SACRED PLACE - Mason Jennings
GREEN RIVER - M. Ward
Every young libertarian law clerk's dream placement is somehow connected to Judge Alex Kozinski. The LA Times reports some unfortunate news:
A panel of federal judges admonished Alex Kozinski, chief judge of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, on Thursday for being "judicially imprudent" and "exhibiting poor judgment" by placing sexually explicit photos and videos on an Internet server that could be accessed by the public. Kozinski's conduct had "created a public controversy that can reasonably be seen as having resulted in embarrassment to the institution of the federal judiciary," according to the panel's opinion, written by Anthony J. Scirica, chief judge of the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals. The judges ruled, however, that Kozinski's actions did not constitute judicial misconduct. The disciplinary proceedings should end with the public admonishment, they wrote, noting that in testimony in a closed-door hearing, Kozinski had stated that he had "caused embarrassment to the federal judiciary," had apologized and had "committed to changing his conduct to avoid any recurrence of the error."
A new film, Tales From the Golden Age, promises a wry look backwards at Romanian communism in the 1980's. The film's title, somewhat lost in translation, is a pun-laden reference to the "Gilded Age", or the Belle Epoque. American critics haven't exactly taken to the film so far, but it takes a Titanic sometimes to get American critics going. For those who don't need a Titanic, here's the trailer:
Local Liberal Democrat politician Paula Keaveney said she had fully supported the smoking ban. Keaveney did, however, feel that:
...There was "no rational argument" that children and young people are likely to be seduced by smoking seen in films. "It strikes me this is just interfering with artistic product and censorship and it doesn't strike me that it will have the desired effect. I haven't taken to the hills and become a revolutionary since I saw the film about Che Guevara." A city council document states that the proposal would not apply to films which portray historical figures who actually smoked, or those which provide a "clear and unambiguous portrayal of the dangers of smoking, other tobacco use, or second-hand smoke".
But not all Brits are excusing the latest "it's for your own good" censorship ploy. Mark Wallace, associated with the lovely TaxPayers' Alliance, said that Primary Care Trusts, a form of national health clinic, are "meant to focus on healing people, not on arbitrating against thought crimes". Wallace continues:
"People have enough trouble getting doctor's appointments and the treatment they need without taxpayers' money being squandered on the NHS regulating the cinema. That would be a ludicrous restriction on harmless films."
"There was no movement or sound she made that was at least accidentally flirtatious-- and what is flirtatiousness but an argument that life must go on and on and on?'
Kurt Vonnegut, Jailbird
+ A quote from Slavoj Zizek on the difference between Leninism and Stalinism.
+ Melanie Phillips wants to talk about "the third stage of Iranian totalitarianism". Because we post-Enlightened minds prefer our revolutions in stages, phases, progressions, and linear models.
+ "I Like You When You Are Quiet" by Pablo Neruda
+ Palin says "told you so" on government spending, as if she doesn't run the most socialist state in the nation (aka the freerider state).
+ Carnival rides and cotton candy mix with cocaine and prison sentences for Germany's "Funfair family".
+ Geohive, global statistics for fans of orange and green color schemes.
+ The US Sec. of Defense's recent creation of US CYBERCOM is a signal that the Obama administration plans to take cyber war seriously. And the US is not alone in its attention to cyber war.
+ The Russian national love for vodka would benefit from a little more discriminatory taste.
+ How did the media contribute (or even conspire) to fan the flame of war in the Balkans? A look at the new legal precedents being courted in Europe.
+ Medicare spending per beneficiary by region, a map view.
+ What happened when The Cure sang about Tiannemen Square.
+ The Reason Foundation releases its Taxpayer's Guide to the Stimulus- not the most encouraging reading for fans of freedom.
+ Robert Fisk reports from Iran.
+ Worried about the wins of the xenophobic Far Right in the recent elections, George Soros doles out a bunch of cash to, um, help things.
+ Those tired of the same old summer cruises might want to consider trying a Cold War adventure.
Phillipe Legrain doesn't believe that immigration is the cause of Europe's social and economic ills. In fact, Legrain makes the case that immigration, as experienced through globalization, might actually be a good thing. Currently working on a new book about the effects of globalization, Legrain will be examining the "risks to globalisation from the ongoing crisis (such as protectionism, nationalism and political extremism)" and try to find what needs to change in the global economy, as well as what doesn't need to change.
Take F.A. Hayek to heart on this one, and provide Legrain with a little local knowledge that he might not otherwise discover. In the meantime, I'll be scratching my own head for ideas. [Cross-posted at Romania Revealed.]I'd be really grateful if you could suggest papers I should read, people I should talk to, and places I should visit. I'm particularly interested in hearing about people that the mainstream media often neglects. You may be able to point me to a small business in China whose exports have evaporated and whose migrant workers are going home, or to one that is prospering by taking on a new line of work. You may know Icelandic people who can relate how their lives have been turned upside down by the financial collapse. You may have connections to communities in Australia that until recently were booming by exporting to China, and drawing in lots of foreign workers as a result; how are they coping? You may know Mexicans who have gone home from the US, or Poles who have left the UK or Ireland, because of the recession. And amid all the gloom and despair, what new opportunities are emerging that could help build a better and fairer global economy? Or something else entirely. Please email me on mail AT philippelegrain DOT com I'll get back to you if I think there could be a fit. Thank you very much.
