Midterms 2010: The Weird, the Wonderful, the Scary

Fear the beard

          Although this political season may not have been as vicious as, say political campaigns of yore, it certainly was one for the books.  The rise of the tea party looks imminent, with ultraconservative republicans poised to regain control of the house and gain a more substantial minority in the senate.  Obama, who has finally risen to the challenge of  trying mobilize his party into a state of driven determination, it seems that the self-righteous indignation of the Far Right holds more appeal to undecided voters across the board.  With things looking so grim for the Democratic Party, it's hard to see how a liberal like myself could still be happy.  I say happy, not complacent, for a purpose.
          Yes, there are aspects of the Tea Party that scare me--Sharron Angle for instance, a senate hopeful who strongly supports the (conservative interpretation of the) Second Amendment as well as the proposed destruction of the EPA and Dept. of education, running in a state in which the majority of my family resides.  However, I would be fibbing if I said I hadn't found this election season immensely entertaining for a number of reasons.  I will admit that a fair amount of my enjoyment in the campaign ads/debates/speeches was probably schadenfreude, the idea that (most) humans take a degree of pleasure in the embarrassment/misfortune of others.  I will, for instance, NOT claim that I didn't laugh after seeing the video clip of Christine O'Donnel claiming that she was "not a witch" and then watching her popularity plummet in the following weeks--it did comfort me that Americans decided to desert a candidate who seemed more preoccupied with campaigning against masturbation and (allegedly) dabbling in witchcraft than actually knowing anything about policy/supreme court cases/the constitution; maybe there was still hope.
          Yes, this election season has been full of plenty of fodder for soundbites and political cartoons--between New York's "The Rent Is Too Damn High Party" to seemingly endless jokes about John Boener's false tan, I was never at a loss to find something politically entertaining.  Although I am certain that political humor does have a place in our society--indeed the first section I read in Newsweek is usually the political cartoons (don't worry, I DO then proceed to read it, and other news sources, cover to cover)--I am beginning to think maybe it can be a bit distracting.  Maybe, just maybe, the Tea Party and other Republicans will gain even MORE seats than expect. And if they do, it may be because liberals like myself are so blown away by a few (admittedly hilarious) lunatics on the fringe that they become complacent.
         Just because one party perceives another as crazy does NOT mean the general population at large will find them so.  With the wind blowing as it is, in the direction of the far right, it would be anything but intelligent to ignore the possibility of a serious upset.  With that in mind, I really do encourage everyone that can to go out and cast their votes on Tuesday.  Me, I'll just be interested to see what happens.

Espionage in the Cyber Age.

TMI? Mayyyybe

         This week's lecture on Article Three, Sections Two and Three coincided rather perfectly with a piece of shocking news I unearthed on the New York Times' Website a day or two later.  What is being called one of the most ingenious acts of espionage in the history of the internet as well as this young century is unfolding as I type this--a self-titled "non-profit" website called Wikileaks.org (active for years in whistle-blowing for various human rights-abuse coverups such as those in Kenya and East Timor) just released what it called "the largest classified military leak in history."  The documents posted on the website (which, out of curiosity, I browsed) ranged from military journals--accounts of a day's mission--to tactics and strategy, all detailing a five year period of the the Iraq War.  Some 100,000+ deaths of Iraqis are recounted in the Wikileaks papers as well.
          Needless to say, the Pentagon and the Justice Department are both an uncomfortable mix of furious and deeply uneasy, as this brash vigilante journalist/computer hacker has, in their eyes, put national security at risk.  They have a point, according to various aid organizations such as Amnesty International who fear for the lives of Iraqi soldiers/rebel figures who have been put at risk for Taliban persecution by being named within the reports.  The mastermind of the operation, an Australian named Julian Assange, does not see any ethical repercussions for his actions, for he believes himself to be righteously exposing the Truth.  That said, he happens to be currently on the run, jumping between countries throughout Europe in order to evade the authorities who so ardently desire his arrest.
          How the U.S. would go about prosecuting Mr. Assange?  According to the Article Three he should be brought before the Supreme Court in a Foreign Citzen v. United States-type case.  However, the Eleventh Amendment changes this slightly, saying that citizens of foreign states are not to be tried against the United States in its highest court of law.  This Amendment notwithstanding, it will be interesting in the coming months to see what the United States will do toward this Australian man who, although clearly outside of US jurisdiction (and not just because he can't be found at the moment), has committed an "act of treason."  Currently, the Justice Department is trying to see if his actions fall under the domain of the 1917 Espionage Act, and if these actions merit a trial in front of some sort of high court. In the meantime, much of the US' doings in Iraq and Afghanistan are up on the web for anyone to see.

May Ask, Can Tell?

