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Purpose?

[ 0 ] March 30, 2007 | Robert Farley

Via Drum, this seems quite likely right to me:

The Revolutionary Guard may also have hoped to sabotage diplomatic negotiations over the nuclear issue. U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said several weeks ago that the United States was getting “pinged all over the world” by Iranian intermediaries who wanted a resumption of talks. Iran’s chief negotiator, Ali Larijani, hinted at such a message in his recent contacts with the European Union’s top diplomat, Javier Solana. But the prospect of nuclear talks may have been blown out of the water, as it were, until the British issue is resolved.

Maybe that was the goal of seizing the sailors and marines. The Revolutionary Guard, after all, can’t be happy about curbing the nuclear program that would allow it to project power even more aggressively.

This is the problem with neocons; everyone has them. Just like the United States, Iran has a group of people who believe that the enemy only understands force, and that semi-treasonous diplomats seeking negotiations do nothing but weaken the nation. Whether in Iran or the US, their response to a dangerous situation is always the advocacy of more force, of a more threatening posture, and of less negotiation. When they’re allowed to control parts of the foreign policy and defense apparatus of the state, things get very dangerous very quickly.

Irregular Air Power

[ 0 ] March 29, 2007 | Robert Farley

According to Jane’s Defence Weekly, the airstrike that the Tamil Tigers launched against a government airfield is the first air attack by a non-state armed group. Is that true? I can’t think of any other examples off the top of my head (other, perhaps, than the rather special case of the 9/11 attacks), but it sounds a bit unlikely to me. Anybody have any ideas?

Kingdaddy Unleashed

[ 0 ] March 29, 2007 | Robert Farley

Victor Davis Hanson feels the wrath. Given how VD Hanson interprets Herodotus and Thucydides, what must he have taught the fine undergraduates of the Classics Department at Fresno State University?

But If We Make Access to the Ballot Easier, Democratic Unicorns Will Steal Our Elections!

[ 0 ] March 29, 2007 | Scott Lemieux

A really terrific piece by Michael Waldman and Justin Levitt about the GOP’s vote fraud fraud. The scam is advanced by the common method of “generalizing from apocryphal anecdotes”:

Allegations of voter fraud — someone sneaking into the polls to cast an illicit vote — have been pushed in recent years by partisans seeking to justify proof-of-citizenship and other restrictive ID requirements as a condition of voting. Scare stories abound on the Internet and on editorial pages, and they quickly become accepted wisdom.

But the notion of widespread voter fraud, as these prosecutors found out, is itself a fraud. Firing a prosecutor for failing to find wide voter fraud is like firing a park ranger for failing to find Sasquatch. Where fraud exists, of course, it should be prosecuted and punished. (And politicians have been stuffing ballot boxes and buying votes since senators wore togas; Lyndon Johnson won a 1948 Senate race after his partisans famously “found” a box of votes well after the election.) Yet evidence of actual fraud by individual voters is painfully skimpy.

Before and after every close election, politicians and pundits proclaim: The dead are voting, foreigners are voting, people are voting twice. On closer examination, though, most such allegations don’t pan out. Consider a list of supposedly dead voters in Upstate New York that was much touted last October. Where reporters looked into names on the list, it turned out that the voters were, to quote Monty Python, “not dead yet.”

Or consider Washington state, where McKay closely watched the photo-finish gubernatorial election of 2004. A challenge to ostensibly noncitizen voters was lodged in April 2005 on the questionable basis of “foreign-sounding names.” After an election there last year in which more than 2 million votes were cast, following much controversy, only one ballot ended up under suspicion for double-voting. That makes sense. A person casting two votes risks jail time and a fine for minimal gain. Proven voter fraud, statistically, happens about as often as death by lightning strike.

Yet the stories have taken on the character of urban myth.

