Virtual Illusions

When Benazir Bhutto was assassinated on December 27th it was a tragedy as the death of anyone would be. I don’t claim to know enough about the complexities of Pakistani politics to know whether she would have moved the country in a positive direction or if she would have used her power to reward cronies and increase corruption. But she came to a tragic end and misplaced traditions have it they we pretend that dead people have no faults or flaws.

As it happens it isn’t her that has me scratching my head at the moment so we can presume that she was perfect. What has me confused is the fact that her supposed pro-democracy party is in all real senses a monarchy.

The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) was founded by Benazir Bhutto’s father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, in 1967 and he became it’s first chairman. In 1979 Zulfikar was accused of ordering the assassination of a political rival. I do not claim to know the veracity of those charges, however the courts of Pakistan found him guilty of those charges and sentenced him to death.

This is where the PPP starts acting odd, though not really odd yet. After the death of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto his wife, Nusrat Bhutto, succeeded him as chairperson of the PPP. A few years later, 1982, Nusrat Bhutto, ill with cancer, left Pakistan. In her absense, her daughter, Benazir Bhutto takes of the mantle of acting chairperson. By January of 1984, Benazir Bhutto is being called chairperson and at some point becomes chairperson for life. As such she was the chairperson at the date of her death, December 27th, 2007.

In short the PPP has been around for some 40 years and in all that time it has never had a chairperson who wasn’t of the Bhutto family. The PPP finding itself without a chairperson stopped acting like a political party and became a monarchy.

By all reports there were a number of capable political leaders the PPP could have tapped to fill the void. An obvious and technically correct choice would have been Makhdoom Amin Fahim, who is the senior vice chairman of the PPP and has all the right credentials. News reports also bandied about the possibility of choosing Aitzaz Ahsan, the leader of the lawyers’ movement.

Instead by some machination or another Benazir’s eldest son, the 19 year old Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, was chosen. Bilwal hasn’t spend any time in Pakistan since he was a young child and any political experience would be indirect at best. He intends to finish his history degree a Christ Church College, Oxford at which time he claims his lineage makes him a natural leader of Pakistan.

In the mean time, his father, Asif Ali Zandari will act as regent. I assume he can’t become chairperson himself because he isn’t of the Bhutto bloodline. Either that or the fact that the Pakistani people consider him largely corrupt. He spend eight years in prison taking bribes when is wive was in charge of Pakistan and laundering them through Swiss bank accounts.

When one BBC journalist asked Bilawal, “What on earth do you propose as a 19-year-old who has hardly lived in the country, what do you propose you can offer Pakistan, a country of 170 million people?” his only response was, “They asked me to do it.”

Taken as a whole it seems a lot more like a monarchy than a political party.

Politics

The Senate is taking this opportunity to take back some power stolen by President Bush who believes himself Emperor. It’s a small thing, but it is important. Technically the Senate didn’t take a recess for Thanksgiving or Christmas. It would be understandable if you missed the important work they did during this time and were sure you saw them back in their home districts.

Senator James Webb, a Democrat from Northern Virginia, alone stands vigil. He enters the Senate chamber gavels the session to order. Maybe he determines there is no quorum or maybe he just gavels out immediately. In either case, the senate comes to order, which means it isn’t in recess. If the senate isn’t in recess there can’t be recess appointments.

Throughout his presidency Bush has used the power of the recess appointment to appoint extreme right wing idealogues whom the American people would cringe at if they looked at any great detail. In some cases he has even given recess appointments to people who the senate has rejected or who’s name he had withdrawn because it was clear they would be rejected.

In his belief that checks and balances shouldn’t apply to him and that they are quaint ideas he has used the recess appointment to effectively remove the Senate’s confirmation power of advice and consent. The senate is taking reasonable action to reclaim their constitutionally mandated role in political appointments.

The American people eventually wisened up and voted in a divided government. When politicians acted as individuals of conscience, it might have been acceptable to have all the branches of government under the power of one party, but since now politicians are merely extensions of the party and don’t seem to vote against the party, we need a divided government. It is through that divided government that we ensure the president can’t just stack the government with the worst kind of extreme idealogues.  In my opinion the president does not deserve deference and giving it to him because he was elected ignores why we elected the Senate.

Bypassing those checks and balances voted in by the American people is the sign of someone who wants to be a dictator, not a president.

References: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/23/AR2007122301708.html

Politics

I was thinking this morning about Libertarianism. I concluded that in its idealistic form it is “Wealth Makes Right.” People often frame it in terms of about personal liberties and that sounds great, but I see in terms of institutional liberty.

So the libertarian says we should get rid of governmental regulation because the government has no place telling me how to live my life. Which is great but that means there was no wrong doing in the Enron scandal (SEC regulations require honesty in financial reports), no wrong doing in dumping tons of toxic waste into rivers or bays (EPA regulations), nothing wrong with owning 100% of the media someone has access to (FCC regulations) and no wrong doing if a hospital decides not to treat a man with broken ribs if he can’t pay for it (I’m not actually sure who mandates this).

This is the part of libertarianism that scares me. One of the government’s functions (whether you think it does it well or not) is to be a check against large, well funded organizations whom it is very difficult to directly affect.

Politics

“In Washington, meanwhile, Republicans are desperate to hold power. Not to govern, mind you, just hold power.”

–Harold Meyerson, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/01/AR2006080101071.html

Politics, Quote

So on the way home from work today I caught an NPR bit on fact that some latino musicians have translated the national anthem into Spanish. The general subtext of the piece which we are supposed to assume without question is that this is somehow disrespectful. I have never understood that way of thinking. The anthem, like the flag, is nothing but a symbol and the only power or place it has is its ability to convey an idea.

