Author: Arminius

Today’s New York Times has an
incredible editorial about the call of Cardinal Mahoney of Los Angeles for all Christians to practice civil disobediance against the looming new immigration “reforms.” Excerpts below–
March 3, 2006, Editorial

“The Gospel vs. H.R. 4437”

It has been a long time since this country heard a call to organized lawbreaking on this big a scale. Cardinal Roger Mahony of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, the nation’s largest, urged parishioners on Ash Wednesday to devote the 40 days of Lent to fasting,
prayer and reflection on the need for humane reform of immigration laws. If current efforts in Congress make it a felony to shield or offer support to illegal immigrants, Cardinal Mahony said, he will instruct his priests – and faithful lay Catholics – to defy the law.

The cardinal’s focus of concern is H.R. 4437, a bill sponsored by James Sensenbrenner Jr. of Wisconsin and Peter King of New York. This grab bag legislation, which was recently passed by the House, would expand the definition of “alien smuggling” in a way that could theoretically include working in a soup kitchen, driving a friend to a bus stop or caring for a neighbor’s baby. Similar language appears in legislation being considered by the Senate this week.

*

Cardinal Mahony’s defiance adds a moral
dimension to what has largely been a debate about politics and economics.

*

The cardinal is right to argue that the government has no place criminalizing the charitable impulses of private institutions like his, whose mission is to help people with no questions asked.

*

Cardinal Mahony’s declaration of solidarity with illegal immigrants, for whom Lent is every day, is a startling call to civil disobedience, as courageous as it is timely. We hope it forestalls the day when works of mercy become a federal crime.

******
And here’s a
link to a short article on this by an immigration lawyer.

A comment of mine on a good diary this evening about our friend Riverbend in Baghdad grew to be longer than I expected, and I’d like to post it here again as a diary. I’m curious what you all think. We all think we know so much about all of this, and yet so much is opaque.

>>>>>>>>

Who would profit from an all-out war between the Sunnis and Shias in Iraq?

……………

The Persians? It seems inconceivable that the clerics who rule Iran would bomb Shia mosques. But do they have a Machiavellian wing?

The Saudis? Inconceivable.

The Jordanians? Nope.

The Syrians? Seems inconceivable, they’re so outnumbered.

The Turks? I can imagine some spook tale scenarios involving control of Kirkuk. But it seems inconceivable.

Al Qaeda? Obvious culprit. Chaos creates hellhole for Americans, etc. But I don’t think this makes sense.

The Americans? Improbable, but not inconceivable.

The Chinese and the Russians? Now we’re cooking with gas.

The Chinese and the Russians kick the Americans out of the Middle East, destabilize the Saudis, and strengthen their ties with Iran. That makes sense. I’ll bet that’s what she’s talking about.

……………. (more below)
Of course, it may just be an out-of-control escalation of tit-for-tat atrocities between two groups (Sunnis and Shias) who have hated each other for centuries. The Sunnis in Iraq beat the hell out of the Shias for decades. Now the Shias, with their Interior Ministry death squads, have been retaliating. And so forth.

***

My own take on things: I suspect the Ba’athist Party of Syria (Iraq and Syria were the only two countries dominated by that totalitarian party, which was built on the model of the Nazis and the Italian Fascists during the 1930s and 1940s), which is vindictive, evil, secular (and wouldn’t mind blowing up mosques), and is driven above all else by the desire to knock the Americans out of Iraq.

I’ve spent five years fulminating every day about Bush’s lies and incompetence and damage to this country. It’s easy to see (if you’re not part of the cult like my father) that Bush has a dull mind. But his handlers and speechwriters sometimes are amazingly good at propaganda.

Listening to NPR last night, I was struck by one Bush sentence that was played in a sound-bite. This was something Bush said Monday at Kansas State University, where he is taking the audacious approach of defending his policy of extrastatutory domestic wiretapping as a good thing that makes him better than Democrats.

He said this, adamantly and defiantly (I don’t have a transcript, but this is very close to an exact quotation):  “The federal courts have upheld the right of the president to conduct foreign intelligence operations against our enemies!”

That sentence is a gem of misdirection, a masterpiece of propaganda.  The sentence itself, taken out of context, is literally true! In context, however, it encapsulates at least three major lies. Count the lies! How many lies can you see in that one sentence?

