this is america

(P) America is very good at dealing with crises. They demand action, and we're good at doing something. If it works, we do more. If not, we try something else. In the face of Something Serious, do something is a refrain we all rally around.

That's why the most troubling trends in our society are the ones that creep forward, seeping into us without us ever really acknowledging or confronting them. Or even approving of them. As more and more tax dollars go to more and more people, the system gains a momentum all its own of stakeholders looking for ever more seats at the taxpayer table.

One particularly destructive trend has been the militarization of our society. Our language, our discourse, our politics; the very options we believe to be possible are framed more and more by the perspective of force. Last week's Democratic National Convention and this week's Republican National Convention illustrate the nonpartisan nature of this development. We are acculturated from a very early age to internalize that the people on the receiving end of force must obviously have done something to deserve their fate, to the point that most of the creeping militarization goes on without even being news.

But the conventions give us a time when the envelope is pushed a little farther, and it's at those points when some attention gets paid to this issue. The resources that go into these things are enormous. More 'security' money was set aside for a four day convention in Denver than is needed to cover the whole projected budget shortfall for the entire year for Bi-State/Metro, the St. Louis' area transit agency. Is the threat of a couple hippies really more bad than this? When did we make that choice?

The answer is, we didn't. Until somebody you care about gets on the wrong end of the law, we just don't pay that much collective attention to the expanding prisons and police forces and rush to control what people do. SWAT, special weapons and tactics, is literally military training and equipment for use against civilians. The vast majority of those targeted civilians are American citizens.

So it's worth thinking about. Do we really need to spend $100 million to secure two week's worth of political conventions? Do we need to send heavily armed officers after groups of Americans who haven't broken any laws? Do we want a society where police can arrest solely on probable cause, give no reason for a search, remove items, and lock you up, all without charges? Do we see value in limiting the speech and assembly rights of citizens to make sure Important Politicians and Business People aren't bothered in their plotting to run the country? Is the technical know-how, energy, and expertise of the government servants who designed the system monitoring my blog well-allocated?

There's no one answer to any of this. Virtually no one suggests having no police forces, while virtually everyone celebrates individual rights and the Constitution. Most of the actors in the system, on all sides, are legitimately serving their country and advocating the principles in which they believe. The answer is to discuss this, to have an open exchange of ideas driven more by citizens in public and less by special interests in private. That would be real change in our society. That's the only way to combat mission creep.

Here are some links to what's been going on. Exploring is particularly important if you're not familiar with the reality of government power today.

Star Tribune
Salon
a free speech zone
Colorado Independent

sadness

I wanted to link to John's statement on his betrayal of Elizabeth back in 2006. It's not particularly lengthy or Earth shattering. It's John being John. You can pretty much read it however you want. What happened is pretty straightforward. He fucked somebody without the approval of his wife (er, uh, had a 'liaison with another woman').

I personally don't think the details are very important. That's between he and Elizabeth. Cheating is both rampant and unacceptable. Dealing with that contradiction is for a different post.

As someone who doesn't know the Edwards family personally, what I have found most interesting is how intense the scrutiny has been by others who also don't know the family. In times like this, I very much urge inner reflection on the fact that we are all flawed, we all sin. We'll never know the sincerity of famous people's requests for forgiveness.

But we can know the sincerity of our own requests. Who do we need to apologize to? Who do we need forgiveness from?

look, victory

I ran across a rather funny AP article in the Oklahoman. It's called Analysis: US now winning Iraq war that seemed lost.

It essentially argues that we're winning because insurgents "no longer have the clout to threaten the viability of the central government." Heck, if that's the criteria, why'd we invade again? The central government in place at the time proved pretty resilient to internal dissent.

But the real kicker is farther down. Check this out:

Systematic sectarian killings have all but ended in the capital, in large part because of tight security and a strategy of walling off neighborhoods purged of minorities in 2006.

In other words, Iraq is so stable now only martial law keeps it stable. And walling off neighborhoods. After the insurgent groups are done with their ethnic cleansing.

Bravo Bush Administration team! You've successfully gotten rid of minority groups in Baghdad! Whoever said ethnic cleansing is a bad thing?

front row view

I look out my window, and the Fox 2 news van was sitting there all afternoon. I always knew that view over to Wachovia would reveal something exciting at some point.

I actually feel a little silly. I consider myself pretty well versed on financial events, but I completely missed the investigation that's been under way against Wachovia for the auction rate securities issues. Apparently Carnahan's office spearheaded a multi-state raid today.

The joke around the office is to pick the law that InBev is going to get in trouble over.

happy fourth of july

I find myself caught today between thoughts of what we have become and what we can become.

How we deal with the people in our government giving terrible, illegal orders will say a lot about whether we're still the revolutionaries, or whether it is we ourselves who are tending toward Despotism and Tyranny, we ourselves who have become the System of Government that must be altered.

What does Independence mean to those who are not free? What does it mean to us as citizens who have a responsibility to ensure their freedom? What does it say about our citizenship if we fail to do so?

Hope is stronger than fear. Tolerance is stronger than hatred. We can make this country better.

Will we?

caught up

Mostly. Email replied to. Laundry done, more or less. Laptop back in the living room. All pictures on the computer. Friends seen, in person, no less.