Incorporating the symbol into a new version assists it having meaning for more people, it isn’t disrespectful, quite the opposite, it gives it new life and power. Jimi Hendrix gave it new power when he remade it in the image of his generation. It is an honorific to use the symbol in a new way.

I just don’t understand the people who believe symbols shouldn’t be used. Up on a shelf they have no power and serve no function it is only with their use and periodic re-invention that they continue to have meaning to actual people rather than staid institutions.

News, Politics

So bush has claimed by virtue of Congress authorizing him to take military action in Afghanistan, he as commander and chief has the authority to violate explicit laws and and constitutional prohibitions against search without so much as informing anyone, much less any oversight. As patently ridiculous as that claim is the more frightening one is that the claim taken to its conclusion grants the commander and chief the right seize anyone off the street and perform a summary execution.

Maybe it’ll be with a bit of cover: I believe someone in this mosque is affiliated with terrorism, I’ll send in my special operations team (i.e. death squad) and kill them all. Don’t forget to dig the mass grave.

Or perhaps as political intimidation: Mr. Senator you voted incorrectly in that last vote, I think you are giving aid to terrorists by not giving me unfettered power. Sgt. kill this traitor. “bang.” Good now do the rest of you want to check to make sure you voted th right way?

There is nothing more sacred about the laws covering murder than the laws covering surveillance, his belief that one sort of laws don’t apply to him if he doesn’t want them to suggests he will equally throw aside other laws when they are inconvenient.

Bush’s interpretation of law have consistently been incompatible with 200+ years of freedom. He isn’t satisfied being a president he want full military dictatorship powers. Unfortunately since the senate is control by his party and since party loyalty seems to trump actual law and what is good for this country, impeachment proceeding are not underway.

I wonder how senators who impeached for lying about an affair justify not impeaching a president advocating and secretly carrying out both torture and domestic spying without judicial oversight.

When Bush first starting making his powergrab, I had discussions with people who were of the opinion that it only affected the “bad” people and non-citizens so how was I affected and shouldn’t I shut up now. Now we see where it leads and how we all are affected, the question is whether anything legal can be done to stop it?

Justice, News, Politics

Upon my perusal of the virtual paper this morning I noticed that Bill Frist is all up in arms and upset. He wants to form some sort of blue ribbon inter body investigative committee. What could be so terrible as to waren’t this you ask? He needs to investigate the leak of the existence of the CIA torture sites (aka Black Sites). Let me clarify he has no desire to investigate their existence, merely the leak.

Setting up facilities for the purpose of covert torture is fine, leveling with the American people what is being done in their name goes beyond the pale apparently.

News, Politics

I have come to the conclusion that the perm politically correct (and more often politically incorrect) to declare in equal parts the speaker’s lack of empathy and the de-humanizing of the subject.

Politically correct is almost always applied in the negative or at least cast in a negative light; “It may not be politically correct but….”, “That’s just politically correct garbage”, etc. It strikes me that all politically correct means, once removed from the political point the phrase is trying to make, is to have empathy for a group that is Other. By denying political correctness as a positive is to deny having empathy for the subject of the speech.

Take an example like “It may not be politically correct but I think affirmative action is bunk.” It seems to me that could be re-written as “Since I have no empathy for poor blacks I think affirmative action is bunk.” That isn’t to say the only reason not to support affirmative action is due to a lack of empathy, but by applying the political correct marker that is the suggestion. A belief that affirmative action doesn’t work to relieve the problem is not a lack of empathy, however, employing the political correct phrase is to say that there is not problem to begin with. That is a lack of empathy.

A lack of empathy is usually a less than admirable quality in a person, if a person is sufficiently lacking in empathy we call them a sociopath and we lock them away in a cage (One of the more extreme forms of de-humanizations). So an admission of a lack of empathy needs to be disguised and further it needs to imply a de-humanization of the subject for which the speaker has no empathy. This de-humanization is needed to make the speakers opinion acceptable. It is okay to not have empathy for a group that has been identified as less than human (it is how racism, classism and xenophobia has flourished for years.).

The same old racist, sexist, classist, xenophobic, etc screeds get rehashed under the politically incorrect moniker thus pretending the dehumanization of these screeds is not the speaker’s lack of empathy but some horrid self-censoring in the extreme. It re-enforces the de-humanization of the subject of the speech thus allowing the speaker and anyone he convinces to have even less empathy for the subject thus perpetuating there position as Other.

I guess I am suspicious when ever anyone invokes politically correct or incorrect, it seems that someone is trying to describe a perfectly good human as less than that because they would prefer not to care about fellow human beings who are different.

Culture, Politics

I need to figure out which decorations my car needs. Last car that was decorated was done courtesy of evolvefish.com. It had the ‘Freedom is the disance between church and state’ bumper sticker. The new car is a ‘05 Prius which has an oddly shaped back. I’m thinking of getting a static cling evolve fish for one side, but really would like a bumper sticker for the other. Just not sure which one to get yet.

I’m thinking of getting ‘Has anyone seen my Constitutional Rights?’ That seems to have a nice general theme.

‘There’s no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people’
‘Those who cast the votes decide nothing, Those who count the votes decide everything. –Stalin’
‘Last time we mixed politics with religion, people got burned at the stake’
‘My mind isn’t for sale or rent to any god or government’
‘Dissent is the highest form of patriotism. –Jefferson’

Holding off until I decide… I suppose I could just get them all and figure it out when they arrive.

Anyway I’m off to the Brickskeller tonight for a fine night of sampling Beer. Mmmmm.

Politics

Not sure if this will work. In theory it should.

Philosophy/Religion, Politics