And not only does the grossly exaggerated problem of voter fraud detract attention from the really serious problems with voting in this country, such as unreliable voting machines that vary across districts, insufficiently staffed vote booths, etc.–these urban legends are used to actually oppose efforts to make it easier to vote, as it is in most liberal democracies (which don’t seem to have problems running fair elections.)

…see LizardBreath as well.

Cicero: Is there anything he can’t do?

[ 0 ] March 29, 2007 | Robert Farley

Minstrel Boy channels some kickass Cicero to think about the attorney scandal. From In Verrem:

Gentlemen of the court, at this great political crisis there has been offered to you, not through man’s wisdom but almost as the direct gift of heaven, the very thing you most need—a thing that will help more than anything else to mitigate the unpopularity of your Order and the suspicion surrounding these courts. A belief has become established—as harmful to the republic as it is to yourselves—that these courts, with your senators as the jury, will never convict any man, however guilty, if he has sufficient money.

The problem, of course, is that while Quintus Hortensius had shame, George W. Bush does not. Via litbrit.

And She Rubbed The Pot Roast All Over Her Chest

[ 0 ] March 29, 2007 | Scott Lemieux

In addition to explaining the rather obvious problems with the claim that asking a question about the “Jessica Valenti breast controversy” is beyond the pale (“Ann then says that “It was character assassinating to talk about it like that.” Now, maybe I’m slow, but as far as I remember, Ann wrote a post about about Jessica’s breasts. The post was entitled “Let’s take a closer look at those breasts.” In the post, she refers to Feministing as a “breast blog.” Lots of comments ensued. Lots of other blogs picked up the post, and many were critical of Althouse. In other words, there was a controversy.”), Jill gives us the perfect summary of the YouTube meltdown:

Which is one of the reasons that I don’t like Ann Althouse, so I don’t think Garance was all that far off. Well, Ann did not like that answer, and proceeds to completely flip her shit. You really have to watch it to understand. She starts yelling at Garance and shaking her finger, and tells her that “I don’t accept your saying the Jessica Valenti breast controversy. I consider that an insult. — You know, I’m on the verge of hanging up with you for bringing it up that way.”

The look on Garance’s face is priceless. It’s the same look that I probably had when a little girl I was nannying for decided to pee on the floor to get my attention.

Admittedly, for the analogy to be perfect the girl Jill was nannying for would have then berated Jill for assassinating her character by discussing the puddle on the floor rather than assessing the theories about Bill Clinton’s murder of Vince Foster she was expounding at the time of the incident, but close enough to be the last word.

[Video by Chris Clarke.]

…no comment.

Whoa…

[ 0 ] March 29, 2007 | Robert Farley

From Mr. Trend:

Viewers of a popular Portuguese television programme have voted dictator Antonio Salazar as “The Greatest Portuguese” by a wide margin, angering many of those who remember his repressive regime.

Salazar was chosen by 41 per cent of viewers, beating communist leader Alvaro Cunhal and historic figures such as Portugal’s first king, D. Afonso Henriques, romantic poet Luis de Camoes and explorer Vasco da Gama, state broadcaster RTP said.

Whoa. But there’s still some sense to be had:

“Only masochists, imbeciles or the insane could have voted for this executioner as the greatest Portuguese,” wrote one viewer on the programme’s website (www.rtp.pt).

“Let him remain where he is — in the rubbish bin of history.”

Another viewer had vowed to leave the country, one of western Europe’s youngest democracies, if Salazar won the contest.

In mild defense of Portugal, the poll was not scientific. More from Randy.

