More, Please

Anne Lamott has decided to reject William Saletan’s suggestion that pro-choice politics emphasize the premise that women who get abortions are immoral, and good for her:

EVERYTHING WAS going swimmingly on the panel. The subject was politics and faith, and I was on stage with two clergymen with progressive spiritual leanings, and a moderator who is liberal and Catholic. We were having a discussion with the audience of 1,300 people in Washington about many of the social justice topics on which we agree–the immorality of the federal budget, the wrongness of the president’s war in Iraq. Then an older man came to the mike and raised the issue of abortion, and everyone just lost his or her mind.

Or, at any rate, I did.

Maybe it was the way in which the man couched the question, which was about how we should reconcile our progressive stances on peace and justice with the “murder of a million babies every year in America.” The man who asked the question was soft-spoken, neatly and casually dressed.

[...]

Then, when I was asked to answer the next question, I paused, and returned to the topic of abortion. There was a loud buzzing in my head, the voice of reason that says, “You have the right to remain silent,” but the voice of my conscience was insistent. I wanted to express calmly, eloquently, that pro-choice people understand that there are two lives involved in an abortion–one born (the pregnant woman) and one not (the fetus)–but that the born person must be allowed to decide what is right.

Also, I wanted to wave a gun around, to show what a real murder looks like. This tipped me off that I should hold my tongue, until further notice. And I tried.

But then I announced that I needed to speak out on behalf of the many women present in the crowd, including myself, who had had abortions, and the women whose daughters might need one in the not-too-distant future–people who must know that teenage girls will have abortions, whether in clinics or dirty backrooms. Women whose lives had been righted and redeemed by Roe vs. Wade. My answer was met with some applause but mostly a shocked silence.

Pall is a good word. And it did not feel good to be the cause of that pall. I knew what I was supposed to have said, as a progressive Christian: that it’s all very complicated and painful, and that Jim was right in saying that the abortion rate in America is way too high for a caring and compassionate society.

But I did the only thing I could think to do: plunge on, and tell my truth. I said that this is the most intimate decision a woman makes, and she makes it all alone, in her deepest heart of hearts, sometimes with the man by whom she is pregnant, with her dearest friends or with her doctor–but without the personal opinion of say, Tom DeLay or Karl Rove.

I said I could not believe that men committed to equality and civil rights were still challenging the basic rights of women. I thought about all the photo-ops at which President Bush had signed legislation limiting abortion rights, surrounded by 10 or so white, self-righteous married men, who have forced God knows how many girlfriends into doing God knows what. I thought of the time Bush appeared on stage with children born from frozen embryos, children he calls “snowflake babies,” and of the embryos themselves, which he calls the youngest and most vulnerable Americans.

And somehow, as I was answering, I got louder and maybe even more emphatic than I actually felt, and said it was not a morally ambiguous issue for me at all. I said that fetuses are not babies yet; that there was actually a real difference between pro-abortion people, like me, and Klaus Barbie.

Then I said that a woman’s right to choose was nobody else’s goddamn business. This got their attention.

Now that’s more like it. Whether this is the optimal strategy, I don’t know; I’m inclined to agree with Amanda that Saletan’s “pro-choice war on abortion” may have some tactical advantages but is bad strategy. (I also should make it clear that pro-choicers should continue to support policies–access to contraception, rational sex ed, good childcare for poor working mothers, etc.–that will tend to lower abortion rates, and it’s fine to point out these consequences to expose the contradictions of the “pro-life” position.) But I do know that I certainly think that Lamott is right, and when you’re dealing with a critical right I think that substantive merits matter. Since most pro-lifers aren’t willing to act as if they actually believe that abortion is “murder,” I continue to think that there’s no reason for pro-choicers to play lip service to to the claim. I’m happy that people like Lamont are willing to actually start speaking truth to received “wisdom.”

(Cross-posted to Sisyphus Shrugged.)

