Month: September 2005

This is the weekly summary of the Humanist Network News (HNN). The Humanist Network News (HNN) is published every Wednesday via e-mail and on the Institute for Humanist Studies (IHS) Web site. This diary is a slightly reformatted copy of the weekly email they send me, which I post here every Thursday. (CP @ DKos, MLW, BT)

September 28, 2005
Humanist Network News
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

1. Secular lobbyist vs. O’Reilly
2. Top bioethicists discuss cloning at the UN
3. A Mohawk challenge to Pledge of Allegiance
4. IHS in the News
5. IHS introduces Women’s Studies intern
6. A fine balance
7. Sweet Reason reader remarks
8. Film Review: 2046
9. Letters to the Editor
10. Cathartic Comics
11. Humanist Humor
12. Poll of the Week

Summaries and links across the break. As always, anyone and everyone is more than welcome to write a more in depth diary on any of the stories.

1. Secular lobbyist vs. O’Reilly
As of HNN publication time, Secular Coalition for America lobbyist Lori Lipman Brown was scheduled to appear on The O’Reilly Factor tonight. MORE This was on last night, but I wasn’t able to watch. I am still searching for the transcript or video online. If I find it, I will post it after work. If you find it, please post a link in the comments. Thanks.

2. Top bioethicists discuss cloning at the UN
On Monday, the IHEU-Appignani Center for Bioethics hosted its first panel discussion. About 70 people attended the event to hear top bioethics speak about the future of cloning. Ana Lita, the center’s director, reports on the event. MORE

3. A Mohawk challenge to Pledge of Allegiance
A group of Mohawks and other American Indians living in Akwesasne may sue nearby public schools in New York state to eliminate the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance — in its entirety. Tim Gordinier, IHS public policy director, was contacted by a representative of this group this summer. See what he thinks about the latest development. MORE

4. IHS in the News
The Las Vegas Sun interviews IHS staffer about the Secular Coalition. Plus, a letter to the editor by IHS Public Policy Director Tim Gordinier on teaching “intelligent design.” MORE

5. IHS introduces Women’s Studies intern
The Institute for Humanist Studies is proud to introduce our newest intern. MORE

6. A fine balance
Canadian columnist Doug Thomas gets “old-school” in his plans to protest a mandatory school ceremony that involves a religious invocation. MORE

7. Sweet Reason reader remarks
Sweet Reason digs into her mailbag to share with us a few remarks from readers on recent advice columns. MORE

8. Film Review: 2046
Film critic Carolyn Braunius writes: “2046 is a dark, surrealistic exploration into what it means to be in love.” MORE

9. Letters to the Editor
Letters on Newdow’s pledge challenge, genital mutilation, racism, humanism in Africa and MORE

10. Cathartic Comics
…an assortment of cartoons and comic strips about humanism, atheism, religion, science and freethought. MORE

11. Humanist Humor
On New York’s Upper West Side lived a secular Jewish man who was a staunch atheist. Find out what happens when he sends his son to Trinity School. GET THE JOKE

12. Poll of the Week
If reproductive human cloning were viable, would you support it? CAST YOUR VOTE

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About the IHS:

The IHS promotes nonreligious perspectives on social, political, and ethical issues and serves as a resource for and about the humanist community. Questions, comments, concerns, got a better joke or a story? Send a letter to the editor.

If anything here interests you, you may also be interested in my diary on what it is like to be a secular humanist in today’s political climate: I Am The Boogeyman.

One of the problematic issues regarding blogs, both liberal and conservative, is the blurred line between journalism and personal “diaries.” Often, in the most extreme situations, such as the War in Iraq and post Katrina New Orleans, individual bloggers on the ground provide much of the information that reaches the outside world.

The reasons for this are three fold: first, modern communications are like modern electricity. Integrated and networked into grids, it becomes relatively easy for the primary means of communication like phones, cell phones, and the internet to be knocked out for days and weeks across wide areas.

Second, mobility for media members in a war zone or disaster area is greatly hampered, if not outright impossible. For instance, we have seen that media members in Iraq are a primary target of personal attacks and kidnappings. Thus, the first hand knowledge of events by the media is almost completely lost.

Third, the requirements of journalistic ethics coupled with problems of mobility and communications, make reporting about modern warfare and disasters a tortuously slow, even impossible task for the media.

Into this breach step individual bloggers at the scene who “report” what they see in a “(wo)man on the street” fashion.

Of course, there is no way for readers to ascertain the veracity of these posts, or even if the “(wo)man on the street” is even really on THAT street.