Woohoo, now this coming week hopefully I will get to actually organizing everything from traveling. Naming pictures, sending things out, cleaning up the room, and figuring out what the rest of the summer has in store. Ooh, and figuring out what Julie wants for her birthday. Not a lot of time until then.

well scratch that

I guess hope will have to wait another day. What a pathetic sellout. Naturally, Clinton and Obama couldn't go on record for the cloture vote.

I've thought of a fun challenge. Try to draft a bill that is so blatantly authoritarian and so blatantly a sell-out to corporate demands that the Democratic leadership would enforce party unity in opposition to it.

people are pissed

(P) And it's a good thing! Nevermind what the candidate of change says. It looks like there has been such massive contempt for the outright corruption and unconstitutionality of the FISA changes from Americans of all political stripes that we might have succeeded again in delaying two very simple, very bad ideas: broad warrantless searches by a government that wouldn't even have to make its reports public, and broad legal immunity for corporations that knowingly broke the law, repeatedly, over a number of years.

There's not much more to add about Senator Obama's stance. He's wrong on the issue, he knows he's wrong on the issue, he knows we know he's wrong on the issue, and he knows we know he has purposefully altered his stance from back when Senator Dodd, former Senator Edwards, Senator Clinton, and others were competing with him for the nomination. Either his campaign staff didn't show up for work this week, they think voters are stupid, or they actually favor the unitary executive/corporate authoritarian worldview permeating this bill. None are particularly appealing options to explore from the campaign of the de facto, barring-more-election-theft next president.

So let's talk about the good that is happening. For example, Senator Dodd continues to impress on this issue, proving that a good strategy and being right can produce results. And Senator Feingold continues to prove that one's stature is strengthened, not weakened, by taking strong positions among constituents in a state that's not solidly Democratic like New York, California-or Illinois (apparently 'centrists' and 'moderates' and 'independents', not to mention leftists and libertarians, like leaders who don't sell out to corporate criminals on basic matters of rights and accountability). And Senator Reid came out (was forced?) to publicly announce he wouldn't support the bill. Even Speaker Pelosi, after ramming the bill through the House, was forced to publicly acknowledge that perhaps spending some time debating the bill (in the Senate) would be a good thing after all.

Who knows, maybe we'll get more speeches like this one from Senator Dodd from other Democrats in the future, on this issue or something else. Click on the link, it's worth listening to. Perhaps the most exciting and refreshing speech since Edwards' talk at the winter DNC meeting last year (warning: it's a tad longer than that speech).

Of course, Senator Obama, it is never too late to change your stance to the right one. Abandon the language of fear and deception, the very rejection of which you are basing your campaign on. Americans know national security is important. We also know this bill has nothing to do with national security. Give us the benefit of the doubt; trust us to handle the Constitution the way you trusted us regarding your pastor. You just might be pleasantly surprised.

who supports criminals?

Pop quiz time. Who said this about legislation designed to prevent powerful companies from being held accountable for criminal activities and to allow even further spying on Americans by unaccountable government leaders?

"It is not all that I would want," [____] said. "But given the legitimate threats that we face, providing effective intelligence collection tools with appropriate safeguards is too important to delay."

A) President Bush
B) Vice President Cheney
C) Senate Minority Leader McConnell
D) Presumptive Republican nominee McCain
E) Presumptive Democratic nominee Obama

If you guessed Obama, you're right.

Wow, this is just unbelievable. Or at least, unbelievable if you think Obama is as progressive as he lets people believe he is. When push comes to shove, he seems quite willing to support corporations, even when they commit felonies. Some guy who smokes a joint will serve more jail time than these criminals! He seems quite willing to do what the Republican leadership demands, no matter how much the very people whose votes he's pursuing despise the policies of the GOP. He seems quite willing to use the same baseless scare tactics and the same hollow deceptions about 'safeguards' as the GOP leaders themselves.

This legislation doesn't even prevent outright spying on Americans. The Executive merely will have to tell the court that they are trying to 'minimize' the information collection on US citizens.

nfl policy debate judge 04j142

Hi! Sorry, I've been overseas traveling, and my judging philosophy didn't get in the Judge Paradigm Book.

Judge 04J142 National Forensic League NFL Nationals 2008 Desert Lights Henderson Las Vegas Nevada Foothill High School FHS judging book paradigm book policy debate cross-examination debate team debate judge code judging code judging philosophy judging paradigm list of judges.

Here's the data in the form it's listed in the Judge Paradigm Book:

04J142 Nathaniel Dempsey Clayton High School MO Yes, No, No, Yes, No, Yes, 7 years, 21-30 rounds, TR, 4, NP, 7, 2, 3, 2, 2, 3, 3.

For Question 1B, I actually did do a tiny bit of policy debate in college (and I did a fair amount of parliamentary debate) but not enough that someone who was on the circuit regularly would consider me to have been an NDT or CEDA debater, so for the purposes of telling you about my experience, the technical answer is I didn't do much CEDA/NDT debate in college.

For Question 3, after TR, I would rank PM, SI, SS, GP, and finally HT.

For Questions 7 through 12, I made notes off to the side:
7) That doesn't necessarily mean I like T debate.
8) If they're actually competitive (CPs)
9) Make sure they link (generic positions)
10) Unless you're talking about things like CPs (conditional positions)
11) Just not too much--I want to see things get done (theory)
12) I don't really like Ks, but if you run it well and give me a clear way to evaluate it, do what you think is best for your strategy (critiques)

[Edit] removed cross-links to other web sites.