Month: April 2011

Pete Guither's theory:

People see violence on the street and say "that's because of drugs" when, in fact, it’s because of the drug war. And so they call for more enforcement even though (as we know) that won’t help the problem but rather make it worse. And, quite frankly, this issue is much more visible out on the streets in poor/minority neighborhoods than in affluent neighborhoods where the drug trafficking takes place discretely in the country club locker room.

A YouGov poll finds only a quarter of Egyptians want an Islamic state and just 27 percent want to scrap the peace treaty with Israel. 60 percent want to uphold the treaty. Adam Serwer reacts:

Egyptians already have a civil war going on next door; it makes sense that they wouldn't want to escalate tensions with their neighbor on the other side. I don't think it's a coincidence that the number of people who want to sever relations with Israel are about the same number who want an Islamic state, but either way, we're talking about the political fringe.

Let me put it this way: There is a larger percentage of birthers in the Republican Party than hardcore Islamists in Egypt.

Howard Gleckman says it "is about nothing more than naked politics":

[A]ny lawmaker who voted for the budget deal that funds the remainder of this fiscal year or who opposed the measure because it cut spending by too much ought to be impeached if he does not also vote to increase the debt limit. That politician has voted for a budget that will result in about $3.7 trillion in spending and about $2.2 trillion in revenues. In other words, that pol has voted to add $1.5 trillion to the debt (or at least that fraction of $1.5 trillion necessary to get the government through the remainder of the budget year). Having voted to run up the bill, it is utterly irresponsible to prohibit the government from borrowing the money to pay it.

Via Ryan Calder in Libya:

I was driving back from the west gate of Ajdabiyah, where opposition forces were trading Grad rocket fire with Gaddafi’s forces to the west, when I saw a bombed-out upside-down pickup truck by the side of the road. It was probably a truck from Gaddafi’s militias that had been hit by a Coalition air strike. … The cat let me do a photo shoot. The thud of rockets in the background didn’t seem to bother it.

PPP finds that Trump "gets 31% of the Republican vote running as an independent candidate, holding Romney to just 56% within the party":

It's highly unlikely that Trump would really end up doing this well as an independent, but even if he just pulled 5-10% it would probably be enough to ensure Obama's reelection. And these numbers show that if Romney's the GOP nominee there may be enough consternation on the far right that another third party candidate and not necessarily just Trump could earn enough support from those voters to have a spoiler effect much as Ralph Nader did for Al Gore in 2000. 

Is he that serious? One fears he may be. Or if one is a Democrat, perhaps a licking of the lips is in order. But you never know. This is America. Right-wing populism has its moments. They rarely last; but they often shine brilliantly in the meantime.

E.D. Kain wants one:

College dropout rates are far too high, and I think one reason for this is that there are few good alternatives to an academic track in our public education system. We should tackle this at the secondary and college level by making vocational training at the high school level much more accessible to non-academic students, and by investing more in the two-year community college programs. Far too much government money is being funneled into dubious for-profit colleges. A broad investment in vocational public colleges would be a better use of public dollars.

A reader writes:

I have such admiration for you as an advocate for sanity and gay civil rights.  But I'm appalled that on the same day you attacked Lady Gaga as a gay-rights opportunist and back-handedly apologized for the odious, if not ill-intentioned, Kobe Bryant.

Well, I have long been a fan of unsafe intelligent pop-culture and also an opponent of excessively p.c. language policing. So this should not be much of a surprise. Cartman singing Gaga is my idea of America. But Gaga herself? Less impressive. Another writes:

Andrew, you’re entitled to dismiss Gaga musically if she’s not your cup of tea, but to assert, “There's a particularly irritating appropriation of gay culture for general consumption, perhaps guiltily over-compensated by Gaga's crashing every gay rights event known to man” is out of line. Gaga has been a tireless advocate for the repeal of DADT, and her “text your representative” campaign may actually have had an impact.  She is not a craven business-woman riding a popular cultural shift.