One can easily imagine a  creative blogger sitting in his or her living room a thousand miles away, armed with media reports and perhaps some personal knowledge of the disaster area, transmitting post upon post across the internets from afar about the disaster which they are “seeing” “first hand.”

I am not suggesting or accusing anyone here of practicing this type of trickery, only that it would seem a very simple feat for someone to perform.

And anyway, that is not my point. Moulitsas claims no responsibility for the content of the diaries posted on his blog, yet he appears to be endorsing some over others by elevating some to the front page or the recommended reading list. I would guess BooMan follows the same philosophy.

Whether this position is legally tenable is beyond my knowledge, however, even if not legally responsible for content, community blog owners are most certainly ethically and morally responsible for their “sanctioning” of certain diary content by placement on the website, ie main page or recommended list.

I am not sure that community weblogs such as this one break much new or worthwhile information. I am sure that they seize upon certain issues and echo them loudly enough, building momentum in a populist groundswell which eventually forces mainstream media attention upon the issue.
Fine and dandy. The liberal blogosphere is often compared with conservative talk radio because both seize upon certain issues in certain ways and feed them through their “bases” to the mainstream media, or into the mainstream political discussion.

However, as we all know, the “facts” presented on the conservative talk radio are often simple propoganda.
It is not a stretch to assume that much of the “facts” echoing through the liberal blogosphere are no less propogandistic.

The problem comes to roost when the “facts” echoing around both on the right and left begin to compete with reality for attention. Even worse, when the “facts” lead to misguided action or inaction.

A story has been posted today on the NY times website (do I really need to link it?) which points out that several weeks after events reported on the ground in the media and echoed throughout the land by both left and right echo chambers much of the “reported” horrors at the Superdome, Convention Center and elsewhere were either urban myths, or blown up so large as to be completely out of sync with reality.

Big deal, you might say? We need to expand the political discussion, so lets play this opportunity for all it is worth, you might say, in order to gain political advantage?

Again, fine and dandy, but the NYT story also points out a dark syde to the echoing of propoganda. It now turns out that many of the “reported” facts actually hampered and in some cases stopped the immediate evacuation and relief efforts by authorities because of the “reported” dangers.

For instance, you remember that the first attempts to pluck victims off roofs by helicopter were stopped for a day because it was reported that one helicopter was under fire from the ground.

Guess what? Now investigators confirm the helicopter was NOT under fire. Thats just one example of many in this article where the myths and exaggerations of the truth got in the way of rescue efforts, at best causing delays and at worst costing people their lives.

The liberal blogosphere has a responsibility to the truth. It is not okay, in my opinion, for liberals to excuse lies because they are uttered by victims, or because the conservatives lie all the time too.

I have read this blog with a great deal of interest because the writing is higher quality than most and the members seemingly more willing to engage in real debate than most. I post here once in a while, but not anywhere else. I admire many contributors words, thoughts and sentiments.

However, I noticed during the Katrina crisis there seemed to be a willingness on the part of many in the liberal blogging community to suspend disbelief, and in fact actively and knowingly engage in the echoing of rumors and innuendo because it suited perceived social and political ends.

I am a college student. I am apolitical because I do not trust either the right or left in this country. Both are absolutely corrupted. I vote green or I dont vote. Period.

I would say my social views fall a lot more in line with the views on the left, but I am saddened to see the blogging left follow the same path to corruption of the truth which the right has used to enrich their rule by taking our once great nation down the slippery slope towards an Orwellian nightmare.

OK Senators, today is the day we see what you are made of. Bush’s numbers are in the toilet, there is rampant dysfunction, corruption and ineptness in everything the man has touched for almost 5 long years. Here is a Supreme Court nomination that is one giant Trojan Horse, guaranteed to bedevil the very Democrats who elected you for the next 30 years. What you do now will affect all of us for ages to come and we are watching you today so we know just how to spend our political dollars as well as cast our votes next year and beyond.

Remember that this nominee has a very slim paper trail, which is why he was chosen. What little paper there is on Roberts is being withheld from you and it is being kept from you for one reason and one reason only: it defines him and is the reason Bush has nominated Roberts to sit along with the two justices he has publicly favored, Scalia and Thomas. There is a reason why the Neocons and Fundies have been quiet throughout this process and that is because they have been assured that Roberts is everything they have been longing for.

Your job as Senate Democrats is to see that they do not get this and today is your day to fight back with your vote. Your constituents will understand when you tell them that you cannot vote for a man when the relevant documents have not been handed over to you, but your constiuents will not forgive you when every month for the foreseeable future they watch the Supreme Court dismantle our freedoms and allow corporations, religious fundamentalists and the uber-wealthy to run rampant over our way of life. Act now or we will all suffer the consequences.

cross-posted at Liberal Streetfighter

[duped from dKos]

Lower taxes, smaller government, stronger military, better values. The Republican Creed. What do they all have in common, besides being diametrically opposed to the real-world effects of Republican policies?

