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Sometimes it only be said in satire:

WASHINGTON—As they scoured the Internet for more juicy details about former CIA director David Petraeus’ affair with biographer Paula Broadwell, Americans were reportedly horrified today upon learning that a protracted, bloody war involving U.S. forces is currently raging in the nation of Afghanistan.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/nation-horrified-to-learn-about-war-in-afghanistan,30367/?ref=auto

Becoming pro-choice was not easy for me. As a student of people like Schweitzer and Gandhi I did not want to consider the unique situation of pregnancy where one life develops within another. I saw the pro-life posters of the fetus without once realizing that the red backdrop in the picture was an actual woman with needs I could not discern. From that picture, I could not know if the woman faced health risks or had been raped. By focusing only on the fetus, I made the woman invisible.

In my struggle to reach clarity I went to the office of what was then the Texas Abortion Rights Action League where the executive director, Phyllis Dunham, did not try to pursuade me. Instead, she said, “look at where anti-choice people get their information, and look at where we get ours.” I was amazed to discover that pro-choice materials were usually based on scientific and medical statistics whereas the pro-life materials often consisted of dubious think tank studies and in painful personal stories that really had nothing to do with the choice that another woman might need to make. I began to realize that other people did not live in the simplistic world I wished for in my own head.

As I moved deeper into the movement I was able to travel the country with some remarkable women who taught me so much about the unique ethical challenges abortion poses. I was able to debate along side the remarkable Sarah Weddington and to learn that none of these women were recommending that a woman have an abortion. They were merely saying that abortion should be included along with adoption as one of the range of choices a womans should have.

When I was asked to testify at the National Freedom of choice Act, I met a doctor who did autopsies of women who died before Roe became the law of the land.  When we debated together against pro-life advocates, he would match every picture of a dead fetus, with a truly horrific picture of a woman lying dead on a bathroom floor or kitchen table. I learned only too well that, when a nation makes abortion illegal, septic abortion becomes a number one killer of women.

After serving a time in the Chicken Little Choir lamenting that Super PACs would be the end of our democracy, it is my duty to say, at least for now, we were wrong. I still believe we need to overturn Citizen’s United, but my faith in the people was restored a bit by the dismal record of corporate money in this last election. Daily Beast has released a scorecard for the Super PACs. It has several links to the most winning and losing Super PACs. You can also break it down by candidate, party, issue, etc. Ending the dominance of corporate money in our elections is still very important, but these results can lession the panic. They are also a nice tool to understand how both parties are affected by these PACs.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/11/15/not-so-super-pacs-2012-s-winners-and-losers.html

One thing most liberals and conservatives can agree on is that traitors like Bradley Manning, who break our code of silence and who tell us what we are really doing in the world, must be silenced at all costs. So we can go into the holiday seasons blissfully ignorant of the violence necessary to maintain our level of consumption, Bradley Manning rots in a cell.

What follows is a statement by three nobel laureates, Bishop Desmond Tutu most recognizable of them.

As people who have worked for decades against the increased militarization of societies and for international cooperation to end war, we are deeply dismayed by the treatment of Pfc. Bradley Manning.   We have dedicated our lives to working for peace because we have seen the many faces of armed conflict and violence, and we understand that no matter the cause of war, civilians always bear the brunt of the cost. With today’s advanced military technology and the continued ability of business and political elites to filter what information is made public, there exists a great barrier to many citizens being fully aware of the realities and consequences of conflicts in which their country is engaged.

Revealing covert crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, this window into the realities of modern international relations has changed the world for the better. While some of these documents may demonstrate how much work lies ahead in terms of securing international peace and justice, they also highlight the potential of the Internet as a forum for citizens to participate more directly in civic discussion and creative government accountability projects.

Questioning authority, as a soldier, is not easy.  But it can at times be honorable. The words attributed to Manning reveal that he went through a profound moral struggle between the time he enlisted and when he became a whistleblower. Through his experience in Iraq, he became disturbed by top-level policy that undervalued human life and caused the suffering of innocent civilians and soldiers. Like other courageous whistleblowers, he was driven foremost by a desire to reveal the truth.

Manning has said he hoped releasing the documents would bring “discussion, debates and reforms” and reveal ways  “first world exploits the third.”

In… recommending a much more severe punishment for Bradley Manning than is given to US soldiers guilty of murdering civilians, military leadership is sending a chilling warning to other soldiers who might feel compelled by conscience to reveal misdeeds. It is our belief that leaders who use fear to govern, rather than sharing wisdom born from facts, cannot be just.

We Nobel Peace Prize laureates condemn the persecution Bradley Manning has suffered, including imprisonment in conditions declared “cruel, inhuman and degrading” by the United Nations, and call upon Americans to stand up in support of this whistleblower who defended their democratic rights. In the conflict in Iraq alone, more than 110,000 people have died since 2003, millions have been displaced and nearly 4,500 American soldiers have been killed. If someone needs to be held accountable for endangering Americans and civilians, let’s first take the time to examine the evidence regarding high-level crimes already committed, and what lessons can be learned. If Bradley Manning released the documents, as the prosecution contends, we should express to him our gratitude for his efforts toward accountability in government, informed democracy and peace.

