person of the year

apologies for US-centrism...

Alberto Gonzales, for cumulative efforts in setting back the rule of law in the USA by 300 years.

thought for the day

if language were liquid

Writing brings joy. So many words, combinations of words, run on sentences. Rhetoric, metaphor, rigor, or foppery. 

Pick your poison.

violence/democracy

To associate violence with democracy seems, on the surface, to be a profound misunderstanding of both terms. Violence, which was either associated with the arbitrary, spectacular display of power of the Absolutist State or with the life of human beings in the “state of nature,” would appear to be the antithesis of democracy. One version of the secularization thesis might hold that the violence visited upon Western European nations by the wars of religion has been sublimated into the ‘violence’ of competition in the unregulated market and the partisan political public sphere. The rule of law, guided by principles of equality, fairness, and justice, would seem to have removed the conditions that gave rise to societal and State violence.

In the view of many scholars of American democracy, the United States has been exceptional with respect to the phenomenon of political violence which has plagued much of the rest of the world in the twentieth-century. Louis Hartz’s still compelling thesis, that the liberal tradition took root in the United States to such an extent that Americans are unwittingly Lockean in political behavior, is still reflected in social scientific analyses. David Truman and Robert Dahl, in a less synthetic-historical mode, argue that American politics does not involve ideologically-driven political violence because it is oriented to compromise and negotiation. For Truman, this is explained by the fact that America’s robust associational life cause individuals to hold overlapping memberships in multiple interest groups. For Dahl, this associational life does not allow a minority interest group can become a dominant majority. In a word, then, American politics is about moderation. The views of Hartz, Truman, and Dahl indicate that American democracy is fundamentally incommensurable with violence; moreover, any violence that has occurred has been exceptional.


The definition of violence and its function

At the most general level, violence has been characterized in two forms: physical and symbolic violence. Physical violence is more clearly described: Weber’s generic definition of power coupled with his argument that the State monopolizes the legitimate use of violence might provide an initial sociological definition of physical violence. Violence that compels the action of individuals or groups includes, assault, torture, killing; the use of force to restrain action; the use of threats and/or physical force to compel conformity or acquiescence.

In the sociological literature and democratic political theory, physical violence is treated as synonymous with “violence.” Studies of social movements, collective action, and revolution as well as normative arguments against Absolutism, totalitarianism, and authoritarianism have focused almost exclusively on physical violence: from the violation of the physical integrity of individuals and groups to the physical exclusion or removal or individuals and groups from access to such social resources as food, wealth, occupations, and membership in a political community.

However, a different form of violence has come to be recognized in more recent years in a range of disciplines: anthropology, gender studies, literary theory, poststructuralist philosophy, and psychoanalytic studies. This violence, termed symbolic, pertains to what I have called the symbolic order of society: its representations, discourses, signifiers, names, and categories. These symbolic forms are both the means through which we understand the social world and the way in which we become situated within the social world. This system of social meanings can be construed as exerting a type of force or violence to the extent that these meanings and the bodies upon which they are projected are arranged hierarchically and, more importantly, are not necessarily freely chosen. Individuals and groups situated at the bottom of society’s symbolic order are more likely to experience symbolic violence (stigma, disparagement, hate speech, and representational dispossession) and are more likely to be the target of physical violence (political subordination, violations of bodily integrity, and material deprivation).

What explains the existence of violence? Leaving aside explanations that might be found in evolutionary psychology, three broad explanatory models offer different answers. Social theory and political theory have emphasized explanations of political violence; what can be called cultural theory has emphasized explanations of symbolic violence.

Briefly...

First, social theory:

Max Weber: physical violence is connected to societal domination; it is the power that can compel actions that individuals or groups would not otherwise undertake.

Emile Durkheim: Physical violence is meted out by society in the form of punishment: its function is moral insofar as it restores the that aspect of society that is integrated via mechanical solidarity.

Michel Foucault: On his account, the spectacle of physical violence as a mechanism of social control has gradually been replaced by the disciplines; the disciplines implant within each individual a predisposition to self-surveillance and correction. Institutions like the school, the military, and the medical professions (as well as correctional institutions themselves) are sites where disciplinary power produces docile bodies. This power cannot be understood in terms of the relations of State and society.