None of these goals are finally attainable. You can always lower taxes further, shrink the government more, discover new ways to attack gays. The struggle never ends.

(flip the flop)
There are other benefits, too. You know exactly what to blame for all the evil in the world: high taxes, big government, anti-military sentiment, bad values. You force political opponents into insupportable positions: ‘They’re for high taxes! They’re for a weak military! They’re for bad values!’ Finally, this ‘creed’ appeals to ‘common sense’ and base emotions: the drive to be richer and stronger and better. What kinda freak doesn’t want that?

Not me. I wanna be better, stronger, and richer, and I want my country to be better, stronger, and richer too. This Administration, for all its incompetence, cronyism, and dangerous naivete, has done one wonderful thing for me: I’m more patriotic now than I’ve ever been.

Watching these people loot my country infuriates me. Watching them destroy our reputation, undermine our military, endander our children, poison our rivers, destroy our forests, attack our schools … they’re fucking with America here. They’re sending my brothers and sisters to die for a pipe-dream, they’re selling my children into debt-servitude, stealing from my parents, destroying my economy and playing politics as my cities crumble.

They’re an insult to a great nation, a danger to the best country on earth. That’s right: the best country on earth.

Screw anything else. Screw policies and programs. What do Democrats stand for? American First. American Number One. USA! USA! USA!

This is the best country on earth, and anything less than Number One is unacceptable. Anything less than first is shameful. Anything less than the best is a crime.

Right now, where do we stand?

• 22nd among developed nations on childhood poverty.
• 41st in the world in infant mortality.
• 49th in the world in literacy.
• 37th in terms of overall health performance, and 54th in fairness of health care.
• 13th in total quality of life.
• 8th on the United Nations Human Development Index–in 1990 we were ranked 1st.
• 27th in percentage of population in poverty.
• 15th in women’s reproductive health.
• 27th of 28 countries in life expectancy at birth.
• 51st of 142 nations in environmental sustainability.
• And Europe surpassed the US in the mid-1990s as the largest producer of scientific literature.

Blame America First? Are you kidding? How about we make America first? We’re THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, we must be the best by every measure, because we are the best.
Number one on quality of life, women’s reproductive health, education and poverty and environmental sustainability and health care and science. Democrats shouldn’t accept one single silver medal. We want gold, down the line.

America First. Biggest military? You bet. Most money? Without a doubt. But we already win those events. Time we focus on the shameful areas where we’re losing. We need to win the highest percentage of citizens covered by the finest health care system, the best schools for all our children, the cleanest air and water, the most opportunity for every single demographic, the lowest poverty, the best-paid workers.

Anything less is an insult to this great nation. Figure the specific policies and programs later, crunch the numbers, evaluate the feedback later: those are vitally important … but just details. First we need a goal. A unifying ideal. A simple heartfelt message. America First. America Number One.

Click Image to Enlarge

Roy Moore, the disgraced former Chief Judge of the Alabama Supreme Court is thinking of making a comeback — a run for the GOP nomination for governor of Alabama in 2006.  According to the web site We Need Moore, the web site of the Draft Roy Moore campaign (backed by Conservative Christians of Alabama), Mr. Moore will make his intentions known in what is described as “a major announcement” on Monday, October 3 at 1:00pm in Gadsen, Alabama, Moore’s hometown.  “This will be an historic occasion,” according to We Need Moore. “The eyes of the nation are upon Alabama. We need a crowd to show support for Judge Roy Moore and the media that we have strength. Ya’ll come and bring a carload.”
Moore, popularly known as the “Ten Commandments Judge” is thought to be a serious contender against the business oriented incumbent Republican governor, Bob Riley.  Moore is also said to be seeking to field a full slate of candidates for statewide office.

On the Democratic side, the Associated Press reports that current Lt. Gov. Lucy Baxley is expected to square off against former Gov. Don Sielgleman.

Moore is best known for installing a two and a half ton monument to the Ten Commandments in the state courthouse, shortly after his election as Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court. A federal judge declared that the monument was religious display that violated the constitutional separation of church and state and ordered Roy’s rock removed. Moore refused to remove the monument and was subsequently removed from office. In so doing, he became a national hero of the Christian Right, and a central figure in far right efforts to undermine the federal judiciary.

