRiKAHQDUlmFapuBzPtCodfFvMWDqaSJsZxT3qs-Gep-r-sLhkEHahOWWRPBW3X7v5y-E/s1600/Amadou+Sanago+2" /></a>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
It appears that the
Malian political crisis has come to a crest. <br />
<br />
The AP reports: </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 11pt;"> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 11pt;">Capt. Amadou Haya Sanogo emerged from his office inside the
military barracks that has served the de facto seat of government for the past
16 days, ever since he and his men stormed the presidential palace, reversing
over two decades of democratic rule. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 11pt;">Flanked
by the ministers of neighboring nations, he read out the accord, which states
that under Article 36 of Mali's constitution the head of the national assembly
becomes interim president in the event of a vacancy of power. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 11pt;">"In the event of
the vacancy of the president of the republic for whatever reason, or due to any
absolute and definitive impediment," Sanogo said, "the functions of
the president of the republic will be exercised by the president of the
National Assembly." </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: black;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="color: black;">In theory, Sanogo will abdicate to </span>Dioncounda
Traoré – the National Assembly President who fled Mali when the coup began, and until now was hiding in Burkina Faso.</span> </div>
</span></span></span></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU60W9Q4BJAX5xS9t7E9FpTslOWUrnEB79vBs9GEKuiuC0sAos1L3s5rcIK9mC_oAWzYosivlabfHZn3XlzGwt87hCtI1ehcP7F_nIfWeM4iujZhRBg7dC_1Cq2UCCs1-P4DjT8WXIoDM/s1600/Dioncounda+Traore.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU60W9Q4BJAX5xS9t7E9FpTslOWUrnEB79vBs9GEKuiuC0sAos1L3s5rcIK9mC_oAWzYosivlabfHZn3XlzGwt87hCtI1ehcP7F_nIfWeM4iujZhRBg7dC_1Cq2UCCs1-P4DjT8WXIoDM/s400/Dioncounda+Traore.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Insofar as resolving the political crisis of existential proportions,
this development is certainly a welcome one. If Sanogo actually lives up to
this agreement and abdicates power, it appears that Mali’s democratic
government, as established in the 1992 Constitution, will hold at
least titular power. It appears that ECOWAS will drop the total embargo on
land-locked Mali, and the economic situation might not hurtle towards the famine
it was heading towards only last week. Now the Malian people might only suffer
a merely <a href="http://www.trust.org/alertnet/crisis-centre/crisis/west-african-food-crisis-2012">terrible food crisis</a>. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
As Malians can describe the (relatively) good news, “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">doni doni</i>”; literally, “little by little.” As Dr. Leo Marvin
advised his patient in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfrueeBmfXo&feature=related">What About Bob?</a></i>,
“baby steps.” </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
However, there are still a number of caveats to this welcome turn of
events. First and foremost is the fact that Capt. Sanogo and his CNRDRE
henchman have demonstrated to the world that any written agreement they stamp
is not worth the paper it’s printed on. CNRDRE announced a new Constitution on
March 28th, only to repeal it on April 1st. Sanogo announced a constitutional
convention, only to cancel it a few days later.
Thusfar, it appears that not one of
Sanogo’s public statements has contained an iota of veracity. The default assumption should
be that Sanogo is lying through his teeth at all times. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
So, let’s assume that this one time is the exception to the rule, and
Capt. Sanogo does in fact abdicate power in favor of the former leader of the
Malian National Assembly. There still remain a number of fundamental matters
which must be resolved in order to determine whether this return to democracy
is in fact genuine or merely the application of lipstick on a pig. After all, more than a year out since the world-historical protests in Tahrir Square,
Mubarak stepped down but <a href="http://www.indypendent.org/2012/01/23/year-after-tahrir">Egyptians are still ruled by an unelected military regime</a>. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
First and foremost, <strong>Amadou Haya Sanogo has not announced the exact date
of the proposed transition of power. </strong>He could postpone this transition
indefinitely. As riders on <a href="http://www.trust.org/alertnet/crisis-centre/crisis/west-african-food-crisis-2012">the Malian bus system</a> know too well, one can pay for
bus fare at 6:00 AM and be told the bus leaves “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">soni</i>” (soon), “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">peut-êti</i>”
7:00, and the bus handlers will push back the departure time until 8:00, then
12:00. The bus might leave the station at 6:00 PM, but it might break down
after an hour on the road, and the passengers might spend the night on the curb.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<strong>It remains uncertain whether the
Traoré presidency will be a clean break with the CNRDRE junta.</strong> It is quite
possible that the mutineers in the Kati barracks see this as is a power-sharing
agreement rather than an unconditional surrender. Mali is a haggling culture,
and a merchant with the goods in hand would be considered a fool to simply
accede to his bargaining partner’s price without getting anything in return.
Capt. Sanogo has the keys to the ship of state, and he is almost certainly
angling for what he must regard as just compensation; perhaps a big wad of
cash, a plum job in the military command, and a number of CNRDRE soldiers in
the interregnum and the next democratically-elected administration – that is,
if there is another democratically-elected administration. An administration
composed of Dioncounda Traoré as the titular head of state but CNRDRE toadies
calling the shots from behind the curtain would constitute only superficial change.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<strong>Sanogo has not announced when the next presidential election will take
place.</strong> Sanogo & Co. created a crisis just before the planned elections.
As of three
weeks ago, the election was scheduled for April 29th. Amadou Toumani Touré was
a lame duck on his swan song. Democracy was just about to function right on
schedule before CNRDRE somehow contrived a way to gum up the works. One cannot reiterate too many times just how much the March 21st coup was completely useless and absolutely unnecessary for any purpose whatsoever. It has achieved nothing. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<strong>Even if Mali were to hold presidential elections, the questions remains
as to what kind of Mali the president would govern. </strong>It appears that the Malian
government exercises sovereignty over a rump state consisting of Koulikoro,
Kayes, Sikasso, Ségou and part of Mopti province – in which 13 million Malians
live. The Tuaregs have unquestioned control over Kidal, Gao, Timbuktu and the
other swath of Mopti province – home to only 1.3 million. Likewise, if there is
to be a presidential election, it remains unclear whether those 1.3 million in
Tuareg Country would be eligible to vote. Would Mali extend absentee ballots to
loyalist Songraï, Tuareg, Fula and Moor citizens in the Azawad – effectively
claiming sovereignty over these territories? Or would the MNLA disenfranchise
their newfound subjects from the Malian elections? It is also quite conceivable
that Ansar al-Din could commit mass atrocities <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9bcwb_cVMs">Sierra Leone</a>-style against Malian
loyalists if they do try to vote. The folks who have instituted Sharia law in
Azawad territory have already abducted and raped girls, it’s not far-fetched
that they might use the threat of slavery to extort submission and dissuade
participation in the vote. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<strong>The ECOWAS/CNRDRE agreement remains unsettled the role of the Malian
military in the provisional and future government.</strong> The March 21 putschists have
dealt democracy a permanent wound by demonstrating that a few disgruntled
junior offices can bring down an elected administration by seizing the
Presidential Palace, the airport, and the TV station. If there is to be another
Malian president in the future, it appears that he or she might have to govern
in the shadow of the Kati Army barracks,
the fear of another coup d’état always hanging over the presidency’s head like
the Sword of Damocles. After the CNRDRE mutiny forced President Touré into
hiding, the power of the presidency has been severely diminished. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
Malian democrats now have every reason to remain wary of the Malian
military and what it really stands for. It appears that some of the Army corps
remains at least facially committed to the territorial integrity of the
Republic of Mali. But are they genuinely committed to the Republic of Mali
under a bona fide republican government? It looks like Sanogo & Co. would opt
for a military regime which governs the Northern territories over a stable,
sustainable democracy in the lower four and ½ provinces. Since the
political crisis erupted, Malian militaires have demonstrated more
interest for political jockeying and looting than they have for defending any
segment of the civilian population. Even after they had carte blanche from Kati,
the soldiers in the North crumbled like dust before MNLA and Ansar al-Din and
gave up Kidal, Gao and Timbuktu without putting up a fight. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
I hate to say it, but one should also be genuinely concerned about the status
of democracy amongst the Malian people. There appears to be <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/28/mali-coup-supporters-rally">a significant swath of Malian public opinion</a>, disproportionately Sanogos and other Senaful clans,
who supported the coup as a matter of tribal fidelity, disillusionment
with ATT, and general dissatisfaction with the government. Democracy is not getting everything you want when you want it. Using violent force to effect change might be popular, it might be excusable to resist a foreign military occupation, but it's not democratic. Democracy is a system of elections, legislatures, courts, and other constitutional institutions through which citizens can effect change, often over the course of years and decades. So long as there remains a significant
bloc of the electorate that can’t wait 39 days, and could willingly sacrifice a
constitutional government in order to depose a president whom they don’t like,
one must question those persons’ commitment to democracy and the rule of law. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
Mali is not going to be a democratic regime again until it is governed
by a civilian administration brought to office by free and fair elections. So
long as Capt. Sanogo and CNRDRE are anywhere near the halls of power, Malian
democracy will remain compromised by the fear of a renegade military and the
politics of extortion. Sanogo must step down as soon as possible, and the
CNRDRE ought to disband root and branch. Though CNRDRE insisted upon an amnesty
stipulation in the agreement with ECOWAS, these renegade soldiers committed
amongst the greatest crimes that soldiers can commit: mutiny, treason, dereliction of duty, holding political prisoners, orchestrating
violence against critics, looting and pillaging government buildings and
civilian merchants. Note that the ECOWAS/CNRDRE agreement was signed between some mutineering Malian soldiers and neighboring West African states; the legitimate government of Mali was not party to this agreement, and it appears dubious whether ECOWAS has the power to grant amnesty to Malian soldiers for crimes committed exclusively on Malian soil. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: #333333;">If
future Malian governments never prosecute these outlaw soldiers for their
wanton crimes, it will send the message that members of the military can
subvert the law and desecrate the Constitution with impunity - and Malian
democracy will long remain in a precarious position.</span><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">
</span></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="https://twitter.com/ZacMadu" class="twitter-follow-button" data-show-count="false">Follow @ZacMadu</a>
<script src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" type="text/javascript"></script></div>Zachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00977280731502216845noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7001870879534452132.post-85828595392303570932012-03-31T18:03:00.001-07:002012-04-08T14:47:31.212-07:00Captain Sanogo and CNRDRE Create an Economic Catastrophe<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Amidst the sudden coup d’état and
disintegration of military positions in Kidal, Gao and Timbuktu, the international media
has begun to accord the West African nation of Mali its share of due attention.
However, beyond the capital city of Bamako, behind the frontlines of the North,
a tremendously more consequential and lethal but less photogenic drama is about
to unfold in the towns and villages which constitute the majority of the Malian
population. Absent a sudden turn of events, a completely unnecessary, man-made
catastrophe is about to unfold, and the international community can do little
but watch as it all happens in slow motion. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
The Economic
Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has given the CNRDRE mutineers a 72
hour ultimatum; either step down and abdicate all powers which they now
illegitimately control, or the regional organization is about to shut Mali off
from all international trade. If CNDRE does not abdicate power, the ECOWAS
nations – including the Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Guinea, and Niger –
are going to close their borders and restrict all trade with Mali – a land-locked
nation. ECOWAS will suspend Mali’s account at the regional central bank,
shutting it off from cash reserves. The deadline for this ultimatum is Sunday
night. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPxMNyzhsT-Kqbbttbg5M2UEZPMdSD7ebpWdR1QwFB9d_E2AKfJywbUCuKKIvX6vwkrl_ewMJNgrhmZUcwuXfJgDiwvnRCA1j6J9Jk6k9TI8uRDuCs2j2Xd0BmGasn0BHIIVflPTYydxw/s1600/Amadou+Sanogo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPxMNyzhsT-Kqbbttbg5M2UEZPMdSD7ebpWdR1QwFB9d_E2AKfJywbUCuKKIvX6vwkrl_ewMJNgrhmZUcwuXfJgDiwvnRCA1j6J9Jk6k9TI8uRDuCs2j2Xd0BmGasn0BHIIVflPTYydxw/s1600/Amadou+Sanogo.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Observing what is about to happen
to the Malian economy is akin to watching a car speed down a two-lane highway
and a much larger vehicle is driving in the same lane straight
towards it, for one brief moment you can see exactly how this head-on collision
is going to occur, and there is nothing that you can do to stop it. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
To understand what these sanctions
are going to do to exacerbate the misery of an already impoverished nation, one
must understand the Malian economy in this particular stage of development. Mali’s
economy is already the third- or fourth-poorest in the world, with a per capita
GDP of only $1,300. The vast majority of the population is engaged in
subsistence agriculture of millet, sorghum, rice and corn. This year even the
rural farming class is beset by <a href="http://www.oxfam.org/en/emergencies/sahel-food-crisis">a massive food shortage</a> as precipitation last
year’s growing season was pitiful. Malian farmers call the time of year before
the millet harvest in September “hungry season” because the cereals stored in
their granaries is now down to the last dregs, and many families reduce their
consumption to one meal a day. This year, “hungry season” has already begun for
many families in March – and the next harvest is six months away. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
To boot, hundreds of thousands of
Tuaregs and Songraï from the North have fled from the advancing MNLA forces,
creating a crisis of <a href="http://www.internal-displacement.org/countries/mali">refugees and internally-displaced persons</a> where a
population of displaced farmers can’t farm, and their reluctant hosts don’t
have food to feed them. Already, absent any government interventions,
Mali is facing one of the worst food crises in a generation. Rice is now hovering around 400 to 500 CFA a kilo (~$1), which is a lot seeing that that 500 CFA is a good full day's wage in a country where very few people are even employed in the formal sector, and each wage-earner has to support between 1 and 4 wives, each with an average of 7.4 children per woman, as well as his parents, grandparents, and extended family. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
A food crisis is more complicated
than a mere shortage of food. During the Great Global Food Crisis of 2009, there
was millet and rice in Malian markets, it was there to purchase. However, due
to a global shock caused by a devastating drought in Australia, stockpiling by
Thailand, speculation on the global commodities markets, the price for rice
soared around the world. In just any plain food crisis, the market in food is
so shocked by a massive spike in prices that a significant swath of the
population cannot afford to buy it. A spike in the price of rice has a dire
affects among the population of consumers who purchase all of the food they eat
– namely, the urbanites of Bamako, Ségou, Sikasso, Mopti, Gao and
Timbuktu. But the 2009 Global Food Crisis was not so bad for the country folk
who grew most if not all of the food they eat – in fact, it was a good year for
a number of farmers who could demand more money in exchange for surplus
grains. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVaCATM1AJfb5HCUn1Y8yQ8b5rjrf5HXA3o0X4pOEaRTFocsnOg8Q4IKGilbGX-U9CjfdZGps4o_jNDWwQOCm-TBxf9DzhGzA_t8cyKGRG_G-6ym59Esgm8Zzl53IwtWgBfAQ4uALNPCE/s1600/IMG_2590.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVaCATM1AJfb5HCUn1Y8yQ8b5rjrf5HXA3o0X4pOEaRTFocsnOg8Q4IKGilbGX-U9CjfdZGps4o_jNDWwQOCm-TBxf9DzhGzA_t8cyKGRG_G-6ym59Esgm8Zzl53IwtWgBfAQ4uALNPCE/s320/IMG_2590.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
But this food crisis of 2012 is a
monster of its own. This time, there is actually a great, endogenous shortage
of millet, sorghum, corn, rice, and everything else. The people who farm cereals did not produce enough to feed themselves - let alone sell a surplus they don't have. A lot of subsistence
farmers are dipping into their seed corn and slaughtering their draft animals.
Many otherwise subsistence farmers are now forced to sell what little they have
of economic value – cows, goats, <a href="http://zacstravaganza.blogspot.com/2010/06/as-though-dark-ages-never-ended.html">sons, daughters</a> – to purchase their food at
market. </div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
To fathom the impact of the
impending ECOWAS sanctions on Mali, one must appreciate the absolute precariousness
of the already-existing humanitarian crisis. When I call my friends in my
erstwhile home, they tell me “the villagers are running out of millet, rice is
too expensive to buy.” Rice is now between 400 and 500 CFA/kilo, but it is feared that that price might skyrocket to 1500 CFA/kilo. The Malian economy is already so impoverished that it is
difficult to imagine how much more miserable it can become. We are about to
find out. </div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
The Malian agricultural sector does
not produce enough food to adequately feed its own population, so the food
economy is significantly dependent on rice and other foodstuffs imported across
the borders with the Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Senegal, and Guinea. If the
nations of the ECOWAS bloc close their borders to Mali, all Malian imports of
rice, corn, and all other foodstuffs will cease (but for the inevitable black
market). Mali’s food crisis will deepen even further. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
The Malian economy is completely
dependent on imported gasoline which is shipped from the Persian Gulf to the port of Abidjan, then trucked overland across the Ivory Coast to the Malian border. As
of Saturday, March 31, the price of gasoline had already spiked from 750 to
2000 CFA per liter. Without gasoline, transport and commerce will come to a
standstill beyond the local village economy, what little goods can be sold by
foot, bicycle, donkey cart, and canoe. Mali’s urban population of roughly 3 million, entirely
dependent upon a commercial economy, without any fields to farm, are going to
suffer as Malian commerce completely and utterly collapses into a subsistence
economy. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
In
addition, ECOWAS is about to freeze Mali’s account at the central bank from
which the Malian Ministry of the Treasury receives its currency to put into
circulation. If all goes as planned, on Monday the various private banks of
Mali will have no more bills and coins to distribute to account holders when
they come to withdraw money. Last week, the banks were already like a scene out
of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOzMdEwYmDU">It’s a Wonderful Life</a></i>; people are
waiting in lines 50 people deep to withdraw from their accounts, and the banks
are telling patrons that they can withdraw a maximum of 500,000 CFA (~$1,000). By
Monday or Tuesday, the banks will have no currency to distribute at all. Soldiers
in the Malian Army, gendarmes, all civil servants and teachers will be unable
to cash their paychecks. </div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
The point of the ECOWAS sanctions
on Mali is to replicate what occurred in the <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-21/ivory-coast-s-gbagbo-faces-financial-asphyxia-as-sanctions-begin-to-bite.html">Ivory Coast</a> last year when dictator
Laurent Gbagbo refused to abdicate power to the elected president Alassane
Ouattara, and ECOWAS froze the Ivorian account. Without the power of the
paycheck, the pro-Gbagbo forces demonstrated that their loyalty was contingent
upon a paycheck, and they lost all will to fight. Some innocent people
suffered, but Gbagbo fell within a few weeks. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
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If ECOWAS does in fact impose
crushing sanctions on Mali beginning this next Monday, one might hope that the
embargo succeeds in achieving its intended goal: Sanogo & Co. step down as
soon as possible. However, there remains the distinct possibility that the CNRDRE
mutineers cling to power for an extended period of time, during which the Malian
people are going to suffer dearly. Even after the disaster of collectivized
agriculture, the droughts of the 1970s and 80s, this impoverished nation might
know a period of deprivation unlike no other. </div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
Capt. Sanogo and the CNRDRE junta
apparently don’t care. In judging his reaction to recent events, is clear
that in Sanogo and his junta have only contempt for the international community
and brazen disregard for the Malian people whom they purportedly govern. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
Make no mistake; the ECOWAS sanctions on Mali are not the result of other states' "imperialism", but the inevitable conclusion of the CNRDRE mutineers' virulent conduct towards its economic partners. The junta showed its true colors by
preventing <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2012/03/201232913740456842.html">a delegation of ECOWAS heads of state from landing their plane</a>s. Planes carrying the respective presidents and
prime ministers of Ivory Coast¸ Burkina Faso, Niger, Liberia, and Benin were in
en route to Bamako to meet with the CNRDRE faction to diffuse the politica crisis, when they turned around amidst reports of a security breach at the Bamako airport. The press reported that the airport runway had been taken over by a violent demonstration of junta supporters. Read between the lines; the Bamako airport is one of the few government
installations which the CNRDRE mutineers tangibly control; they have prevented
almost all planes from coming or going since the coup began. <span style="color: black;">"These
protesters... couldn't have got to the runway if the military didn't want them to,"
says Bruce Whitehouse, an anthropology professor at Lehigh University. In other words, instead of negotiating with ECOWAS presidents and prime ministers, Sanogo & Co. chose to orchestrate a threat on their lives in order to prevent a dialogue from even commencing. </span></div>
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</div>
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<span style="display: none;"><br /><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">
<br />
<span class="textexposedshow2">Therefore, the Presidents of Ivory Coast, Nigeria,
Niger, Burkina Faso and Benin did not come to Bamako to negotiate with CNDRE to
step down because CNDRE effectively threatened to assassinate them if they
landed at the Bamako airport</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"> These are not grown-ups we are
dealing with, but children armed with AK-47s. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The New York Times </i>reports that when ECOWAS met to issue its threat
of sanctions on Thursday, a senior advisor to Ivorian President Alassane
Ouattara said that Capt. Sanogo’s reaction to the regional body was
"basically the equivalent of telling us (fuck) you.”</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
As Capt.