“One impoverishes the question of power if one poses it solely in terms of legislation and constitution, in terms solely of the state and the state apparatus. Power is quite different from and more complicated, dense and pervasive than a set of laws or a state apparatus.” (“The Eye of Power,” Power/Knowledge, 158)

Political theory: in the main, democratic theory views physical violence that rests outside of the maintenance of social order or national security to be anathema to the rule of law. The forms of violence enacted by the democratic constitutional state (from criminal justice to military defense) is legitimate so long as it is governed by rational procedures.

In contrast to this view of legitimate violence, Carl Schmitt dispensed with normative justification. Schmitt argues that the political only comes into existence in the fact of an existential threat to the way of life of a nation-state. Violence (as the transgression of Law) arises from an act of Sovereignty (the decision to suspend the Law) and is not guided by legal norms.

“The concept of the State presupposes the concept of the political” (19). “The political is the most intense and extreme antagonism, and every concrete antagonism becomes much more political the closer it approaches the most extreme point, that of the friend-enemy grouping” (29). “The specific political distinction to which political actions and motives can be reduced is that between friend and enemy” (26). “The friend enemy concepts are to be understood in their concrete and existential sense...” (27). “[The enemy] is not the private adversary whom one hates. An enemy exists only when, at least potentially, one fighting collectivity of people confronts a similar collectivity. The enemy is solely the public enemy...” (28) (The Concept of the Political).

Cultural theory: cultural explanations articulate the logic and effects of symbolic violence, a form of violence that is not typically recognized as such in conventional social and political theory. Understood as the violence that is produced by virtue of the fact that we are situated in the force-field of language, symbolic violence is ubiquitous. In Judith Butler’s account (reflecting J. L. Austin and Louis Althusser), subjects are interpellated by linguistic performances. For Pierre Bourdieu, classifying practices consign individuals to high or low positions within various social fields.


Assumptions (...)

So far, I have proceeded without acknowledging several assumptions that lie behind these definitions.

1. I’ve assumed that physical violence is primarily produced by the State. Yet, violence occurs within the institutions and private spaces of civil society. Moreover, social movements have resisted as well as initiated violence against the State or segments of civil society with which they have come into conflict.

2. I’ve also assumed that physical and symbolic violence is illegitimate from a moral or legal standpoint). However, one can certainly ask whether there are violent acts that can be considered “normal”, as guided by norms? Or what distinguishes normal violence (such as incarceration) from exceptional violence; that is, violence that transgresses the legal order itself? Or, is violence that transgresses the law and social order in the name of law and order, legitimate?

In order to address these assumptions and questions, I’ll limit my discussion to two areas: the question of legitimate versus illegitimate violence in relation to democratic institutions. Here I’ll touch on the opposition of normal and exceptional violence, and of internal and external violence. Second, I’ll touch on the American case itself, namely, the relation of Republicanism to violence and the American State.

Legitimacy/Illegitimacy

Presumably clear-cut examples of legitimate forms of violence would include the internal violence that is related to the punishment of criminals and the external violence that arises in the case of a “just war.”

It is taken for granted that specific acts, classified as criminal, are punishable under the law. Leaving aside capital punishment, incarceration involves violence to body of the criminal: it restrains his or her movement. It also constitutes a form of symbolic violence or symbolic exclusion: the criminal is the one who is no longer fit to walk freely among us; she is the one who “forfeits” her right of liberty. The violence that relates to punishment is legitimate as long as the rule of law is upheld, as long as legal procedures have been carried through fairly and justly. Nonetheless, inside prisons violence and the threat of violence is every present, from sexual assault to prison riots. Can the exposure of convicted criminals to these forms of violence be justified with respect to the rule of law or the claim that this is the price of social order?

With respect to the legitimate violence that is directed externally towards other societies, there are two ways of legitimizing extra-territorial violence. The first is related to the theory of just war. For Michael Walzer, States may, with moral justification, inflict violence against another State in defense of its integrity and the lives or its citizens. Included under this notion of defense is the pre-emptive strike that maybe justly undertaking when a threat of war is imminent.

The second way for democratic states to “justify” external violence dispenses with Walzerian normative considerations. Again, Schmitt is a useful guide. For Schmitt, war is the moment when the political comes into existence. In order to defend the way of life of a nation from internal and external enemies, the State (the Sovereign) must suspend the rule of law. However, the justification for this action is not a legal norm but rather self-preservation.