Sometimes it takes a Born Again Redneck to appreciate what is happening in Iran. Or to quote Natan Sharansky, whose perspective takes history into account. Natan is hopeful. Here's why:
Every totalitarian society consists of three groups: true believers, double-thinkers and dissidents. In every totalitarian regime, no matter its cultural or geographical circumstances, the majority undergo a conversion over time from true belief in the revolutionary message into double-thinking. They no longer believe in the regime but are too scared to say so. Then there are the dissidents -- pioneers who dare to cross the line between double-thinking and everything that lies on the other side. In doing so, they first internalize, then articulate and finally act on the innermost feelings of the nation.
People in free societies watching massive military parades or vociferous displays of love for the leaders of totalitarian regimes often conclude, "Well, that's their mentality; there's nothing we can do about it." Thus they and their leaders miss what is readily grasped by local dissidents attuned to what is happening on the ground: the spectacle of a nation of double-thinkers slowly or rapidly approaching a condition of open dissent.
To see the telltale signs, sometimes it helps to have experienced totalitarianism firsthand. More than once in recent years, former Soviet citizens returning from a visit to Iran have told me how much Iranian society reminded them of the final stages of Soviet communism. Their testimony was what persuaded me to write almost five years ago that Iran was extraordinary for the speed with which, in the span of a single generation, a citizenry had made the transition from true belief in the revolutionary promise into disaffection and double-thinking. Could dissent be far behind?
This suggests another notable fact about present-day Iran. In Moscow in the 1970s, demonstrations organized by dissidents in an effort to attract the world's attention would often consist of no more than five to 10 individuals. Otherwise, the KGB would find out about the demonstrations in advance. They would last no more than five minutes. That was the longest we could last before the KGB would come, arrest us and ship the less fortunate to Siberia. Our main objective was to make certain that at least one foreign journalist was present so that, the next day, at least one Western news source would come out with a story that could in turn elicit a chain reaction of more and greater press attention and, we hoped, a vocal Western response.
Do I have a special place in my heart for the French Tintin because his first literary adventure took place in the land of Soviet Russia? Mais, bien sur.
In 1929, Tintin In the Land of the Soviets appeared in a children's supplement to a Belgian daily newspaper, Le Vingtième Siècle. Hergé's satire on the Soviet state preceded the grand anti-communist crusades of the 1940's and 1950's . Soviet propaganda to persuade the world outside Russia that the economy was booming was a particular target for Hergé, as were the activities of the secret police, the OGPU.
We see the communist comrade Oebijkon (who is resigning from the presidency) delivering a speech. This is what he says: 'We have tree lists: one of these comes from the communist party. Let anyone who is against this list raise their hand!' At the same moment Oebijkon and four of his comrades pull their revolvers and direct them menacingly at the peasant audience. Oebijkon continued: 'Who votes against this list? No one? Then I declare that anyone voted for the communist list. There is no need to vote for the other two lists anymore.'
Iran is the latest galvanizing force for those poor hawks who have been disappointed by the nature of regime change in Iraq. I can almost hear the humanitarians on the Hill exclaiming, "Why just look at what those Iranians have done now! We need to come in and fix things for them again...."
For the record, the Iranian people (and well-intentioned, distracted American citizens, for that matter) are still struggling with the consequences of the last time the US came in to "fix things". In fact, the term "blowback" first popped up in a classified sheet from the CIA's post-action report on the secret overthrow of the Iranian government. 1953 was a big year for Iranians-- the CIA helped to overthrow Mohammed Mossadegh as Iran's prime minister, thus ensuring another 25 years of rule for Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi. At the time, the CIA had only existed for six years, but proved an enthusiastic and key mission-maker in the US war against communism. The covert action in Iran was considered a blueprint for similar coup plots around the world, so the CIA commissioned a "secret history to detail for future generations of CIA operatives how it had been done". Journalist James Risen traces the use of the word "blowback" to this secret report, in which the CIA warned of the possibilities of "unintended consequences of covert operations". Of course, Chalmers Johnson's book is the must-read on this topic.
So the heat is on to muddle around. Steve Clemons notes that pressure from hawks in Congress to take a stand on Iran only complicates matters for the President elected to improve our relations with the rest of the world. And Reihan Salam wistfully ponders the possibility of Obama's "inner neocon" while making it abundantly clear that his understanding of neoconservatism is milder and less militarized than most:
The peculiar truth is that Barack Obama, for all his realist convictions, is at his best when he embraces his inner neocon. In August 2001, two brilliant neocon foreign policy thinkers, Jeffrey Gedmin and Gary Schmitt, wrote an Op-Ed for The New York Times that blasted President Bush for not being multilateral enough. They compared him unfavorably with neocon icon Ronald Reagan, who, in their words, "linked American interests to the greater international good." Though written before 9/11, Gedmin and Schmitt's piece anticipated the trouble Bush's rhetorical unilateralism would eventually cause.
Obama, like Reagan, is a master at linking American interests to the greater international good. Whether he likes it or not, his engagement strategy with Iran has been revealed as a hollow hope, one that rested on an overoptimistic interpretation of Iranian intentions. As former Bush foreign policy adviser Peter Feaver has explained, Iran is far more likely to negotiate from a position of weakness than of strength.
Rather than reassure the Iranians with a wink and a nod that we're ready to do business, President Obama should be building an international coalition to isolate a recalcitrant Iran as thoroughly as the the West once isolated apartheid-era South Africa. Bush, to the chagrin of the neocons, could never pull this off. But Obama can. But though Bush 41 was in many respects a smashing foreign policy success, he also made a number of egregious missteps, including the notorious "Chicken Kiev" speech, in which he essentially endorsed the survival of the multinational Soviet empire and not the nationalist aspirations of Eastern Europe.
