Month: December 2009

AFP:

A Swiss businessman appalled by his fellow countrymen's decision to ban minarets has extended a chimney above his company building into a minaret in protest. "It was scandalous that the Swiss voted for the ban. Now we have the support of all the far-right parties across Europe. This is shameful," Guillaume Morand, who owns a chain of shoe stores, told AFP. The businessman, who is not a Muslim, explained that the he had constructed the mock minaret at his building near western Switzerland's city of Lausanne in protest, and at the same time, to "send a message of peace."

(Photo: Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images)

Reihan praises Obama's speech:

Had the president dedicated the peace prize to the men and women of the American armed forces, I would have been forced to completely change my assessment of the man and his virtues. What President Obama has done is persuade a not inconsiderable number of liberals who could never have been convinced by the same words coming from the mouth of President Bush or, say, a President Romney. Whether or not that reflects well on them is immaterial — the speech has strengthened the political coalition for the war in Afghanistan, thus giving the Obama administration more breathing room to make its plan work. That's a good thing.

Where is that OPR report?

A reader writes:

It was always apparent that the President viewed Afghanistan as an important war. It is just as apparent that the President sold himself as a pragmatic intellectual. The fact that Karzai stole an election should have changed the calculus. It didn’t. That was one disappointment. The second was Obama’s framing of the War on Terror as one that can be waged through the use of traditional ground troops.

In his speech he stated “Negotiations cannot convince al Qaeda’s leaders to lay down their arms.” Well AQ doesn’t use arms, at least not in the traditional sense, so either he’s trying to make people think that the Taliban and AQ are the same – and we all know they’re not – or he’s giving up the idea that terrorism is best fought with police and intelligence agencies. If that’s where his head is at now then he has seriously lost his way and a lot more American troops will die for no real reason before someone with some sense puts a stop to it all.

No one exposes it better:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
Beck – Not So Mellow Gold
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

Beck could be in trouble with Fox over the conflict of interest. Other gold profiteers include O’Reilly, Mark Levin, Michael Savage, Laura Ingraham, Dennis Miller, Fred Thompson, and G. Gordon Liddy. A reader of Ben Smith writes:

What's going to happen when the gold bubble bursts? Who are the masses going to blame? Beck? Obama?

Christopher Orr is disturbed by Rick Warren making the case against the Ugandan bill on religious grounds. Douthat is puzzled:

[Is] it really so depressing that religious appeals are sometimes more effective arguments against discrimination than secular ones? (The civil rights movement might beg to differ.) Would it really have been a more potent statement against bigotry if Warren had told the pastors, “oppose this bill because it violates Kant’s categorical imperative,” or “oppose this bill because it runs contrary to John Stuart Mill’s harm principle”?

That's a litle over-statement, since my contribution to Mark Adamo's new release is minor. Don't worry. I don't sing. I do narrate a sublime piece composed by Mark in honor of those who died in the plague years in San Francisco, "Late Victorians". The text is by Richard Rodriguez. Here's the description of the piece:

Acclaimed as ‘one of the best opera composers of the moment’, American composer-librettist Mark Adamo has also ventured into symphonic composition and other fields in each of which his theatrical sensitivity, political commitment and musical mastery are equally evident. The vivacity of his Overture to Lysistrata accentuates the play’s anti-war theme, while Alcott Music rethinks the music from his hit opera Little Women. Regina Coeli pays tribute to the Queen of Heaven and Late Victorians is dedicated both to the memory of those who have died and to those who have survived AIDS.

As a proud survivor, I found Mark's work painfully moving, and am honored to have narrated it. He writes about it here. You can buy it here and here as a download. Amazon's four-star review:

"Late Victorians" is a great piece about a terrible thing. It is a sonic essay commemorating the losses of the AIDS plague in late 80's San Francisco. Composer Adamo evokes this in a theatrical collage of spoken word, operatic poetry, and bittersweet music. The narrative voice, based on Richard Rodriguez's essays, carries the tone of his spare, wise, sad clarity. Hardwon, wounded, a stark certainty come to from quiet, persistent, painful shifts. Stripped down to life and death, each moment becomes an epiphany, each memory a parting gift. Andrew Sullivan deftly narrates in harmony alongside soprano Emily Pulley, who instills melodic ease into unflinching lines from Emily Dickinson. Pulley in particular delivers a delicate balancing act of operatic beauty, witty phrasing, and topical modernity.

"Did you expect us to shop at the Wasilla Fred Meyer looking like Adam Lambert at the AMA's? Did you expect us to kiss in line at Home Depot? We have strong survival instincts and know better than to look, act, or talk queeny in a town like this. You might not know we're gay, but I'm sure you've seen us," – "Your gay Wasilla homeboys," in a letter to Levi.

I'll try to answer. Here's Greenwald's question (Update III):

I don't find anything about Obama's foreign policy positions surprising; as opposed to his civil liberties positions, which he has routinely violated, he outlined these broad foreign policy sketches during the campaign (though added much more detail, and I'd suggest much more receptiveness to war generally, during yesterday's speech).  I don't agree at all with the criticism that his escalation in Afghanistan (as opposed to his civil liberties positions) is a "betrayal."  This is who Obama is and that has been clear for quite awhile.

Still, the question remains:  why did so many Bush-loving neocons and progressives alike react the same way to Obama's comprehensive foreign policy speech yesterday?  What could explain that?  Does Sullivan have an answer?

The reason the neocons liked it is because Obama said that evil exists and that we sometimes have to fight it. Since they have been unable to listen to him for the past three years, while calling him a commie peacenik Muslim, this seems to have come as a surprise. I suspect it was his reiteration of these beliefs in accepting the Nobel Peace Prize that finally woke them up. Or, rather, allowed them to take their blinders off for a brief moment (they'll be back on soon enough, one fears).

The neocons are also trying to coopt Obama for Bush, while his speech, if you examine it closely, is, in fact, as brutal a debunking of Bush utopianism and incompetence imaginable. Just give the principled neocons time to save face and they'll understand (and appreciate) him in the end for how he is marshalling and rescuing American power from the Cheney wreckage.

As for "progressives", they got this:

More and more, we all confront difficult questions about how to prevent the slaughter of civilians by their own government, or to stop a civil war whose violence and suffering can engulf an entire region. I believe that force can be justified on humanitarian grounds, as it was in the Balkans, or in other places that have been scarred by war.  Inaction tears at our conscience and can lead to more costly intervention later.  That's why all responsible nations must embrace the role that militaries with a clear mandate can play to keep the peace.

Obama is much more conservative than Bush (one reason I backed him) but he remains a liberal internationalist humanitarian (one reason I worry about him). He'd use the military for purposes a true realist would be leery of: humanitarian intervention or even nation-building. This positive vision for the use of military and civilian power to combat poverty and enhance human dignity is also part of Obama's vision. A Tory realist would be much more circumspect.

So Obama – as from the beginning – threads part of the conservative and liberal traditions together. The paradox is that it's his conservatism that will make his liberalism more effective. And already has.

Maybe the neocons will get this before some lefties. But some of us have gotten this for a long time. Because he told us.