“Sovereign is he who decides the exception. . . . The assertion that the exception is truly appropriate for the juristic definition of sovereignty has systematic, legal-logical foundation. The decision on the exception is a decision in the true sense of the word. Because a general norm, as represented by an ordinary legal prescription, can never encompass a total exception, the decision that a real exception exists cannot therefore be entirely derived from this norm. . . . The exception, which is not codified in the existing legal order, can at best be characterized as a case of extreme peril, a danger to the existence of the state, or the like. But it cannot be circumscribed factually and made to conform to a preformed law” (Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty, 5-6.)

What Schmitt imagines is a scenario in which sovereignty comes into sharp focus, such as when the State (a single or collective actor) takes an action that transcends the existing legal order.* Such an exceptional action, which Schmitt associates with a situation of extreme political or economic peril, abjures the rule of law even if the decision on the exception is premised on the presence of legal norms. This decision corresponds to events that cannot be entirely planned for within the normatively and normally valid legal system. In short, the occurrence of the unexpected calls forth, and can only be addressed by, the decision on the exception: the sovereign.

In this formulation, Schmitt affirms that it is the sovereign who possesses unlimited power. He points out that the tendency of the liberal constitutional state is to “repress the question of sovereignty by a division and mutual control of competences.” Such a tendency is evidenced by system of checks and balances provided for in the American Constitution, of which the enactment of the War Powers Act of 1973 is a prime example.** Yet, according to Schmitt, no amount of constitutional maneuvering can remove the defining moment of sovereignty: the act of deciding the exception.

Of course, what constitutes a state of emergency or crisis or threat to a way of life is not given objectively but rather involves social construction. Take the United States: Emergency and crisis rhetoric has been used at various points to justify physical and symbolic violence against numerous internal and external enemies who may or may not have been existential threats: from the civil war to the post-Reconstruction era one party system of the American South; from the red scares and anti-immigration legislation of the late 1910s-20s to the New Deal; from the forced relocation of Japanese American citizens in WWII to the Cold War and McCarthyite anti-Communism. The current post-9/11 situation offers many illustrations of the social construction of a state of emergency that authorizes the Sovereign decision on the exception.

The Birth of a Violent Nation

Yet the question of the legitimacy of violence in relation to democratic regimes (in particular, the United States), can be traced back to the constitutive moments of the nation; the birth of a violent Nation. The founding of America was conditioned by three forms of physical violence: the violent relations that arose between the English puritan settlers and the native populations of North America; the violence that was connected with the importation of indentured and slave labor; and the violence that was associated with the Revolution. Moreover, violence is imbricated in the juridical documents that define the scope of democracy in America. The act of Founding itself, the constitutive (and constitutional) act of writing the nation into Law, begins with the words, “We the People.” This can be construed as an act of symbolic violence insofar as it called into being a “people” that did not exist prior to the performative act of naming and insofar as the act itself presupposed that a particular “people” already existed. Whereas, logically, the “people” did not exist prior to the document calling it into being, it did exist as a practical reality: the “people” included those who were not already excluded by previous and ongoing acts of physical and symbolic violence (Native Americans, enslaved Africans, and British loyalists). The non-recognition or misrecognition of these forms of physical and symbolic violence that inhere in the founding of the American nation—the naturalization of history, or what Bourdieu calls genesis amnesia, that is encouraged by the natural rights tradition—has meant that the subsequent unearthing of this repressed memory of violence—exemplified by the Dred Scott v. Sanford decision of 1857—makes violence appear to be more the exception than the rule in American history. Moreover, the process through which violence in American democracy has been naturalized leads, I believe, to an interesting disconnection of the official discourse of America as an exceptional democracy from the continuation of violence after the Founding: for example, violence associated with Indian Removal during the Presidency of Andrew Jackson, the conditions of involuntary servitude in the plantation economy, the violence associated with post-Reconstruction institution of Jim Crow segregation (lynching), and the violence the swirled around the history of labor organizing.


Puritanism and Republicanism: A Thick Culture of Violence

To be explicit: the opposition I set up initially between violence and American democracy might actually be better conceptualized as a relationship of co-constitution. To consider this possibility means one must take up, at first, an anti-Tocquevillean perspective, or at least one that treats the Tocquevillean interpretation of democracy in America critically.