Sanogo and his cohorts jostle with the ship of state as though it is their
plaything, 14 and half million Malian civilians are going to suffer as the
collateral damage of a few warlords’ lust for power and wealth. It is not out of hand to predict that tens of thousands of innocent men, women,
and particularly children are going to die needless deaths in a completely
man-made famine, all but proving <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/01/arts/does-democracy-avert-famine.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm">Amartya Sen's thesis</a> that famines don't occur in democracies. The cruelest element of this catastrophe is that
it is not a matter of natural cause and happenstance, but the will of a few
evil men. </div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="https://twitter.com/ZacMadu" class="twitter-follow-button" data-show-count="false">Follow @ZacMadu</a>
<script src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" type="text/javascript"></script></div>Zachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00977280731502216845noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7001870879534452132.post-83765355583686638392012-03-29T22:17:00.001-07:002012-04-01T15:39:53.312-07:00The New Constitution of Mali: A Fig Leaf for Military Dictatorship<script type="text/javascript">
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In the wake
of the coup d’état in Mali, the CNRDRE mutineer government has paid lip service
to democracy. Capt. Amadou Sanogo speaks as though he is manifesting the will
of the Malian people to crush the Tuareg insurrection in the North, to improve
education, and do away with corruption in government. However, in substance,
Sanogo and his CNRDRE cadres have effectively established a one man dictatorship
and a military junta in the wake of the democratic regime which existed from
1993 to March 22, 2012. <br />
<br />
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>On
March 28, Magistrate Lt. Jacques Koné of CNRDRE came on the ORTM television network to <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDA0Zg9QQQY">read aloud a new “constitution” line for line</a>. It would be a gross understatement to say
that this document, slapped together in the handful of days since the coup on
March 22, was drafted with something less than the republican ethos of the
Constitution of 1992. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
The new constitution reaffirms the
most superficial aspects of the Republic of Mali’s former Constitution of 1992;
that the name of the country is “La Republique du Mali”, that the capital is in
Bamako, that the flag shall be composed of three stripes, red, gold and green. Though
the 2012 Constitution attaches foremost importance rhetorical emphasis on the language
of independence, democracy, and territorial integrity, in reality - of course - the new regime lacks 2 out of 3 of those qualities. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/zDA0Zg9QQQY?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
The Constitution of 2012 also pays
lip-service to human rights and civil liberties. Article 7 through 31 intone
that “human life is sacred”, enshrines freedom of thought, freedom of religion,
freedom of the press, freedom of art and culture, freedom from torture, the
right to property, the right to work, the right to unionize, the right to strike. It even creates
some positive rights; namely, the right to education, health care and jobs.
When the government
of a country with abysmal access to health care and crushing unemployment enshrines a constitutional
right to universal health care and employment, it makes one wonder how serious
they really take any of the words of this document.<br />
<br />
For instance, Article 25 of the new Constitution protects "freedom of association, meeting, and demonstration." However the new junta has already demonstrated that it has no toleration for any such thing. In at least two instances, plainclothes thugs attacked peaceful demonstrators protesting the coup. At the most signficant occurence, at a major rally at the labor exchange, a group of CNRDRE goons arrived, <a href="http://www.amnestyusa.org/news/news-item/amnesty-international-calls-for-investigation-into-attack-and-detention-of-peaceful-protesters-oppos">throwing rocks at the demonstrators and beating them with sticks</a>. Of course, as the assailants did not wear uniforms it is unclear for sure whether or not they acting as private individuals or as agents of the CNRDRE regime; however common sense and recent history in Egypt, Libya, and Syria suggests the latter. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA0X94plQ0eCtBcQWQoecCnlDBPvigpSFEXRU0h2D2VnsVHw89sMHeBZFDXi2Q2sDfqOrrSG6xzADqs0OaPvLyW8_egLpIViRbs_-B9zl8Lv0Q98S_H7jHmbUXVCnAHYigvMQK95Mkrt8/s1600/Presidential+Palace.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA0X94plQ0eCtBcQWQoecCnlDBPvigpSFEXRU0h2D2VnsVHw89sMHeBZFDXi2Q2sDfqOrrSG6xzADqs0OaPvLyW8_egLpIViRbs_-B9zl8Lv0Q98S_H7jHmbUXVCnAHYigvMQK95Mkrt8/s320/Presidential+Palace.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
Acting on their promise to improve
the ethics of the Malian government, Article 35 Constitution prohibits “sabotage,
vandalism, corruption, and illicit enrichment” from governmental service. In
other words, the junta that only days ago looted the Presidential Palace has a
remarkable sense of <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-17474946">chutzpah</a>. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px; text-indent: 0.5in;">
More troubling than CNRDRE’s
sacking of the home of the legal, then-incumbent head of state is the fact that
the new constitutional sacking of the very tenet of constitutionalism; namely,
separation of powers. In marked contrast with the 1992 Constitution, which preserved
a civilian presidency and an independent judiciary, the 2012 Constitution names
the President the head of government, the military, and the judiciary. The President has exclusive authority to make foreign and military policy – which makes sense for a military junta. The
President has the prerogative to appoint the Prime Minister. The new constitution grants CNRDRE – an appendage of the President-apparent
Sanogo – legislative powers, as well as powers to change the Constitution. It
appears that the President will make decrees, and the military and the judiciary will enforce them. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">To demonstrate just how little Capt. Sanogo & Co. appreciate the concept of accountability in government, the “Constitution” of March 28, 2012 also grants the
President explicit power to grant amnesty to members of CNRDRE. In other words,
the Constitution grants blanket immunity to the leaders of the coup -</span><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> whose members
have committed treason against a democratic government, looted the presidential
palace, committed widespread theft in Bamako, has made scores of political
arrests of government ministers and presidential candidates and continues to
hold them as political prisoners, and that has left three people dead thusfar. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Notably
absent from the new Malian Constitution is any language pertaining to voting
or elections. Of course, that should not be an issue until the CNRDRE regime
holds elections – as Capt. Sanago promises – after it "secures the country" in the North,
fixes longstanding problems in the military, education, corruption in
government. The Tuareg rebellion began in earnest in 1962, and the government has been suppressing it on and off for the past half-century. Mali's endemic problems in education and corruption will take many multiple generations to reform. In other words, I wouldn't hold my breath. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The
Constitution does mention the National Assembly, which CNRDRE declared dissolved
as of last week. It appears that CNDRE has taken their place as the legislative
branch of government – that is, unelected and an entirely indifferentiable appendage of the
presidency. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
If you connect the dots, the 2012
"Constitution" is nothing of the kind. It is the putschists’ self-declaration of
authority to rule the territory of Mali and the Malian people, substituting their
own manifestation of the popular will for the consent of the people derived
from elections – which were scheduled for April 29th. It establishes a
government of the mutineers, by the mutineers, for the mutineers – all in the
name of the “Restoration of Democracy.” The new “Constitution” is merely a fig
leaf for an unchecked military dictatorship which has no interest in the rule of law, no respect for constitutionalism, and has no interest in restoring democratic government anytime in the foreseeable future. </div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="https://twitter.com/ZacMadu" class="twitter-follow-button" data-show-count="false">Follow @ZacMadu</a>
<script src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" type="text/javascript"></script></div>Zachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00977280731502216845noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7001870879534452132.post-48973024114871647712012-03-21T21:45:00.002-07:002012-03-25T18:01:09.729-07:00A Requiem for Malian Democracy (1993-2012)<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"> As I
write this, the Sun is just coming up in my former home of Diaramana, in the
erstwhile Republic of Mali. The first call to prayer has already been issued. It
is hot season now, too dry to do much farm work. But the women are already
busy at work, pounding away at millet to cook a simple porridge for their
family’s breakfast. This year their porridge is much leaner because there is a
food crisis; it might be the family’s sole meal for the day. This year’s sharp
rise in grain prices is partly because last rainy season’s rains were pitiful.
But the real reason grain prices are so harshly inflated is because hundreds of
thousands of families have fled from the fighting in the North - food becomes
rather scarce when an ethnic insurgency creates a refugee crisis and a subsistence agriculturalist population can’t farm. </span></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Though the Sun is just now rising,
today might be the darkest day in the history of this young nation. Though it
is still too soon to say for sure, today, March 22, 2012, may mark the death of
Malian democracy. A group of mutinous soldiers calling themselves the NCRDRS, led by a certain Capt. Amadou Sanogo, appears to have achieved a </span></span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/23/world/africa/mali-coup-france-calls-for-elections.html?ref=world"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">coup d’état</span></a><span style="color: black; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">. In a matter of hours, the mutinous soldiers have seized the state television and radio network ORTM, wrested and looted the presidential palace, and arrested numerous government ministers. </span></span><br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJXaxAA5oIzBmr8xcqZRiC5dzdahHxC-ChEi_Kf8bR2RNs7EbQEUbgC56Y4ze6c1-W4LW7t1HMozwHmDxaZM9HPlbO-SuaYxtV83HaDnj6zBTF_MpKyYT6bhpwa6pfGcye5Gryu7pxjvs/s1600/ORTM.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJXaxAA5oIzBmr8xcqZRiC5dzdahHxC-ChEi_Kf8bR2RNs7EbQEUbgC56Y4ze6c1-W4LW7t1HMozwHmDxaZM9HPlbO-SuaYxtV83HaDnj6zBTF_MpKyYT6bhpwa6pfGcye5Gryu7pxjvs/s320/ORTM.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"></span></span> <span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">NCRDRS has used ORTM to </span><a href="http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/22/video-of-mali-coup-announcement/?ref=africa"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">announce </span></a><span style="color: black; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">that they have suspended the Malian Constitution and dissolved all "state institutions" i.e. the National Assembly, the Supreme Court, and - notably - the special high courts which exist specifically to try government officials for treason. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"> To understand the import of these events, one must contextualize them in Mali's 51<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">½</span> years as an independent state. </span></div>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"> <span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Between independence in 1960 and 1991, Mali was governed
by strongmen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Modibo Keíta
first ran the country as a First Wave post-colonialist state, conducted a
disastrous experiment in African socialism and collectivist agriculture, and suffered
humiliating losses to the Tuareg rebels. In 1968, Lt. Moussa Traoré led a
military coup against Keíta and seized control of the Malian state - which he
grafted and embezzled as his personal fiefdom for almost a quarter century. Traoré's one positive contribution was his system of <em>decentralisation </em>in which he established a federalist-style system of local governments on the level of Region, Cercle, and Commune; they were still for the most part as corrupt as sin - </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">but at least the corruption was local. Traoré even allowed elections in the local governments, but only one party (his) was on the ballot. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">But something profound happened in 1991, when paratrooper commander Amadou Toumani Touré in turn deposed the President of Mali. “ATT”, as he is popularly known, declared that he would organize multiparty elections in 1993, that he would not be a candidate, and that he would step down from office. And remarkably enough, Touré did exactly that. </span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdi3TdFBzftdBkR5SwS1CslRTpfOrCcKBLPfy1VvSLSOVe3fm_BRxXY3knJbJ689DdKhM5p9758IHkTO0rihEr5g9b736IkX93QpbXTSRFchz8-bwjn4tRTY3X_gcv86waUzD_NlcIRtI/s1600/ATT.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdi3TdFBzftdBkR5SwS1CslRTpfOrCcKBLPfy1VvSLSOVe3fm_BRxXY3knJbJ689DdKhM5p9758IHkTO0rihEr5g9b736IkX93QpbXTSRFchz8-bwjn4tRTY3X_gcv86waUzD_NlcIRtI/s400/ATT.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></div>
<br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> In 2002, Touré ran for the presidency himself as an
independent candidate. Having shown that he respected republican institutions
enough that he could do the unthinkable and relinquish power without a fight,
ATT won election handily. The Malian people called him “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">le Soldat de la Democratie</i>”; he allowed free, multiparty elections,
promoted freedom of the press and political rights for women. Sure, Touré had
his faults – over ten years, his administration was criticized for political cronyism; he made some major military blunders regarding the rebellion in the
North, and he was famously aloof from public opinion. But ATT never rigged any elections, he never took political prisoners.
He was an authentic democrat who planned to abide by the constitutional term limits, step down again at the end of his
second term, and go back to tilling his millet fields like a Malian George Washington. </span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Malian democracy (1993 – 2012), as established by
President Touré, has had its share of hiccups and bumps in the road. It was of
course difficult to establish a democratic culture in a country where the bulk
of the population lives in small villages, often quite far from the nearest
polling stations. The vast majority of the population is illiterate, and only a
small minority has completed a high school education. It would be an
understatement to say that corruption, cronyism, and general incompetence in
local government are all quite common. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">When
I was working with the Office of the Mayor of the Commune, I kept on submitting
typed policy proposals to the Mayor for water projects. He would look at my
drafts for a few minutes, nod, and hand them back to me. "Perfect! No
problems!", he would say. It took me a few months to realize that the Mayor
- a guy whose job was to type up official government documents - was completely illiterate. If he didn't have a stamp with his name on it, he signed his name with an "X." It follows that Monsieur la Mairie was not very effective at typing birth certificates and marriage certificates on his typewriter. </span><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">But if the majority of the population of a given Commune is illiterate, the important thing is that the people have the
right to choose which among their illiterate fellow citizens gets to serve in public
office - that's the beauty of democracy. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">On the other hand, there are a number of outstanding public servants in Mali who are dedicated to the cause they serve. I have met with village chiefs and advisory councils who lead their communities in the daily struggle of subsistence and development. I have worked with Malian water committees who valued improving their environment and quality of life. Most importantly, I have plenty of teachers and principals who are earnestly dedicated to teaching the next generation of Malians to be educated and capable citizens.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;"> Not everyone in public life is involved for altruistic reasons, there are a number of politicians who are just looking for a lucrative source of income - those are some of the outstanding problems in Malian politics. But </span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">there are some people in Malian history who have risen to the top and have demonstrated their capacity for leadership in a democratic society; namely President Amadou Toumani Touré, who planned to step down after his second term this spring.<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"> Among the candidates running for President in the </span></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">elections scheduled for April 29th include </span><a href="http://en.mobile.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modibo_Sidib%C3%A9" title="Modibo Sidibé"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Modibo Sidibé</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">, a former Prime Minister, </span><a href="http://en.mobile.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidib%C3%A9_Aminata_Diallo" title="Sidibé Aminata Diallo"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Sidibé Aminata Diallo</span></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">, a former Minister of Education, <u><span style="color: blue;">Ou</span></u></span><a href="http://en.mobile.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oumar_Mariko" title="Oumar Mariko"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">mar Mariko</span></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">, a member of Parliament, </span><a href="http://en.mobile.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibrahim_Boubacar_Ke%C3%AFta" title="Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta</span></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">, another former Prime Minister, former speaker of the National Assembly, and </span><a href="http://en.mobile.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheick_Modibo_Diarra" title="Cheick Modibo Diarra"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Cheick Modibo Diarra</span></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">, a Malian astrophysicist who worked at NASA and Microsoft Africa. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Warts and all, the Malian experience in electoral democracy has been considerably
successful. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> They have conducted four presidential elections, and a fifth is scheduled for April. </span>Especially on the level of
Communal government (the equivalent of a county), much of the population
personally interacts with their elected Mayor. When I lived in Diaramana, my host
mother Durcas Dembele ran in the Mayoral primary, and she rode from village to
village on her motorcycle stumping for votes. In the end, Durcas lost among the nine candidates on the primary ballot. </span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglobunLfyKFM9ZKQke07diHR8Orv8xtiuoSplz-nfL8jXEru3pS0HnbP_O4z1LAdoMJdXhtoi0SgSPuDBl4vOIvUWVGZ1ZzDWOPY9xEddJvud62xxdC1aIqmzAHgm2J2L5MpOStG3x8OY/s1600-h/IMG_2027.JPG"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5345108313806323730" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglobunLfyKFM9ZKQke07diHR8Orv8xtiuoSplz-nfL8jXEru3pS0HnbP_O4z1LAdoMJdXhtoi0SgSPuDBl4vOIvUWVGZ1ZzDWOPY9xEddJvud62xxdC1aIqmzAHgm2J2L5MpOStG3x8OY/s400/IMG_2027.JPG" style="display: block; height: 300px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></span></a><span style="color: black; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In April 2009, le Commune de Diaramana held its general
elections at the primary school. People came from every village in the Commune
dressed in their finest clothes to vote for their Mayor. Election Day has
become a national holiday woven into the fabric of Malian society. </span><br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrwillQTSsuSkAoZLtF0Y5je7prEIVsGuSejQJ0Qh23VO3XHCGaZQqSY1FwPgRaoVhdQToz1iKTKN0I_c4lPWlS_U9opt82jK5mNORsPbygfymI5PuQpDEgbS6d3yaqJ9kQGMHsZU3Mww/s1600-h/IMG_2036.JPG"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5345122209317689762" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrwillQTSsuSkAoZLtF0Y5je7prEIVsGuSejQJ0Qh23VO3XHCGaZQqSY1FwPgRaoVhdQToz1iKTKN0I_c4lPWlS_U9opt82jK5mNORsPbygfymI5PuQpDEgbS6d3yaqJ9kQGMHsZU3Mww/s400/IMG_2036.JPG" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 300px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></span></a><span style="color: black; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">An independent committee of active citizens conducted the
balloting process and made sure that each citizen is registered to vote in the
Commune. The voters dipped their fingers in purple ink to mark their ballot. Because
so few people can read, the ballot was listed by party and each party’s line was
marked by its official symbol; ADEMA is a bumblebee, SADI is a lion, etc. </span><br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxEoJK4V2rSy3giDJhQFoLlHYwoS68zjw2zxSNKZjWVIRC7-9ogFy1IOzB8ImNt-wTSJWxRkUuENd7y3m8Tfod6YXeA6bGwcr3ImtRyVItH0uyg7a1ywnD-aU8GuHTD3k6OlFF7SSctX0/s1600-h/IMG_2043.JPG"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5345125490108935842" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxEoJK4V2rSy3giDJhQFoLlHYwoS68zjw2zxSNKZjWVIRC7-9ogFy1IOzB8ImNt-wTSJWxRkUuENd7y3m8Tfod6YXeA6bGwcr3ImtRyVItH0uyg7a1ywnD-aU8GuHTD3k6OlFF7SSctX0/s400/IMG_2043.JPG" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 300px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></span></a><span style="color: black; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Each citizen casted his or her vote in privacy. </span></span><br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuczIJDXJTlhyphenhyphenWENMnQjcryN1vN2gm3AULoCgzNIOpgKplac-wO_5fgCvV8nL6FVDlUJmOLYm0B5E2cOV4q4PItafymE-0nNA50tMsn2EJMPBcUbUPc75Os8v7etC_Hfes9JnT8c7bQ6s/s1600-h/IMG_2022.JPG"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5345126621894019362" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuczIJDXJTlhyphenhyphenWENMnQjcryN1vN2gm3AULoCgzNIOpgKplac-wO_5fgCvV8nL6FVDlUJmOLYm0B5E2cOV4q4PItafymE-0nNA50tMsn2EJMPBcUbUPc75Os8v7etC_Hfes9JnT8c7bQ6s/s400/IMG_2022.JPG" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 300px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></span></a><span style="color: black; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">My good friend Sidiki showed off his purple ink-stained
fingers. In a country where democratic self-government has only truly existed for 19 years, voting is a matter of great pride. Sidiki wouldn’t tell me whom he voted for, because the principle
of confidentiality is taken so seriously. </span><span style="color: black;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"> The great tragedy of this coup is not just that an elected President has fallen, subverting the will of the people. The tragedy is that with the declaration of the suspension of the Constitution and the dissolution of all state instutions, the NCRDRS may have permanently extinguished the fire of Malian democracy. All of these institutions of representative self-government which the Malian people have been developing for decades may have been stamped out by a new military junta. </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"> It is difficult enough to eke out a living farming in the
parched Sahel. It is even more difficult when the heavy hand of a tyrannical
government oppresses the people with extortion, bribery, graft, embezzlement, and exorbitant taxation to fund a war that </span><a href="http://tuaregcultureandnews.blogspot.com/2012/02/tuareg-crisis-in-mali_11.html"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">many analysts say cannot be won</span></a><span style="color: black; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">. </span></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">That
is why, in order to facilitate sustainable development and improve their standard of living, the people of Mali must be able to guide their own destiny with
a truly representative self-government. </span></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The people of Mali do not have very much. They are one of
the very poorest nations in the world. But one thing that they did have was democracy.