Friday Cat Blogging… Starbuck and Nelson

That word, I do not think it means what you think it means

Matt is quite correct; Rich Lowry ought not be allowed to appropriate the term “neorealist”:

Rich Lowry’s trying to coin a term “neo-realist” for that brand of foreign policy thinker who just so happens to mix and match their realpolitik and their idealism to match up with roughly whatever George W. Bush is doing in any given situation. He notes that The Wall Street Journal used “neo-realist” as a description for Condoleezza Rice and her circle earlier this week. It’s a trend!

It’s a trend and it’s got to stop. “Neorealism” already has an established meaning in international relations jargon — the people who, following Kenneth Waltz, have sought to formalize and systematize the earlier “classical realism” of Hans Morgenthau, etc.

Lowry wants to think that a neo-realist is someone who combines the idealism of neocons (chuckle) and the hard-headedness of realists. Since neorealism has been a functioning term of international relations theory since 1979, and since several of its proponents are prominent in both academic and public circles (particularly Mearsheimer and Waltz), and since (especially) neorealism as it stands means almost precisely the opposite of what Lowry would have it stand for, I think that Lowry should give it some thought and try to find a new phrase.

May I suggest “neocon with a hangover”?

Save Neorealism.

Now *That’s* Twisting MLK’s Legacy

You know who needs to really, really shut up? People who 1)are crying rivers of crocodile tears about how the friends and family of a civil rights leader comport themselves at their funeral although they’ve never met, and 2)could care less about segregationist sympathizers being appointed to the federal courts. In Wallace we can see many of the manifestations of the racism of the modern Republican Party: he helped Trent “we never would have had all these problems if only an apartheid President had won in 1948″ Lott defend Bob Jones University, as an aid to Lott tried to keep inspectors out of Mississippi prisons, clerked for William “Plessy was right and should be upheld” Rehnquist, and he would replace Charles “if I have to do grossly unethical things to stop cross-burners from being prosecuted to the full extent of the law, I’ll do ‘em!” Pickering. I think it’s also pretty safe to say that Jeff “The Klan would be OK if they didn’t smoke pot” Sessions will support him.

And the punchline: Pickering, who “penned a 1959 law review article that showed legislators how to tighten Mississippi’s ban on interracial marriage,” was given a recess appointment by the man who was so, so unfairly put upon at CSK’s funeral on…MLK’s birthday. A nudge is as good as a wink to a blind segregationist, know what I mean, know what I mean.

So, if I understand correctly, to delicate modern Republican sensibilities, friends, family and allies of Coretta Scott King paying tribute to the things she consistently fought for is beyond the pale of civilized discourse, but appointing a protege of a Senator who was expressing nostalgia for Jim Crow in 2002 and who fought to help said Senator fight for segregationist universities–a beautiful, loving tribute!

Seriously, who cares what these clowns think about anything, let alone funerals of people they’ve never met?

(Cross-posted at Sisyphus Shrugged.)

"OK Boys, 23, 11 and…you want three dimes on Arizona State?"

Ironically, with the recent retirement of the staggeringly great and effectively named Mario Lemieux, I was wondering what had ever happened to Rick Tocchet, an important cog in the great Penguins teams of the 90s. Well, now I know. It doesn’t sound like anybody bet on hockey, but still, the consistent linkage of “Wayne Gretzky,” “gambling,” and “the Jersey mob” cannot be good for the sport. (I wonder if “Operation Slap Shot” will become a plotline in The Sopranos?)

Venus Shrugged

Julia of Sisyphus Shrugged will be taking a much-needed blog vacation for a few days, and hence occupying her blog in the meantime will be a passel of all-star bloggers, and I will be posting there as well. I’ll still be around these parts too, but definitely worth checking out as always.