The Lives of Others (multiple spoilers)

[ 0 ] March 28, 2007 | Robert Farley

Finally saw The Lives of Others a couple weeks back. It’s good, although not in the same class as Pan’s Labyrinth, and it most certainly didn’t deserve to beat the latter for the Best Foreign Language Oscar. The reviews I’ve read have ignored some pretty serious problems. When I got out of the movie, the first comparison that came to mind was American Beauty. The first time I saw AB I loved it; it was funny, smart, and well-acted. The second time I saw it I liked it a lot less, because it became apparent how badly the script treated Annette Bening’s character. There were plenty of things wrong with the Spacey-Benning marriage, and while Bening was responsible for some of the problems, Spacey’s character obviously deserved much of the blame. Spacey’s efforts to escape were treated as light-hearted fancy, while Bening’s were portrayed in a much darker light. There’s nothing wrong with using characters as props; this is what minor characters are for, after all. Treating Bening as a prop, though, would have been an improvement. Instead, we were given just enough insight into her character to dislike her and hold her responsible for the collapse of the marriage and for Spacey’s unhappiness, yet not quite enough to empathize with her position in the marriage.

I felt much the same way about Christa in The Lives of Others. She’s more than a prop, but she’s treated so unfairly by the script that the film suffers. Christa is asked to sacrifice a lot. First, she’s given a choice between giving up her acting career and enduring what amounts to serial rape. She chooses her career, betraying her boyfriend at the same time. Later, she’s given a choice between informing on her boyfriend and giving up her career. She chooses her career again. Her reward for this is to get hit by a truck. She’s repeatedly compromised; giving in to a Central Committee member, lying to her boyfriend, informing on him, and lying to him again. She is forced to suffer these indignities not because of any political beliefs, but because she is a woman and an actress

Compare this treatment to that of the two main characters. Our hero, the author, is in good with the authorities of the GDR, so good that they need to fabricate evidence against him in order to damage his standing. About halfway through the film, a friend who’s been blacklisted commits suicide; it’s at this point that he notices that the GDR is bad. What sacrifice is he asked to make? What principles does he have to give up? What does he have to endure in order to keep doing the thing that he loves? Nothing, none, and nothing. He undergoes some mild inconvenience, and his girlfriend gets hit by a truck. Our other “hero” is a member of the Stasi. He presumably likes torturing people and certainly enjoys taking apart people’s lives at the behest of the state. He listens to some music and realizes that the GDR is bad. What sacrifice is he asked to make? Like Christa, he’s offered a trade between what he loves to do and obedience to the state. Unlike Christa, he sacrifices his job for his principles. Since, however, his job was to torture and spy on people, I can’t feel a terrible lot of sympathy for him.

To recap, Sebastian (the author) is asked for no sacrifice and makes none. Gerd, the spy, gives up his job as a spy. Christa, on the other hand, is raped, forced to betray her boyfriend repeatedly, and run over by a truck. Now, maybe if a Central Committee member had offered Sebastian a trade of sex for protection he would have refused, and given up his art. We don’t know, because he was never forced to make the choice. Maybe, if he’d been asked to report on his friends at cost of his art, he would have refused, but again we don’t know because he was never forced to make the choice. We’re allowed to revel in the heroism of both Gerd and Sebastian in standing up the machine, but when the bill comes due, Christa has to pay. Moroever, she doesn’t even get the luxury of sacrificing herself for political principle; the state targets her because a Central Committee member wants to sleep with her. In the end, she’s just a dead informer who was willing to have sex with a party member in order to keep her job.

The ending exacerbated the problem. While another director might have left unmentioned the impending collapse of the GDR, Donnersmarck decided to focus on it. Unfortunately, it serves to remind that, even if Sebastian or Gerd had been punished for holding to principle, the punishment would only have stuck for four years. Indeed, Gerd’s punishment is to work in the Stasi mailroom between 1985 and 1989. Christa, however, remains dead. She pays for their sins, and not willingly. The end of the film, though, make clear that it was a movie about Gerd and Sebastian’s reconciling with one another and with the state, and not a film about Christa. Yet, she bears virtually all of the weight of the film. Frankly, when I left the theater, I felt I’d been a bit cheated.