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">They will have it once again, insh’allah. </span></span><span style="color: black;"><br /></span><span style="color: black;"></span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Ala k'aw deme. </span><span style="color: black;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Ala ka here caya. </span><span style="color: black;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Ala k'a ban pyu pyu.</span> </div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="https://twitter.com/ZacMadu" class="twitter-follow-button" data-show-count="false">Follow @ZacMadu</a>
<script src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" type="text/javascript"></script></div>Zachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00977280731502216845noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7001870879534452132.post-53657215619873884742012-03-14T13:19:00.000-07:002012-03-14T20:29:02.529-07:00Is "Glitter-Bombing" Criminal Assault?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj27_HiXuTUWS-NB_4ippII2tfGZm2OynPnMWnEK28NeFnOTMLOYhEyzVA_9IoLQ1YvJSTQ6plP-_7aYIHFmL8Ltqd6FfhyphenhyphentWFMQSxjSUNI38uqDs-KpVt70pqfUleMYa4zQplglzXUHSw/s1600/Glitter-Bomb-Attack.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj27_HiXuTUWS-NB_4ippII2tfGZm2OynPnMWnEK28NeFnOTMLOYhEyzVA_9IoLQ1YvJSTQ6plP-_7aYIHFmL8Ltqd6FfhyphenhyphentWFMQSxjSUNI38uqDs-KpVt70pqfUleMYa4zQplglzXUHSw/s400/Glitter-Bomb-Attack.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
Over the past few years, marriage equality activists have conjured a new form of protest known as “glitter-bombing.” To protest the lack of equal rights for LGBT individuals, some activists employed the novel tactic of showering homophobic politicians with pink or rainbow-colored glitter. Recent victims of glitter-bombing have included Republican candidates Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Tim Pawlenty, Rick Santorum, and Ron Paul. Prominent supporters of gay rights, including Senator Joe Lieberman and writer Dan Savage, have also been glitter-bombed because some LGBT activists felt that their support for the cause does not go far enough.
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Though glitter-bombers are using this tactic as a form of
political expression, it is clearly not protected by the First Amendment
because it is not pure speech – it is conduct involving a physical activity
with an object in relation to another person.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>One person throwing an object towards another person might implicate the
civil and criminal charges of assault and battery. Though social conservatives
often accuse the marriage equality movement of forcing judges to “redefine
marriage," thanks to “glitter-bombing” the marriage equality movement
might force criminal law practitioners to redefine the charge of “assault.”</div>
The common law charge of assault consists of 1) an act with
intent to cause a harmful or offensive contact with a person, or an imminent
apprehension of such a contact; and 2) the other person is thereby put in such
imminent apprehension. <br />
<br />
Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee has suggested that
glitter-bombers should be arrested, “[t]hat’s an assault.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s one thing to yell at a candidate, you
never put your hands on him, you don’t touch him.” <br />
<br />
“Glitter bombing is clearly an assault and should be treated
as such,” recent victim Newt Gingrich explained, “[w]hen someone reaches into a
bag and throws something on you, how do you know if it is acid or something
that stains permanently or something that can blind you?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>People have every right to their beliefs but
no right to assault others.”<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
In February 2012, college student <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZ1304GfV2c&feature=related">Peter Smith threw glitter at Mitt Romney</a> while at a campaign rally in
Denver.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Romney’s Secret Service detail
pulled him away from the stream of glitter just in time to avoid contact, and
within a moment the candidate resumed shaking hands with supporters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Denver police pulled Smith away and held him
in handcuffs for five hours.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Peter Smith
now faces misdemeanor charges of throwing a missile, creating a disturbance,
and an unlawful act on school property.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>If convicted, Smith might face up to a year in prison and up to $1,000
in fines.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To date, he remains the sole
glitter-bomber to be charged with a crime. </div>
Nick Espinosa, the Minnesota protester who conducted <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrVQ3xVB2BM">the first glitter-bombing</a> of Tim Pawlenty, and later glitter-bombed Mitt Romney
and Newt Gingrich in that state, has also expressed his ire by throwing more
solid, potentially-injurious objects.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At
a campaign event in 2010 Republican gubernatorial Tom Emmer proposed new
minimum wage laws to make servers’ tips count against their minimum wage, and
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8KfB5fsZ_I">">Espinosa threw a bag of pennies</a> at the candidate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you watch the video, Emmer appeared to be
visibly fearful of the objects hurtling towards him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After all, if thrown with sufficient velocity
at someone’s face, pennies can cause serious injury. <br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Though it might seem harmless, a person could possibly
suffer significant bodily injury from a glitter bomb.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>According to optometrist Stephen Glasser, “If
it gets into the eyes, the best scenario is it can irritate, it can
scratch.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Worst scenario is it can
actually create a cut.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As the person
blinks, it moves the glitter across the eye and can actually scratch the
cornea.”</div>
Likewise, it makes sense for the law to prohibit persons
from throwing objects at others, especially public figures and candidates for
elected office.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a nation with a long
history of assassinations and assassination attempts, it is clearly in the
public interest to discourage people from throwing objects at political
figures.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the split seconds between a
protestor flinging glitter and confetti at a presidential candidate and it
making contact with the candidate’s suit, it is difficult for the recipient to
discern whether it is a serious attempt on their life or just a prank. <br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Conversely, the fact of the matter is that glitter is not a
deadly weapon - it is just many little pieces of lightweight plastic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When all is said and done, the worst that a
glitter-bombing victim has suffered is the annoyance of having to brush pieces
of glitter from their hair and suit jacket.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In a time of cash-strapped state budgets and overcrowded prisons,
prosecuting a glitter-bomber with criminal charges might be an abject waste of
prosecutorial resources.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Moreover, no
aspiring Commanders in Chief who might one day have to deal with ballistic
missiles from North Korea or Iran would want to appear petty or emasculated by
testifying at the criminal trial of a glitter-bomber. </div>
When <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSb3kTA6vVI">Espinosa glitter-bombed Gingrich</a> at a book signing in May 2011, Gingrich
reportedly smiled as he brushed glitter and confetti from the table and
muttered, “[n]ice to live in a free country.”<br />
<br />
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</script>(Originally posted in the <a href="http://wclcriminallawbrief.blogspot.com/">WCL Criminal Law Brief Blog</a>)<div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="https://twitter.com/ZacMadu" class="twitter-follow-button" data-show-count="false">Follow @ZacMadu</a>
<script src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" type="text/javascript"></script></div>Zachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00977280731502216845noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7001870879534452132.post-52385529798393073012012-03-10T22:17:00.000-08:002012-03-10T22:17:32.124-08:00LOLSkool Catz II<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRtVSGhjesKx6vc6lvzMzNSnPS8EVNGQUJXzYT_lMUkFiTi5ytcwmrywqlppzTAePcMh9efRh7MXy14OdVN3WzNz-Mv_4tFDh-4bhxz_rYAOm3PwnPb8L0sBNo_o7rn6EzED6GeyQ5W98/s1600/GOP+Debate.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="194" width="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRtVSGhjesKx6vc6lvzMzNSnPS8EVNGQUJXzYT_lMUkFiTi5ytcwmrywqlppzTAePcMh9efRh7MXy14OdVN3WzNz-Mv_4tFDh-4bhxz_rYAOm3PwnPb8L0sBNo_o7rn6EzED6GeyQ5W98/s400/GOP+Debate.jpg" /></a></div>
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<script src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" type="text/javascript"></script></div>Zachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00977280731502216845noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7001870879534452132.post-5588940884555269252012-02-23T18:57:00.000-08:002012-02-26T21:51:41.045-08:00LOLSkool Catz<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<script src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" type="text/javascript"></script></div>Zachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00977280731502216845noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7001870879534452132.post-17348599468692958822012-02-13T19:47:00.001-08:002012-02-13T20:55:03.959-08:00Bronx Killing Shines a Light on Police BrutalityThe Bronx has long been infamous for the widespread enmity between its residents and the New York Police Department (NYPD). The borough of 1,400,000 mostly Latino and African-American inhabitants has the highest rates of unemployment, poverty, crime, and arrests of any in New York City. Since February 2nd, when an officer from the Narcotics Division shot and killed eighteen-year-old Rahmarley Graham, relations between Bronx residents and their Police Department have sunk to a new low. <br /><br />“NYPD : KKK! NYPD : KKK!” protesters chanted as they marched from the home of the late Graham to the 47th precinct house. NY-1 reports: <br /><blockquote>"They cornered that little man in his house, perfect place to ask questions, but instead of asking questions, they shoot him down right then and there. And they are New York's finest - what is fine about that?" said one protester.<br /><br />"They just judge by our looks, or whatever and think that some of is bad kids like that, they don't really want to give us a chance, as well," said another.</blockquote> The New York Times quoted Graham’s sister “This is not just about Rahmarley. This is about all young black men.” <br /> <br />According to reports, plainclothes officers of the Bronx Special Narcotics Unit allegedly witnessed Rahmarley Graham conducting a drug deal, and suspected Graham held a handgun on his waistband. The officers chased Graham into his home and cornered him in his bathroom. Officer Richard Haste fired one time, striking Graham in the chest. Once entering, the officers discovered that the eighteen-year-old did not have any weapons on him, only a bag of marijuana that he was trying to flush down the toilet. Graham was rushed to Montefiore Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.<br /><br />The NYPD stated that Graham had a record of prior arrests. Constance Malcolm, the victim’s mother, acknowledged this as much, “[e]verybody’s kids get into trouble. He smoked a little weed, but you know, like all the little, young kids does. And that’s what he had on him when they were chasing him.” <br /><br />It appears most likely that the only unlawful activities which Graham was engaging in at the time were possession and possibly distribution of a controlled substance. Though in New York, possession of less than twenty-five grams of marijuana is only a violation punishable by a $100 fine. Consequently, if the alleged “bulge” in Rahmarley Graham’s pocket consisted of less than twenty-five grams of marijuana, and it never left the confines of his pocket, the Narcotics officers may have been unjustified in even stopping and frisking Graham. <br /><br />Police officers are even more limited in their ability to conduct warrantless entries of a person’s home. In New York State, officers may enter a private residence without a warrant only if there are “exigent circumstances”; i.e. an emergency necessitating immediate entry. Here, the possible exigent circumstances of this incident include (1) reasonable suspicion of firearm possession, and (2) reasonable suspicion of destruction of evidence for a crime. <br /><br />Because firearms can be so dangerous, a police officer’s reasonable suspicion that a person might possess a handgun can constitute an exigent circumstance justifying entry into a person’s home without a warrant. The legality of the NYPD officers’ entry into Graham’s home would depend on whether the officers actually believed that they saw a weapon or just a bulge in a defendant’s clothing, the vantage point of the officers in making this observation, the defendant’s demeanor and behavior, and whether the defendant was continuously surveilled between the observation of the alleged bulge and his entry into his home. Though Graham did not in fact possess a weapon at the time of his shooting, the NYPD Narcotics officers’ warrantless entry into Graham’s home may have been lawful so long as their suspicion that Graham possessed a gun in his waistband was in fact reasonable. <br /><br />However, the Bronx Narcotics officers may not have been justified in entering Graham’s home on the basis of a reasonable suspicion of destruction of evidence of a crime. In order to make a warrantless entry of a person’s home based on the reasonable suspicion of the imminent destruction of evidence of a crime, those officers would have needed probable cause to arrest the individual. It appears that Graham was destroying such evidence when he attempted to flush the marijuana down the toilet. But if he possessed even as much as 24.9 grams, then the police would not have had probable cause to arrest him in the first place. It may not have been an exigent circumstance sufficient to justify a warrantless entry if Graham was only flushing a citation-worthy amount of contraband. <br /><br />Of course, the reason why Bronx residents are demonstrating against police brutality is the NYPD’s killing of Rahmarley Graham. According to the <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/nypd-patrol-guide-2012/id488610061?mt=8">NYPD Patrol Guide</a>, <br /><br /><blockquote>Police officers shall not use deadly physical force against another person unless they have probable cause to believe they must protect themselves or another person present from imminent death or serious physical injury. . . . <br /><br />Police officers shall not discharge their firearms to subdue a fleeing felon who presents no threat of imminent death or serious physical injury to themselves or another person present </blockquote> It is unequivocally illegal for the police to shoot a person merely based on the suspicion that that person <em>might</em> possess a gun. In order for a police officer to use lethal force in an instance such as this, that officer must be reasonably certain that a specific individual both has a deadly weapon and that that individual is either presently using or about to use that deadly weapon. During his fatal shooting, Graham did not even have a weapon in his possession, and nothing appears to suggest that he posed an imminent threat of death or injury to anyone. Even if Graham had a gun, a teenager cowering in their bathroom does not fit the profile of a person about to shoot someone.<br /><br />One might like to think that the killing of Rahmarley Graham might even elicit some sort of policy change to prevent such a tragedy from occurring again. Mayor Bloomberg is expected to pay his personal condolences to the Graham family, perhaps make a point of attending more Bronx community meetings. But the death of Graham is not just a case of “a few bad apples” in the NYPD. With the mistaken slayings of Amadou Diallo and Sean Bell, the sadistic assaults on Abner Louima and Jatiek Reed all in such recent memory, it appears that the NYPD has a widespread brutality problem. <br /><br />The people of New York City, especially the Bronx, are clamoring for substantive justice and comprehensive change. The NYPD must do more to curb the use of excessive force among its members. Granted, the Narcotics officer’s use of lethal force in the Graham case appears to have been in violation of New York state law and NYPD’s stated policy. The fact that NYPD officers have been violating the rules on the use of force so regularly evinces that the Department needs to thoroughly improve its recruitment, training, and oversight of its personnel. Police officers who use excessive force have no place amongst the ranks of New York’s Finest. Moreover, to demonstrate that no man is above the law, the Bronx District Attorney must adequately prosecute the Narcotics officer who illegally shot and killed Rahmarley Graham. <br /><br />(Originally published by the <a href="http://wclcriminallawbrief.blogspot.com/">WCL Criminal Law Brief Blog</a>) <br /><br /><script type="text/javascript">var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www.");document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));</script><script type="text/javascript">try {var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-7228385-2");pageTracker._trackPageview();} catch(err) {}</script><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="https://twitter.com/ZacMadu" class="twitter-follow-button" data-show-count="false">Follow @ZacMadu</a>
<script src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" type="text/javascript"></script></div>Zachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00977280731502216845noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7001870879534452132.post-50707131221539222372012-02-01T20:53:00.000-08:002012-02-01T21:21:38.217-08:00Does John Hinckley Still Pose a Threat to Society?(Originally published by the <a href="http://wclcriminallawbrief.blogspot.com/">WCL Criminal Law Brief Blog</a>) <br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQMZ0EGkvzct2dzAACfJ46EokWab7vaJYCsYUfq7UnFCGsBSSbumyROCurpgA_njaNOlExhiOUwylC-j6UM2twZwtFo5igrHzLtTgOEDk4MKod8e4dnmFJnAMG_iC411Xpl-9eU12QjBI/s1600/John+Hinckley%252C+Jr..png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 271px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQMZ0EGkvzct2dzAACfJ46EokWab7vaJYCsYUfq7UnFCGsBSSbumyROCurpgA_njaNOlExhiOUwylC-j6UM2twZwtFo5igrHzLtTgOEDk4MKod8e4dnmFJnAMG_iC411Xpl-9eU12QjBI/s400/John+Hinckley%252C+Jr..png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5704397612815348386" /></a>In January 2012, Judge Paul Friedman presided over hearings to determine whether to grant John Hinckley extended furloughs from St. Elizabeth’s psychiatric hospital, where he has been committed for the past thirty years. Hinckley’s lawyers petitioned Judge Friedman to grant two seventeen-day furloughs, and then six furloughs of twenty-four days to his mother’s home in Williamsburg, Virginia, with convalescence leave upon the completion thereof. Federal prosecutors challenged the petition, arguing that Hinckley remains a threat to society and that his furlough privileges should not be expanded. <br /><br />On March 30, 1981, John Hinckley shot President Ronald Reagan and three others at the Washington Hilton in a failed <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1Jid5uRFo4&feature=related">assassination attempt</a>. The United States <a href="http://public-action.com/Just-Us/tioid.html">indicted </a>Hinckley on 13 counts, including attempted assassination of the President of the United States, attempted murder, multiple counts of assault, and various weapons charges. In 1982, John Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of <a href="http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/hinckley/hinckleytranscript.htm">insanity</a>, and involuntarily committed to St. Elizabeth’s psychiatric hospital. <br /><br />Hinckley has suffered from severe schizophrenia and depression, and has long been obsessed with the delusion that he entertained an unrequited romantic communication with the actress <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKTHa0F22mQ">Jodie Foster</a>. Hinckley wrote a letter to her a few hours before leaving for the Hilton Hotel, “[b]y sacrificing my freedom and possibly my life, I hope to change your mind about me . . . Jodie, I’m asking you to please look into your heart and at least give me the chance, with this historical deed, to gain your respect and love.” <br /><br />Upon admittance to <a href="http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/hinckley/hinckleyeliz.HTM">St. Elizabeth’s</a>, John Hinckley underwent psychiatric evaluation and was classified as a danger to himself, Jodie Foster, and any third party whom he believed to stand in the way between himself and his ultimate aims. While confined as a patient, Hinckley has remained tormented by schizophrenia and severe bouts of depression. He attempted to commit suicide at least three times. A 1987 search of Hinckley’s room found writings that revealed that he remained obsessed with Jodie Foster, exchanged correspondence with the serial killer Ted Bundy, and attempted to reach out to the murderous cult leader Charles Manson. <br /><br />After years of intensive therapy, the psychologists and psychiatrists of St. Elizabeth’s have maintained that Hinckley’s mental illness has been in remission. In 1999, a federal court allowed Hinckley to enjoy supervised furloughs to the house of his aging mother in Williamsburg, Virginia. According to the court order he is required to carry a GPS-equipped cell phone at all times. He has been allowed to visit restaurants, bookstores, and shopping malls without incident. <br /><br />In 2009, U.S. District Court Judge Paul Friedman considered a petition from Hinckley’s lawyers to extend his furlough privileges to periods of ten days at a time. Judge Friedman wrote in his ruling, “[t]he ultimate question is whether a preponderance of the evidence supports the proposition that Mr. Hinckley will not, in the reasonable future, be a danger to himself or others.” A forensic psychologist testified that “Hinckley has recovered to the point that he poses no imminent risk of danger to himself or others.” Judge Friedman agreed, and extended Hinckley’s furlough privileges to periods of ten days. <br /><br />Whether Judge Friedman grants the defense counsel’s petition for extended furlough and convalescence leave will turn on whether the court determines that Hinckley, after 30 years of psychiatric treatment and counseling at St. Elizabeth’s, has been sufficiently rehabilitated. <br /><br /><a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001925/">Schizophrenia</a> is a chronic condition which may remit and exacerbate periodically. Persons who suffer from schizophrenia can often mitigate their symptoms with therapy and anti-psychotic medications. However, if a patient suffering from schizophrenia were to be discharged from an institution, neglect to go to follow-up outpatient visits, and refuse to take his medication as prescribed, one could within days to weeks and most probably within a month remit into flagrant psychosis. In many cases, those who present with symptoms of paranoia often fear taking their prescribed medication, believing that it is poison. Many patients stop taking their medications because of the undesirable side-effects.