I will only briefly suggest two discursive and logics by which we might uncover the constitutive element of physical and symbolic violence at the heart of America’s Founding. One discourse is that of Puritanism; the other, Republicanism. The discourse of Puritanism has the “virtue” of being explicit in its advocacy of symbolic and physical exclusion of those deemed morally unworthy of inclusion. The Puritan mission into the wilderness was both a trial of faith and a realization of the purification of faith in a community of believers (see Bercovitch, American Jeremiad; Slotkin, Regeneration Through Violence). The encounter with both nature and North American native populations, both of which were rendered theologically as manifestations of the Devil, produced violent acts against the Native Other and the Other within the Puritan community: backsliders and witches. There are echoes in the sermons of seventeenth-century Puritan ministers like Cotton and Increase Mather of present day jihads against Western infidels.

The other dominant discourse, Republicanism, is less explicit about violence but has been able, nonetheless, to construct a logic that naturalizes its violent aspects. Republican discourse, like Puritanism, raises the question of political boundaries (who are the “people” who are to be the authors of democratic legality). Until the late 1910s and 1960s, women and racial minorities (respectively) were not fully included as part of “the people.” From the compromise on slavery during the Constitutional Convention to the Plessy case to the rise of various racial sciences which justified the exclusion of racial and certain immigrant groups; from vigilante justice deployed in race riots, police riots, and the resistance to such violence by subject groups, Republican principles have helped to define “the people” in both physical and symbolic terms.


-------------------------------------------
* Nonetheless, Schmitt intends his discussion as a presentation of a “general concept in the theory of the state, and not merely to a construct applied to any emergency decree or state of siege.” (Political Theology, 5). His larger point is to ground the legal order on sovereignty rather than a norm: “After all, every legal order, which is applied as something self-evident, contains within it the contrast of two distinct elements of the juristic—norm and decision. Like every other order, the legal order rests on a decision and not on a norm.” (Political Theology, 10). Schmitt’s decisionism is not the concern here; rather, I am only interested in the insight that his concept of sovereignty provides on the decision that defines an act of war (being-in and at-war).

** The War Powers Act (Public Law 93-148) was aimed at the perceive abuses of the Nixon Presidency (e.g., withholding information from Congress concerning deployment of American forces in Cambodia during the Vietnam conflict).

forget Larry Summers

Norway has figured out a practical and effective way to shatter the corporate glass ceiling.

Bhutto

season of giving

President Bush today signed a $555 billion dollar spending bill in which Congress gave the President $70 billion to pursue wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Celebrities and other notables have been giving in this campaign season. Here is a random sample:

Giuliani

Jeff Gordon $2,300

Jimmy Johnson $2,300

Alex Rodriquez $2,300

George Steinbrenner $2,300

Obama

Phylicia Rashad $1,500

Rosanne Arquette $2,300

George Clooney $4,300

Jodie Foster $3,300

Tom Hanks $2,300

Phil Jackson $2,300

Warren Buffett $4,600

Richardson

Jodie Foster $1,000

Clinton

Paul Allen $4,600

Jon Bon Jovi $4,600

Chevy Chase $4,600

Jodie Foster $4,600

Tom Hanks $2,300

Warren Buffett $4,600

Martha Stewart $2,300

stroller mafia

Technology is making gestures precise and brutal, and with them men. (...) Thus the ability is lost, for example, to close a door quietly and discreetly, yet firmly. -- Adorno

Likewise, the ability to traverse public spaces in discreet lines is lost. The 7th Avenue sidewalks are virtually blockaded by parents or nannies pushing baby strollers in a haphazard manner. I have often wondered what hormones are triggered when one steers a six, eight, or sixteen wheeler (that double-wide dreadnought, equipped with multiple cup holders and independent storage unit) that cause a distinct lack of awareness of surrounding objects to occur. On narrow passages, two side-by-side strollers forestall passage in either direction. The sheer obliviousness of the stroller mafia is maddening. Should not the rules of the road apply to the sidewalks? Two single lanes, passing on the right, no stopping without signaling?

Until the DMV's bailiwick is expanded to include licensing for stroller drivers, a special stroller lane is necessary.

on academia

7.28.98

An a priori? Walking, talking a priori. Everyone has an angle to pursue. Some revealed pseudo-secret passes as cold hard cash. "We'll have to do lunch" means "let's trade scandals."

"Heard anything?" All the while missing their own stench. Impression mismanagement begins at home. 