<answer below>
Well, there are at least three:

1. Yes, it is true that federal courts have made such rulings. But they were all prior to the enactment of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) in 1978. So they are no longer the controlling law!
2. Yes, they permitted the president to conduct foreign surveillance. But we’re complaining about domestic surveillance!
3. Yes, of course even a diehard leftie would like the president to be able to monitor “our enemies.” But we’re complaining about surveillance of us!

Especially after listening to me fulminate about Bush and Republicans for the last five years, my wife has become rather astute at reading between the lines and seeing past the piffle on television. However, last night I asked her if she could see anything wrong with that sentence (presented with no commentary), and it sailed right over her head. (Of course, she has been suffering from stomach flu, so she gets extra credit.)

I was thinking strongly, however: I bet the compressed lies in a sentence like that sail over the heads of the great majority of the population.

I don’t think you can “debate” with someone who is systematically spewing sophisticated lies like that. I don’t think you can “discuss” that kind of perspective in the media’s false-equivalence atmosphere. I think you have to use clear language:  “That’s a lie. Here’s why. That’s a lie. Here’s why. That’s a lie. Here’s why.”

John Kerry has never been able to do it. Al Gore darn sure did this last week.

Everyone who opposes George W. Bush and the authoritarians who have taken over the U.S. government MUST carefully listen to Al Gore’s brilliant speech given today in Washington! It was the best speech I’ve ever seen in almost 50 years of following politics. I’m in awe.

Fuck the media!!! Let’s say that again:  FUCK THE MEDIA!!! If they don’t have the IQ or the courage to recognize an important statement like Gore’s today, then what . . . Arthur Gilroy is mainly right, I’m sorry to say. We just have to turn them off. Stop watching TV. Stop reading newspapers. It’s our country. We still have the Internet. The current media should all be destroyed.

I’m not an organizer. I’m a lawyer in his 50s who has suffered so much from the destruction of the rule of law over the last five years that … I’m starting to think a lot about crazy, desperate actions, like moving to New Zealand, or acts of anger.

Al Gore’s speech today was the most beautiful thing I’ve heard in many years. I’m going to do my own pitiful part to make sure lots of people hear what he said, and I hope you all will do the same. It could not possibly be more important.

And I hope people get together to draft him for president. God almighty how good it would be going to sleep at night knowing a smart and decent man was in the White House!!!!!

I often think: How could this country have sunk so low from its founders? How could we be blessed by so many truly blessed men, and end up with a little shit like George Bush? How could any adult human being watch the debates between Gore and Bush or Kerry and Bush and vote for Bush??? It really boggles my mind.

But watch Gore’s speech today. You’ll see a real mind at work, someone who doesn’t just mouth-breath and parrot someone else’s words like Bush, but a real thinker who is also a real, deep patriot. Damn! Watch it. It was a truly great speech, much much better than I’d expected.

And another thing about it…my wife and I watched it on C-SPAN, and we were blown away. One thing that was amazing was Gore’s deep, strong, resonant voice. He projected power and genuine majesty. I’ve heard a few clips on the radio and TV today, and somehow they have it mixed so that the strength of his voice does not come through, almost as if they’ve deliberately put on some kind of castration filter. That sounds paranoid, but I found the contrast striking in the radio this afternoon. Don’t just listen to an Internet feed. Try to get a good copy of the C-SPAN feed. (I’m looking for that myself tonight.)

You might be surprised. This is not something that should just sink into oblivion. This was a REALLY great speech, which is connected to the fact that is’s a real act of courage to give it. I hope Mr. Gore does not fly in any small planes for the next few years.

I happened to turn on C-SPAN last night just in time to see the craven U.S. Congress pass the Sensenbrenner bill H.R. 4437 by a margin of 239-182. 17 Republicans were opposed, but 36 Democrats voted for it.

Among other horrors, Section 202(a) of the bill amends Section 274(a)(1)(C) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S. Code Sec. 1324) to make it a felony to:  “assist . . . a person to reside in or remain in the
United States, or to attempt to reside in or remain in the United States, knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that such person is an alien who lacks lawful authority to reside in or remain in the United States.”

The bill also provides for forfeiture of all assets of a person who does that.

That language is so broad that it criminalizes all the work of everybody, including church groups, charities, lawyers, private citizens, who act in any way to help a person who is technically out of immigration status for whatever reason. As I’ve noted in other posts here, millions of people go technically out of status due to incompetence, errors, and delays of the U.S. government in processing applications or petitions for change or extension of status, even though they were lawfully admitted, have never broken the law, have American families and friends and neighbors, etc.