"Memory believes before knowing remembers." [William Faulkner, Light In August]
The difference between a good memory and a bad memory has no bearing on its reality. We do not choose what to remember. History, as an academic discipline, makes an attempt to choose this for us. Ultimately, however, the salience of memory takes place in the twilight. What we remember may (or may not) be something like what actually took place.
In his Mailer-esque novel-nonfiction about the Vietnam War, Tim O'Brien explains the "surreal seemingness" of war memories:
In any war story, but especially a true one, it’s difficult to separate what happened from what seemed to happen. What seems to happen becomes its own happening and has to be told that way. The angles of visions are skewed. When a booby trap explodes, you close your eyes and duck and float outside yourself. When a guy dies, like Curt Lemon, you look away and then look back for a moment and then look away again. The pictures get jumbled; you tend to miss alot. And then afterward, when you go to tell about it, there is always that surreal seemingness, which makes the story seem untrue, but which in fact represents the hard and exact truth as it seemed.
So maybe seeing is believing the story you told yourself. And maybe seeing and remembering share the connection of a mind to its mirage.
When my grandfather describes life under Ceausescu’s communist regime in Romania, he talks about the cheap, hard bread procured after hours spent waiting in bread lines. He does not dissect the past for an explanation as to why flour could not be purchased, why a black market for bread did not exist, why no one questioned the scarcities that turned their lives into miserable shopping lists. Instead, he talks about coming home after work to change into his boots before going to wait in the lines. My grandfather did not want to destroy his nice work shoes. There is something sacred about the way in which we hide our feet.
The impeccable status of witness, possibly related to the American respect for anything which smacks of faithful "testimony", has been known to cause problems in the modern pursuit of criminal justice. Molika Ashford brings up the example of Timothy Cole's recent exoneration:
This February, 10 years after his death in prison, Timothy Cole was posthumously exonerated for a rape he did not commit. Before his trial, a victim picked him out of a series of photographs, but her memory may have been skewed by the fact that his image was the only one in color. Cole’s case is not an isolated one. The Innocence Project, a legal advocacy group that worked on his behalf, has cleared the names of more than 175 people who were wrongly convicted due to the unreliability of human memory.
Psychological research continues to undermine the trust given to eyewitnesses’ ability to accurately remember the details of a crime, and we’re becoming increasingly aware of how often their memories are unconsciously manipulated. Paired with a growing interest in the field of neurolaw, which examines the intersection of neuroscience and legal systems, the desire for tools that can objectively assess the accuracy of memories is palpable.
Why must these memories, these morsels for the memoirs, be so certain to us? Why not leave them as the beautiful unbelievables which do best when they suggest? Canadian WWII veteran Pat Hennessey's memories were found in an attic, swaddled in dust. The latest versions of Russian history have been duly massaged into a more presentable, cocktail-worthy version. Ollie North's memories of Reagan make a life in the present rather difficult; the nostalgia breaks out like sweat beads on his upper lip. An exhibition of communist propaganda is greeted with a fond, unforgiving tenderness by Bulgarians. Who really remembers Italian-style divorces?
Is a position on the existence of evil the real divide between social conservatives and libertarians? Terence Watson makes a sound argument in favor of this view at the Western Standard blog. His thoughtful essay deserves a read, as well as a response. An excerpt:
What does it mean for evil to exist? I think one of Dostoevsky's characters, the narrator of Notes From Underground, had it about right: humans really like to do what they know they ought not do. If a person realizes he is living poorly, this may be precisely the motivation he needs to encourage others to live the same way. If another recognizes that it would be better, all things considered, if he did X, he is just as likely to spurn X in favor of Y. This is not the banal evil of Hannah Arendt, but the primal evil, the first evil, the evil of Milton's Lucifer, who once declared, "Evil, be thou my good!"
If humans are enmeshed in this kind of evil, born into it, then rationality and economic forces will be insufficient to curtail the destructive impulses of the masses. Evil, by this standard, becomes rational: absent the violence of the state, it is rational for the drug addict to create other drug addicts, and for the corrupt to corrupt others. For the "supply" of evil to be curtailed by diminishing "demand" -- there must be diminishing demand for evil, not an ever-increasing appetite for it.
The libertarian draws the line. The conservative says, "That's not good enough. It permits too much evil to flourish. And evil will eventually wipe away that line, too, and the result will be more violence than you ever thought possible."
At this point, the libertarian has a response: "You are right that limiting the role of government permits evil to flourish. You have to accept that. The alternative is a more powerful government, one that can use its power to create more evil. Limiting government, keeping evil on an individual scale -- that's the better bet." I've come to think that this response is a dodge.
I call it a dodge. Why? Because it's not necessarily the better bet. There is no evidence that allowing individuals to spawn as much evil as they please (except violence) results in less evil. There is no evidence that governments, given the constitutionally-limited power to quash evil, will all turn into versions of Nazi Germany. In addition, the conservative can agree with the libertarian that governments given an unlimited mandate to quash evil will themselves become evil. But that is not what the conservative wants; what he wants is not unlimited power but some power; not the ability to crush evil no matter the cost, but the ability to nibble at evil, around the edges, and to keep it on a leash.