More On Quebec Nationalism and Secessionism

[ 0 ] March 28, 2007 | Scott Lemieux

I can once again outsource follow-up commentary to Jacob Levy, whose views and experiences are similar to my own (although mine might be more intense since I was there during the last referendum. You might think that teaching Canadian politics would present few challenges other than keeping students awake, but mine got into a fistfight in the library elevator. And his are expressed in much better prose.) After some good stuff about the desirability of “normal politics” in Quebec, Jacob commented in the earlier thread:

I’ve been amazed at how much my basic indifference to Quebec secession (two liberal democracies or one, what’s the difference?) has transformed into (stereotypical anglophone) antipathy toward the PQ since I moved to Montreal. It’s not out of any affection for the territorial integrity of Canada: I really don’t care about that as such. And it’s not about a defense of the Montreal anglophones even though I’m now one of them– I moved to another country, and perceive myself to have moved to a French-speaking country, deliberately moved to the Plateau in order to make the most of that move. I wanted to move to Montreal, regardless of whether that was in Canada or not. I just have the wrong upbringing to care about the Canada-shaped object on a map. Being an anglophone minority in a French-speaking society (independent or not) is what I signed up for.

But I do have real annoyance at the victimhood-and-bad-faith tales that I see the PQ using. The indivisibility-of-Quebec argument above all annoys the hell out of me– my interest in indigenous rights is a lot older than my move to Montreal, and makes it very hard for me to be cheery about people who tell a straightforwardly hypocritical story about their own right to self-determination and the lack of same among the First Nations. As a secondary matter I genuinely perceive the PQ to be relevantly similar to the Jacobin laicite’ tradition in France on matters of multiculturalism and minority religions. It somehow turns out that most of the ostensible hostility to religion falls on the shoulders of conservative Jews and Muslims, with very little falling on the giant cross looming over the city, or all the Christian holidays. And as a tertiary matter, while it’s ordinary rent-seeking, I’m more than a little shocked at the ‘fiscal imbalance’ narrative as a justification for secession. Upshot: after nine months I’ve become utterly disgusted with the PQ and happy to see them lose. I’d have been very unhappy to see the ADQ win the election, but am pretty pleased with the outcome we got.

Right. The argument about Quebec’s indivisibility really gives away the ethnic nationalist show (although, of course, many individual proponents of secession are liberal progressives.) I have no particular attachment to arbitrary national boundaries, but the current post-Quiet Revolution secessionist movement is premised on all kinds of bad faith. And not only is the fiscal imbalance argument the kind of dishonesty people will recognize from the American south (Quebec is actually gets a net fiscal gain from the federal government), it’s a fundamental part of many “sovereignty-association” schemes, which seem to involve Quebec retaining all powers except those that involve the ability of the federal government to transfer money to Quebec. There just aren’t any arguments about why secession is necessary that work without ethnic nationalism.

In response to Matt, I would say that the kind of social democracy advocated by the PQ is only half-appealing, particularly given the much different political context than the U.S. (even in Alberta, you can’t run against the fundamentals of single-payer.) The Quebec left supports the robuset European welfare model that I support, but also some elements of European dirigisme that I’m more more skeptical about. I will concede, though, that Dumont is pretty awful.

UPDATE: John dissents.