As much as many Christian Right pols are a departure from the golf club Republicanism of much of the latter 20th century, Moore is a further departure, representing an overtly and confrontationally theocratic politics — reminiscent of the pugnacious populism of former Gov. George Wallace.  

The Birmingham News recently reported about one of Moore’s recent appearances at a church in Ozark, Alabama:  “More than 200 people filled the green pews of the Glory to Him Church to hear Roy Moore preach about God and government on a humid Thursday night. “We will always be one nation under God. No federal court, no federal government, no state government can deny it,” Moore thundered.  “Amen” the crowd answered back.

I have been somewhat troubled by the whole concept of “peak oil” in that I think it is misapplied as to what may actually be going on.  Below are some excerpts from Doug Henwood’s newsletter Left Business Observer, Issue No. 111 — not available for reading on the net, sadly:

No doubt we will run out of [oil] someday.  But there’s still 40 years of it in the ground — and the industry isn’t trying that hard to find more of it.  Worldwide, about 2,700 rigs are drilling for oil; that’s doubled from the lows of 2000, but it’s still less than half the peak of 6,148 in 1982.  Major oil companies have kept their exploration budgets in check to please their stockholders, who prefer high profits to busy rigs.  Thanks to that tightfistedness, expertise and equipment are now in short supply.  The number of petroleum engineers in the U.S. — historically the home to much of the world’s talent — is half what it was 20 years ago. These human and material shortages are driving up costs and slowing down fresh exploration.

I’ll add here that this applies to refining capacity, too.  Oligopolies/monopolies always prefer raising prices to their customers to actually providing real service.

Henwood goes on to write about the politics of it, specifically,  

…[the] greens have embraced it, apparently hoping that we’ll react rationally, and finally come to our senses about SUVs, sprawl, and melting icecaps — providing a nice shortcut around messy political agitation.  That’s very optimistic.  It could be that fear of peak oil might inspire a furious rush to find more oil — and make dirtier fuels like coal and nuclear seem more attractive.

Indeed, what I’m hearing from the pols is precisely that scenario — ANWAR, coal and nukes.

So why go to war?  To protect the cheapness of the supply and thus uphold “shareholder value.”  And to pass that cost onto the working class, in taxes on their already meager incomes, and in their blood and the blood of their young — a little business secret called “externalization of costs.”

Crossposted on my very own BLOG

Well.  It’s official.  Tom Delay has been indicted for something we have known all along.  He is crooked.  How the world has ignored this fact for as long as it has is a testament to the power of one-party rule and media intimidation. My response to this news is, “It’s about time.”

My response to the headlines that the SEC has opened a complete investigation of Bill Frist’s financial stock holdings and dealings is the very same, “It’s about time.”  I repeat the mantra when I think of the impending indictment of Karl Rove and the criminality that is being exposed. Incompetence. Corruption. Cronyism. It’s all there and has been in full view.  Yes. “It’s about time.”

The jail cells are over the flip.  Care to join me?
It seems that BushCo and its Republican Party subsidiaries are crumbling under the weight of their pathological corruption.  The only detail remaining to be seen is how far will it all go.  How deep into the fabric of the congressional Republican power structure will the unraveling thread extend? Have they knitted sufficient firewalls to protect state and county GOP party machinery? I ask these questions because I, along with many other ePluribus Media members, have been investigating the extent of the Republican Media Complex for the past six months and have an understanding of how they weave the relationships of money and favors that is the fabric of their organization.

I was taught by an acting teacher long ago one of the great lessons. She told me that, “Your strength is your weakness.” At first I didn’t get it, but it became clear as I grew older and it’s the best piece of wisdom I have ever received. In my case, she meant that as an actor I would always play to my strengths and, as a result, not work on my weaknesses. In the short run, she argued, I may book a sitcom or soap or movie and make out quite well…for a while.  But, without the skills to play other parts, where would I be when the public tired of my act? A great example of an actor who never let himself get pegged into one type of role is Dustin Hoffman. Think of how he challenged himself and grew as an actor, and, as a result, has had a long and prosperous career.

Now, what has Dustin Hoffman’s career got to do with the fall of the Republican Party? Nothing directly, but everything in the big picture.

You see, the biggest strength of the Republican Media Complex may also prove to be its biggest weakness. Those of us who have been looking have been forced to admire, in a perverse way, how integrated the RMC has become. It’s the main reason they have been so effective. The central control of money and message has been their strong suit and has led to this Republican age.  It certainly hasn’t been their policies and platform.  Those have been on the losing side for decades, but by building interconnected and interdependent money and power relationships throughout the country, they have managed to craft an astoundingly consistent, well financed and winning organization.