While I am sympathetic to the conservative position, my sympathy does not permit me to overlook how much "evil" maraudes under the name of good. Let's assume, with Terence, that conservatives are "nibbling around the edges" of evil through policies like the War on Terror or the US war on drugs. Can the evil-hating conservatives in power fight evil using non-evil means (i.e. means which do not admit the existence of innocent victims)? Not yet in our history.
I would argue that the evil means used to "nibble at evil" threaten to fudge the distinction between good and evil-- a distinction whose fuzzy borders would not benefit humankind. Fighting evil with evil, pace Lucifer, McCain, and Dubya, only serves to add more evil to the world under the sacred cover of alleged "good". Fans of Terence's discussion and others along these lines should consider reading Pierre Manent's An Intellectual History of Liberalism, which critiques the liberal position from a similar podium.
Around this time of year, I'd give away my earliest back issues of Partisan Review for a few good weeks on a caravan. Though the horse-and-buggy is more appealing, I would certainly settle for something more futuristic, like the expandable mobile mini-house. Call it what you will, but that old restless twitching starts with the left leg and then climbs; all the things I've never seen present themselves in a parade before my closed eyes. It takes a Tylenol PM to kill the scene. And I want to kill a scene if I can't steal it.
Cold pig's face is one of the best things in the world for breakfast, but it should not be taken unless you are to be active shortly after, for it is so good that one can scarcely help taking a great deal when one begins it. Eat it with shallot vinegar and French mustard. Fruit at breakfast is what I cannot recommend; but if you'll take it, be sure not to omit another dram after it, for if you do, you will certainly feel heavyish all the morning.The best breakfast dram is whiskey, when it is really very old and fine, but brandy is more commonly to be had in perfection among the majority of my readers. Cherry brandy is not the thing at breakfast; it is too sweet, and not strong enough.
Mr. Maginn may have been one of the most prolific journalists of his time. And his time, to be exact, was 1794-1842. For more on drams, draughts, and food what-nots, take your William Maginn with you to the breakfast table.
More than 6 in 10 Republicans today are white conservatives, while most of the rest are whites with other ideological leanings; only 11% of Republicans are Hispanics, blacks, or members of other races. Gallup has more goods here. But Gallup doesn't answer the pressing questions of whether hairspray and cocaine use is higher among Republican voters.
Steven Hayward thinks the cost of rethinking the Reagan mystique is too high. Church-shopping might be the way to get your high across the spectrum, a multiculturalism of sorts. Dianne Kirby reviews Mark Edwards' "God Has Chosen U.S.", an article about the foreign policy dictates of American Christian realism. God as verbal talisman dominates the airwaves. Everything happens according to God's will. God wants Andy Stanley to God chose Dubya to drill oil in Texas, marry a librarian, and then some. Not even the Communists claim to be "godless" anymore. Is this because God works wonders? Or maybe Kierkegaard was right about the strange, convenient God embraced by Christendom? Maybe the God we exhort is the God on our dollar bills, but not the God in whom we trust.
The Associated Press reports that the federal government plans to spend up to $3 million a year to demolish and rebuild uranium-contaminated structures across the Navajo Nation, where Cold War-era mining of the radioactive substance left a legacy of disease and death. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and its Navajo counterpart are focusing on homes, sheds and other buildings within a half-mile to a mile from a significant mine or waste pile. They plan to assess 500 structures over five years and rebuild those that are too badly contaminated.
In a 2007 press release from the Navajo Nation EPA, Navajo Resources Chairman George Arthur told the the House Committee on Government Reform that Navajo people refuse to continue being the subjects of an "ongoing energy experiment":
“We are still undergoing what appears to be a never-ending federal experiment to see how much devastation can be endured by a people and a society from exposure to radiation in the air, in the water, in mines, and on the surface of the land,” said Arthur. “We are unwilling to be the subjects of that ongoing experiment any longer.” Arthur drew attention to the largest spill of contaminated material in the United States that occurred in Church Rock, New Mexico where some 94 million gallons of radioactive sludge was released into a natural wash along I-40 interstate highway of New Mexico and Arizona. Arthur was joined in presenting testimony by Navajo Environmental Protection Agency Executive Director Stephen Etsitty, who defined the location of uranium sites on the Navajo Nation.
As a result of the continued petitioning that the government investigate the effects of uranium mining on the Navajo peoples and environment of North Dakota, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform conducted an independent investigation into the problems and how they might be resolved. The result, "Health and Environmental Impacts of Uranium Contamination on the Navajo Nation", was released in 2008.
Uranium was mined in New Mexico from its initial discovery in 1950 until 2002. New Mexico has the 2nd highest uranium ore reserves in the United States. Native Americans have not been the only ones harmed by uranium mining; the miners, themselves, did not have the best experience. Congress enacted the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act of 1990 which was amended in 2005 to compensate some uranium miners who were poisoned due to unsafe working conditions in the mines.
Controversy over uranium mining in South Dakota's Black Hills also seems to involve the possible negative effects on the Indian populations which reside in this area. Despite its environmental overtones, the Defenders of the Black Hills maintain that there mission is a historical and political one--"to ensure that all of the of the provisions of the Fort Laramie Treaties of 1851 and 1868 are upheld by the federal government of the United States". Lack of aquatic life and high alpha radiation levels in the Cheyenne River led to recommendations that native Americans stop using the River for plant irrigation.