<br /><br />For more than 12 years, Hinckley’s psychologists and psychiatrists have maintained that his mental illness has remitted to the point that he is no longer an imminent danger to himself or the rest of society. However, there remains the thorny fact that John Hinckley shot the President – the most popular President of the modern era and <a href="http://www.ronaldreagan.com/">a Republican icon</a>. <br /><br />The United States maintains that there should be no changes to the conditions of Hinckley’s involuntary confinement. Assistant U.S. Attorney Sarah Chasson argued before the court at the 2011 hearings that Hinckley has acted deceptively and dishonestly with the St. Elizabeth’s staff during his conditional releases. According to Chasson, Hinckley told the staff that he was going to see a movie, but Secret Service agents observed Hinckley walk to the ticket counter but slip into the nearby Barnes & Nobles. According to the government’s account, Hinckley dwelled in the history aisles and stood fixated on books about Reagan and presidential assassinations. <br /><br />The prosecutors also noted in their court filing, “Hinckley continues to be deceptive regarding his relationships with and interest in women. In June 2009, Hinckley searched the Internet for photographs of his female dentist. When he was caught, Hinckley claimed, falsely, that the dentist had invited him to view her personal photographs.”<br /><br />Clearly, John Hinckley remains a troubled man, and one could construe Hinckley’s reported behavior to establish that his pathology remains unvanquished. Cyber-stalking one’s dentist might be deemed by the court of society to be categorically inappropriate. In the context of a man who has resorted to outrageous feats of violence to win the admiration of women, is it evidence of an unreformed aspiring assassin with the intent to kill again? <br /><br />A parole officer should be concerned that a potential parolee said that he was going to the movies but went to the Barnes & Nobles instead. Telling a parole officer one thing but doing another, no matter how trivial, is a violation of the terms of a furlough. But is it not eminently reasonable for Hinckley to be interested in biographies of the man he tried to kill and scholarly accounts of his walk-on role in American history? <br /><br />“The risk of danger is decidedly low,” maintains Barry Levine, counsel for Mr. Hinckley, “We must look at the legal standing between mental illness and danger.” Levine told Judge Friedman that “The evidence shows this man is not dangerous.” <br /><br />However, U.S. Attorney Joseph diGenova, who prosecuted the case in 1982, opines, “I think John Hinckley will be a threat the rest of his life. He is a time bomb.” <br /><script type="text/javascript">var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? 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<script src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" type="text/javascript"></script></div>Zachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00977280731502216845noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7001870879534452132.post-50178918897290987662012-01-20T17:52:00.000-08:002012-01-21T11:41:09.574-08:00The Racial Geography of American Justice/InjusticeFree States and Slave States, 1854<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimMcxwGGHYh1FwC8NlX6fWlOnDWHetdGYP28puzwUbP-QMyNkgw4E9h91j8CyXRIe9uAi2PVi5vCKw6ia7iKo-fn-Q4Ax3XIS-3MRDsnaSTiMaNvrnIWi9-sCrA2A_amn1Vom4oHP7UOY/s1600/Slavery+Map.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 284px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimMcxwGGHYh1FwC8NlX6fWlOnDWHetdGYP28puzwUbP-QMyNkgw4E9h91j8CyXRIe9uAi2PVi5vCKw6ia7iKo-fn-Q4Ax3XIS-3MRDsnaSTiMaNvrnIWi9-sCrA2A_amn1Vom4oHP7UOY/s400/Slavery+Map.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5699899085593403810" /></a><br /><br />Segregation, 1950<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSRSBau5L5HxY_LTBbswZyZLrsBRDbmWdbXFxmPIbTQG9PWAMJx2Pj0go12YeFyccoZ1Lpu2XYWAOIUYCAy9lLoZouqjuxiqoLpFhaiqdFA9wc34hx5aAZrKvV-FSb4Uv9_2hG-n640ec/s1600/Segregation+1950.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 192px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSRSBau5L5HxY_LTBbswZyZLrsBRDbmWdbXFxmPIbTQG9PWAMJx2Pj0go12YeFyccoZ1Lpu2XYWAOIUYCAy9lLoZouqjuxiqoLpFhaiqdFA9wc34hx5aAZrKvV-FSb4Uv9_2hG-n640ec/s400/Segregation+1950.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5699899089456787986" /></a> (National Park Service)<br /><br />Incarceration Rate, 2011<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9AT7FlIJGnRM_RCO1p9byXPVMfLqSrkFWlOKKvjMGxrhD1rzdUrXS3FfJyH8HUjtDq6czYECOS2wEk7uWS8hu89IAlaUPlPIVyfMrFizKR9wLtRA4DETiX2VdolcSeQp-bLWMnQfOXTs/s1600/Incarceration+Rate.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 248px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9AT7FlIJGnRM_RCO1p9byXPVMfLqSrkFWlOKKvjMGxrhD1rzdUrXS3FfJyH8HUjtDq6czYECOS2wEk7uWS8hu89IAlaUPlPIVyfMrFizKR9wLtRA4DETiX2VdolcSeQp-bLWMnQfOXTs/s400/Incarceration+Rate.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5700131330440985986" /></a><br /><br />Death Penalty by Statute and Executions, 1976-2011<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO_MG3IGL9-rBVJoNKQmVaI7Yo_Jer5aeBc2epCmRBE5KRTQOkSPXB95AV5X0QJB1bLqC3RkZ_IIqWOnLin7DoUdVYhFE8pABZTV9UYaWCb-1pjfbnsSXolrD-4rAGE417oalvSxTbWJ0/s1600/Death+Penalty+States.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 208px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO_MG3IGL9-rBVJoNKQmVaI7Yo_Jer5aeBc2epCmRBE5KRTQOkSPXB95AV5X0QJB1bLqC3RkZ_IIqWOnLin7DoUdVYhFE8pABZTV9UYaWCb-1pjfbnsSXolrD-4rAGE417oalvSxTbWJ0/s400/Death+Penalty+States.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5700132870896901202" /></a><br /><br />Res Ipsa Loquitor.<br /><script type="text/javascript">var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www.");document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));</script><script type="text/javascript">try {var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-7228385-2");pageTracker._trackPageview();} catch(err) {}</script><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="https://twitter.com/ZacMadu" class="twitter-follow-button" data-show-count="false">Follow @ZacMadu</a>
<script src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" type="text/javascript"></script></div>Zachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00977280731502216845noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7001870879534452132.post-82415946113939488912012-01-15T12:52:00.000-08:002012-01-24T21:29:50.967-08:00NDAA Sanctions on the Central Bank of Iran: Watering the Grassroots of Regime ChangeIran fired long-range cruise missiles into the Strait of Hormuz - the waterway through which 20 percent of world’s traded petroleum must pass to get to market. The U.S. Navy deployed a carrier group through the Strait as a show of force. The mullahs responded, stating that the deployment of warships through the Strait might provoke full-out naval warfare. The U.S. retorted that the Strait will be kept open to shipping by all means necessary. The world economy, already suffering from a minor depression, anxiously fears a disruption in Persian Gulf petroleum supplies, a spike in oil prices, and the spiraling inflation which might kick the crutches out from under the fragile recovery. <br /><br />This brinksmanship did not originate out of the mullahs’ sudden desire to hold the world hostage, but rather as a direct and foreseeable response to the latest round of economic sanctions enacted by the United States of America against the Islamic Republic of Iran. This policy is not a new one; the U.S. already maintains a practically absolute program of trade sanctions against the entire Iranian economy. <a href="http://www.iraniantrade.org/12959.htm">Executive Order 12959</a> issued by President Clinton prohibited all trade with Iran; the <a href="http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RS20871.pdf">Iran-Libya Sanctions Act</a> imposed severe penalties on any U.S. corporation that invests in Iran’s petroleum sector; Iranian banks are completely barred from transacting with U.S. financial institutions. Now, through the <a href="http://kirk.senate.gov/?p=press_release&id=375">Kirk Amendment </a>to the National Defense Authorization Act of 2011, the U.S. has levied third party sanctions against the Central Bank of Iran (CBI). As of December 31st, this measure gave foreign companies a stark choice: one can either conduct business with the CBI or conduct business with the United States. <br /><br />Foreign corporations have opted to do business with the United States and divest from the Central Bank of Iran. The effect of this mass pullout from the CBI has been a sharp drop in the strength of <a href="http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-11/iran-bazaar-sees-rush-to-dump-rials?category=">Iran’s currency</a>. Since the Kirk Amendment went into effect, the rial has weakened by 20 percent compared to other currencies. Iranians are rushing to currency exchanges to trade their holdings in the rial for euros, dollars, any currency that might be more stable. Prices in Iranian bazaars are fluctuating so quickly that vendors of imported cell phones and computers are changing their prices by the hour. Commercial establishments dependent upon imports and exports are going out of business because no one wants to transact with a company with unpredictable prices. Iranian manufacturers have shuttered their factory doorsbecause they cannot afford to do business so long as the rial is subject to such erratic fluctuations. <br /><br />President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad recently told the Majlis that the latest measures were “the most extensive . . . sanctions ever.” He continued, “this is the heaviest economic onslaught on a nation in history.”<br /><br />The depreciation of the rial compared to foreign currencies has led to a painful spike of food prices in this nation highly dependent upon imported food. The price of food staples such as rice, bread, chicken, and lamb have risen by roughly 40 percent in Iranian bazaars. Iranian households have suddenly found themselves unable to put food on the table. Those who can have seen the quality of their food decline. Medications and pharmaceuticals are more expensive too. Though it is too early to tally much data, it appears likely that the Iranian people will likely suffer an acute rise in malnutrition, increased susceptability to disease, and an overall decline in health over the long run.<br /><br />The NDAA sanctions on the Central Bank of Iran are as provocative as a full-on blockade. Congress has intentionally engineered a direct hit on the Iranian civilian economy. It’s no wonder why Ahmadinejad has resorted to saber-rattling in the Strait of Hormuz – the United States has all but declared economic war on Iran. <br /><br />So why would the United States of America, send such a belligerent shot across the bow of a country that has not attacked us? Senator Mark Kirk (R-IL), one of the GOP’s rising hawks on Middle Eastern affairs, explains the rationale for his eponymous Amendment: <br /><blockquote>"When we look at Iran today, we see an accelerating nuclear program, expanding ballistic missile program and a wholesale disregard for human rights . . . These are not the signs of successful U.S. sanctions against the regime. Iran continues to sponsor terror around the world, including most recently a failed attack on U.S. soil. In response, the Administration should move quickly to implement the most effective, non-military response - cutting off the Central Bank of Iran and collapsing the Iranian currency."</blockquote> Let’s break that down. Senator Kirk’s stated rationale for the CBI third party sanctions is that Iran is:<br /><blockquote>1) pursuing nuclear capabilities; <br />2) sponsoring terrorism;<br />3) violating the human rights of its subjects. </blockquote> Chew on that for a minute. <br /><br />Let’s say that one of these days, say a year from now, the Iranian economy is so devastated and the people are conducting nation-wide strikes and mass demonstrations in the streets of Tehran ten times as massive as the unrest in 2009. The regime is on its knees. The Ayatollah Khameini completely disavows the Islamic Republic’s intention of pursuing nuclear technologies once and for all so that it can reallocate its resources towards food production. This fantasy is, in fact, the purported endgame of the CBI sanctions. In such a scenario, would the Obama (or Romney) administration declare the mission accomplished, that the Treasury Department is going to de-list the NDAA sanctions on the Central Bank of Iran? <br /><br />Of course not – Senator Kirk’s original intent of the CBI sanctions was also to protest Iran’s sponsorship of terrorism and human rights abuses. At that point, the Iran hawks would surely justify the crippling sanctions on the Islamic Republic’s financial sponsorship of Hezbollah, Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Surely, Senator Kirk and his colleagues would argue, we must maintain the economic sanctions against the Central Bank of Iran until it forsakes these militant anti-Israel organizations. The Iran hawks would also point out Tehran’s purported direct organizing of terrorist acts – including the botched attempt to <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/12/us/us-accuses-iranians-of-plotting-to-kill-saudi-envoy.html?pagewanted=all">assassinate the Saudi Ambassador </a>to the United States. <br /><br />Let’s suppose the sanctions are really working, the Ayatollah Khameini has consulted with his finance ministers, and the mullahs decide that it is economically imperative to abandon their deadweight terrorist clients; Tehran de-friends Hezbollah, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Khameini declares in a globally-televised address that the Islamic Republic has disavowed its terrorist conduct once and for all. Would the State Department ever let Iran come in from the cold – like it did with <a href="http://www.cfr.org/libya/libya-got-off-list/p10855">Libya</a>, <a href="http://www.reuters.com/video/2011/11/13/us-to-remove-sudan-from-terror-list?videoId=185584743">Sudan</a> and <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/13/world/asia/13terror.html?pagewanted=all">North Korea</a> – and drop their designation as a State Sponsor of Terrorism? <br /><br />It appear unlikely that this could ever happen, because in 2007, at <a href="http://aipac.org/en/legislative-agenda/back-tougher-iran-sanctions">AIPAC’s request</a>, the State Department labeled the <a href="http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gkkcJJUZ9jVJ_-YkDhrHSOjBfhrA">Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps </a>itself as a terrorist organization. Likewise, for Iran to ever shake its State Sponsor of Terrorism status, either the Revolutionary Guards would have to cease to be a terrorist organization, or the Iranian government would have to cease its financial and logistical support for its very own intelligence/paramilitary agency. This is as likely to happen, of course, as the U.S. is likely to cease our support for <a href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=web&cd=4&sqi=2&ved=0CDcQFjAD&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.haaretz.com%2Fnews%2Firan-s-parliament-approves-labeling-cia-u-s-army-terrorist-groups-1.230200&ei=7EATT5L6K4jDgAezzoHQAw&usg=AFQjCNF76EKWPJeQxnwiDZ_u2FmaSPiopQ&sig2=pMNPumKpQ6m7tHOaM624tQ">the CIA and the U.S. Army</a>. The designation of the Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organization was patently made to ensure that the Islamic Republic of Iran – so long as the regime exists in its present form - is never stripped of its designation as a terrorist state. <br /><br />But let’s be optimistic, and suppose the economic conditions in Iran become so insufferable that the Islamic Republic not only abandons its nuclear ambitions, but throws Hamas & Co. under the bus, and disbands the Revolutionary Guards Corps. The only criterion to the Kirk Amendment left standing is the continuing criticism of its human rights violations. Suppose Tehran ends the random beatings, arrests and disappearances of peaceful demonstrators and dissidents. The Majlis vote to prohibit torture, abolish capital punishment, and end government censorship of the media. The Ayatollah even consents to a wholesale overhaul of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran so that it ensures equal rights for women, religious minorities, and homosexuals. Under such a pie-in-the sky fantasy scenario, wouldn’t the Obama (or Romney) administration be tempted to repeal the sanctions on the Central Bank? <br /><br />Though it would be eminently reasonable to repeal the CBI sanctions if Iran substantially performs on each and every demand of the Kirk Amendment, it is difficult to imagine that any U.S. administration might ever back down on the sanctions program so long as Iran remains an Islamic Republic. Depending on how one construes the term <em>human rights</em>, an administration could justify continuing the CBI sanctions so long as Iran limits the participation of non-Islamic parties in its presidential and parliamentary elections. Even if the Guardian Council were to allow for truly democratic, multiparty elections, Iran hawks could always object to the fact that all real political power resides in the Supreme Leader who is the commander of the armed forces, who exercises great sway over all branches of government – and who is not elected by popular vote. One could argue that the Iranian people’s freedom of religion is violated unless the theocratic institutions of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Leader_of_Iran">Supreme Leader</a>, the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assembly_of_Experts">Assembly of Experts</a>, and the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assembly_of_Experts">Guardian Council </a>are completely abolished.<br /><br />An elected government composed of the Majlis and the Presidency might not suffice either. It appears that the 1979-81 hostage crisis left such a pall of humiliation on the American psyche that no administration, no Congress will ever be satisfied until the entire Iranian regime is eviscerated to a pulp and a completely new regime is erected from scratch. When U.S. officials talk about <em>human rights </em>in Iran, they often imply the right to be free of the Islamic Republic. <br /><br />It appears that the real end goal of the CBI sanctions is an aim which most Iran hawks are reluctant to flat-out mention: to inflict hardship onto the Iranian civilian population so as to stir up discontent with the Iranian government. A January 10th article in <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/goal-of-iran-sanctions-is-regime-collapse-us-official-says/2012/01/10/gIQA0KJsoP_story.html"><em>The Washington Post</em></a> by Karen DeYoung and Scott Wilson quoted a senior U.S. intelligence official laying out the strategy: <br /><blockquote>The Obama administration sees economic sanctions against Iran as building public discontent that will help compel the government to abandon an alleged nuclear weapons program, according to a senior U.S. intelligence official.<br /><br />In addition to influencing Iranian leaders directly, the official said, “another option here is that [sanctions] will create hate and discontent at the street level so that the Iranian leaders realize that they need to change their ways.” <br /><br />The intelligence official’s remarks pointed to what has long been an unstated reality of sanctions: Although designed to pressure a government to change its policies, they often impose broad hardships on a population. . . . <br /><br />A senior administration official, speaking separately, acknowledged that public discontent was a likely result of more punitive sanctions against Iran’s already faltering economy, but said that is not the direct intent. . . . <br /><br />“The question is whether people in the government feel pressure from the fact that there’s public discontent,” the official said, “versus whether the sanctions themselves are intended to collapse the regime.”</blockquote> The original version of this January 10th <em>Post</em> article quoted the anonymous administration official as stating that the ultimate end goal of the sanctions was, in fact, to foment “regime collapse.” A later version of the same article was amended, sheepishly backpedaling that that statement was “incorrectly reported.” Either way, this off-the-record story was a veritable bombshell as it explicitly named the hardship and discontentment of the Iranian population as an express goal of the CBI sanctions. <br /><br />But the question remains; was the first reporting of this article retracted because the invocation of “regime collapse” was a misquote? Or did this anonymous senior administration official simply say too much? Are we sabotaging the Iranian civilian economy because we want the people to write to their Representatives in the Majlis to vote “Nay” on a nuclear program bill? Would Congress, the White House, and the Pentagon be content with an Islamic Republic sans nuclear capabilities? Or are we going to maintain these draconian sanctions until the Islamic Republic lies in the same ash heap of history as the Ottoman Empire, the Soviet Union, and the Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahariya?<br /><br />We have conducted regime change in Iran before, and Iran has enjoyed the blessings of democratic self-government – though not in that order. The brief reign of Iranian democracy lasted during the brief window from 1951 to 1953 under Prime Minister <a href="http://www.mohammadmossadegh.com/biography/">Mohammad Mossadegh</a>. Mossadegh was as revered a nationalist leader in the Age of Decolonization could be. But after Mossadegh nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, the Truman administration enacted an embargo on nationalized Iranian oil. President Eisenhower followed up by authorizing Kermit Roosevelt to lead the joint CIA/MI5 mission <a href="http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB28/">Operation Ajax</a>. Roosevelt and his cohorts fomented political instability in Iran with bombings and demonstrations, destabilized the Mossadegh government and re-installed the Shah Reza Pahlavi by coup d’état. Embargo proved to be but a prelude to direct CIA subversion.