Point almost taken. There is no inherent contradiction between being a shrewd businesswoman and also standing up for gay equality and visibility. In pop music, moreover, that isn't exactly brave. Madonna did it better when gays were far more culturally marginalized. Judy Garland even more so on every front. Another:

I don't like most of Gaga's music, but her compassion isn't an act.

She raised $500,000 for Haiti, and $1,500,000 or more for Japan Tsunami relief, half a personal matching donation to those of her fans.  It went straight to Save the Children and American Red Cross.

In contrast, Madonna's school in Malawi, supported by a foundation she backs, doesn't exist. She raised $18 million, only a small share of that was spent in Malawi, and there is literally nothing to show for it.  A big chunk of the money spent in Malawi was on multiple photo shoots of her playing in red African dirt.

It's true, as a 28-year-old gay man, I still have a larger part of my heart reserved for Madonna, but I have to say that if anyone panders to the gays without sincerity, it's Madge.  I missed the show, but the first time I heard of Lady Gaga was May 2008, way before her first album release, when she played the Stud in San Francisco.  The Stud is a grotty bar, host of Trannyshack, one of the oldest surviving gay dance clubs in town.  This isn't a recent pander – gays have been a hugely important part of her fan base from day one, and she appreciates it.

Another:

You write that Gaga presents us with something "profoundly, commercially safe." If so (and I mostly agree), might this be the result of the very movement toward mainstream, conservative political visibility for gays (toward something profoundly, commercially safe) for which you yourself have so advocated over the years? Could we have a pop star (the pop diva of our time, whether you enjoy her work or not) who sings "No matter gay, straight, or bi / Lesbian, transgendered life" without the conservative turn toward gay marriage as defining the gay rights movement at the beginning of this century?

Gaga may appropriate a lifestyle to sell it back to its originators, but I would rather have Gaga than Britney. And we would do well to remember that there are places in this country where Gaga's lyrics (yes, often lacking) and stunts (yes, rarely unexpected by us) still carry a radical weight. Places where youth are still driven by cultural and emotional oppression to suicide. (And, after all, Bill Donahue is no stranger to barrel-scraping stunts.)

I, too, long for a gay movement more radical in scope for my and successive generations (I was born in 1985 and would welcome a discussion of gay rights outside "gay marriage"). But your advocacy for something radical and your impassioned take down of Gaga (like you, a gay marriage advocate) in this post seems strangely out of place on this blog.

I don't quite know where to start with this one. Except to say it is perfectly possible to be conservative politically and radical culturally. There may even be a link between the two. And while one can indeed see the gay movement's shift in the 1990s to a classic civil rights model rather than a culturally new left one as a "conservative" move, one can also see it as simply a maturation of the illiberal detour of the post-1969 New Left. But this is ancient territory. I don't want a "gay movement more radical in scope." I want the end of the gay movement. And then the equal flowering of a million perspectives in the culture – from radical to conservative and everything in between – in which different manifestations of homosexuality can bloom alongside different manifestations of straightness.

There is a website that encourages you to download the official forms for living wills from various states.

William Blake's poem of the same name from 1794 resonates somewhat with our current collective wrestling with the soaring costs of caring for the poor, the vulnerable and the elderly:

Is this a holy thing to see
In a rich and fruitful land,
Babes reduced to misery,
Fed with cold and usurous hand?

Is that trembling cry a song?
Can it be a song of joy?
And so many children poor?
It is a land of poverty!

And their sun does never shine,
And their fields are bleak and bare,
And their ways are filled with thorns:
It is eternal winter there.

For where'er the sun does shine,
And where'er the rain does fall,
Babes should never hunger there,
Nor poverty the mind appall.

"Preserving our biggest entitlement programs in their current form because they have a powerful constituency is hardly a progressive stance. It's the definition of reactionary liberalism," – Jake Weisberg, whose column unnervingly tracks my own thoughts (and sometimes too-hasty judgments) on these matters.