On July 25, 2001, the Energy Advancement and Conservation Action (HR 2587) passed the House Committee on Energy and Commerce with amendments. This bill would grant a total of 30 million dollars to the specific companies in the US uranium industry to improve the in-situ leach technology. The corresponding Senate bill, the Nuclear Energy Electricity Supply Assurance Act of 2001, carries the same concessions and hand-outs to the uranium industry.
When the US government pledged to give land to the Indians-- land in which they would have the simulacra of self-government-- it did not mention that uranium mining might make that giving more like a curse.
More data, maps, diplomatic treaties, Indian groups, and historical details:
Tel Aviv is using social media to state its case in the Gaza conflict, but Will Ward of Arab Media and Society says the most effective voices in the internet propaganda war hail from outside official channels. Listen to the details on the social media propaganda war between Hamas and Israel.
According to a news report by the BBC, racism is en vogue again in Ireland:
More than 100 Romanian people forced to flee their homes in south Belfast have been moved to a leisure centre. The group of about 20 families spent Tuesday night in a church hall after a spate of racist attacks on their homes. Police have said they do not believe paramilitaries were involved in orchestrating the attacks. The attacks were condemned by Prime Minister Gordon Brown who said he hoped the authorities would take all action necessary to protect the families. Northern Ireland Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness, who has met with the families, said the attacks were a "totally shameful episode". "We need a collective effort to face down this criminals in society who are quite clearly intent on preying on vulnerable women and children," he said. The police have met Belfast City Council and social services to discuss how best to care for those affected by the attacks. Most of the Romanian families, including one with a five-day-old girl, have been taken to the Ozone Leisure Centre in south Belfast, where they will spend the rest of the day. They said they do not want to return to their Belfast homes.
"This is a small number of people who are engaged in this violence. I understand this is cold comfort to the people affected by it." Bernie Kelly, from Belfast Health and Social Care Trust, said it had been a very traumatic experience for the Romanians. "The whole thing has escalated very quickly," she said. "Working with the police and all the agencies together we are going to have to find a resolution." There have been suspicions that a loyalist paramilitary group is involved in the violence, but this has been denied, our correspondent added.
One of the women who took shelter in the church, who did not want to be named, said she was very upset and scared. She said she had feared the attackers had come to kill her and her family, and she now wanted to go back to Romania. But the help of the church had shown a positive side to the people of Belfast as well, she added.
Anna Lo of the Alliance Party said the families were "very frightened". Ms Lo said attacks on Romanian homes - which included bricks being thrown through windows - had been increasing in frequency in recent months. "They are really very frightened," she said. "The women, when they were talking to me yesterday, they were really upset, tears in their eyes and said, 'You know we love it here, we'd like to live here, but we're too scared.' "A woman showed me her shoulder which was quite bruised and cut across, she was hit across the shoulder." Jolena Flett, Racial Harassment Adviser for the Northern Ireland Council for Ethnic Minorities, said they had been threatened verbally and then three properties were attacked on the same day. "There has been an issue about the families feeling unsafe in the properties they were attacked in. What we are trying to do is provide them with alternative accommodation," she said.
Belfast's lord mayor, Naomi Long, said the repeated attacks on the Roma families close to the university district had brought shame on the city.
This distinction is important because the Roma have long held the status of a persecuted minority in Europe. Remember that Hitler's first attempts at exterminating minorities included the Romany people. Ignorance about the crimes of history makes the crimes of the present seem less serious by depriving them of their disastrous context in the past. To report about crimes against "Romanians" when you mean crimes against "Roma" is ridiculous. Would the BBC have merely mentioned their Romanian-ness had the persecuted in question been Romanian Jews? Would it be too much to ask for some clear reporting on the situation in northern Ireland? Are those people who are being driven out of their homes Romanians, Romanian Roma, or a combination of both? The conversation can't really begin without an answer to this simple question.
[Cross-posted at Romania Revealed.]
"Altogether, the new European Parliament will have more than 30 members who could be described as being on the extreme right, and in some cases xenophobic or outright racist. Among the ex-communist EU member states in particular, where the average turnout was just over 31 percent, compared with an overall average of 43.24 percent for the 27-nation bloc, such splinter groups did especially well.
Extreme-right parties – aided by the historically low voter turnout – captured enough of the protest vote to win seats for the first time. The most militant and successful of them all, the neo-fascist For a Better Hungary (Jobbik) party, which campaigned against “Gypsy crime” and other minorities, got nearly 15 percent of the vote and will send three representatives to Brussels and Strasbourg. “So-called proud Hungarian Jews should go back to playing with their tiny little circumcised tails,” said future MEP Krisztina Morvai, leaving little doubt as to her party’s leanings." [Transitions Online, June 12]
The decrees issued by Czechoslovak president President Edvard Benes (in office 1935-48) provided for the confiscation of the property of collaborators, traitors, ethnic Germans and Hungarians, except for those who themselves suffered under the Nazis. They also formed a basis for the transfer of the former groups from Czechoslovakia after WWII. Szegedi said Jobbik would first submit a request for the abolition of the Benes decrees in the EP.
The movement would also push for the abolition of the Trianon peace treaty signed after World War I in 1920 that diminished the territory of the former Hungary to its current scale. Due to the treaty millions of Hungarians suddenly found themselves in the position of ethnic minorities in the neighbouring countries, including the 5-million Slovakia where some 500,000 ethnic Hungarians live. "The Trianon border must be forgotten completely in several generations or even earlier," Szegedi claimed, adding this is one of his party's main goals. Jobbik wants 2010 to become the year of Trianon. Szegedi gave a speech at a meeting of the youth 64 Counties Movement, attended by some 250 members of the para-military Hungarian Guard and some 500 of its supporters.