<br /><br />Neoconservatives like Senator Kirk are gaga over the Central Bank of Iran sanctions because they hope that these restrictions might achieve the same end of Operation Ajax by purely economic means. But this strategy inadvertently showcases the extent to which <a href="http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/51220/john-b-judis/trotskyism-to-anachronism-the-neoconservative-revolution">Neoconservativism</a> borrows generously from more radical (and European!) ideologies. According to the Marxist-Leninist "<a href="http://uwacadweb.uwyo.edu/red_feather/lectures/036MarxistTheory-3.htm">immiseration thesis</a>", the worse the economy, the more “immiserated” the proletariat, the more radicalized the proletariat becomes, and the greater chance of political revolution. Trotsky’s corollary to the Marxist-Leninist “immiseration thesis” was essentially that farsighted vanguards of humanity could speed up the process of political revolution by deliberately sabotaging the economy. Similarly, with the CBI sanctions the Neocons expressly aim to foment so much havoc in the Iranian economy that the Iranian people are thoroughly “immiserated" that they become radicalized, and bring about regime change on their own accord. <br /><br />What happens if the sanctions on the Central Bank of Iran don’t succeed in dislodging the Islamic Republic? 13 years of comprehensive sanctions maintained by all of the <a href="http://peace.mennolink.org/articles/iraqsancthist.html">United Nations against Iraq</a> did nothing to remove Saddam Hussein. After 6 years of Israeli-American-European strangulation, Hamas still maintains its fiefdom in the <a href="http://unispal.un.org/pdfs/GSclosure.pdf">Gaza Strip</a>. After 52 years of unilateral U.S. embargo, the Castro brothers are still in power in <a href="http://zacstravaganza.blogspot.com/2011/12/its-time-to-open-trade-with-cuba.html">Cuba</a>. With the exception of perhaps <a href="http://usinfo.org/docs/democracy/56.htm">South Africa </a>and <a href="http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/59547/william-d-rogers-kenneth-maxwell/fleeing-the-chilean-coup-the-debate-over-us-complicity">Chile</a>, trade sanctions have rarely succeeded in fomenting regime change.<br /><br />In the aforementioned cases, economic sanctions have certainly achieved the intending goal of “immiseration”; embargoes plunged the Cuban, Iraqi, and Palestinian populations into even more devastating poverty. But the undesired regimes did not budge. Though the incumbent regimes have been able to blame the people’s economic misery on America and the Western powers, and they have benefited from the “rally-around-the-flag” effect which often results from acts popularly characterized as foreign aggression. The manifestations of this effect can be transnational and quite sinister; in his <a href="http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/news/osama.htm">seminal fatwa</a>, Osama bin Laden justified his waging jihad against the American people partly upon the misery suffered by the Iraqi people under UN sanctions. <br /><br />The NDAA’s latest salvo against the Iranian economy might not even disincentivize the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program. According to the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/goal-of-iran-sanctions-is-regime-collapse-us-official-says/2012/01/10/gIQA0KJsoP_story_1.html"><em>Post</em></a>’s anonymous administration official, “[the CBI sanctions program] could have the opposite effect from what’s intended,” he said, “and impel the Iranian leader to decide, ‘We’re going to build that nuclear weapon.’ We’ve thought of that.”<br /><br />Don’t get me wrong; the Islamic Republic of Iran is one of the most despicable regimes in the world today. President Ahmadinejad, the Ayatollah Khameini, and all agents and bureaucrats complicit in the <a href="http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2009/nea/136068.htm">murder of peaceful demonstrators </a>in 2009 ought to be indicted by the ICC for crimes against humanity. Any fair observer must look forward to the day when the Iranian people inevitably rise up and overthrow the Ayatollah and the mullahs in favor of a new, more democratic form of government. However, it appears that “immiseration”-based trade sanctions might be neither suitable nor necessary to achieve this end. <br /><br />Trade sanctions with the express purpose of inflicting economic pain upon a civilian population should not be blithely enacted without due regard for their moral price and their real human costs. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definitions_of_terrorism"><em>Terrorism</em></a> is generally defined as the deliberate use of violence aimed against civilians in order to achieve political ends. <a href="http://www.gcsp.ch/">The Geneva Centre for Security Policy</a> defines <em>economic terrorism </em>as “varied, coordinated and sophisticated, or massive destabilizing actions [undertaken by transnational or non-state actors] to disrupt the economic stability of a state, groups of states, or society.” Maybe the CBI sanctions program is not <em>economic terrorism</em> because it is conducted by state actors. Maybe it is isn't economic terrorism <em>when we do it</em>. Maybe the CBI sanctions program <em>is</em> economic terrorism - but if it leads to the downfall of the Islamic Republic, the ends justify the means. Maybe it depends on what the definition of <em>is </em>is. <br /><br />One can be a steadfast critic of the Iranian government and also a critic of one's own country's attempts to thwart the Iranian government. There is a sizeable camp of <a href="http://www.fff.org/comment/AdamsPolicy.asp">critics</a> who loathe the Iranian regime and who also believe that the less foreigners do to meddle in that country's internal politics, the better for the legitimacy of the Iranian reform movement. Some of us despise the Islamic Republic and cannot wait to see the day when the Iranian people are free from its tyranny, but we also believe that the Iranian people’s struggle for political freedom is theirs and theirs alone. <br /><br /><script type="text/javascript">var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www.");document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));</script><script type="text/javascript">try {var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-7228385-2");pageTracker._trackPageview();} catch(err) {}</script><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="https://twitter.com/ZacMadu" class="twitter-follow-button" data-show-count="false">Follow @ZacMadu</a>
<script src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" type="text/javascript"></script></div>Zachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00977280731502216845noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7001870879534452132.post-74569349690939848672012-01-05T18:33:00.001-08:002012-01-15T09:04:19.868-08:00On Presidents, Palestinians, and the Jewish VoteThis is an election year, so it should come as no surprise that presidential aspirants are busy pandering to every strategic voting bloc, including the large populations of Jewish voters in New York, New Jersey, California, Pennsylvania, and Florida. Appealing to Jewish voters on the subject of Israel is nothing new – shtetl politicians have campaigned on this salient issue as long as there has been a Zionist movement. However, what is new in this election cycle is the unprecedented degree of gutter politics and general nastiness that the discourse on Israel has acquired. <br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnMMR2lqkIPzx_ivo6WiPjsWYj1n0UIfZb7fiCfF2fcxAISpEyRi6DXxrwKnhSbvNH8OD5z_jfhkMPh3vd9N-gp8r-Zat7peqlypGjIVLPdGhV0cFjLTQ6CMpfwoQpOlbNzTbHgFS8hlc/s1600/Michele+Bachmann.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 220px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnMMR2lqkIPzx_ivo6WiPjsWYj1n0UIfZb7fiCfF2fcxAISpEyRi6DXxrwKnhSbvNH8OD5z_jfhkMPh3vd9N-gp8r-Zat7peqlypGjIVLPdGhV0cFjLTQ6CMpfwoQpOlbNzTbHgFS8hlc/s320/Michele+Bachmann.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5694555994051678226" /></a> At the <a href="http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-december-8-2011/the-matzorian-candidate">Republican Jewish Coalition forum</a>, Congresswoman <a href="http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/303056-8">Michele Bachmann </a>thundered that Israel should cede “not one acre, not one square foot, not one inch” to the Palestinians in order to make peace. <br /><br />Governor <a href="http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/PerryRema">Rick Perry </a>declared that the Israeli settlements in the West Bank are actually legal, “and I support them.” <br /><br /><a href="http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/PerryRema">Newt Gingrich</a> claimed that the Palestinians are an “invented people” – with the implication that if the Palestinians are not a true nation then they cannot have a nation-state. <br /><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZJsq_hdlBU">Rick Santorum</a> went even further, claiming, “All the people that live in the West Bank are Israelis. They are not Palestinians. There is no Palestinian. This is Israeli land.”<br /><br />Putting these statements together, one sees a Republican foreign policy platform which does more than simply repudiate the “Land for Peace” premise of U.S.-led peace negotiations between Israel and her Arab neighbors – it repudiates the very notion of a peace process altogether. The GOP presidential aspirants wish to reverse the longstanding U.S. policy of opposition to the illegal Israeli settlements in West Bank territory and now actively <em>endorse</em> continued colonial expansion. The foreign policy which these candidates espouse is a radical abandonment of U.S. policy for the past 45 years – including the foreign policies of the Nixon, Reagan, and both Bush administrations – and a substitution of the religiously and racially exclusivist ideologies of <a href=" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revisionist_Zionism">Revisionist Zionism</a> in its place. <br /><br />Why would candidates for leader of the free world stoop to such lows? Karl Rove and the greater Republican National Committee believe that by making Israel into a wedge issue, GOP candidates can peel off some of the 78% of Jewish voters who voted for Barack Obama in 2008. GOP strategists believe that they might have found a winning strategy in pandering to the basest fears of the collective Jewish psyche: our instinctive paranoia of Arabs, Muslims, and anyone otherwise resembling Yasser Arafat. Such Palestinian-bashing is a reprehensible tactic which all advocates of tolerance and basic decency must condemn. Tragically, it might win Mitt Romney a few votes, it might even flip a few Hasidic communities to the GOP tent for good. <br /><br />One should expect such below-the-belt jabs from the folks who brought you the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIyewCdXMzk">“White Hands”</a> ad and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Io9KMSSEZ0Y">Willie Horton</a>. But what is concerning is that the Democratic National Committee might take the bait and try to <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVO4PzqDltc">out-pander</a> the panderers. One might hope that Democratic candidates will not join this race to the bottom in Palestinian-bashing because they are too good for that kind of gutter politics. <br /><br />One might even hope that the enlightened Democrats might get the memo that the State of Israel is not the only matter of interest to each and every one America’s 6,544,000 Jews. It is insulting to think that a politician can buy our votes with a pledge for more reflexive embrace of everything the Netanyahu administration says and does in the same manner as, say, one stumps for votes among Iowan farmers by promising more subsidies for corn. <br /><br />Zionism and diplomatic support for the State of Israel have always been an undercurrent in Jewish-American politics, but it was never the end-all-be-all until relatively recently. Not too long ago, candidates campaigned in Jewish neighborhoods in Park Slope and Brookline by stumping on the issues most relevant to a then-largely working class demographic; unionism, wages, and pensions, immigration reform, civil rights legislation. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheZWWK3gOnzS-Yl7iib-3o14Nx4R-lIB1muAL6PcVCZI-HNJV0KnoaAQVrafQPLIIqAzNZeBJ1GwrLAPhrWppzY_X0sD8VfWAz0RIPjbKBA8bCfmCnQGMOV5_wUVeB5hDmvVs318xOc2M/s1600/Roosevelt+Labor.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheZWWK3gOnzS-Yl7iib-3o14Nx4R-lIB1muAL6PcVCZI-HNJV0KnoaAQVrafQPLIIqAzNZeBJ1GwrLAPhrWppzY_X0sD8VfWAz0RIPjbKBA8bCfmCnQGMOV5_wUVeB5hDmvVs318xOc2M/s320/Roosevelt+Labor.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5694365552942810242" /></a>However, with the passing of generations, the bulk of us have moved from the ghettoes to the wealthy suburbs, and there is no longer a distinct economic pitch to appeal to both the seamstress in South Williamsburg who makes $22,000 a year and the bond trader in Greenwich who makes $2.2 million. Thus Jewish-American politics has been reduced to Israel: the one issue which (ostensibly) unites us all. <br /><br />Nevertheless, in our day-to-day conversations, American Jews are more concerned about the job market, fairness in the tax code, the cost of health insurance, the quality of our environment. We are disproportionately in favor of taking measures to curb global warming, reforming our criminal justice system, and creating a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants. Why don’t candidates for public office come to our congregations and campaign on these issues which actually affect our lives, the lives of our friends and family members a whole lot more than a foreign country two continents and an ocean away? Of course, we will always have a special sense of sympathy for the Jewish State. But if we are going to speak about foreign policy, Israel is but one of 195 foreign countries (196 if you count Palestine) with which we are concerned. <br /><br />If presidential candidates are going to speak to a Jewish audience on Israel and Israel alone, then they might as well appeal to our greatest hopes instead of our darkest fears. According to <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/poll-majority-of-u-s-jews-support-mideast-peace-plan-based-on-1967-borders-1.374554">a 2011 J Street poll</a>, the vast majority of American Jews want a U.S.-brokered solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (83%), and for the Obama administration to offer a peace plan that proposes set borders and security arrangements (70%). A healthy majority of American Jews even back a peace plan based on the 1967 borders with mutually agreed-upon land swaps (57%). If politicians are going to campaign for Jewish voters on Israel, they ought to pledge to sit down with Netanyahu and Abbas and hammer out a peace deal for once and for all. <br /><br />Sure, 17 percent of American Jews are opposed to the Middle East peace process - just as <a href="http://www.pewforum.org/Gay-Marriage-and-Homosexuality/Support-For-Same-Sex-Marriage-Edges-Upward.aspx">18</a> percent of American Jews are <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wk21I9nCro">opposed to equal rights for gays and lesbians</a>, 22 percent of American Jews thought that <a href="http://jewsforsarah.com/">Sarah Palin </a>should have been the Vice President, and there are even some of us who think there should be <a href="http://www.thenewyorkworld.com/2011/10/18/women-ride-in-back-on-sex-segregated-brooklyn-bus-line/">segregation on public transportation</a>. But Democratic politicians have no obligation to kowtow to these <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5szudMu_Dc0">forces of reaction</a>, the very most closed-minded minority of my people - <em>because they're Republicans</em>. The DNC ought to accept this reality, move on, and campaign to the vast majority of Jewish voters who support a U.S.-brokered peace process. <br /><br />Making peace in the Middle East is not a campaign liability which candidates ought to run away from – it is a badge of honor which Democratic Presidents ought to embrace. The legacy of Democratic administrations vis-à-vis Israel is not limited to Harry Truman’s recognition of the Jewish State in 1948. The greatest foreign policy achievements of Democratic administrations include Lyndon Johnson’s support for Resolution 242 in the United Nations, Jimmy Carter’s brokering of the Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt, Bill Clinton’s facilitation of negotiations over the Israel-Jordan peace treaty and the Oslo Accords between Israel and the PLO. The majority of Jewish voters want to see Barack Obama live up to this long legacy of Democratic achievement and oversee peace negotiations leading to a two-state solution in which the nations of Israel and Palestine are living side by side, in peace and security. That’s the kind of change we can believe in. <br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo1rDuIWj_GLznkLcnwtAExnqk2-VBS060U-rS1t-hECzte_AM-OYQeyAaJHCVqvNiNbiPDU2FuRcks9CWTcakvSggAPolcOY8_KF6zanjFiqv4VK-aqKY9wDgboHfKU_YIDHjB_GL0a4/s1600/Obama+Israel.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 248px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo1rDuIWj_GLznkLcnwtAExnqk2-VBS060U-rS1t-hECzte_AM-OYQeyAaJHCVqvNiNbiPDU2FuRcks9CWTcakvSggAPolcOY8_KF6zanjFiqv4VK-aqKY9wDgboHfKU_YIDHjB_GL0a4/s320/Obama+Israel.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5694556941380745954" /></a><br /><br /><script type="text/javascript">var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? 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<script src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" type="text/javascript"></script></div>Zachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00977280731502216845noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7001870879534452132.post-25920906246520436382011-12-18T09:43:00.000-08:002012-01-13T08:09:17.201-08:00It's Time to End the Embargo on Cuba“I think it’s time for us to end the embargo on Cuba”, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1FoZyRIDFE&NR=1">Barack Obama </a>declared as he was running for the Senate in 2004, “The Cuban embargo has failed to provide for the sort of rising standard of living, has squeezed the innocents in Cuba, and utterly failed in the effort to overthrow Castro – who has now been there since I was born. So it’s time for us to acknowledge that that particular policy has failed.” <br /><br />Since Obama recognized this matter-of-fact truth, the embargo on Cuba failed to overthrow the Castro regime for an additional 8 years, thusfar failing for a grand total of 52 years and achieving the dubious distinction of being the longest-running blockade in in the history of the world. It would be fair to say that the U.S. embargo on Cuba has been the worst trade policy ever made. <br /><br />So why don’t we just call a spade a spade and finally open up trade with Cuba? Now more than ever, American businesses desperately need to access new markets and increase our exports to other countries. As the Obama administration has sold free trade agreements with Panama and Colombia as part of the Recovery Agenda, it’s time to repackage trade with Cuba as a means of expanding markets for American farmers and manufacturers and creating more American jobs. <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-0cCNZSt03XnpS-NCxExrGECJOgxnApBioIbj6iuwxTkTHEr5f3I9vZ5MPIGWbpaN11ArZIR_z3CmqrB32TNbptoYm5LhyXkYs6pq97uuqnJH9pgkNjr6DdXvzB5UTWweqp2q9Yy2FUk/s1600/Cuba+Libre.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 310px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-0cCNZSt03XnpS-NCxExrGECJOgxnApBioIbj6iuwxTkTHEr5f3I9vZ5MPIGWbpaN11ArZIR_z3CmqrB32TNbptoYm5LhyXkYs6pq97uuqnJH9pgkNjr6DdXvzB5UTWweqp2q9Yy2FUk/s400/Cuba+Libre.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5687527268499944322" /></a> Trade sanctions are more than just a means of making a statement; they are economic policies with real world ramifications for the markets of the United States, the targeted country, and third party markets as well. Trade sanctions must be subject to the same cost-benefit analysis as any other economic policy. If Congress were to ban the export of <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/18/opinion/sunday/kristof-repressing-democracy-with-american-arms.html">tear gas to Bahrain</a>, that would have a targeted effect on the abilities of the Bahraini state to repress its own people and only a minimal effect on the U.S. economy. The benefits would far outweigh the costs. <br /><br />However, if you compare such a nominal targeted sanction to our comprehensive embargo on Cuba which prohibits almost all economic activity with the island nation, this policy cannot withstand the scrutiny of any rational analysis. The costs of the United States' self-abnegation from the Cuban market disproportionately outweigh the benefits – that is, if there are any benefits at all. <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW3Fw00bwqj1dUIsvRhkppQKIuRAyzgKseHH7CjFPlU5_pmxQgljOKSnrRkzfeHi9xLn1UbsDzbdSo_6srwmdhzpyptS7edjext4iL7x8ffHef1TWZdIEIhej3GxKDA1-XYsPSrpQKPwY/s1600/Castro1959.gif"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 264px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW3Fw00bwqj1dUIsvRhkppQKIuRAyzgKseHH7CjFPlU5_pmxQgljOKSnrRkzfeHi9xLn1UbsDzbdSo_6srwmdhzpyptS7edjext4iL7x8ffHef1TWZdIEIhej3GxKDA1-XYsPSrpQKPwY/s320/Castro1959.gif" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5687539868029132450" /></a> In the 1960s when Castro was harboring Soviet nuclear weapons and threatening to foment Communist insurrection throughout the Americas, the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations were arguably justified in restricting trade with Cuba. At a time when Pentagon hawks were advocating for a ground invasion to topple the regime and all-out war with the Soviet Union, economic blockade was a reasonable alternative to gambling with nuclear Armageddon. <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2ILMHOnyWUVFPlVEL_Ps1_21abkWvInAYMoxgsfV8zyMiYuVsqqwGS4Z8YR2dvURYSYXSkBegO_xTLjuzu-IziJbLJOLVpaoQshEuE-0KrKZ9AWX8vO0yOihUlXWhZLFlrtw1SZ6-YJ4/s1600/Cuban+Missile+Crisis.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 330px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2ILMHOnyWUVFPlVEL_Ps1_21abkWvInAYMoxgsfV8zyMiYuVsqqwGS4Z8YR2dvURYSYXSkBegO_xTLjuzu-IziJbLJOLVpaoQshEuE-0KrKZ9AWX8vO0yOihUlXWhZLFlrtw1SZ6-YJ4/s400/Cuban+Missile+Crisis.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5687527919889293186" /></a> But half a century later, the Cold War is over, the People’s Republic of China and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam are among our most important trading partners, and the strategic value of containing Cuba is paltry-to-nonexistant. Uncle Fidel is 85, ailing, and has relinquished all official powers; his anti-American subversion now consists of writing the occasional editorial on <a href="http://monthlyreview.org/castro/">his sporadically-updated blog</a>. In the year 2012, Cuba is no more a threat to the national security of the United States than the left-wing Caribbean nations of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolivarian_Alliance_for_the_Americas">Dominica</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolivarian_Alliance_for_the_Americas">Antigua and Barbuda</a>, or <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolivarian_Alliance_for_the_Americas">Saint Vincent and the Grenadines</a>. <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0yQo0wzU9v7nYSqLLkNguY-FJpOC7EfSL7AJ-JzJslbSOOV7wFSLqvgUrv7Tx2W2rIdMCPNx9JvJO70LCgraUN2Nzgq-nhkOOUujRDzE0nTcD6rXaQbkF-mLTS_duhfZn9FQ5XF65AYM/s1600/Castro2012.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 239px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0yQo0wzU9v7nYSqLLkNguY-FJpOC7EfSL7AJ-JzJslbSOOV7wFSLqvgUrv7Tx2W2rIdMCPNx9JvJO70LCgraUN2Nzgq-nhkOOUujRDzE0nTcD6rXaQbkF-mLTS_duhfZn9FQ5XF65AYM/s320/Castro2012.