It’s Not Personal, Sonny

[ 0 ] March 28, 2007 | Scott Lemieux

I have no particular desire to revisit the issue, and indeed have every intention of continuing my post-Pelosi-smear policy of ignoring her except for MSM appearances or unusual circumstances such as her bullying a colleague, but since Garance has implied here that there’s some sort of mutual personal grudge between me and Ann Althouse I suppose I have to clarify something. I invite anyone to click on the link and look at what I’ve written — you’ll see nothing remotely resembling the kind of genuinely personal insults Althouse has directed at me or Glenn Greenwald (among many others.) I criticize Althouse a lot because she happens to combine in one package several of the most annoying and most pernicious types of punditry: “Everything changed for me on September 11. I used to consider myself a Democrat, but thanks to 9/11, I’m outraged by Chappaquiddick” fake moderation, obsession with meaningless trivia and junior-high-school personality narratives when discussing politics, and crying “civility” to pre-empt your vicious smears form any scrutiny. But whether you agree or disagree, these are things I consistently believe to be odious irrespective of the party involved. If you look at most of the things I’ve criticized her for — completely undefended assertions that Sam Alito is a moderate, apologizing for the Bush administration’s foreign policy (including its assertions of arbitrary power and use of torture), claiming the Iraq War is rationally seen as part of a conflict with Islamic terrorism, repeating lies about Nancy Pelosi requesting a luxury jet — you’ll find that I’ve criticized other people who have made similar arguments. Admittedly, some of her arguments are sui generis, so you’re just going to have to take my word that I would find claims that liberals opposition to Sam Alito reflected their belief that people don’t have rights, or that New York’s most prominent feminist blogger was invited to a meeting by Hillary Clinton’s campaign as part of an elaborate ruse to get Bill Clinton some action equally idiotic if someone else made them. I don’t think this is much of a stretch.

Of course, saying that this is all about a personality clash, in addition to being an almost comically transparent case of projection (and her meltdown in the face of Garance’s mild questions is just the latest example), is also yet another clever strategy for insulating her silly arguments from any criticism on the merits. People criticize her not because they disagree, but because they’re been “sucked into the Althouse vortex” or some such nonsense. This her way of seeing the world, not mine. And in fairness, given the quality of the arguments Althouse would have to try to defend, you can’t really blame her for using various diversions to avoid having to do so. Don’t buy it.

In Defense of Jacques Lemaire

[ 0 ] March 28, 2007 | Scott Lemieux

Looking at the boxscore, you might think that last night’s Flames/Wild game was a throwback to the worst of the early-aughts NHL. But you would be quite wrong. It was a terrific game: fast, plenty of chances, great goaltending. As long as the league is enforcing the anti-obstruction rules, looking at total goals scored is the wrong metric to evaluate the quality of play. All of which reminds me that I’ve always thought that Lemaire’s great Devils teams always got a bad rap. There certainly were teams of that era that tried to win through tedious clutch-and-grabbing, but the Devils were an exciting, hard-hitting, highly skilled team that happened to specialize in defense and goaltending. If you don’t allow goals because you’re fast and well-coached, that’s still fun to watch. The other good thing about the game is that the Flames had been so bad in shootouts it was difficult for me to argue against them without seeming to be acting out of self-interest, but now that we’ve won a few in a row I’m free to reiterate what an abomination they are.

Also, for Brad, Darcy et al. allow me to graciously congratulate the Pigfuckers Canucks on clinching a playoff spot.

Fifteen

[ 0 ] March 28, 2007 | Robert Farley

I also find the British claims as to the location of their sailors and marines a bit more compelling than the Iranian; the Iranians changed their story about the location after the British pointed out that the first Iranian claimed location was, in fact, in Iraqi waters after all. But whether the sailors were in either Iranian or Iraqi waters is a bit beside the point. The border between Iran and Iraq in this area is confusing and oft-disputed, and arresting the British sailors in disputed waters is not an appropriate reaction even to what may have been a small incursion. Especially since Iran is not contesting the basic British account (that the sailors and marines were investigating an Indian merchant ship), the arrest and detention would be a major over-reaction if it happened anywhere else in the world.

It seems obvious to me that the arrests are intended to be seen as a political response to US detention of Iranians in Iraq, and perhaps as a means of embarassing the Blair government. The method of capture (several Iranian boats acting in concert) would seem to support this. The byzantine nature of the Iranian state leaves in question who, precisely, intends to send what political message. The entire situation is worrying, though, because this is hardly the time for Tehran to act recklessly against the major US ally. The drumbeat of war against Iran has slowed in the last few months, and since I don’t want war I would prefer that Tehran refrain from presenting convenient casus belli. Unfortunately, Iran also has a Dick Cheney, a Don Rumsfeld, and a Bill Kristol; men who believe that the “enemy” understands only force, and who habitually underestimate the costs of such an approach.

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