That section may–or may not–get removed when the House and Senate conferees meet next Spring. And it remains to be seen whether any prosecutor would really try to use that language against an honorable charity or law firm.

But I think it’s really shocking (although not really surprising) that the House could pass something like that. And 36 Democrats joined in!!

There is nothing about this in today’s news, except for brief sound bites about how Congress is “cracking down on illegal aliens.”

My wife and I have already decided to draw the line here. If we have to practice civil disobedience over this law, that’s the way it’s going to be. I have at least 20 clients right now who are temporarily out of status due to government errors or delay, or due to misconduct of other lawyers, that I am assisting to remain in the United States through lawful means. Over the years I’ve helped hundreds of people in that kind of situation, and I’ve been successful in almost every case. No way I’ve been committing crimes. And no way I’m going to abandon my clients, to whom I have sacred duties, in the face of threats from a stupid herd of pig-faced fascists like Sensenbrenner.

In approximately 2,000 years there have been 265 popes of the Roman Catholic Church. The pope is the Bishop of Rome, who is considered “primus inter pares” (first among equals) among the thousands of bishops of the church. (Incidentally, it is often said that popes claim to speak infallibly, but in fact there has only been ONE infallible pronouncement, in 1950, but that’s another story.)

In all that time, there are only two popes who are considered “great.” The first was Leo the Great, who personally persuaded Attila the Hun in 452 to draw back his great host and not attack Rome. That was a tale of really legendary personal and spiritual courage.

The second was Karol Wojtila, Pope John Paul II, who just died this year. Ex-Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev published an op-ed piece in the New York Times in the early 1990s saying that it was that one man, John Paul II, who was responsible for bringing down the evil Soviet empire. Wojtila’s story involves immense spiritual and physical courage, under the Nazi domination in Poland, under the subsequent Soviet domination, and on into a world dominated by the American empire.

Tomight I watched the first half of a new CBS two-part mini-series on the life of Pope John Paul II. The other half is Wednesday night at 8. It stars Cary Elwes (from Princess Bride) as the young pope, and Jon Voigt as the older pope.

Gosh, it was good. It skimmed the surface of an incredibly dense story that could take days or years to tell. But it was fine cinema.

One thing it minimized–because this doesn’t make for good TV drama–is that Wojtila wasn’t just a “bookish” person. He is one of the all-time great heavy-weight Catholic philosophers. I almost got a Ph.D. in philosophy at a Catholic university in the 1980s, and everybody held him in awe as a thinker.

But that was a small part of who he was. He was mainly a giant of courage, physical and spiritual courage, and the first part of this mini-series did a good job showing that. I usually hate sappy TV movies, but this one had me riveted.

You might want to catch the second part on Wednesday night, which covers his years as pope. (The first part mainly showed him dodging Nazis and Communists in his youth.) I’m going to tape it.

Incidentally, of course this movie just skims the surface. In reality, so far as I’ve heard, Wojtila was much more of a womanizer, drinker, and wild poet in his youth than you see in this saint’s story. But that’s okay. God knows.

Knoxville Progressive had an interesting short diary this morning that said the following:

U.S. Patent Issued for Anti-Gravity Device

by Knoxville Progressive
Thu Nov 10th, 2005 at 09:42:00 AM EDT
Let’s see – the regime that has given us or promoted the following scientific advances:

    * Intelligent Design (biology)
    * Video Diagnosis (Frist procedure to test for brain activity)
    * “Global Warming is a myth” (climatology)
    * too many disastrous environmental decisions to name…
    * Kabbala Holy Water to protect FL citrus crops (agriculture)

…has now moved into the realm of physics, as reported by UPI:

    The journal Nature said patent 6,960,975 was granted Nov. 1 [seven months to the day too late – KP] to Boris Volfson of Huntington, Ind., for a space vehicle propelled by a superconducting shield that alters the curvature of space-time outside the craft in a way that counteracts gravity.

    One of the main theoretical arguments against anti-gravity is that it implies the availability of unlimited energy.

    “If you design an anti-gravity machine, you’ve got a perpetual-motion machine,” Robert Park of the American Physical Society told Nature.

    Park said the action shows patent examiners are being duped by false science.

False science?  Now who could accuse our dear leaders of that?