A documentary about skinheads in Russia doesn't sit so well with the Russian government. Director Pavel Bardin discusses his new film, Russia 88. + Theo Anderson reviews Alan Wolfe's The Future of Liberalism. + Nicolas D. Kristoff maintains that "silence is the enemy". + "Jesus mania", the KGB, and the aftermath. + "Vietnam: The History of An Un-winable War", and the title of a Wilson Center event which promises to post the audio stream soon. + French actress, songstress, and muse Charlotte Gainsbourg insists that she is "not a prude". + Ultra-right radicals clash with anarchists in a Czech town. + The Vatican considers art as a means of building peace between Muslims and Christians. + What a Berlin court deemed as "totalitarian methods" may keep Jehovah's Witnesses in Germany from gaining official status as a religion. + Deception as a way of knowing, and other conclusions which emerge from a conversation with Anthony Grafton. + Thomas Harrison takes a look at socialism and homosexuality. + Political Animal is tired of the right-wing violence which has taken on the hue of a trend. + Anthropologist Olivia Harris passed away too soon. + Phillipe Bourgois is, in some sense, a righteous dope fiend who writes books about other righteous dope fiends. The interview. The long article. + Bob Trubshaw knows a little something about paganism in British folk customs. + Sculptures in the sky, or the aesthetic importance of chimneys in Cambridge. + The American Indian Mafia, FBI agents, historical battlefields, and tingly conspiracies. + Left-wing architecture from 1998-2000. Image credit due. + A survey finds Estonian companies are suspicious of foreign religious minorities and tend to hire workers who live closer to home. + 1914 and environs at the Library of Congress' flickr photo group. + The top ten existential movies of all time from Sentient Developments. + JD Salinger is not too old to sue over sequels. + Image borrowed from Blondie's Highlights.
I can't help but to sigh and thank Professor Alan Jacobs for drawing my attention to MyCommonPlaceBook, where I spent an unfortunately large part of the afternoon.
Until the Victorian era, zoos were living displays of wealth and power, confined to the private pleasure gardens of the aristocracy. Then, in 1847, the Zoological Society of London began charging the public to view its collection of exotic animals in Regent’s Park. It was an immediate hit. The London Zoo captured the mood of the time. Elephant tusks had begun to grace the entrances to gentlemen’s clubs along Piccadilly; feathers from exotic birds were appearing on ladies’ hats. [Financial Times]
I'm not a man. Playboy is not my favorite magazine. [Harold Norse]
You know that Western-style democracy has arrived when pets in a particular begin to "express" their political opinions. The presidential elections in Iran were greeted with "unprecedented" voter turnout.
Don't get me wrong – I'm not being unrealistic. I know Iran will not become a democratic state anytime soon. I also know that I won't be able to return to the land where I was born soon either. I know Iran is governed from the top down and that the next president – no matter who he is – will be under the thumb of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. But change can come to Iran, slow changes that one day will produce a democracy. I am choosing hope over inaction and despair. So, I will vote.
While few Iranians are willing to court the possibility of hope, there is no question that this election will be a critical one for Iran. The underground youth revolution has moved above ground; Iranian citizens are openly speaking to the international press about their political demands for reform.
Best of the Iranian Web for Election-Watchers
At Persian Letters, Esfandiari translates the hubbub of the Iranian blogosphere into English, covering everything from the politics of wearing green eye shadow to exchanges between the presidential candidates.
Persian Paradox is the blog maintained by Massoumeh Ebtekar, Professor of Immunology, former Vice President of Iran, Former Head of the Dept. of Environment, 2006 UNEP Chamption of the Earth, and former President of the Center for Peace and the Environment, an NGP in Tehran. Good green reading.
Faith Today is maintained by an Iranian journalist "searching for truth". It includes a number of good interviews and access to insightful sources.
The Tehran Post, "cautiously blogging from outside Iran", and Rotten Gods offer an openly critical perspective on events.
Payvand Iran News provides up-to-date news for the Iranian community in exile.
The mecca, of course, is Iranian.com.
Other notables include Iran Diplomacy, Rooz Online, View From Outside Iran, Vote for Iran, and Iran Translated.
Ian Parker claims that towards the end of the 1980's, Slavoj Zizek acted as a "commissar" who monitored and controlled dissident activity for the Yugoslavian communist regime. Even his postmodern sympathies couldn't make the openly-Marxist Zizek sound cool and detached in his furious reply to Parker's claim, branded as "a short clarification":
One should note the serious implications of these lines: I am accused of nothing less than being an informant of the Communist power against dissidents. Let me be as clear and unequivocal as possible: this »true story« is entirely false, everything in it is a lie. Not only was I never any kind of a »commissar,« I also never boasted – ironically or truthfully – via a phone – or any other – conversation that I am anything like that. The only thing to add is that anyone who knows a little bit about Slovenia in the late 1980s will immediately see that the »true story« doesn't make sense, for two obvious reasons. First, which »department« would be »mine«? In Yugoslavia, I was never employed at any university department - how could I then be active there as a »commissar«? Second, from (at least) the middle of 1980s, the Communist party effectively lost control over the employment politics at the university. At the Institute of Sociology where I was then formally employed (formally, since I already spent most of the time abroad), if a candidate for a job was suspected to be too closely linked to the Communist party circles, he had no chance of getting the job – at the end of the 1980s, to be »against« the regime was already a way to make a career!