*****

Brilliance. What is its measure? In a crowd of PhDs, intelligence is cheap. Where is the line between wheat & chaff? "Synthetic judgment" naturally. It's  the creativity, stupid. Magicians still work their magic. Flat out brilliance. Let's take ___, her book qualifies. How can one tell? Because its author's existence so perturbs the smaller big minds. "Her first book came out too early." A herd of Salieris passing judgment. Don't look beyond the end of your nose and please do not wake the neighbors. Above all else: fit in. 

archive fever

9.14.90

It is the archetypical melting pot on the verge of meltdown. Jewish, Irish, Caribbean, Puerto Rican, Latin, black, and women's herstories mix in an easy uneasy way. This is New York City. I live in fortress 2C, next to the Irish bar, next to the Cuban bakery, next to the Korean fish market, next to the Caribbean/Latin Superette, next to the Chinese laundry, next to the Armory. Suspicion is the watchword. Everyone is a potential victim because everyone is a potential murderer. This is a conformist town. Fit in  or be shot. Look the same or always cover your back. Talk too much to neighbors and come home to an empty space. Hi and goodbye. Sun-glassed smiles and nods of the head say "make this brief." 

9.15.90

Fall weather brings the aroma of stale urine closer to home. Rose of India restaurant on E. 6th St. They sell food and culture. The selling of the latter detracts from the taste of the former.

9.20.00

"Back in New York City..." Now at Gothic University, straight out of Straight Man. These people, my putative colleagues, are beleaguered. What was an attempt at unity turns rancorous; the lead organizer, accused of exclusionary practices, which he denies, but which everyone knows is true, leaves the table, the room, the universe, ten minutes before quitting time. To wit. And henceforth. Before this happy event, another one -- one of my putative colleagues -- says something like: "I am the only ____ woman left and that tells me I HAVE NO FUTURE HERE." You can fill in that blank. 

9.21.00

Gothic University. Nightmare on Elm Street. The room seethed with barely repressed rage as good Dean T. delivered her state of the division speech. Upbeat. Up enrollments. New plans to better utilize resources -- double the exploitation. The Dean has her boots pressed on the necks of these faculty members but she also wants no rough edges or worn heels. Sorry -- step on eggs, wipe the yolk off your feet.

an invitation

Dear Ascona,

I am preparing a project by K. W. at the Marian Goodman Gallery which could be best described as a kind of 18th century Salon - cum - conversation game. The themes of the project revolve around which cultural values (apart from technological innovations) are necessary to transform Western societies into sustainable systems. The project takes into account Foucault's concept of technologies of the self, investigating if the term 'technology' and the innovatory potential it implies is legitimate when it comes to constructions of self and relationships. Similarly, it looks at what the 'new' in the Situationists' 'new situations' and 'new passions' could mean in concrete terms and also reflects on older cultural formations like the 18th century, antiquity and their specific aesthetics of existence. 

We felt that these issues might interest you and correspond with some of your areas of research.

We hope to hear from you.

I did not respond to this invitation, in part because the range of thematics for the salon were difficult to hold in mind all at once. But it might be easier to take each of them separately.

...which cultural innovations are necessary to transform Western societies into sustainable systems.

It will seem odd to have to refer to historical materialism at this point, but short of a transformation of the short-term thinking that is pervasive in these societies, the notion of "sustainability" will not have anything to do with ecological balance; sustainability will mean nothing other than the perpetuation of the firm, the accentuation of the credit column. Without addressing the production side, these cultural values will primarily address consumption. Can we moderns (and postmoderns) live with less as the price for sustainability? From what source would the value of self-imposed scarcity arise in a society of really existing abundance?

...the Situationists' 'new situations' and 'new passions'...

Debord was right about the spectacle; however, psychogeographic experience and its conductor, the dérive, remains the province of the lucky few, who have the leisure time to participate in theoretically orchestrated strolls. The new "situations" envisioned by the SI were temporary: "Our central idea is that of the construction of situations, that is to say, the concrete construction of momentary ambiances of life and their transformation into a superior passional quality." It is not clear how such "momentary ambiances" could take on the institutional characteristics that would be required to make social systems sustainable. 

...older cultural formations like the 18th century, antiquity and their specific aesthetics of existence.