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5687549811395084802" /></a><br />On the other hand, the costs of the embargo on Cuba to the U.S. economy are enormous. Cuba is a market of 11 million consumers and a GDP of $57 billion. The island nation needs to import $9 billion worth of mostly food, refined oil, farm machinery and chemicals every year. And because of the Helms-Burton Act which codified the embargo into law, this promising market only 90 miles from the Florida coast is all but completely off-limits to American businesses, taking $9 billion in potential U.S. exports, untold billions more output from the ancillary commerce which could result, and effectively flushing them down the toilet. <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-SbsKogwOG6lJC-Q1D2B-7QGIYWDtqe3Nygc4az3vOuHC97xae3aZhvoG7-o55ZiKAhWoRy1egDoRhzaZ39wEIctm97YhAuYYgoCYNNqbSQQWrRGoPwUggvUFjb5l9BEXoosMsckl3_4/s1600/Cuba+economic.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 224px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-SbsKogwOG6lJC-Q1D2B-7QGIYWDtqe3Nygc4az3vOuHC97xae3aZhvoG7-o55ZiKAhWoRy1egDoRhzaZ39wEIctm97YhAuYYgoCYNNqbSQQWrRGoPwUggvUFjb5l9BEXoosMsckl3_4/s400/Cuba+economic.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5687528305684764098" /></a>It is still fair for observers of objectively-discernible reality to decry the Republic of Cuba's contemptible <a href="http://www.hrw.org/news/2011/06/01/cuba-stop-imprisoning-peaceful-dissidents">human rights record</a>. The government remains a dictatorship which muzzles opposing views, jails political prisoners and the like. There is a convincing human rights-based argument that we shouldn’t sell them tanks, helicopters, rifles and bullets that could be used in the act of political repression. <br /><br />But now that Communism is an anachronistic novelty, is there any reason why we shouldn’t be able to freely sell the Cuban people American-made food, clothing, medicine, and toys? Is there any reason why the U.S. should single out Cuba’s lack of multiparty elections to maintain the most restrictive trade sanctions on the books? Even in our own hemisphere, why is Cuba more deserving of embargo than, say, human rights abusing <a href="http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Special/2010/07/23/Human-Rights-Watch-Venezuela-government-office-muzzling-critics/UPI-70611279897991/">Venezuela </a>($55 billion in trade in 2011), <a href="http://www.hrw.org/reports/2010/02/03/paramilitaries-heirs-0">Colombia</a> ($35.7 billion), or <a href="http://www.hrw.org/news/2011/09/29/bolivia-investigate-crackdown-protesters">Bolivia</a>($1.5 billion)? <br /><br />The U.S. embargo of Cuba is so severe that it severely infringes upon the rights of American citizens. Section 515.204 of the <a href="http://fl1.findlaw.com/news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/cuba/cubanac31cfr515.pdf">Cuban Assets Control Regulations</a> prohibits any person subject to U.S. jurisdiction from engaging in any transaction relating to any product which is of Cuban origin. Section 515.204 doesn’t prohibit the travel per se of U.S. citizens to Cuba, but it does make it a crime for U.S. citizens to so much as pay the bill at a Havana restaurant without an elusive license from the Treasury Department. Any U.S. citizen found guilty of making such a transaction can be fined up to $250,000 and/or imprisoned for up to 10 years. <br /><br />The cold winter of the unilateral U.S. embargo is beginning to thaw. In January 2011 President Obama quietly issued an <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/01/14/reaching-out-cuban-people">executive order </a>easing the travel ban to Cuba – allowing the Treasury and State Departments to authorize “purposeful travel” by academic, religious, and cultural groups to the island. Obama’s executive order also allows for the transfer of funds to Cuban religious and civil society groups – but pointedly refrained from allowing the unrestricted flow of remittances from Cuban-Americans to their family members on the island. <br /><br />Imagine the possibilities for the U.S. economy if President Obama were to go further and act on his <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gpar1wwT24&feature=relmfu">campaign pledge </a>to completely do away with the draconian ban on travel, if he were to use his executive power to eliminate Section 515.204 of the Cuban Assets Control Regulations so that any American citizen could come and go as they please… <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7zPgRwJVwn_kGx4ud_elYU1GU4SNBRqG6FAPGf4oamKsezqs_6ujFy8EWyCnBRVJ2f6OI_Y9vu5Yh0ik5phAKSjAQgXfv4W8b9-C_VCJL_VMc7sQe341EddPjZ6OIAYLtBXHDt6HKrV8/s1600/Visit+Cuba.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 175px; height: 175px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7zPgRwJVwn_kGx4ud_elYU1GU4SNBRqG6FAPGf4oamKsezqs_6ujFy8EWyCnBRVJ2f6OI_Y9vu5Yh0ik5phAKSjAQgXfv4W8b9-C_VCJL_VMc7sQe341EddPjZ6OIAYLtBXHDt6HKrV8/s400/Visit+Cuba.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5687533081775955602" /></a> Analysts from the <a href="http://www.cubafoundation.org/CPF%20Cuba%20Travel%20Study.htm">Cuba Policy Foundation </a>estimate that if the federal government were to completely lift the travel ban, approximately 1 million Americans would take advantage of their newfound liberty in the first year alone. This would not only be a boon to the Cuban economy, but to the American tourist economy as well. Lifting the travel ban would create thousands of additional jobs at US airlines, cruise ships, tour operators, travel agents, hotels, restaurants, etc. The CPF estimates that in the first year the U.S. economy would grow by about $545 million in GDP and 3,797 new jobs in the first year. As business becomes more established we could be talking about the range of $2 billion in additional economic output and 12,180 new jobs in the United States alone. <br /><br />Why stop there? Raúl Castro has taken significant steps to <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/01/AR2010110105357.html">liberalize the Cuban economy </a>by allowing private citizens to own their homes and establish small businesses. Why doesn’t the Obama administration allow U.S. citizens to travel to Cuba to meet aspiring entrepreneurs who might want to take out a micro-loan? If a Cuban guy in Holguín wants to open up a pizzeria, why should U.S. trade law prevent him from importing Cabot cheese and Hormel pepperoni?If a lady in Camagüey wants to open up a beauty parlor, is there any logical reason for the U.S. Treasury Department to prevent her from importing Revlon makeup and Pantene shampoo? As it now stands, draconian U.S. trade regulations are stifling Cuba’s transition to a market economy! <br /><br />Thanks to a crack in the embargo enacted by Congress in 2000, the Treasury Department now allows a modest amount of food exports to Cuba for “humanitarian” reasons each year. Embargo notwithstanding, many Cubans are voracious consumers of American-made rice and beans, mayonnaise and hot sauce to the tune of $560 million a year. Nevertheless, these food exports are subject to extremely stifling banking regulations which prohibit direct wiring of money for transactions. Any wiring of funds must be conducted through third-party countries, and much of the transacting is relegated to cash. If Congress were to relax the Cuba-specific banking regulations to the same level as regulations on money transfers to, say, the Dominican Republic, American farmers could be making between $200 to $300 million in additional revenues. <br /><br />The Cuban market imports $9 billion of refined oil, food, farm machinery and chemicals every year. It should be one of the greatest markets for U.S. goods. But U.S. goods now constitute only 6.3% of the country’s imports because the market is dominated by the Venezuelans, Chinese, and Spaniards whose governments allow essentially free trade to the country. Even the mighty Canadians are beating us in the competition to meet the Cuban market. We could add billions of dollars to the United States GDP by simply deleting a couple of antediluvian trade restrictions from the U.S. Code. <br /><br />So why doesn’t Congress simply repeal the Helms-Burton Act and allow Americans to trade with Cubans? There remains the disproportionately powerful bloc of Cubans émigrés still smarting from the events of 1959. Both parties see Florida as the sine qua non of victory in the presidential and Congressional elections, so most "serious" candidates are scared of casting a vote that might let their opponents cast them as “soft on Communism.” Moreover, now that Cuba hawk Rep. <a href="http://voteileana.com/">Ileana Ros-Lehtinen </a>(R-Fl.) is the Chairwoman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, the prospects for reform are stalled so long as the Republicans maintain a majority in the House. <br /><br />But yesterday's electoral calculations of Cuban-American/Floridian politics are now as relevant to modern needs as a VHS rental store. Nowadays, <a href="http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/national/article925582.ece">a clear majority of Cuban-Americans are in favor of ending the embargo and normalizing relations with the Cuban government. </a> Indeed, many second- and third-generation Cuban-Americans are willing to rethink the embargo because - historical injustices aside - they realize that they would stand the most to benefit if it were curtailed. Fluent hispanophone Cuban-American youth are going to be the most valuable employees in boomtown post-embargo Miami. <br /><br />The embargo on Cuba has never been an effective means of strangling the Communist regime into submission, it never will be, and it’s about time that Congress finaly adopts a trade policy with Cuba which reflects the facts. It's also about time that Congress adopts a trade policy with Cuba which reflects the needs of the United States economy. The Cuba hawks who vote to uphold the 52-year-old embargo are like the Imperial Japanese soldiers found guarding Indonesian islets well into the 1970s because they never got the memo that their war was over. We can no longer afford to continue humoring the old Cold Warriors’ delusions. It’s time to finally open trade with Cuba. <br /><br /><script type="text/javascript">var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www.");document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));</script><script type="text/javascript">try {var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-7228385-2");pageTracker._trackPageview();} catch(err) {}</script><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="https://twitter.com/ZacMadu" class="twitter-follow-button" data-show-count="false">Follow @ZacMadu</a>
<script src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" type="text/javascript"></script></div>Zachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00977280731502216845noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7001870879534452132.post-23576923709804443772011-11-27T11:58:00.000-08:002012-01-02T21:03:12.392-08:00Express Conditions and the Doctrine of Prevention in The MuppetsIn 1979 Kermit the Frog, on behalf of the Muppets, entered into a “standard rich and famous” contract with studio executive Lew Lord. The fine print of the contract included a clause which transferred the Los Angeles property of the Muppet Studios to energy magnate Tex Richman for the ostensible purpose of establishing a museum. An express condition of this contract, buried in the fine print, stipulated that the Muppets shall relinquish all rights to the property, and that these rights will transfer to Richman unless Mr. The Frog can raise $10 million by a certain date in 2011. <br /><br />It is apparent that Lew Lord wrote this contract in bad faith. When Kermit the Frog signed the “standard rich and famous” contract in 1979, he apparently did not realize that Lew Lord’s standard form contract included any language regarding the Muppet Studios property. Most importantly, even though Kermit did sign away the rights to the property, the language suggested that the purpose of this transfer was to build a museum. Richman’s ulterior motive for purchasing the land was to extract valuable oil deposits which lay beneath the old Muppet Studios. Hence this disagreement constitutes a serious matter of non-disclosure. If the Muppets knew that there were oil deposits under the property and Richman’s true interest in purchasing the property was in their extraction, then it is unlikely that Kermit the Frog would have agreed to the sale on these terms or at all. Therefore, if Richman were to sue for specific performance, the Muppets can raise the matters of non-disclosure and general bad faith dealing for a rescission of the contract. <br /><br />In addition, the Muppets attempted to raise the $10 million as stipulated as an express condition to void the transfer of the Muppet Studios complex to Richman – and they did substantially perform upon this condition by raising $9,999.99 in a Telethon. The Muppets unarguably failed to meet this express condition, despite the fact that they engaged in unlawful behavior and kidnapped Jack Black in attempting to do so. Fozzie Bear even posed the question, “What’s more illegal – minorly inconveniencing Jack Black or letting Tex Richman take over Muppet Studios?”; the rest of the Muppets replied, “Kidnapping Jack Black!” Whether or not a court might find that the Muppets committed the criminal act of kidnapping or merely the intentional tort of wrongful imprisonment appears to be a moot point because this act was merely incidental to the Muppets’ attempt to raise $10 million and fulfill the terms of the contract.<br /><br />Indeed, the Muppets did not fulfill the express condition of the contract pertaining to the raising of $10 million in order to prevent the transfer of the Muppet Studios to Richman. However, Richman acted in bad faith by sabotaging the Muppet Theater’s electric and phone lines, plunging the theater in darkness and preventing the phone bankers from receiving monetary pledges. According to the Doctrine of Prevention, a condition of a contract is excused if one of the parties wrongfully hinders of prevents the condition from occurring. It is apparent that Richman’s sabotage of the electric and phone lines was intended to prevent the Muppets from fulfilling the condition pertaining to the raising of $10 million, and thus a court would most likely excuse the non-performance of this condition. <br /><br />The Muppets did not fulfill one of the express conditions of the contract, and under normal circumstances a California court would most likely hold that the terms of the contract are binding and that Tex Richman is the rightful owner of the Muppet Studios property. However, it appears unlikely that a court would enforce the contract’s language regarding the transfer of the Muppet Studios to Richman due to the Lew Lord’s bad faith dealing and Richman's wrongful activity in attempt to prevent the Muppets from fulfilling the terms of the contract. <br /> <br /><script type="text/javascript">var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www.");document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));</script><script type="text/javascript">try {var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-7228385-2");pageTracker._trackPageview();} catch(err) {}</script><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="https://twitter.com/ZacMadu" class="twitter-follow-button" data-show-count="false">Follow @ZacMadu</a>
<script src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" type="text/javascript"></script></div>Zachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00977280731502216845noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7001870879534452132.post-24555736907481064792011-10-29T15:46:00.001-07:002011-11-06T17:52:16.698-08:00How Committed is America to Fighting the Lord's Resistance Army?<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTq6AKQNJAJiIYDvZDnM3A48djL4zQrKNIxhvGdS-gSecw5FwkPUUcM0JTObRoY_6Yh8fKjhELZ_31dPKQvD-qVLweRLzemqh6bemPW-2ScgvsvP5We-pdG-Vc5ORyIsCZ6xeQ-mTZ92w/s1600/Uganda.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 299px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTq6AKQNJAJiIYDvZDnM3A48djL4zQrKNIxhvGdS-gSecw5FwkPUUcM0JTObRoY_6Yh8fKjhELZ_31dPKQvD-qVLweRLzemqh6bemPW-2ScgvsvP5We-pdG-Vc5ORyIsCZ6xeQ-mTZ92w/s400/Uganda.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5669050514151970658" /></a> <br />Does the United States have a strategic interest in the stability of Uganda, South Sudan, the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of the Congo? If so, is our national security interest in this region compelling enough to justify U.S. military intervention to eliminate the Lord’s Resistance Army? Are the American people committed enough to the outcome of this conflict to justify the deployment of an already-overstretched military, the allocation of scarce resources in a time of budget austerity, and potential American casualties? <br /><br />One would hope so, because the United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) is now committed to a new campaign to aid the governments of Uganda, South Sudan, the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of the Congo in their long, painful effort to eliminate the Lord’s Resistance Army which has terrorized their countryside, killed at least 12,000, abducted as many as 75,000 and displaced up to 2 million civilians. President Obama justified this operation in an October 14th <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/10/14/letter-president-speaker-house-representatives-and-president-pro-tempore">letter</a> to the Speaker of the House and President Pro Tempore of the Senate. <br /><blockquote><span style="font-weight:bold;">On October 12, the initial team of U.S. military personnel with appropriate combat equipment deployed to Uganda. During the next month, additional forces will deploy, including a second combat-equipped team and associated headquarters, communications, and logistics personnel. The total number of U.S. military personnel deploying for this mission is approximately 100. These forces will act as advisors to partner forces that have the goal of removing from the battlefield Joseph Kony and other senior leadership of the LRA.</span> Our forces will provide information, advice, and assistance to select partner nation forces. Subject to the approval of each respective host nation, elements of these U.S. forces will deploy into Uganda, South Sudan, the Central African Republic, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The support provided by U.S. forces will enhance regional efforts against the LRA. However, although the U.S. forces are combat equipped, they will only be providing information, advice, and assistance to partner nation forces, and they will not themselves engage LRA forces unless necessary for self defense. All appropriate precautions have been taken to ensure the safety of U.S. military personnel during their deployment.</blockquote> <br />One can almost imagine that on the morning of October 15th, staffers at every single one of our nation’s Congressional offices and news outlets crashed the server of Wikipedia when they entered the same search terms in unison: “What is the Lord's Resistance Army?” … <br /><br />Unlike Operation Odyssey Dawn in Libya, the political discourse has seen no constitutionalist argument against Obama administration’s deployment of military advisers to Uganda because, well, there really is none. Yes, you read that correctly – the military intervention against the more obscure warlord in Central Africa whom no one has ever talked about, which Congress did not debate, is perfectly constitutionally fine. You see, back in May of 2010, Congress passed the <a href="http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Lord's_Resistance_Army_Disarmament_and_Northern_Uganda_Recovery_Act_of_2009">Lord's Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act of 2009</a>; this law declared as official Congressional policy: <br /><blockquote>“To support stabilization and lasting peace in northern Uganda and areas affected by the Lord’s Resistance Army through development of a regional strategy to support multilateral efforts to successfully protect civilians and eliminate the threat posed by the Lord's Resistance Army and to authorize funds for humanitarian relief and reconstruction, reconciliation, and transitional justice, and for other purposes.”</blockquote> Buried somewhere in this tangle of euphemism and understatement was the by-the-way authorization for the President to use military means to achieve this grand objective, so subtle that even the most discerning reader of Congressional resolutions might not have caught it. The prime mover behind the LRA Disarmament Act, the Senate’s erstwhile progressive icon <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sen-russ-feingold/we-need-a-strategy-not-a_b_226915.html">Russell Feingold</a>, was quite explicit in his intent; “supporting viable and legitimate efforts to disarm and demobilize the LRA is exactly the kind of thing in which AFRICOM should be engaged.” <br /><br />If you might be scratching your head in puzzlement, don’t feel alone. This matter of war and peace, the weightiest of subjects that a democratic government might address, was simply slipped under the rug. On May 10, 2010, the Senate passed Feingold’s resolution with unanimous consent, and two days later the House of Representatives passed it by a voice vote – a procedural measure by which representatives’ positions are not even tabulated. At a time when the world was fixated on the heroic efforts needed to address the oil spill in the Gulf Coast and the earthquake in Haiti, apparently the most liberal of bleeding hearts in journalism did not consider as newsworthy the fact that Congress authorized the President to engage in military action against the Lord’s Resistance Army. At most it was buried in a one paragraph blurb on page A24<br /><br />There never was an earnest debate on this issue at all. Congress treated a resolution authorizing the use of military force as essentially just another symbolic resolution to rename a post office or congratulate the St. Louis Cardinals on their World Series championship. The Beltway media followed suite. <br /><br />This blogger remains undecided as to whether or not President Obama did the right thing by sending 100 military advisers to Uganda. I am ashamed to admit that I do not know as much as I should know about a security issue facing four of Africa’s 55 countries in which I have never lived, which I have only read about, and on which I know nothing more than anyone else who follows BBC Africa. <br /><br />However, I do have a very strong opinion on the fact that President Obama’s recent decision to send troops to Uganda has demonstrated the American people’s and the American political class’ complete and utter disregard for anything happening in Africa. Not only are we as a nation ignorant about African affairs, but we are not very interested in educating ourselves about them. The now patently-offensive term – “The Dark Continent” – unfortunately remains an apt moniker for how a continent home to 1 billion of the world’s population remains a black hole to which American thought rarely penetrates and from which some of the world’s greatest tragedies and triumphs of the human spirit never escape to see the light of day. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4eG5uThm2VAYMDPBRrKBf0W0Z5C5n008MZZ4993PfIlfMMPLeTxvAVt0h0u3YhUL4MxIE7g22XmvryBZz-DZC0drP6IdP-A0rc3owgimg6I2MmiMBM523KxY8I3ZsOMRxOvXestQ6MtI/s1600/19th+century+Africa2.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 364px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4eG5uThm2VAYMDPBRrKBf0W0Z5C5n008MZZ4993PfIlfMMPLeTxvAVt0h0u3YhUL4MxIE7g22XmvryBZz-DZC0drP6IdP-A0rc3owgimg6I2MmiMBM523KxY8I3ZsOMRxOvXestQ6MtI/s400/19th+century+Africa2.