It falls back to those of us who spend this holiday season outside prison to be a loud reminder to those who do not want to hear, and a glaring conscience to those who do not wish to see. In times of injustice, a nation’s streets fill with slaves parading loudly in the name of freedom, and its prisons fill with the few remaining souls who are free.

For more on the statement, clicke here: http://www.thenation.com/article/171272/nobel-laureates-salute-bradley-manning

If you go to the Formula 1 races this weekend,

Have a good time.

And try not to think,

about the fact,

that we’re killing men, women and children,

to get at the oil,

that enables those cars,

to race around in a fricking circle.

Beware those persons of privilege who say they do not see race or gender. Unless two people have equal power, forcing them to play by the same rules is to give preferential treatment to the strong. First you must ensure people have equal footing, then you may remove the laws that protect the weak from the strong. Those who want the same rules for the lion and the lamb, are probably lions.

Voting Rights Act of 1965 was a linchpin of the civil rights movement. But some are arguing that America is now “post racial” and no longer needs those protections. Many cite the fact that we have a black president as proof that the Voting Rights Act of 1965  is now obsolete.

The case before the court, coming out of Shelby County, Ala., concerns Section 5 of the act, which requires some states and jurisdictions (mostly in the South) to seek permission from the federal government before they can implement any law related to voting. If a voter-ID law, redistricting plan or other election law is seen as worsening the position of racial minorities, then the Department of Justice or a federal court in Washington will not allow the voting change to go into effect. Earlier this year, for example, a federal court struck down Texas’s recently enacted voter-ID law and Congressional redistricting plan on that basis.

As a result, the court has struck down or narrowed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, theAmericans With Disabilities Act and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act. -NY Times

Even if one accepts the argument (and I don’t) that racism is no longer a major problem in America, it seems that a nation with a three hundred and fifty year history of slavery and oppression would have more humility about its own judgment on matters of race. And, of course, the idea that racism is dead would be a joke if it weren’t so deadly.

Since Obama was re-elected America has hemorrhaged with racist responses. Voter suppression efforts this year were a pandemic. My own state of Texas now has enough signatures to request seceding from the union as a result of the election. In fact, Texas’ people of color were protected by the Voting Rights Act of 1965 just last year when redistricting plans threatened to rob some minority populations of representation.

What irony it will be if Obama’s re-election were the bromide that convinced Americans to remove another linchpin from the civil rights laws and from what Madison called “the tyranny of the majority.”

http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/14/is-the-voting-rights-act-doomed/

“Expose and Close” is a nationwide campaign to shut down egregious private detention centers for immigrants.  At 1:00 today at the Federal Building here in Austin, there will be a news conference regarding this campaign. I am posting what I think I will probably say during my part of that event. If you are downtown around that time, I’m sure Bob Libal and the other tireless advocates on this issue would love to have you come by and support our immigrant brothers and sisters whose imprisonment has now become big business.

Prisons for Profit

“God” is a name we give to that which we value most. For some, ultimate value is the common happiness of humankind. For others, ultimate value is whatever they can possess in order to be personally happy.

These two visions of value, one based on the worth of persons, the other on personal profit, have been at war since the beginning of human history. So it is no surprise that our own nation is divided into two warring factions arguing whether the ultimate good is determined by property rights or by human rights.

The prophets were ordinary people like you and me who spoke in the name of humankind. They spoke in the name of ultimate value. They spoke in the name of God. They came to remind nations that human beings are what ultimately count. They came to warn that any nation that values possessions over persons will surely die. They taught that valuing our common humanity was the very sinew of a nation. And so, a country that has come to value property over persons has the spiritual equivalent to cancer. There is no common principle to bind a nation once it has come to value personal wealth over the common good.

The primary diagnostic tool used by the prophets to evaluate a nation’s health was how it treated its most vulnerable members; particularly, its orphans, its widows and its immigrants

Private prisons for immigrants are irrefutable evidence that our nation has come to value profit over persons. Prisons for profit view immigrants, not as persons, but as raw material from which to draw profit.

There are those who say that private prisons bring wealth to their community. So did slavery. This nation has a long history of allowing the rich to profit off the enslavement of the poor. It is no coincidence that the population of our prisons bears an eerie resemblance to the faces of the people this nation enslaved, and those people from whom this land was stolen. To recon wealth without accounting for the humanity of those being enslaved is an apocalyptic sign that any culture is nearing its own demise.

Enslaving persons for profit is a cancer that has eaten at this nation’s soul from its birth. It eats inexorably at the very sinews of our own decency and humanity. I am no prophet, but I have come to tell you that placing immigrant people in prisons for profit is a death knell for this nation. We cannot continue to descend to this level of inhumanity and retain the universal principles that would hold us together as a nation.

In the name of humanity, in the name of what you ultimately value, in the name of God- Shut down these prisons for profit.

Shortly after Obama was elected in 2008, the former editor of Texas Observer emailed asking if I would write a column addressing whether it would now be easier to be prophetic under Obama than it was under Bush. Obama had barely begun his term, but he had already adopted some of Bush’s most egregious policies.