Without trying to understand the connection between these two eras and their "aesthetics of existence," what comes to mind immediately is that societies in the 18th century and antiquity were institutionalized aristocracies. The "18th century" means the "court society" (Elias); "antiquity" means the philosopher-kings and their Roman epigones. While Habermas found the kernel of modern, democratic publicity in the 18th century salon (but why does the invitation not mention the coffeehouse?), it remained limited demographically. The polis and the forum were both socially constrained spaces, open only to Oikosmänner. These facts are not especially noteworthy except that they indicate that however universal the pretensions of these cultural formations were, their reach was restricted. Several questions are suggested: (1) do transformative cultural values only originate in these constrained spaces that are unconstrained by "necessity" and, if this is in fact the case, can they be redistributed? (2) If a cultural avant-garde (e.g., the SI) is the likely primary beneficiary of transformative culture values, in what way will these values impact "systems"? If we accept Weber's analysis of the protestant ethic, one could argue that the new cultural values will only impact systems when they find an elective affinity with a broader range of non-aesthetic experiences and practices (as well as technological capacities).

deforming theory

In an article published in the ASA's theory section newsletter in August 2005, Stephen Sanderson proposed several measures of theoretical reform. Unlike Swift's, Sanderson's "modest proposal" to reform "theoretical work in sociology" is a response to a pseudo-crisis of the author's own imagination. In form, Sanderson begins immodestly, launching into an unsubstantiated claim for a crisis in the subfield of theory, which includes the enumeration of excessive behaviors among those who work in "social theory" or "classical theory," who may or may not also be prone to the unforgivable error of taking an "anti-scientific" standpoint or incorporating "non-theorists" into the domain of theory work in sociology.

One sign of crisis announced by Sanderson (presumably in order of significance) is "an excessive concern with the classical theorists." Durkheim, a hoary classical theorist, stipulated theory's role in the science of society as (1) defining the sociological object -- social facts -- prior to research and (2) defining the relationships between these social facts. Weber, the builder of ideal types, unfolds an exemplary explanatory framework in the magnificent first chapter of Economy and Society. On both sides of the Rhine, the Durkheimians (lest Sanderson forget the rich studies of Durkheim, Mauss, and Hubert were build upon existing empirical literature from the ethnological field) and Weber were very concerned with the relationship of theory to empirical reality. Hence, Sanderson's argument regarding the "work of the masters" that "it's time to take what is of value, discard the rest, and move on to build new theories that can be tested empirically" simply fails the test of reality; the reality of the actual empirical orientation of the work of Durkheim and Weber.

Another sign of crisis: "An excessive concern with 'chic' European theorists." Things become more unreal when Sanderson suggest that the interest in contemporary European social thought is a matter of fashion. It may be the case that in the heartland of the United States, all things British, French, and German are so exotic that interest in them is suspect of being a superficial attraction. However, in the rest of the civilized world, thinkers like Habermas, Bourdieu, and Giddens are treated as significant contributors to frames of social analysis. To take an empirical measurement of this claim -- in order to satisfy the bias of Sanderson -- one can consult the Social Sciences Citation Index. But, of course, the counter-argument is possible that quantity does not equal quality; however, such a counter-argument, derived from the vantage point of "scientificity," smacks of rank subjectivism, and therefore is a self-negating, performative contradiction.

Another peculiar sign of crisis -- and perhaps the most telling sign of Sanderson's projection -- is a purported "extreme politicization" of theory that has occurred with the emergence of such areas of thought as feminist theory, neo-Marxism, queer theory, and whiteness studies. In fact, Sanderson's own proposal is an act of politicization of the subfield of theory. The scene of a frustrated three year old, who stubbornly and futilely taunts a superior playmate, is enacted at the end of Sanderson's piece, when he says to his erstwhile colleagues in social and classical theory: "go somewhere else to ply your trade and leave the rest of us alone to ply ours."

Based on the principle of hermeneutic generosity, one could understand Sanderson's discomfort with social theory and classical theory as a consequence of misunderstanding, misreading, or lack of reading. Or perhaps European social thought and social theory simply does not play well in the intellectual periphery of the USA.

conservatives discussing the clintons

Conservative #1: I want to say only a couple of things. I blame Mr. Clinton for our lax attitude toward terrorism. There was plenty he could do and he didn't do. Apparently Waco and Elian Gonzales were bigger problems. I believe life under Mrs. Clinton will be very bad. Universal health care is one of her craziest ideas that comes to mind. She has no understanding of the Middle East. No understanding of economics.

Conservative #2: The real danger of Hillary's election will be the undermining of the Republic. One or more ACLU lawyers like Ginsberg will be put on the court. Someone totally scary will run the justice department. And there will be nothing to stop the democrats in control of all branches of government from pushing the most far left agenda since FDR's New Deal. If you think Healthcare is the goal, you're not thinking big enough. This power grab will be the biggest in our lifetimes. Expect your taxes to go way up, expect your civil rights such as how you r raise your children to be eroded. Expect us to give away more military secrets to hostile nations, etc. etc.