Conflating Aesthetics and Health: Still Extremely Deleterious to the Latter

Seeing this post reminded me that I’ve been meaning to link to Ampersand’s exhaustive decimation of yet another study that starts with assumptions about weight loss being the object (rather than a potential aesthetic side effect) of healthy dieting and exercise, and because of this makes a series of pernicious snake oil claims that aren’t supported by the data. Weight, as an independent variable, has a small impact on health in all but extreme cases, and the failure to understand this produces all kinds of distortions. Some of his conclusions are particularly worthy of notice:

* But by claiming that losing weight has been scientifically proven to be both practical and easy, they’re legitimizing bigotry against fat people, by spreading the myth that the only reason anyone remains fat is laziness and lack of caring.

* By pushing weight-loss methods that have been scientifically shown, according to the studies they themselves cite, to not work in the long term, they’re encouraging yo-yo dieting, which has terrible health consequences.

* By making weight their only measure of health, they’re obscuring the fact that eating well and exercising regularly has enormous, maintainable, long-term benefits for fat people regardless of if any weight is lost.

* By making weight their only measure of health, they’re obscuring the fact that being “normal” weight is no guarantee of good health; health-concerned “normal” people need to eat a healthy diet and exercise, too.

All of these points are extremely important. The conflation of weight and health is bad, first of all, because it’s utterly ineffective at encouraging lifestyle changes. People who aren’t overweight will believe there’s no harm in eating bad diets and/or being sedentary, and overweight people are likely to abandon salutary lifestyle changes when they discover that, in most cases, the radical transformation of their bodies they’ve been promised doesn’t occur. But it’s much worse than that. The conflation of health and weight creates all kinds extremely bad outcomes–not just yo-yo dieting, but eating disorders, grossly unbalanced fad diets, social isolation, cocktails of speed and laxatives, etc. etc.–that are far, far worse than not doing anything at all. Eating a good diet and getting consistent exercise are good and should be encouraged, full stop. Claiming that a particular body type, rather than health, is the ultimate object of these lifestyle choices is both empirically fallacious and obviously counterproductive.

No-Talent Ass-Clown of the Day

Mr. Chris Muir, author of the faux-hipster poor man’s Mallard Fillmore. Again, the only “twisting of King’s legacy” is being done by conservatives engaged, in Steve‘s phrase, as “part of a conservative shell game to claim the legacy of Martin Luther King, by denuding every bit of the radical nature of his message and tying it to some bland form of equality.” Amanda invites people to make funny out of painfully unfunny-ade.

(Parody by the great Norbizness.)

"Well, I once skimmed a Tech Central Station Article about Indians and ecology, so I think my insights have a great deal of validity."

Brad DeLong plays Marshall McLuhan to Jonah Goldberg’s pompous windbag.

…Jonah’s WWII history is about equally strong.

I Hate Them So Much!!!!

Shorter Mickey:

Sometimes my need to pretend I’m a Democrat conflicts with my visceral hatred of all actual Democrats.

The Wellstone Funeral Wasn’t the Wellstone Funeral

Given the way that many people will attempt to “Wellstone” the funeral of Coretta Scott King, it’s worth nothing that the Wellstone meme itself is based on on a series of lies. The objectionable “politicization” of the Wellstone funeral was the way in which many people who despised everything Wellstone stood for distorted it for nakedly political ends.

And, of course, as Eric points out there’s also a staggering degree of presumptuousness involved in other people telling her family and friends what kind of funeral they should have. But we know what’s going on; in addition to the obvious, it’s also part of an ongoing enterprise by complacent reactionaries like Glenn Reynolds to retroactively strip the Kings and the civil rights movement of any political content. Just appalling.

…Dave Johnson has a good roundup of the various swiftboaters. Particularly precious is seeing the reaction of Michelle “Our Blessed Lady of the Concentration Camps” Malkin. Lesse, CSK’s friends and supporters saying things consistent with her beliefs (and that her family hasn’t objected to) is “twisting her legacy” and “unhinged,” but writing a sixth-rate book arguing in favor of stripping people of their property and shipping them to concentration camps solely because of their race, now that’s what the Civil Rights movement fought for! What a disgrace.

