Month: June 2013

Autocratic leaders in the Arab world have routinely justified their strongarm tactics by predicting that democracy would lead to bad outcomes. In Iraq, Saddam Hussein talked about the Shiite dogs. In Syria, Assad calls the opposition “terrorists” and says they are linked with al-Qaeda. In Egypt, Mubarak feared the Muslim Brotherhood. In the short term, their predictions had merit. The Sunnis in Iraq no longer enjoy their privileged position. The opposition in Syria really does have links to al-Qaeda. And the Muslim Brotherhood did win the elections in Egypt. But I always thought that given a chance to govern, religious fundamentalists would do a bad job and lose support. The key, then, was to make sure one dictatorship wasn’t replaced with another one. Maybe the first government would be bad, but better, more responsive governments would follow.

It’s too early to know how things will turn out, and each country is different. But, in Egypt, one year of rule by the Muslim Brotherhood seems to have been enough to convince the urban-dwellers that their president needs to go. Much like here, in Egypt, the religious fanatics are numerous but they tend to live in more rural areas. Just because people in New York City loathed George W. Bush didn’t mean that he didn’t have broad public support, and the same is true of Cairo and President Morsi. Still, things are not going well.

I’d rather see the opposition organizing new political parties rather than trying to encourage a coup. The democratic part of politics involves accepting the results of elections. If people don’t like the Muslim Brotherhood’s policies, they should refrain from firebombing their offices and work on voting them out of office. But I am not surprised that people aren’t satisfied with the job they are doing of governing. America felt the same way after eight years of Bush.

Ross Douthat actually seems to understand that efforts to suppress the black vote in 2012 backfired and caused higher black turnout. He also understands that future efforts to suppress black turnout will fail to fix the Republicans’ structural problems. I don’t think he is justified in arguing that the Democrats got a “gift” from the Supreme Court when they gutted the Voting Rights Act, however. All that ruling does is make it easier to do voter suppression efforts. In most cases, such efforts can now only be combatted after the fact. Suppressing votes is suppressing votes, even if the overall effect is to increase black turnout and make it more uniformly supportive of the Democratic Party.

What Douthat’s argument amounts to is a concession that Republicans will not be able to help themselves from pursuing Jim Crow policies, but that their efforts will do more harm to their long-term prospects than actually trying to vie for minority votes would do. I can’t argue with that.

Secretary of State John Kerry says that he made progress in creating conditions to restart peace talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians, but it is hard to gauge. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu still insists on no preconditions for the talks, and he has assured his cabinet that any final agreement will be subject to a national referendum. The lack of preconditions displeases the Palestinian side, but it cuts both ways. The larger problem might be the insistence on a referendum, since it is hard to negotiate with a partner whose ultimate position is subject to a popular vote. It’s also hard to take Israel seriously when they greet discussions of new negotiations with more efforts to build in East Jerusalem. Nonetheless, it is good to see this:

Following Sunday morning’s meeting in Ramallah, the chief Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat, reported progress but said that gaps remained.

‘‘I cannot say we have a breakthrough,’’ he said. ‘‘All I can say once again is no one benefits more from the success of Secretary Kerry than the Palestinians, and no one stands to lose more from its failure than Palestinians.’’

I interpret that as a vote of confidence that the administration is working in good faith, and that’s nothing to sneeze at.

I suppose some Republican heads will explode when they learn that President Obama compared Nelson Mandela to George Washington. But there’s one big difference between them. They both stood up to an oppressive colonial regime. They both won in that struggle. They both helped found their countries. They both served as their country’s first presidents. They both stepped down voluntarily in the interest of promoting democracy.

But Nelson Mandela never owned any slaves.

It sounds like something is afoot in the Middle East and Secretary of State John Kerry might be succeeding in getting some talks going between Israel and the Palestinians.

Mr. Kerry’s decision to rip up his itinerary and stay in Israel has heightened expectations of a potential breakthrough.

After canceling a Saturday news conference in Jordan and a planned trip later that day to the United Arab Emirates, Mr. Kerry flew by helicopter to Amman for a two-hour meeting with Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, and his advisers, including the Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat.

Asked if he was making progress as the meeting got under way, Mr. Kerry replied, “Working hard.”

Mr. Kerry then headed back to Israel for an evening meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, his third such meeting in three days. Tzipi Livni, Israel’s minister of justice and the government’s chief negotiator on the Palestinian issue, and Isaac Molho, Mr. Netanyahu’s special envoy, were to attend the meeting as well, according to a State Department official.

The Jerusalem Post doesn’t seem any better informed. Secretary Kerry may have a press conference tomorrow or he may not. Haaretz is of two minds, with one post confirming the imminent announcement of peace talks and another post saying the two sides are “nowhere near” resuming peace talks.

The Middle East has a way of punishing optimists, but I hope Kerry doesn’t come away from all this empty-handed.