Parker, one must remember, authored the authoritative masterpiece, Slavoj Zizek: A Critical Introduction. If sauciness struck, you could even suggest that Parker is one scholar whose career still depends on how critical Zizek remains in the post-postmodern discourse-ology (i.e. how good he looks on the toilet).
"On the 'Celestial Seasonings' green tea packet there is a short explanation of its benefits: 'Green tea is a natural source of antioxidants, which neutralize harmful molecules in the body known as free radicals. By taming free radicals, antioxidants help the body maintain its natural health.' Mutatis mutandis, is not the notion of totalitarianism one of the main ideological antioxidants, whose function throughout its career was to tame free radicals, and thus to help the social body to maintain its politico-ideological good health?" [Zizek, Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism?]
The evolution of crayons, a visual history.
"Emergency Threats and Security Planning: How Should We Decide Which Hypothetical Threats To Worry About?", a new report from RAND attempts to do what no government or whiskey has done before-- acknowledge the hypothetical nature of security threats and security dilemmas.
Newt Gingrich thinks being a citizen of the world is "stunningly dangerous". I guess he plans on refusing funding from those American international corporate executives most likely to use such labels.
These are economic boom times for private prison firms, like GEO, in America.
Les femmes de Brancusi. In Romanian. With French titles.
Iranian dogs may be playing a role in the elections.
A Greek gentleman's opinion on "why the left got hammered" in the EP elections. Compare & contrast with this Italian politician's view on what happened in the EU elections.
Does religion reduce homophobia? A new study nods in this direction. But that fails to explain what often comes from the pulpits of American churches.
Over And Done With - The Proclaimers [Right-click and "save as"]
I hope it never ends. You see, 933 pages of sheer thought-provoking bliss is not enough to satisfy my greed. Being a footnote fanatic, the fact that Tony Judt's Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 was deemed too vast for footnotes-- he offers a bibliography online at his Remarque Institute-- proved an initial disappointment. But Judt's work is dense and rich enough to keep this lady from seeking the alternative wealth of footnotes. In fact, I'll share a bit of Judt with you later this week, as his analysis of European history applies to the current political malaise in Europe.
For those who wish to learn more about this brilliant man and his work, I've compiled a link list to his most significant articles, interviews, videos, and essays below. Explore and enjoy. My only request is that you savor them.
Journalists and media outlets who may have in some way instigated war crimes during the 1991-1995 wars in the former Yugoslavia will be investigated by Serbia's Special War Crimes Prosecutor, media reported yesterday. Prosecution spokesman Bruno Vekaric would not reveal any details on which media outlets would be targeted in the probe. "We have found examples of war-mongering in the then-media," Vekaric told Reuters. "We now have war crime sentences ... we can now link causes [for crimes] and consequences." In a statement, Vekaric said that the prosecution had a “a team of journalists” ready to scrutunise and analyze the stories being investigated. “It is our estimates, there are things in the media from that time which instigated war crimes, but in the interest of investigations, we still cannot say what stories or media companies are in question,” he said. Vekaric said there it would be difficult to prove the "intentional stoking of war crimes" in reports, but that the key goal was largely to set a standard so that the practice would not be repeated.
Given its precarious position in advocating a war against Islam, including torture of suspected Muslims, Fox News should have Hannity run a special on the wonders of the First Amendment. Amen.
On the question of how much parliamentary politicians around the world are paid, Good magazine has a verbal and visual response. If you need help interpreting this chart, help is happy to help you at the link above.
The results of this weekend's elections to the EU Parliament indicated a clear victory for center-right and right-wing parties. Der Spiegel interpreted the historically low turnout as an attempt by voters to "punish the left", specifically the Social Democratic parties. With only about 43% of eligible voters taking the time to vote in this election, European pundits and journalists are looking for explanations.
And everyone has a theory. Czech leader Vaclav Klaus believes voters chose to "counterbalance" the recent national victories of European leftist parties by bringing parties on the right to power in the parliament. Exploring the results, it does seem that voters tended to vote in the opposition parties, regardless of their ideological aims. Politician and scholar Daniel Cohn-Bendit blamed European politicians for the low voter turnout. But the reasons for the election results and low voter turn-out aren't nearly as interesting as the ideological platform of the European right.
Overall, the right-wing parties who rose to power did not do so on platforms of free-market conservatism or limited government. In fact, the European right doesn't even bother to go through the motions of supporting economic liberty anymore. This is evident in the names of the various national right-wing parties, which use "populist" or "people's party" while almost completely forsaking the "conservative" label. In fact, the right and center-right parties which made such tremendous gains in the parliament elections campaigned on the basis of nationalism and anti-immigrant platforms. The "classical liberals" are nowhere to be found.
I think it's a huge mistake to try and legislate historical truth, to say the past should be remembered in this way and may not be remembered in that way, that this has to be described as a genocide and that may not be -- that is the business of historians, and journalists, and writers, and ordinary people. But I think what is perfectly appropriate is to try and develop a common sense of where we are coming from. I'm not sure how much the European Parliament can do about this. Let's not kid ourselves that everybody is waiting on the edge of their seats to read the latest resolution of the European Parliament on the European past. That's not the way it works. But I do think that in our schools -- and that is something the state can influence -- we should have history books which tell us the horrors of Nazism and the horrors of communism. And that absolutely isn't happening at the moment across Europe. We have very different historical stories, and on the whole too little of them.