In Defense of my (Weak) Defense of the Secretary of Defense

Nick has called me out. That was quick…

Elsewhere, I must respectfully dissent from Robert Farley’s faint praise for Rumsfeld’s effectiveness at the Defense Department. His utter contempt for post-war contingency planning has left an insufficient number of soldiers in harm’s way with insufficient body armor or armored Humvees. The Military Police still don’t get enough respect to match their efforts in Iraq. Meanwhile, despite the obvious importance of the Army and Marines, procurement plans for the expensive F22 fighter and DD(X) destroyer go unchecked. I’m all for a strong defense, but I think we’ll have enough lead time to build new ships and planes should China suddenly get very bellicose. I Eeven the small things have gone wrong; DARPA has moved away from longer-term, blue sky research towards short-term work for defense contractors. The DoD continues to fight increases in pay and surivor benefits. And so on, and so on.

A couple of points to be made:

First, I didn’t (and didn’t intend to) defend Rumsfeld’s handling of the Iraq War. This is, and will in the future, be the central measure of his tenure, and he has failed utterly and repeatedly to handle the war in an effective fashion.

As for the DD(X), it replaced a previous advanced design that projected the construction of 32 ships. In 2001, the expectation was that 12 ships would be built. Now, the projection is 7, and there are serious questions as to whether more than the initial 2 will ever be constructed. This is hardly a vision of a program gone “unchecked”. Now, it could be reasonably argued that Rumsfeld has not played a crucial role in reducing the DD(X) program, but it can also be argued that he hasn’t pushed very hard for it. A similar story could be told about the F-22. The Clinton administration expectation for F-22 production was 339 aircraft. That number is now 183, and again may drop.

Now, it could be argued that Rumsfeld should have done a better job of killing these two programs, but is that terribly realistic? The Secretary of Defense is not an autocrat. He cannot simply kill defense programs. The services want the DD(X) and the F-22 badly. Their supporters in Congress want the DD(X) and the F-22 badly. Let’s not have unreasonable expectations about the capacity of a SecDef to do this job. Killing those programs is simply not on the table, at least not thus far.

On the question of pay and survivor benefits, I do not know enough about them to be able to comment usefully on the appropriateness of those critiques. It’s certainly possible that survivor benefits are too low, and that Rumsfeld is responsible. On the other hand, survivors will invariably request higher benefits, and Departments of Defense will invariably oppose such requests. This process does not necessarily indicate anything about competence. The question of pay is quite similar, except that it’s even more complicated. There are a fair number of people who argue that no military pay gap exists, or at least that other benefits (material and social) make up for that gap. In any case, the debate over military pay began in the 1990s, prior to Rumsfeld’s tenure.

A couple of final points: Nick argues that the Pentagon has erred in focusing more money toward short-term research projects, but it’s not clear to me that this is a mistake, given that the US is currently engaged in a couple of wars. Also, I am not nearly as willing as Nick to believe that the elimination of position of Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict is a bad thing; the elimination of a bureaucratic layer does not necessarily reflect a lack of interest in that project. AG says:

Here we have Rumsfeld pissed off at his SO/LIC policy office. For what, it’s hard to say, because USSOCOM is one of his favorite children. If I had to guess, I’d say that the ASD(SO/LIC) office has screwed the pooch in their failed attempts to come up with a successful combating terrorism strategy. Combined with the lack of ability to manage a counterinsurgency campaign in the Middle East and inability to articulate a combating WMD terrorism policy, maybe he lost patience and told The Dark Prince (Cambone) to fix it.

Really too interesting. Of course, the real funny stuff is that Rummie thinks he can imperially wave his hand and make this office disappear without Congress raising the issue with him.

Indeed, I find it very difficult to believe that Rummy has given up his infatuation with special ops or his more recent interest in low intensity operations. Again, I can’t argue conclusively that this is a good idea, but I can’t conclude that it’s a bad one, either.