There certainly is plenty to read about Glenn Greenwald today. Learning more about his life is kind of interesting but most of it feels voyeuristic to me. I think the most important revelation is that he has admitted that he approaches journalism the same way he pursued lawsuits. His style is litigious and argumentative and intentionally one-sided. If there is a counterargument to his case, it’s your job to describe it, not his.

As a partisan writer, I know that I am going to be writing things from a certain perspective and I am not necessarily interested in being fair. But there is a little voice in my head that tells me when I am writing something that is factually inaccurate or that is grossly incomplete. When that voice speaks, I obey. Greenwald doesn’t. He puts that voice in a little box titled “opposing counsel.”

This trait is more noticeable to me now that he’s trained his sights on a Democratic administration rather than a Republican one, but it can be seen in his style from the beginning. I admire his moral consistency, but his litigious style undermines his credibility in much the same way as George Will and Charles Krauthammer’s partisan style undermines their credibility. It’s not quite the same, however. Will and Krauthammer will basically say anything if they think it will advance their cause. Greenwald doesn’t make things up or change positions whenever it suits him. But he is intentionally unfair. He’s not even remotely interested in being fair.

And that is something his readers need to know when they are evaluating his arguments. Just like a juror shouldn’t take a prosecutor’s word as Gospel, even people who like and admire Greenwald should read him with a skeptical eye.

I find the coverage of Paula Deen troubling. Take this CBS News piece as an example. It reports that Ms. Deen’s new cookbook has been dropped by her publisher despite being ranked number one on Amazon due to pre-orders. The article also mentions that Ms. Deen’s contract isn’t being renewed with The Food Network and that she has lost a host of sponsorships and business relationships. But what is the reason for all this hostility to Ms. Deen?

Deen has lost many of her business relationships following revelations that she used racial slurs in the past.

The New York Times piece on the same subject is little better. While it notes that she was deposed in a civil case, it provides little more information.

Since last week, the Food Network, Smithfield Foods, Walmart, Target, Caesars Entertainment, QVC and the pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk have decided to suspend or sever ties with Ms. Deen after her admission in a legal deposition that she had used racist language in the past and allowed racist, sexist, homophobic and anti-Semitic jokes in one of her restaurants. Ms. Deen was deposed on video as part of a discrimination lawsuit filed last year by a former employee.

But the allegations in the civil suit go far beyond the use of the ‘n’ word. The allegations include racial discrimination in the workplace, sexual harassment, and physical intimidation. As for the ‘n’ word, it is alleged that Paula Dean wanted the caterers at her brother’s wedding to be “a bunch of little n***ers to wear long-sleeve white shirts, black shorts and black bow ties, you know in the Shirley Temple days, they used to tap dance around…” They include the allegation that Deen’s brother said they should send President Obama to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico so he could “n***er-rig it.”

I don’t know if these allegations are true, but they help explain why businesses are running away from Ms. Deen. You can’t responsibly report on these severances of business relationships without explaining what the controversy involves.

Those of us that can remember back to early 2003 watched the one man that could have stopped the insanity of a war with Iraq choose not to do the right thing.  Because the doing “right thing” is rarely as easy as the alternative.  Tens of thousands of lives lost and four trillion dollars squandered because when that man’s courage was tested, it was shown not to exist.

At the Socialism 2013 Conference, Jeremy Scahill and Glenn Greenwald speak of courage when one has the opportunity to do the “right thing.”  And who and what those that trash such messengers serve.  It’s worth the fifty-four minutes to listen.

Hello again painting fans.

This week I will be continuing with the painting of the Porsche 928.  The photo that I am using is seen directly below.  I will be using my usual acrylics on an 11×14 gallery-wrapped canvas.

When last seen, the painting appeared as it does in the photo directly below.

Since that  time, I have continued working on the painting.

Essentially, I have gone over the entire painting.  The car now appears more solid with its edges and contours defined by black lines.  These shall disappear with further applications of paint.  I hope to have the highlights and shadows define the contours as things progress.  Moving below, the pavement and shadow have both received another layer of paint.  To the rear, I have painted in the main elements comprising the building and the far horizon, such as it is.  I’m not completely happy with the leading edge of the car.  Both that and the car’s surface/reflections will be the subjects for next week.

The current state of the painting is seen directly below.

I’ll have more progress to show you next week.  See you then.

Earlier paintings in this series can be seen here.

I don’t think there is any doubt that there is a majority in the House of Representatives that supports the Senate’s version of the comprehensive immigration reform bill. That is probably the most important fact that you need to know. Speaker Boehner is in a vise that is going to tighten. Supporters of reform, which include the Chamber of Commerce, Silicon Valley, Wall Street, and Big Agriculture, are going to act like a boa constrictor on the leadership of the GOP. It should be interesting to watch.