I’m sure I’m forgetting other examples; feel free to add to the list…

******

I was interested by that, and spent some time tracking down the news reports, and added the following comment:

It is ridiculous to blame the Bush regime for something like this. There is no evidence of that. This report originally came from the prestigious journal Nature, with the headline noting that this had “slipped by” the Patent Office. The Patent Office reviews millions of patent applications. It makes howling mistakes every year, which are regularly reported by science publications. It is a mistake by an individual bureaucrat, and at that grade level they are career employees, not political appointees. So it’s just not reasonable to blame the Bush regime for this. Wild leaps of logic like that, which are plainly contrary to the facts, undermine the credibility of lefty advocacy.

As for “intelligent design,” it is possible to be completely in tune with scientific understandings in biology and still to believe that God designed the world that way. Most intelligent Catholics take that position. Science provides the how and faith the why, one might say. That may not sound very “progressive,” but it is a reasoned and consistent position. And on this point too, it’s not really fair to claim that the Bush regime has caused an outbreak of intelligent design!

But you’re sure right about climate and environment.

*****

And someone named Salunga came along and gave me a damned 0 Megatroll rating for the above.

So what the fuck makes that a “Megatroll” statement, Salunga?!

Knoxville Progressive, who posts lots of interesting diaries and comments, seemed pretty earnest in that diary to me, and it seemed to me worthwhile to point out that low-level Patent Office grundoons are not really Bush political appointees. That’s a Washington, D.C. fact that some people might overlook, although probably not most of the political junkies on a blog like this.

Maybe I need my snark meter adjusted, as Knoxville Progressive implied. That’s fair.

But I thought my post was polite and respectful. Why would you give me a drive-by zero, with no comment? That’s barbaric.

What’s the problem? Do you think it’s totally out of bounds to term the substance of someone’s post “ridiculous”? Are you Knoxville Progressive’s secret lover? Do you think that religious people are all trolls?

I think you owe me an explanation and an apology.

And yes, I impulsively went and immediately gave you a “1” on one of your posts (couldn’t bring myself to give a zero), and that was wrong.

It is a great torment of mine that I can’t seem to find a stable and safe community on the Internet. I’m a Yellow Dog Democrat. I’ve voted in every election for more than 30 years, and I’ve never voted for anything other than a D. I contribute heavily to Democratic and human rights causes, and to charities. I’m a bleeding heart liberal (and former hippie) to the core. (I don’t call myself a “progressive”–I know there are exceptions, but I think that is too often a code word for “atheist.”)

I’ve been thrown off right-winger boards for being too liberal (although it’s been an awful long time since I was on such a board) and from left-winger boards for being too conservative. Crap. I’m tired of that.

Has the DailyKos authoritarian groupthink taken over here as well?

As I said, would you please pay me the courtesy of an explanation?

Yes, I know it can be obnoxious for a diary to be devoted to ratings issues, and I apologize for that. This is the first time I’ve posted such a diary anywhere. In context, I just kind of hope for an explanation and dialogue. I like this blog, and I’d like to keep feeling comfortable here while we continue to witness the almost miraculous frog-marching of all the GOP leaders.

(I’ve got to be so careful. I offended catnip in one of my first posts here. Shoot. I’m a lawyer. I’m used to shooting down arguments in debate, without meaning it personally. In my daily life, I get along peacefully with almost everybody. It’s really a mystery to me why I keep getting into fights on the Internet. I really do sincerely want to solve this problem. Among other things, it’s interfering with my very real desire to see Bush and Cheney go to prison for war crimes. Thank you for reading this, and please be gentle with any flames.)  

–Arminius, who smited the Romans in the Teutoberg Forest

Hi. I just created an account here. I recognize many names here from the old Billmon blog. I’d like to know up front–based on what I say below, is it safe for me to try to seek community here?

I was very active on various blogs from 2001 to early 2005, but on Easter Day this year I got nuclear- obliterated on Daily Kos (under another user name) when I tried to argue for a pro-life perspective on the Terri Schiavo tragedy. I had been a regular there for years, with thousands of “4s”, but I got zero-rated so bad it would take 1,000 years to recover.

I was so shocked and angered by the vicious reaction that I registered as an “Independent” when I moved in May to Carroll County, Maryland. But I’m changing that back very soon! I stayed away from the blogs for a long time, but I returned during the Hurricane Katrina disaster, and I can’t leave during the current implosion of the evil Bush regime.

I’ve been a Yellow Dog Dem for more than 30 years and I contribute regularly to lefty causes. I gave several thousand dollars to John Kerry’s campaign.  (And I think the election was stolen in Ohio.) But I’m also a believing Catholic and I definitely disagree with the Democratic consensus on a few hot issues.

Is it safe for someone like me here, if I stay polite? Thanks for any responses!