Conservative #1: I remember when Mrs. Clinton talked about eliminating the Electoral College. Talk about a fascist. That could be our next president.

Conservative #3: There is good evidence that when the Clintons first took office, Mrs. Clinton wanted to make a Communist Party fellow traveler Secretary of Education.

Ascona: I've heard Hillary plans to abolish Christmas.

Conservative #4: Ascona, rather than pass on (or create) rumour and speculation, why don't you reference news articles or reliable web sites that mention that tidbit. Frankly, I think it's ridiculous.

electability

If she were to win the Democratic Party nomination, I wonder how the Right will "swiftboat" Hillary? Not that it would necessarily succeed: the Right has thrown everything at her over the last 16 years, but she's still around. Her very existence seems to agitate a subset of American conservatives like nothing else. Maybe they'll pull quotes from a samizdat copy of her B.A. thesis at Wellesley (or maybe they'll just make them up), which will prove who the "real Hillary" really, really, really is. Ironically, what is actually revealed in the Right's Hillary obsession is the unconscious of this group of conservatives: their recurrent fears, deepest anxieties, and secret pleasures.

4 fallacies

1. the term "war" best describes the geo-political situation in which the United States finds itself.

2. this war, termed a "war against terrorism," can only be fought in the way BushCo have chosen to fight it.

3. Military funding must be given priority over all other things.

4. civil liberties must take a back seat to national security.

The larger framing issue is whether the USA is in a state of war or state of emergency at present. Bush's Military Order of November 13, 2001 declares  that "In light of the grave acts of terrorism and threats of terrorism, including the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, on the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense in the national capital region, on the World Trade Center in New York, and on civilian aircraft such as in Pennsylvania, I proclaimed a national emergency on September 14, 2001 (Proc. 7463, Declaration of National Emergency by Reason of Certain Terrorist Attacks)." Bush justifies the rest of the order pertaining to the detention of individuals  (i.e., "enemy combatants") on this basis: "Having fully considered the magnitude of the potential deaths, injuries, and property destruction that would result from potential acts of terrorism against the United States, and the probability that such acts will occur, I have determined that an extraordinary emergency exists for national defense purposes, that this emergency constitutes an urgent and compelling government interest, and that issuance of this order is necessary to meet the emergency."

This view should be treated critically. First, one must ask whether the problem of international terrorism is best described as an act of war or as a matter of international crime? Second, what conditions meet the criterion for a state of emergency and does such a state of emergency still exist with regard to international terrorism? It is understandable that in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, such a state of emergency did exist, just as a state of emergency existed in New Orleans in the wake of hurricane Katrina. There is no longer a state of emergency in New Orleans (although work remains to be done). Is there still a state of emergency six years after 9/11?

I believe terrorism should be treated as a criminal act. The problem of defining it as an act of war is that then the Executive branch can justifiably declare a state of emergency, and invoke extraordinary powers that accrue to the Executive in wartime. Consequently, the USA is now in an endless state of emergency: this "war on terrorism" cannot be won (terror is a tactic), or at least the people who promote the idea of a "war on terrorism" do not envision an end date for this war. For reasons that extend beyond the detainees at Gitmo (other limitations on liberties and rights that have arisen post 9/11), this open-ended definition of the situation contradicts one of Clinton Rossiter's standards for a "constitutional dictatorship": a return to normal constitutional functions must be the goal of a constitutional dictatorship. As I see it, no "return" is envisioned. Hence the mantra that "9/11 changed everything." Did it? Should it? I think not.

detourned christmas

Kike Arnal, NY Times

Mists and Rains

Waning autumn, winter, mudbound spring - 

I thank these somnolent seasons which I love

for offering to both my heart and mind

so vaporous a shroud, so vague a tomb.

Here on this huge plain where the wind perfects

a will of its own and the weathervane cries all night,

now and not in the tepid days to come

my soul prefers to spread her raven wings.

Filled with dead and dying things, the heart

itself is frozen fast, and best of all

- O queen of our climate, ashen time of year! -

your livid shadows never seem to change

except on moonless nights when two by two

we rock our pain to sleep on a reckless bed.

Baudelaire, Les Fleurs du Mal