I like Equal Rights...except when I DON'T

         This week, U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips ruled in favor of the plaintiffs in the the case Log Cabin Republicans v. United States of America, officially rendering the current military policy of Don't Ask, Don't Tell unconstitutional--which, of course it is, under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, which states that "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech...and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."  However, this is still a tentative step in the direction toward equality, and experts are currently predicting that this, the issue that was successfully filibustered out of the senate just months ago, will reach the nations highest Bench by mid-2011.  That being said, gays within the military have been cautioned against coming out to their superiors, as protocol is still uncertain--a similar state of limbo to that which gay couples found themselves in the wake of Judge Vaughn Walker's ruling with regards to Proposition 8 in the state of California. Although this and other recent decisions (i.e. Judge Joseph Tauro's of Boston's twin rulings against the Defense of Marriage Act, another semi-archaic piece of legislation that looks suspiciously unconstitutional) have been steps in a positive direction for gay rights groups advocating for equality, the country is still at an uncertain stage in this, the latest Civil Rights Movement.
          Having several good friends and various family members that happen to be gay, I am hoping that when these cases hit the Supreme Court within the next couple of years, the judges rule in the favor of those whose civil rights are clearly being denied by discriminatory legislation such as Prop. 8 and DADT, rather than in favor of their opponents, whose most ardent backers tend to belong to fundamentalist religious organization trying to push their own agendas.  Along with Freedom of Speech, I believe the Constitution is also relatively explicit with regards to the Separation of Church and State.  I'm just saying.....
          Morality and constitutionality aside, however, DADT still doesn't make any sense.  According to a recent Newsweek article, which featured interviews with veterans discharged under DADT, the policy is actually a costly one, as thousands, sometimes tens of thousands of dollars in training are put to waste.  Some of the veterans interviewed had had highly specialized occupations, such as interpreters of obscure dialects of Pashto and other languages within Afghanistan.  If such people were discharged arbitrarily, whole missions might be jeopardized--it all seems a bit senseless.
          That said, I think it is important to remember that as well as being discriminatory and unconstitutional, laws such as the ones struck down in California and Massachusetts are also often inefficient and grounded in prejudice and fallacious thinking.

Freedom of (Hate) Speech

Dear WBC: Get a life. Love, God.

           I begin this blog, dear reader, by expressing my deep shame that hate groups such as the the Westboro Baptist Church continue to exist in what we consider to be free and enlightened society.  That said, under the protection of the First Amendment of U.S. Constitution, such groups are entitled to pour forth their malicious babble nearly anywhere they please.  Last week's hearings of Snyder v. Phelps brought the purported freedom of speech to the test, and, initially upheld in favor of Mr. Snyder, who was suing Mr. Phelps, the head of the Westboro Baptist Church, for picketing at his son's military funeral in order to spread his hateful, anti-homosexual agenda.  However, this decision was eventually overturned in favor of Mr. Phelps' protection under the first amendment.

          The Westboro Baptist Church, of course, has a somewhat dubious history of picketing all across the country against gays, Jews, Catholics, and essentially everyone that is not, in fact, a member of the Westboro Baptist Church.  Its members (most of which are related to Mr. Phelps in some way) have been sued on numerous occasions for invasions of privacy and personal distress, but nearly all of the charges have been dropped in favor of the First Amendment. These people are, of course, universally regarded as hateful whack-jobs and are, indeed on several discrimination watch organizations' lists of hate groups; however, that does not deter them--negative press seems, if anything, to empower the group to expand.  Though their very existence is a travesty, I suppose, in some strange way, it's a little bit better than the alternative. I suppose I'd rather live in a society in which anyone has the right to speak their views than one in which no one has that right. I guess the Supreme Court thinks so too.  

Dear Meg Whitman: Please Emigrate from California.

Money can't buy do-overs

          Although I am no political analyst, I certainly think that the once tight race for the governorship of California is rapidly slipping through the fingers of one Meg Whitman, whose alleged behavior toward her ex-housekeeper, an illegal immigrant, compounded with her inability to appear at all sympathetic in Saturday's debate (which, incidentally, was moderated by the nationally-syndicated Spanish-speaking Univision Network) has her sinking fast in the polls, especially among Latinos, the very demographic group that she had spent millions of dollars attempting to cater to in the earlier half of her campaign.  While Whitman alleges that she had no grounds to suspect that Nicky Diaz Santillian was an illegal immigrant during her nine years of service, there is much evidence to the contrary.  Although, as Whitman has noted, the timing (right before the second debate between the candidates, and the first-ever California gubernatorial debate moderated in Spanish) seems a little too "perfect," Whitman is offering no real explanations in the face of the allegations--indeed, she has taken to blaming everyone but herself: Ms. Santillian, Jerry Brown, even her own husband.  Regardless of her political views, this does not speak very highly of Ms. Whitman's character, and, as Mr. Brown pointed out in the debate, demonstrates that Whitman does not necessarily take accountability for her actions, something he noted was fundamental to one's ability to successfully govern.
          After watching two gubernatorial debates, what strikes me most about Ms. Whitman is the way in which she presents herself--as a business-minded executive, who does not seem to empathize with the problems of those not affiliated with corporations.  Although she certainly sounded less scripted in the second debate, I still found her responses relatively disturbing.  Her response to a Fresno State student who professed to be an undocumented immigrant herself about a path to legalization for college students and the possibility of tuition assistance for such individuals (i.e. the DREAM initiative) proved her stance on Immigration to be much more stringent than she had previously admitted.  Personally, I agree with a statement she made; I think that immigration is indeed a "complex issue"--but I think she is taking absolutely the wrong stance on the issue.  We certainly do need immigration laws, but we also need to have a degree of compassion for illegal immigrants, who, by circumstance, are generally forced into the lowest-income, manual labor jobs.  These people are not, as Whitman claims, "a drain on the economy;" on the contrary, they are the very backbone of the California economy, which thrives, to a certain extent, on exploitation.
          Although Brown didn't necessarily emerge as victor in this debate, Whitman certainly emerged as the loser--she appeared harsh and apathetic and said exactly the wrong things.  While Whitman may not lose all of the Latino vote, I am relatively certain that after this debate, she will not garner the 30+ percent of Latino support that experts say a Republican candidate needs in order to win the race.  So it goes when one alienates a politically potent minority.