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5669360699899347682" /></a> One could retort that maybe it takes a military intervention to stimulate demand for journalistic assignments, research grants and course enrollment. After all, it was not until we invaded Afghanistan that most Americans could be bothered to care about the plight of women in Kandahar, it wasn’t until American boys were stationed in Iraq that any noticeable iota of Americans cared to learn the difference between Sunnis and Shi’ites. Maybe, one argues, now that we have troops in Uganda, Congressmen and military academicians might finally take note of this long-ignored part of the world. <br /><br />The obligatory <a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1011/66837.html">Congressional hearing</a> on the U.S. deployment to Uganda demonstrated no such thing. <br /><br />“What is the strategic interest of the United States in doing this?” asked Gerry Connolly (D-Virg.), “I mean, there are lots of unpleasant people in the world. There are lots of insurgencies and terrorist movements in the world. The United States obviously cannot try to dethrone every one of them.” <br /><br />Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.) dismissed the LRA – which has killed at least 12,000, abducted as many as 75,000 and displaced in the environs of 2 million people – as “not a sophisticated insurgency” because they have not used high-tech weaponry.<br /><br />Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Cali.) and Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-Ohio) utilized the hearings as a soapbox to decry government spending and the federal deficit. <br /><br />Representatives Connolly, Duncan, Rohrabacher and Schmidt should receive steak knives for at least bothering to show up to the discussion. Most Republican candidates running to be the Leader of the Free World have not even issued press releases on the subject. <br /><br />Stunningly, the most prominent voice in American politics to give U.S. intervention in Uganda anything resembling due air time was Rush Limbaugh. In a radio segment titled “<a href="http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2011/10/14/obama_invades_uganda_targets_christians">Obama Invades Uganda, Targets Christians</a>”, Limbaugh somehow managed to take the side of the Lord’s Resistance Army as a proxy in the Global War between Christian Civilization and Islamic Barbarism. <br /><blockquote>[The] Lord’s Resistance Army are Christians. It means God… They are fighting the Muslims in Sudan. And Obama has sent troops, United States troops, to remove them from the battlefield, which means kill them. So that’s a new war, a hundred troops to wipe out Christians in Sudan, Uganda.</blockquote> One of the most powerful mouthpieces on the Right demonstrated that he was willing to opine and bloviate on an issue as seminal as war and peace without having even taken the time to so much as Google: “Lord’s Resistance Army” or leaf through the World Almanac. And think about how many countless Republican voters and legislators take their cues from Limbaugh. This is how the American political class formulates its Africa policies. <br /><br />I would hope that the American people, media and political class take this issue a bit more seriously. Sure, there are now only 100 military advisers in Uganda – just few dozen less than there will be in Iraq by New Year’s Day. Sure, they constitute a relative few, and they are only serving in an advisory role – <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwVHM1B9g60">for now</a>. But the American tradition of intervention in faraway lands has proven time and time again to be particularly susceptible to a thing called “<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rd6zKqGcaOM">mission creep</a>”; we are a people who generally prefer escalating our mission to accepting defeat.<br /><br />As much as Obama, Feingold, et al. are right to acknowledge the importance of African stability to global security and the potential of AFRICOM, I am concerned that the generally dovish Democrats so blithely justified this mission on security grounds. This mission in Central Africa does not appear to have much if anything to do with the vital interests of the United States or our allies. It is unclear whether this mission has clearly defined political and military objectives, or whether the U.S. military even has the capacity to defeat a guerrilla insurgency in the midst of the remote jungles and savannas of the Ugandan, South Sudanese, Congolese and Central African Republican interior. It remains hazy just how committed the U.S. military establishment is to defeating the Lord’s Resistance Army. Most importantly, there does not appear to be that much wholehearted support of U.S. public opinion. If U.S. military intervention in Central Africa were to escalate to a combat role, it wouldn’t pass the requirements of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weinberger_Doctrine">Weinberger Doctrine</a>. <br /><br />I am concerned that the general ignorance of all things African is not limited to Republican isolationists. But for a few policy analysts in the State Department, the vast majority of the most genuinely-committed, TOMS Shoes-wearing do-gooders must concede general ignorance of the politics of the Lord’s Resistance Army. Yes, I’m sure you’ve read plenty of newsletters from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch – I get those emails too. Nevertheless, I would beg the “Save the World” camp to maintain a healthy level of skepticism before marching to the trumpets of the just war. It was only months ago that the outgoing Secretary of Defense Robert Gates told a class of West Point cadets, “any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should ‘have his head examined.’” <br /><br />Does the U.S. misson to defeat the Lord's Resistance Army fulfill the rigors of the <a href="http://www.npr.org/2011/03/28/134935452/obamas-speech-on-libya-a-responsibility-to-act">Responsibility to Protect Doctrine</a>? Is the humanitarian crisis in Uganda as imminently catastrophic as the situation in Benghazi might have been had NATO not enforced a no-fly zone? Why is the humananitarian crisis in Uganda worthy of U.S. intervention when the humanitarian crises in Darfur, Abyei, <a href="http://zacstravaganza.blogspot.com/2011/04/do-we-have-responsibility-to-protect.html">Côte d’Ivoire</a>, Zimbabwe, et al., are not? President Obama has not adequately explained to the American people why this mission is necessary and consistent with U.S. foreign policy. An open letter to the Speaker of the House and the Presiden Pro Tempore of the Senate hardly suffices. <br /><br />Just because a certain faction in an African conflict is systematically violating the human rights of civilians does not meant that the opposing faction in that conflict is genuinely interested in upholding those civilians’ human rights. Just because the Ugandan government is fighting the Lord’s Resistance Army does not mean that the Ugandan government is worthy of U.S. military aid. Strongman <a href="http://allafrica.com/stories/201103180077.html">Yoweri Musevini</a>, who has ensconced himself in power for 25 years, has within the past months rigged his “re-election” and <a href="http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/05/201151354659712242.html">clamped down on pro-democracy demonstrators</a> with teargas and water cannons. There is <a href="http://allafrica.com/stories/201103180077.html">a strong human rights-based argument</a> that the U.S. should curtail military aid to the Ugandan government – not increase it. Don't even get me started on the <a href="http://www.jstor.org/pss/10.2979/AFT.2010.56.4.42">“Democratic Republic” of the Congo</a>… <br /><br />Moreover, just because the Lord’s Resistance Army might be one of the most evil, despicable terrorist groups in the modern world does not mean that deploying U.S. commandos to Uganda is necessarily going to make things any better. Fair arbiters of U.S. foreign policy should remain wary of military intervention even when it is done for purely humanitarian reasons – or rather, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kuu2edvI4Q"><span style="font-style:italic;">especially</span></a> when it is done for purely humanitarian reasons. <br /><br />For now I’m willing to give President Obama the benefit of a doubt, there is still a chance that this mission might just save a whole lot of people from a brutal warlord and his minions. But it remains the duty all Americans to take this opportunity to study more about the reasons why our troops are now in Uganda, ostensibly South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Central African Republic. The new U.S. military mission might do a lot of good for people in Africa, God willing it should be a great success. But when we are willing to send troops to far-flung corners of the world in complete ignorance, without earnest inquiry and debate, there is only reason to be concerned about the state of democracy in America. <br /><br /><script type="text/javascript">var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? 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<script src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" type="text/javascript"></script></div>Zachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00977280731502216845noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7001870879534452132.post-20688404280419950552011-10-15T10:45:00.000-07:002011-10-26T20:58:00.679-07:00The Occupy Wall Street MovementDear loyal readers of Zacstravaganza, <br /><br />I apologize profusely for my complete and utter lack of blogging since the semester began. Now that I am in the heat of my 1L year at American University Washington College of Law, I am so preoccupied with contracts, torts and civil procedure that unfortunately I have not been able to allocate due time to blogging. <br /><br />I wish that I had more time to conduct primary source research and writing, but alas, I have only been able to express myself in tweet between classes and in creating my own LOLcats. <br /><br />To tide you over, here are some topical LOLcats. I have been told that some of these are entertaining, though others fall as flat, painful bellyflops. Your commentary and insight is much appeciated. <br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicJ3SBZ7LI3-fNnPNEV8mxCvMmUjxBKby43ZFiSM5ihsFUHGRf3hO2jbGSpvDonJeAlVGNXbGaPyKrUB3yshEetG-Yz2teLYb6eoxBlxvOz4PQrQM5hK1rDMkxTVDV9uVWeJea_LfqvMQ/s1600/2+degreez.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 302px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicJ3SBZ7LI3-fNnPNEV8mxCvMmUjxBKby43ZFiSM5ihsFUHGRf3hO2jbGSpvDonJeAlVGNXbGaPyKrUB3yshEetG-Yz2teLYb6eoxBlxvOz4PQrQM5hK1rDMkxTVDV9uVWeJea_LfqvMQ/s400/2+degreez.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5663779134549963170" /></a><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifoSR8tZHriifRV3Olj0hAWZ0czcoH4gEC_c18ZBvBg0QDtZ1Z7D2o4UegfxE66pfhv-m_lBdPIbRWB4wz2NCQxHeS7FLRPN95JyBclwxkHZ9xqixtM67jHkKGIjf9-evShoaTyeXosUQ/s1600/Communism.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifoSR8tZHriifRV3Olj0hAWZ0czcoH4gEC_c18ZBvBg0QDtZ1Z7D2o4UegfxE66pfhv-m_lBdPIbRWB4wz2NCQxHeS7FLRPN95JyBclwxkHZ9xqixtM67jHkKGIjf9-evShoaTyeXosUQ/s400/Communism.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5663779149472136818" /></a><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR-_p7G_agKLwYNLkcaiu4EVjVVkexZvirdb3WdbHmlGYPulPNfZqGBJJwT_ZLEel2yXkCs-o-CEwrTPsnMlNLWwGG5VbwUYf7pefhtXnyNoeHIGd6HEVW_AN26ygwGyNcE802V8EbitE/s1600/Hippiez.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 287px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR-_p7G_agKLwYNLkcaiu4EVjVVkexZvirdb3WdbHmlGYPulPNfZqGBJJwT_ZLEel2yXkCs-o-CEwrTPsnMlNLWwGG5VbwUYf7pefhtXnyNoeHIGd6HEVW_AN26ygwGyNcE802V8EbitE/s400/Hippiez.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5663779151791284450" /></a><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIWuZw9fgal7RJPFdvW4mgA-oGxrxK9JkSr0MZF2H5LaIixsJIiKBQ9jrCkdUaNu8u0gPZ6Ja4qWV0Rmv6mzhVjBXlZ0uvwRWW4mWUqFJ_3VQowu6HBb3goN3LKgoDxZXyJTPhrWG5Yl4/s1600/Boehner.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 295px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIWuZw9fgal7RJPFdvW4mgA-oGxrxK9JkSr0MZF2H5LaIixsJIiKBQ9jrCkdUaNu8u0gPZ6Ja4qWV0Rmv6mzhVjBXlZ0uvwRWW4mWUqFJ_3VQowu6HBb3goN3LKgoDxZXyJTPhrWG5Yl4/s400/Boehner.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5663779140100820722" /></a><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrvj24vd86yBh9m04C0wokRIw2EWbiXvc1k6npDr-1brOqvHR7nkMZqjFqm02Cu1F7PeYTKr219neVpehNyXTK_Xs9tuLon6tmHs_liAXtdHBVgwEiXecExmt0824kwTaEsSLR9y4J5XE/s1600/Afghanistan.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 254px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrvj24vd86yBh9m04C0wokRIw2EWbiXvc1k6npDr-1brOqvHR7nkMZqjFqm02Cu1F7PeYTKr219neVpehNyXTK_Xs9tuLon6tmHs_liAXtdHBVgwEiXecExmt0824kwTaEsSLR9y4J5XE/s400/Afghanistan.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5663779140638989346" /></a><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqDS9R7zfzjlwRMNDE82HHQg91qvwNdAEdsnML-jsomvvUEeM47vikJyjYcAQ5HE7QC26WqbyVuJlJKscru0o7chwqR-x26vE2ldYxsSjQ_65PXNm_YovgJpbGs8gsTMcwC6W0Ov10-Wo/s1600/Palestinian.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 282px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqDS9R7zfzjlwRMNDE82HHQg91qvwNdAEdsnML-jsomvvUEeM47vikJyjYcAQ5HE7QC26WqbyVuJlJKscru0o7chwqR-x26vE2ldYxsSjQ_65PXNm_YovgJpbGs8gsTMcwC6W0Ov10-Wo/s400/Palestinian.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5663781355809824434" /></a><br /><br />Hopefully sometime in the near future I will be able to express myself in more erudite, long-form passages. <br /><br /><br /><br /><script type="text/javascript">var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? 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<script src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" type="text/javascript"></script></div>Zachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00977280731502216845noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7001870879534452132.post-53255612558062255132011-08-02T09:58:00.000-07:002011-08-06T21:05:19.549-07:00Male Circumcision is Not Genital MutilationOne evening I was dining with my anthropologist friend Natalie and I expressed just how viscerally and zealously I abhor the African practice of <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/12/opinion/12kristof.html ">female genital mutilation</a>. As a male champion of women’s rights and a lover of the female form I believe that there is no reason to hack off a pubescent girl’s clitoris and/or labia other than to make the act of intercourse painful, to deprive women of their inherent sexual freedom and to oppress them as a permanently subservient class. I think that female genital mutilation is such a patently wrong act, a reification of misogynist and phallocentric violence that should be prohibited and criminalized. Anyone who practices female genital mutilation is a menace to society, and our police forces should lock them up behind bars. <br /><br />Natalie threw a wrench into my crusade for the sanctity of the clitoris; “But Zac, aren’t you <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRdfX7ut8gw">Jewish</a>?”<br /><br />“Yeah, so? What’s that have to do with anything?”<br /><br />She looked down in the direction under the table and cleared her throat. <br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM_k2bt5RUI4gsgc4wGrUGxTg5MUGNvVpsRSN0dCHqlhan7KPTA1v27Si6GejNIniOY-a20PiUWyzo6eA5978wHOlGvflvZfD8rmubETk1_53YH3N_8awXDNlzkCovBxdxHDe9IK3jQc8/s1600/circumcision.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 271px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM_k2bt5RUI4gsgc4wGrUGxTg5MUGNvVpsRSN0dCHqlhan7KPTA1v27Si6GejNIniOY-a20PiUWyzo6eA5978wHOlGvflvZfD8rmubETk1_53YH3N_8awXDNlzkCovBxdxHDe9IK3jQc8/s400/circumcision.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5636304870619309474" /></a><br />At that moment I realized the hypocrisy of my zeal. I was so humbled and dressed down that I concluded that when speaking of subjects as delicate as a culture’s practices pertaining to the sexual organs – especially those of cultures that are not one’s one – perhaps one should generally abstain from casting matters in sweeping judgments of “right” and “wrong”. I’m not saying that one <em>shouldn’t</em> criticize the genital practices of foreign cultures; sometimes one must. But perhaps we should limit our analysis to those things that we can prove at least somewhat scientifically and avoid subjective critiques of metaphysics and postmodern gender theory. <br /><br />My friend Natalie isn’t the only one who thinks that my righteous indignation against genital mutilation should apply to both genders. There is in fact a growing faction of feminists, human rights activists and lovers of the natural male form want to broaden the definition of assault to include those who circumcise the foreskin. The self-proclaimed “Intactivists” advocate for the preservation of “genital integrity” and an end to the practice of male circumcision – or “male genital mutilation” as they prefer to call it.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIM4M0BK_63L7LqatFa1fOiPzwX9u2mTBO8fC-TR09xjsmvo_K1ffWiqAQF-OYVyTo3SqB_ci1VsZaXgclflpNKF2NZIGYzzY5GTF25bz-Vl8Dj0y689KHqR4jlKEWfqB1xsq3FToO6sE/s1600/Foreskin+Man.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 267px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIM4M0BK_63L7LqatFa1fOiPzwX9u2mTBO8fC-TR09xjsmvo_K1ffWiqAQF-OYVyTo3SqB_ci1VsZaXgclflpNKF2NZIGYzzY5GTF25bz-Vl8Dj0y689KHqR4jlKEWfqB1xsq3FToO6sE/s400/Foreskin+Man.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5636306926569672066" /></a><br />One such group known as the <a href="http://www.bayareaintactivists.org/">Bay Area Intactivists</a> values the foreskin as a nerve-rich portion of the male genital organ. From their perspective, male circumcision is means of denying to a male and his future partner(s) the potential for maximum sexual satisfaction. <br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMa0XSwDZQLbhpME3FUvSXAtz6UT1SHYB59U4ZEnZi5ScVQGjFcGeDRDTc7TQKTsMqGp0zSs6nJFJGyzAqoGFT5fMdmKCuM01ZDLZXQGGjSh8zEE_yBPvwNWp6woF-RkTAaoDuEewkb0M/s1600/Intactivists.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 216px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMa0XSwDZQLbhpME3FUvSXAtz6UT1SHYB59U4ZEnZi5ScVQGjFcGeDRDTc7TQKTsMqGp0zSs6nJFJGyzAqoGFT5fMdmKCuM01ZDLZXQGGjSh8zEE_yBPvwNWp6woF-RkTAaoDuEewkb0M/s400/Intactivists.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5636305798239271138" /></a><br />Other groups such as <a href="http://www.intactamerica.org/">Intact America</a> are organizing the opposition to male circumcision from comparatively more scientific, rationally more compelling grounds. If you read their literature, you get the sense that they represent a faction within the American medical community who oppose the practice under the logic that 1. the act of circumcision can be painful; 2. it can lead to infections and other harmful complications, and 3. removing the foreskin is not medically necessary. <br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgk9giq2arQjYvTBlg_CmWJpCraClmaCO6zA3p5xSzc1YB32O8BYD2K3s-RxYhGJg-3RLhiDCZw3MAjzeUdY26OgWL70l9LTmgMC0QgnuS7akEa-4EbAhJcbNn4iamtPzyS18AXKK8sA4s/s1600/Intact+America.bmp"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 213px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgk9giq2arQjYvTBlg_CmWJpCraClmaCO6zA3p5xSzc1YB32O8BYD2K3s-RxYhGJg-3RLhiDCZw3MAjzeUdY26OgWL70l9LTmgMC0QgnuS7akEa-4EbAhJcbNn4iamtPzyS18AXKK8sA4s/s320/Intact+America.bmp" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5636313102823595570" /></a><br />Now the combined Intactivists of San Francisco have garnered enough signatures to put <a href="http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/144414">a referendum </a>on the ballot which extend the definition of assault to those who circumcise males under the age of 18. If the proposition passes, the circumcising of a male’s foreskin would be a misdemeanor offense punishable by up to a $1,000 fine or up to one year in jail. The consent of the underage male in question would be irrelevant; a male could only consent to having his foreskin removed if he is a legal adult. There would be no religious exemptions. <br /><br />The movement to utilize the compelling force of criminal law to prohibit male circumcision is not without foundation. After all, since federal legislation was passed in 1996, Section 116 of the U.S. Code has defined whomever <em>“circumcises, excises, or infibulates the whole or any part of the labia majora or labia minora or clitoris of another person who has not attained the age of 18 years”</em> as a perpetrator of assault. The Intactivists make a reverse-sexist argument that by creating a set of legal protections for women – but not extending those same protections to men – the continued legality of male circumcision is a violation of the Equal Protection Clause.<br /><br />As much as this blogger disagrees with the claims of the Intactivists, I am equally critical of the campaign by the <a href="http://regions.adl.org/central-pacific/news/adl-founding-member-of.html">Anti-Defamation League </a>and the <a href="http://www.aclunc.org/news/press_releases/aclu_urges_court_to_invalidate_sf_circumcision_initiative.shtml">American Civil Liberties Union</a> who are arguing against the San Francisco ballot measure in terms of religious freedom. If a federal judge were to strike down a municipal ordinance banning male circumcision because it is a violation of the Jewish people’s freedom to exercise our religion, then that same judge would have to uphold the right of West African Muslims to practice female genital mutilation on the same grounds. This would be an argument of cultural relativism; e.g. <em>“Yes, it is a barbaric practice, but we live in a barbaric society in which cruelty and torture are woven into the fabric of our culture.”