Maybe the editor didn’t like the writing, or maybe the answer was supposed to be “Yes, of course, it will be easier to be prophetic under Obama” because my article never even received a rejection letter. I remembered the article last week when Obama was re-elected and pulled it back out to see what I would change now. As we enter Obama’s second term, I wouldn’t change a thing. In fact, Obama’s first term just produced examples of each of the article’s points.

The Observer usually does great work and is actually under new leadership. A link to their site is included below.

Why our leaders always disappoint us

 Like most of the civilized world, I breathed a sigh of relief when George Bush’s helicopter headed off into the sunset.  Like many progressives, I prepared for the grueling work of reconnecting the scattered bones of the republic. I just hoped we could remember where such obscure organs as habeas corpus once fit in the body politic.

As the weary pendulum of power swung back to the liberal side, we began to hear the same Siren song that drove many Republicans to betray not only our nation, but their own conservative principles as well.

Principles are funny things.  They are destroyed more often by victory than defeat.  I admit it was deeply moving to watch a black president taking the oath of office using Lincoln’s Bible.  One could almost see the brave and bloody footprints of civil rights workers leading to that moment.  But then, the invocation was given by a man who would deny the right of marriage to gay and lesbian citizens. Would progressives go numb just so we could hold onto our heroic image of Obama? In an instant, we were all converted into guilty bystanders. Would this be the first of many times we would have to go into denial to hold onto the image?

Remember how many of us took to the streets to protest the undeclared war in Iraq?  “Why didn’t Bush try harder to negotiate before he attacked?”  That’s what we said before Obama’s victory.  Now, as the new president transfers troops from the undeclared war in Iraq to an undeclared war in Afghanistan, and bombs that nation without even trying to negotiate anew, most liberals watch silently numb.

I want to be clear that I voted for Obama.  But I also need be clear that George Bush has set the bar so low that anyone who doesn’t believe in torture now seems like Mother Teresa. Sometimes, the smarter leaders are, the more they mask the problems of a bad system. So, it may actually be harder to find our ethical polestar under the comfortably dim light of Obama than the stark midnight of Bush.

And, Let’s be honest. The price of admission into the halls of power has always been one’s highest principles. In spite of Obama’s soaring rhetoric, he did not run for the office of prophet but for the office of president. His job description will be to give us the pride and privilege of living in an empire without seeing the horrific violence any such an empire requires.  His job description will be to restore our standard of living without revealing the sweatshops and gun boat diplomacy that are the very sinews of capitalism.

A prophet would call us to be world citizens, a president must put America first whether we are right or wrong. A prophet would call us to be voices for the voiceless, a president must betray unpopular minorities in the name of consensus. A prophet would call us to choose human rights over property rights, a president puts the fate of the wretched of the earth into the invisible and pitiless hand of the market.

Somehow, we the American people must recognize our own part in the unending cycle of post-election betrayal.  Before Election Day, we will not vote for anyone who does not inspire us to our highest ideals. Afterward, we will not support any who do not pander to our basest appetites. The sad history of post-election disappointments has not been carved by some external hand of providence.  It crawls like a reptile out of the discrepancy between who Americans say we are and what we’ve actually become.

But here is the good news:  Democracy is not founded on personalities, it is founded on principles. We save the republic not by changing captains but by changing course.  In the end, it does not matter who sits in the captain’s chair if the ship has lost its rudder.  Leaders in a corrupt system cannot be prophetic, but we the people can. The key for progressive activism in the next four years will be, when Obama turns out to be just another mortal, whether it drives us to despair, or to a good hard look in the mirror, and then out into the streets.

http://www.texasobserver.org/

I have been blogging on moderate voices emerging in the Republican party as a result of their electoral spanking a few weeks ago. It is a very good thing, but I don’t know what to do with this story. Bobby Jindal, who was the prototype right winger a few years back, was quoted as saying that the GOP should, ‘Stop Being The Stupid Party.’

“It is no secret we had a number of Republicans damage our brand this year with offensive, bizarre comments — enough of that,” Jindal told Politico. “It’s not going to be the last time anyone says something stupid within our party, but it can’t be tolerated within our party. We’ve also had enough of this dumbed-down conservatism. We need to stop being simplistic, we need to trust the intelligence of the American people and we need to stop insulting the intelligence of the voters.”

This mass conversion taking place in the Republican Party proves what many of us suspected all along. Most conservatives were never really happy with their party’s bashing of women, gays and the poor. Even some of the people, like Jindal, who participated in the bullying tactics did not feel right about it. Like all mob behavior, most everyone knows what they are doing is wrong but they are afraid if they speak against the lynchings they are afraid they will move from predator to prey.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/13/bobby-jindal-gop_n_2121511.html

Dogs bark at anything they do not know,

Humans too.

Most humans carry definitions in our heads,

Like magnets on a refrigerator,

And, when we hear unfamiliar ideas,

Ideas for which we have no corresponding magnet,

We bark.

When we theists hear an idea for which we have no pre-existing definition,

We bark,"heretic!"  

When we skeptics hear an idea for which we have no pre-existing definition,

We bark,"Superstition!"