For example.  All money travels through the Abramoff-Delay, pay-to-play wing of the Republican Party.  We discovered how the message, even in local races, is dictated from Karl Rove’s office. The media distribution, too, is controlled centrally. How many times have we seen talking points emerge from the White House, then distributed to Rush and Sean for afternoon delivery and finally to O’Rilley for nighttime repetition only to have it appear in the MSM the next day. This is not done by accident.  This is how they do things. Top down, centrally controlled and funded, with favors and return favors being the yarn that holds it all together.  That is their strength.

BUT, as my acting teacher taught me…IT’S ALSO THEIR WEAKNESS. And now comes the fun part. Hopefully with the aid of some good prosecutors and investigators, we will get to watch that great big sweater of interconnected favoritism all come apart…because they knitted it for strength, never noticing that they were also building their weakness.  

You see, they knitted their sweater with few, long single threads instead of many short ones. As a result, all it will take is for one of them to break for it all to become one pile of yarn.

Personally, I intend to grab my popcorn and watch, as their once overpowering strength becomes their undoing weakness.

“It’s about time.”

Many of us here have learned a lot from Dancing Larry’s Alinsky posts. I thought, since they were mentioned a couple of times in Meteor Blade’s diary, I thought I’d post a quick set of links to Larry’s posts, in honor of the giant shit kos took on activists today:

Talkin’ Organizing, Vol. I: A Tale from the City

Talkin Organizing, Vol. II: Meet Saul Alinsky

Talkin’ Organizing: Vol III. Raising a Stink in Rochester

Talkin’ Organizing, Vol IV: Ego! Power! Leaders & Organizers

Talkin’ Organizing, Vol V: Rosa Parks, Community Organizer

Talkin’ Organizing, Vol. VI: How I Became a Citizen Activist

Talkin’ Organizing, Vol. VII: Interests, Friends, and Politicians

Talkin’ Organizing, Vol. VIII: The Do Re Mi

Talkin’ Organizing, Vol IX: Ends and Beginnings

Talkin’ Organizing, Vol X: Ethics, Means and Ends

Pens to the Pentagon

Alinsky Exercise: Rule #5 and “Virginia Fundies Gone Wild!”

For those of you who haven’t, please check them out.

Markos of Daily Kos on the subject of antiwar protests:

“…my biggest problem with anti-war protests is that they’re obsolete. What do they accomplish? Historians still argue about the role Vietnam-era protests had on ending the war (shortened it versus prolonged it). But today, they mean nothing.”

So, what do they accomplish?

As David Greenberg, a teacher at Rutgers, wrote in Slate, March 2003:

“Protesting war isn’t some Vietnam-era relic, like love beads or Country Joe McDonald, but an American democratic tradition.”

Let’s look at that tradition.

Greenberg’s lengthy article, titled “Advise and Dissent: How anti-war protest movements have made the U.S. stronger” explores the roots of American antiwar protests and their effects on societal change:

And, on Vietnam:

One can debate the effects of any antiwar protest but to claim, as Markos does, that today’s protests “mean nothing” is to ignore the value of all protest movements worldwide, throughout history.

Have we arrived in an era where public demonstrations of opposition are worthless? Tell that to the people of the Ukraine who launched their Orange Revolution to protest electoral fraud in 2004. Tell it to the protesters in Tiananmen Square. Tell that to those who marched in the US Civil Rights Movement. Tell that to anyone who has gathered with like-minded individuals to stand for peace and human rights anywhere in the world.

How do you measure the success of a protest march? Is it measured by the need for instant gratification that so pervades western society today? Is it measured by a sudden and abrupt end to the Iraq war? Is it measured by President Bush resigning? Is it measured by how many media cameras are present? Is it measured by how much coverage the big cable networks give it? I say no.

Success is measured in many ways and the subtle measures are perhaps the most powerful. Did the protest cause even one person to change their mind? Did the protest inform and educate? Did the protest display the importance of free speech in a democracy and the protection of such a valuable right that is threatened daily by those in power? Did the protest give voice to the passion of those who otherwise would have no outlet? Did the protest strengthen the community and groups involved to pursue more efforts in the struggle for their cause? Did the protest inspire thought and reconsideration of entrenched beliefs? Did the protest speak for the dead and suffering? Did the protest spread the message of the dire need for compassion in this world?

That is how we must measure success. Anything less is meaningless. Today’s protests do mean something. There is absolutely no doubt about that and don’t let anyone tell you that when 2 or more people gather together to raise their voices they are involved in something fruitless or futile. Only a defeatist with no faith in the collective voice would believe that. The collective voice has proven them wrong – for centuries.