</em> This is not the argument that the defenders of male circumcision ought to take. <br /><br />If defenders of circumcision are going to make a valid argument based on moral logic and reason, one must contend why the practice itself is not just a tolerable tradition with religious significance but actually a positive good with secular and tangible benefits. And moreoever, it doesn't hurt to deconstruct the logic for the argument against circumcision. <br /><br />From what I gather after a comprehensive reading of their literature, the moral logic of the Intactivist movement runs as following: <br /><br /><blockquote>1. Female circumcision is a cruel, inhumane practice which can cause disease and pain over the course of the victim’s lifetime. (Given)<br />2. The only reason why cultures practice female circumcision is to make the act of sexual intercourse excruciatingly painful and undesirable. (Given)<br />3. Therefore, female circumcision is a form of assault (1, 2)<br />4. Gender is only a social construct, there is no substantive difference between men and women, in fact, the binary characterization of human beings as either men or women is a form of gendered chauvinism. (Given)<br />5. Therefore, male circumcision is also a cruel, inhumane practice (1, 4)<br />6. Therefore, the only reason why Western culture practices male circumcision is to make the act of sexual intercourse excruciatingly painful and undesirable (2, 4)<br />7. Therefore, male circumcision is a form of assault (5, 6) Q.E.D. </blockquote><br />The crucial fallacy in this logical argument is postulate number 4. Though traditional gender roles and identities might be a mere social construction, it is more than fair to say that there is, in fact, at least one significant difference between the vast majority of individuals born as males or female; generally speaking, males are endowed with <em>penises</em> and females are endowed with <em>vaginas</em>. In light of this fundamental distinction, the removal of the clitoris and/or the labia should be banned while the removal of the foreskin should remain legal because there is in fact a very compelling case to be made that male circumcision and female “circumcision” are two very different operations performed on two very different organs which ought to be distinguished as such under law. <br /><br /><strong>Intactivists’ Sophistry #1: “Surgically removing part of a baby boy’s penis causes pain.” </strong><br /><br />If one were to practice circumcision with the same crude instruments and techniques as say, the <a href="http://zacstravaganza.blogspot.com/2010/01/water-and-sanitation-on-dogon-plateaus.html">Dogon tribe </a>of Mali, then it is indeed an unnecessary painful procedure. The Dogons gather all of the uncircumcised boys 12 years old and up and to have the village blacksmith remove the boys’ foreskins with a homemade blade which is not very sharp by Western standards – and they perform the operation without any sort of anesthetic. Perhaps this argument over pain might be valid if Jews in America were to practice circumcision in a way similar to the Dogons; if that were the case, maybe circumcision should be prohibited under law. <br /><br />The modern Diasporic Jews of America, however, have developed a method of circumcising our boys at the age of eight days when the nerves of the appendage are not as sensitive as a pubescent boy and we utilize various means of anesthesia which all but eliminate pain. The most effective of these is nerve-block applied locally with a shot to the penis – a remarkably effective anesthetic which renders the applied area completely numb. Rabbinical student <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joshua-stanton/making-circumcision-human_b_805073.html">Josh Stanton </a>and <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joshua-stanton/making-circumcision-human_b_805073.html">Dr. Anne Epstein</a> write: “While the idea of an injection to the penis sets teeth on end, it is as close to pain-free as we can get in this sort of minor surgery… It hardly hurts.” <br /><br />Just about any operation involving the cutting of flesh – even an operation as minor as a tonsillectomy or the removal of an ingrown toenail – would be painful without anesthesia. But if the prick of a needle was reason to ban a medical procedure on the basis of pain, then banning circumcision would make no more sense than banning tetanus or polio vaccinations. In this day and age of modern anesthetics, the contention that circumcision should be banned because the procedure causes pain holds little ground. <br /><br /><strong>Intactivists’ Sophistry #2: “Male circumcision creates immediate health risks and can lead to serious complications.” </strong><br /><br />Indeed, a botched circumcision could lead to an infection of the penis or worse. In cultures that perform this operation with crude tools and unsanitary conditions – such as the Dogon blacksmiths with their homemade iron blades – yes, the removal of a boy’s foreskin does sometimes lead to more serious complications including not only local infections but hemorrhage, scarring, difficulty urinating, loss of part or all of the penis, and even death. According to <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/resources/factsheets/circumcision.htm">the Center for Disease Control</a>, between 2% and 8% of all circumcisions performed in African cultures lead to an infection or more serious complications. <br /><br />However, such fears are essentially unwarranted in the developed West because we utilize modern medical practices, the doctors and mohels who perform circumcisions are rigorously trained, and we perform the operation in a sanitary environment. Even if the most basic aspect of male circumcision remains the same, the cleanliness of our foreskin-cutting arenas, our medical instruments and our practices make a world of a difference. Local infection is still nevertheless possible – but then again, even having your bellybutton pierced can lead to an infection if it is not done by the right person in the right place the right way. <br /><br />Whether an adequately trained, certified mohel conducts a circumcision in a synagogue or if a bona fide doctor circumcises a baby boy in a hospital, the risk of immediate health risks with serious complications is extremely small. According to <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/resources/factsheets/circumcision.htm">the CDC</a>, the rate of complications due to male circumcision in the United States is around 0.2% of all cases – in other words, just about negligible. <br /><br />Indeed, the medical Intactivists are correct when they argue that male circumcision <em>can</em> cause infections – there is that 1 case in 500 in which the circumcision does lead to a complication – but that fact cannot be adequately evaluated in isolation. In <a href="http://www.circinfo.net/benefits_outweigh_the_risks.html">a study </a>of circumcised boys in Washington State conducted over the course of a decade, it was found that for every circumcision complication there were 6 urinary tract infections prevented. Circumcision also reduces the chance of contracting <a href="http://www.medpagetoday.com/InfectiousDisease/STDs/24217">human papillomavirus </a> (and thereby <a href="http://www.circs.org/index.php/Library/Schoen">penile cancer</a>), <a href="http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/143812.php">genital herpes</a> and <a href="http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/143812.php">HIV</a>. <br /><br /><strong>Intactivists’ Sophistry #3: “Male circumcision is unnecessary” because “Claims that circumcision prevents HIV have repeatedly been proven to be exaggerated or false. Only abstinence or safe sex, including the use of condoms, can prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases including HIV/AIDS.”</strong> <br /><br />At this point in the evolution of <em>homo sapiens</em>, the continued possession of a foreskin actually poses a risk to the health of males and those who have sex with them. The main reason why not circumcising a boy creates a health risk is that this vestigial structure creates a cavity which can retain smegma which can sit and fester, inviting bacterial and viral infection. Uncircumcised males are more likely to contract and transmit HIV than those who are circumcised, largely because the smegma which can be retained in the foreskin allows for the transmission of the virus to and from vaginal fluids. In addition, the foreskin has considerable surface area which renders the penis more susceptible to minor trauma and ulcerative disease – thus increasing the chance of transmitting the HIV virus.<br /><br />A <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11089625">2000 study </a>of the relationship between male circumcision and heterosexual transmission of HIV in Africa noted “a substantial protective effect of male circumcision on risk for HIV infection”; finding that the risk of HIV infection in circumcised men was 44% lower than those who were uncircumcised. The strongest association between circumcision or lack thereof and HIV infection rates was found in high risk populations (e.g. patients at STD clinics) for whom the adjusted relative risk was 71% lower for those who had been circumcised. <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19370585">Another study </a>conducted in 2003 found that the risk of HIV infection in circumcised men was 42% lower than their uncircumcised counterparts. <br /><br />More <a href="http://circumcisioninformation.com/halperin_bailey.html">macro-level epidemiological studies </a>indicate that the practice of circumcision is not limited to the individual men but also the population as a whole; after all, if a man has contracted HIV due to his smegma-retaining foreskin, he is then liable to transmit the virus to his sexual partner(s), who are then liable to transmit the virus to their sexual partners, etc. African and Asian countries in which less than 20% of the male population has been circumcised have HIV infection rates several times greater than comparable African and Asian countries in which more than 80% of the male population has been circumcised. Of course, there are many other variable including religious mores and sexual norms which also vary among these countries, but the link between relatively high rates of circumcision and relatively low rates of HIV infection is so strong that the value of the practice as a significant factor in reducing disease transmission cannot be ignored.<br /><br />I have heard a number of objections to this kind of analysis; namely that such studies have only been performed in underdeveloped Third World nations and not the developed West. These skeptics contend that since Americans and Europeans have better hygiene than the typical African, since we generally practice monogamy, wear condoms and bathe regularly we do not need to bother with circumcision. <br /><br />Such First World-centrics are faulty in their reasoning, particularly because the studies linking the lack of circumcision to higher rates of HIV infection found the greatest correlation in the most at risk populations – <em>precisely</em> those persons in the United States who are the most likely to have sex with multiple or even concurrent partners, those who do not wear condoms, and those who have the worst hygiene. The mere fact that one might reside in the Global North does not separate that person from the basic facts of virology which tend to be associated with the Global South. Likewise, if circumcision has been found to be an effective method of minimizing the HIV epidemic amongst <em>homo sapiens </em>in sub-Saharan Africa, absent any fundamental anatomical or physiological distinction between Americans and Africans, there is only reason to conclude that that practice remains effective amongst <em>homo sapiens</em> in the United States. <br /><br />I have also heard the argument made that circumcision is unnecessary for homosexual men, because the studies cited above have only demonstrated a link between circumcision and reduced prevalence of HIV amongst heterosexual men. This Intactivist argument maintains that for a parent to decide that they will circumcise their boy to protect him from HIV and AIDS is to make a heteronormative assumption that their child is in fact straight, and that if their boy turns out to be gay then they will be deprived of sexual satisfaction due to a societal bias towards heterosexuality. <br /><br />This Intactivist sophistry is not only spurious in its logic but quite dangerous in its potential for giving homosexuals a false sense of security. Though the possession of a foreskin is most likely to transmit disease via the mixing of smegma and vaginal fluids – which is exclusive to heterosexual intercourse, that is not the only reason why possession of the foreskin increases the chance of disease transmission. Disease can also be transmitted because the foreskin is more easily susceptible to tearing. One must also take bisexuality into consideration; an uncircumcised man could very easily receive the HIV virus by trading fluids with an HIV+ woman and later on transmit the virus to a male sexual partner (or the other way around) explicitly due to his possession of his original foreskin. <br /><br />Read Intact America’s sophistry again: <strong>“Only abstinence or safe sex, including the use of condoms, can prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases including HIV/AIDS.”</strong> This is more or less the logic of abstinence-only sex education; “if you don’t have sex, then you can’t get a sexually-transmitted disease; therefore don't wear a condom”; “if you always wear a condom, then you can’t get a sexually-transmitted disease; therefore you don’t need to be circumcised.” The problem with this logic is that uncircumcised men do have sex, sometimes they use condoms, sometimes they don’t, sometimes they have sex with a condom but the condom breaks, etc. Even the highest-quality prophylactics can fail - that is why instead of relying on the effectiveness of one or two disease prevention methods, it is best to employ as many as possible. <br /><br />Intact America is telling the truth when its literature states that circumcision is not <em>the only </em>way to prevent the transmission of HIV, that abstaining from sex or practicing safe sex are alternative ways of preventing disease transmission. But they're not telling the whole truth. “Male circumcision is unnecessary”; indeed, for a practitioner of celibacy there might not be much of a benefit, but for everyone else it remains a very sound, particularly effective means of reducing the transmission of disease. There is no silver bullet which can by itself inoculate an individual from HIV/AIDS, no one is claiming that circumcision can by itself rid the world of this deadly epidemic. Rather, medical proponents of circumcision are contending that it is but one of many practices which ought to be maintained – along with fidelity to one’s partner, safe sex, regular testing – in order to defend oneself from STD transmission. <br /><br />Likewise, the Intactivist movement is making a grave mistake in trying to ban male circumcision under the guise of public health; their pseudo-scientific case to ban the practice is so full of misleading language, cherry-picked half-truths and outright falsehoods that it cannot be taken seriously. Perhaps there are other reasons why a parent might reasonably decide to opt to not circumcise their male child – religious, sexual, aesthetic or otherwise – but the health of the child is not one of them. Male circumcision is not genital mutilation; it is a sound medical procedure which is safe, which does not cause undue pain, and it is still a very effective component of our society's efforts to maintain men's health and curb the spread of disease in America and throughout the world. <br /><br /><script type="text/javascript">var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? 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<script src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" type="text/javascript"></script></div>Zachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00977280731502216845noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7001870879534452132.post-11279576305353464642011-06-12T09:17:00.001-07:002011-06-12T09:44:24.581-07:00Medicare Should Be More Like a Pizza<strong>by Herman Cain</strong><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoTvIIXnfbMP4G1FktMJH0XJA-Jm7fuCKPth7Y7OL4QQCRjGkc1tDCHyzOQ2Wt_J6zRQQ92zooikX_R0OWWy_GpnPUmcMaUuegPw3wMH5deu6dZkvDYaf8TyVRrpbNNf6KLdZ6e5imny8/s1600/Herman+Cain.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 253px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoTvIIXnfbMP4G1FktMJH0XJA-Jm7fuCKPth7Y7OL4QQCRjGkc1tDCHyzOQ2Wt_J6zRQQ92zooikX_R0OWWy_GpnPUmcMaUuegPw3wMH5deu6dZkvDYaf8TyVRrpbNNf6KLdZ6e5imny8/s400/Herman+Cain.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5617370279718631730" /></a><br />Our Medicare system is facing a fiscal crisis. What we need to solve the financial crisis in our Medicare system is not a bunch of professional politicians. What we need is a businessman with the common sense understanding of how economics works, someone who knows how to run a successful enterprise, someone like me, Herman Cain, the former CEO and turnaround wizard of Godfather’s Pizza.<br /><br />This visionary, Herman Cain, has taken major franchises with financial troubles and turned them around with my business know-how and ingenuity. And I can tell you that the biggest problem with Medicare that needs to be turned around is that it’s run from the top down by the Government. For example, let’s say that you were hungry and wanted to eat a pizza. Let me ask you – would you walk down to City Hall and ask the Government to bake you a deep-dish Omaha, Nebraska-style pizza pie? No, you wouldn’t, because Government bureaucrats are not particularly skilled in that particular trade! You would continue walking down the street until you arrived at a private business establishment specializing in the production of deep-dish Omaha, Nebraska-style pizza pies; for example, Godfather’s Pizza. <br /><br />Medicare does not offer consumers a choice. Medicare says that the Government is going to distribute to everyone the same health insurance coverage at the same price regardless of their needs or desires. Imagine if you walked to the pizza parlor, you sit down at a table and the waitress serves you a vegetarian pizza with spinach, eggplant and artichokes – and you’re like, “Hey, I wanted pepperoni and anchovies!” And then the waitress is like “Tough – deal with it.” And then 10 minutes later the waitress serves you a side-order of Cinnasticks and you’re like “But I didn’t order these!” and she’s like “Yeah, well we’re serving it to you anyway”. And you, the customer, have to pay the bill at the end even though not one of your needs were efficiently met. That would be Big Government Socialism straight out of <em>The Communist Manifesto</em>, that’s what it would be. Just like Medicare. <br /><br />As the founder of Godfather’s Pizza, I know that you need to offer your customers a choice to fit their personal needs. At Godfather’s Pizza, we have a menu of all the different sizes and toppings and various options available. Let’s say you the customer want a Meat Lover’s Pizza with pepperoni, bacon and meatballs – that is what you will be served. If you want a Hawaiian Pizza with a Stuffed Crust add-on – the free market will provide it with the utmost quality and efficiency. You order what you want, you pay for what you order – that is how capitalism works, my friend. <br /><br />Therefore, if I – Herman Cain – am elected President, I will pledge to increase the range of options and flexibility offered to customers. I will call this initiative “Expanding the Medicare Menu”. Let’s say that you the customer wants just your basic insurance coverage for annual physicals and catastrophic care – you would pay for one price. But if you want toppings, that will cost you extra. If you want cancer insurance you pay an additional fee. If you want diabetes insurance you pay an additional fee. you the customer should be able to anticipate what sort of medical issues you might need to pay for in the foreseeable future and you pay for that topping. If you aren’t sleeping around then why should you pay for some promiscuous harlot’s abortion insurance? That would be like if you want a cheese pizza and the guy behind you in line wants broccoli and meatballs and both of you pay the same price! Socialism!<br /><br />Another problem with Medicare is the free-rider problem. You have all these people who are working hard, paying their dues – those people should be able to get the Medicare coverage they deserve. But you have all these free-riders who choose <em>not</em> to work, who think that they can just sit on their booty and have society pay for their Medicare for them. That’s not right. <br /><br />That would be like if you went into Godfather’s Pizza with your wife and kids and sit down on our patio and you order a Jumbo deep-dish pizza pie with peppers and mushrooms and a side of garlic knots. And then as you’re trying to enjoy your pizza which <em>you</em> paid for with <em>your</em> hard-earned money – and some bum on the street walks up and says “Hey Mister, could you please gimme a slice?” That would be bogus, that’s what it would be. If that happened to me, I’d say “Hey Bum, can’t you see that I’m trying to enjoy my hard-earned dinner with my family? Why don’t you go buy <em>your own </em>pizza pie?” <br /><br />Our Medicare system today is run like a soup kitchen for a bunch of homeless bums. If you want to be served, you have to wait on line. And then you have to fill out all these forms to prove that you are in fact a bum. And the servers take so long because not even staffed by professionals but by volunteers. And those few times when it is actually professionals working at Medicare they feel like they can serve you all slow and stuff because they’re unionized and they can’t get fired no matter how bad their service is. That is why the service is so inferior – because you get what you pay for, and when it’s a bunch of corrupt union bosses and patchouli-stinking trustafarian rabble-rousers running the assembly line, your service is going to be of poor quality. <br /><br />At Godfather’s Pizza our service is prompt and speedy. We guarantee that if you order your pizza delivered that it will be at your doorstep in 30 minutes. If your pizza gets delivered in 40 minutes then you shouldn’t tip the delivery boy and that would be their punishment for such poor service. Likewise, we should bust the public employees union that the Medicare workers are in and restructure their pay rates so they get compensated on commission and with tips. That way, they will bust their butts to get health insurance provided to the customer quickly with no waiting and no lines. <br /><br />The Liberals might say, “Herman Cain, I disagree with you. I think that Medicare should be run by a Big Government Nanny State because what about all the lazy bums who can’t afford to pay for health insurance? We have to tolerate some inefficiency to help those lazy bums.” To those excusers of sloth and enablers of dependence, I, Herman Cain, say this: “No, you are wrong. You are wrong because those bums should get their act together and pull themselves by their own bootstraps and get a job so they can pay for health insurance themselves.”<br /><br />Those mollycoddle Liberals would probably say “But Herman Cain, you are being insensitive to all the lazy bums who are unemployed, they can’ t get a job because the economy is in a deep, prolonged recession.” Well to those mollycoddles I would say “Do you think that I , Herman Cain, came to be who I am because I was just handed life on a silver platter? No, I have my job as the CEO of Godfather’s Pizza because I have a demonstrated record of accomplishment and success in the business world – that’s why I am employed and that’s how I can afford to have health insurance. <br /><br /> If everyone could just believe in the American Dream like I do and pull themselves up by their own bootstraps then even the lazy bums could be the Founder and CEO of their own business. Then everyone would be able to pay for their own health insurance on Medicare’s New and Improved Health Insurance Menu like at Godfather’s Pizza. And then everyone would have the health insurance package they want at a price they can afford a low price, with no lines, no waiting and no Big Government telling them what to do. Now that is what America is all about!<br /><br /><br /><script type="text/javascript">var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www.");document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));</script><script type="text/javascript">try {var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-7228385-2");pageTracker._trackPageview();} catch(err) {}</script><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href="https://twitter.com/ZacMadu" class="twitter-follow-button" data-show-count="false">Follow @ZacMadu</a>
<script src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" type="text/javascript"></script></div>Zachttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00977280731502216845noreply@blogger.com3