Clearly, the recent return to the worst of the Right will add shape the "historical stories" emerging from the EU member states. Unfortunately, this shape might not be the sort one hopes to see on a topless beach in St. Tropez.
Boys who carry a particular variation of the gene Monoamine oxidase A (MAOA), sometimes called the “warrior gene,” are more likely not only to join gangs but also to be among the most violent members and to use weapons, according to a new study from The Florida State University that is the first to confirm an MAOA link specifically to gangs and guns.
The sweeter sex remains aloof; findings apply only to males. Girls with the same variant of the MAOA gene seem resistant to its potentially violent effects on gang membership and weapon use.
Much to the chagrin of certain scientists, the warrior gene has been studied most extensively in the Maori peoples of New Zealand. Although women have historically been considered to be the more anxious sex, Maori males are worried. The inhibiting effects of the recent MAOA research studies include a potential chilling effect on traditional tribal dances. One can certainly appear fierce without actually being violent.
Individuals with the so-called “warrior gene” display higher levels of aggression in response to provocation, according to new research co-authored by Rose McDermott, professor of political science at Brown University. In the experiment, which is the first to examine a behavioral measure of aggression in response to provocation, subjects were asked to cause physical pain to an opponent they believed had taken money from them by administering varying amounts of hot sauce. [Science Daily]
Some people may punish more than others, and there may be an underlying evolutionary logic for doing so. [Medical News Today]
Brunner syndrome is a rare (5 males in one large extended family) genetic disorder with a mutation in the MAOA gene. It is characterised by mild mental retardation and problematic impulsive behavior (arson, attempted rape, aggressive posturing). It is caused by a monoamine oxidase A (MAOA) deficiency, which leads to an excess of catecholamines in the bloodstream, such as serotonin, dopamine, and epinephrine.
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the flag of the earth + Gravity Lens' favorite fictional flags.
The Top 100 Books on Totalitarianism
an ongoing project to review and reveal the best books on totalitarianism.
In My Head
3 am magazine
3 Quarks Daily
365 Tomorrows
1500 Books
A Step At a Time
Absinthe Minded
Against Politics
Agence Eureka
ALF
American Daily Review
American Prospect
American Spectator
Americans Against Bombing
AntiText
Antiwar.com
Anything Peaceful
ArmaVirumque
Arts & Letters Daily
Austro-Athenian Empire
Beatific Generation
Believer
Between the Magnolias
Black Crayon
Book Forum
Borderlands
Born Magazine
Boston Phoenix
Boston Review
Brooklyn Rail
Bureaucrash
Cabinet
Cafe Hayek
Cato Unbound
Celltexts
City of Tommorrow
Cognition & Culture
Cold War News Report
Cold War in the News
CorpWatch
Daze of Our Lives
Diplomacy Monitor
Dissent
Division of Labour
Drawn!
Eagle and the Bear
Eastern Europe Watch
Econlog
Economic Policy Journal
Edward Lucas
EFF
English Russia
Europeana
Eurozine
Everyculture
Exiled Online
Exquisite Corpse
File
Forward
Fortean Times
Foucault Blog
Free State Project
Freedom In Our Time
Freedom of Information Act
Fresh Yarn
Gapminder
Ghost in the Wire
Global Dashboard
Global News Blog
GOOD
Gravestone Studies
Gravity Lens
Guardian UK, Culture
Guerilla News Network
Guernica
Haaretz
Harper's
Hermitary
Heroes of Capitalism
HouseArmed Services Committee
IEA
IEET
Identity Theory
Images Journal
In Character
Individualist Anarchist
January Magazine
Julian Sanchez
JunkScience
Kevin Kelly
Kilometer Zero
Lab For Culture
Landover Baptist
Libertarian Papers
Liberty & Power
Liberty For All
Listology
Literary Review
London Review of Books
Lonesome Music
Long Sunday
Marginal Revolution
Max Borders
Megan McArdle
Mindhacks
Molinari Institute
Moreorless
n + 1
NCHV
New Left Review
New Oxford Review
New Politics
New York Post
Newropeans
No Caption Needed
Nth Position
Old Hickory's Weblog
Open Secrets
Parabola
Paris Review
Partisan Review
Poliblog
Pravda
Printculture
Prison Planet
Project Syndicate
Relevant
Retro Future
Retrolounge
Romania Revealed
Samizdata
Seed Magazine
Sheldon Richman
Siberian Light
Sign & Sight
Sojourner's
SovietLit
Spiked
Strange Maps
Stockholm Network
Surveillance & Society
Tablet
Taking Hayek Seriously
The American Conservative
The American Dissident
The Antiplanner
The Agitator
The Arts Fuse
The Austrian Economists
The Birch
The Claremont Institute
The Diary Junction Blog
The Fly Bottle
The Freedom Factory
The Hill
The Idler
The Memory Hole
The Neglected Books Page
The New Atlantis
The New Republic
The Observer Translation Project
The Quarterly Conversation
The Rest Is Noise
The Smart Set
The Social Affairs Unit
The Washington Monthly
ThinkMarkets
Three Percent
Timothy Garton Ash
Tomorrow Museum
Uchronia
Unenumerated
United Liberty
Unqualified Offerings
Venture Capital Institute
Village Voice
Voice of America
Voluntaryist
Western Standard Blog
Wilson Center
Wood's Lot
Words Without Borders
Yglesias
Zeek
