Month: January 2013

Jill Lepore sizes it up:

The United States spends more on defense than all the other nations of the world combined. Between 1998 and 2011, military spending doubled, reaching more than seven hundred billion dollars a year—more, in adjusted dollars, than at any time since the Allies were fighting the Axis.

David Silbey, who posts the above chart showing defense spending as a percentage of GDP, puts the absolute numbers in perspective:

American defense spending dropped dramatically post-1945 (there was a peace dividend), bounced up for Korea and Vietnam (though never to WWII levels) and then trickled down to 2001, rising only marginally for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We simply haven’t spent that much–measured against the size of our economy–on our 21st century martial adventures. In fact, what this looks like is nothing more than an imperial power tending to its empire. Neither the Romans or the British, at the heights of their empire, spent that much on it, instead relying on a relatively inexpensive imperial constabulary to do it. That allowed them empire on the cheap, something that we are managing now as well.

(Chart from usgovernmentspending.com)

A reader writes:

First let me just say that I’m a happy contributor to your site (only a mere $20.13, as it’s all I can really afford right now, but I plan to give every year). Now can you please sound the alarm about the GOP’s sneaky plan to rig every future presidential election that is taking place right now? This bill was just introduced in the Pennsylvania legislature. Long story short, the state would end up splitting its electoral votes based on the gerrymandering, so even though Obama won the state by a lot, he’d only get around 7 electoral votes while Romney would have gotten 13.  And the plan, which is essentially the GOP gerrymandering plan where they bragged about keeping the House even though they lost the popular House vote by over a million votes, is supported by RNC chair Reince Priebus.

There are a bunch of articles on the web about this, but most of the country has been distracted by the fiscal cliff, then the gun control debates, then the inauguration, Manti Te’o, etc.  So they are sneaking this through quietly. Why?  Because they know it’s underhanded and they have to know it really is a blatant attack on democracy. I mean, the Virginia state legislators snuck another gerrymandering bill through Monday because one of the state senators was at the inauguration, so he couldn’t be there to vote against it (the bill passed by one vote).

This is what the GOP has turned into now.  It’s disgraceful.  Like you, I used to be firmly with the “conservatives,” though I can’t even imagine returning to that party after all this.  I feel a little hopeless about this because there really isn’t much we can do except let people know about it; and I hope that you feel the same way and use your platform.

TNC is on the case. We’ll keep tabs from now on. Thanks to every reader who alerts us to something we miss – especially non-national developments. Update from another:

This story is a national issue. Similar moves are being contemplated here in Michigan, and also WI, OH and FL. What a disgrace. Even Fox isdiscussing it.

Shmuel Rosner has a detailed breakdown of the Israeli election results in all their bewildering complexity. Although Netanyahu has indeed been weakened, the religious right in Israel is far stronger than in the US. But the country is also deeply divided, as you can see above. The difference between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem is what popped out to me and to Jeff Weintraub:

And they are both struggling for the soul of the country as liberalism in its broadest sense battles fundamentalism. In America, Obama has saved us by defusing the theo-authoritarians. In Israel, no Obama has yet emerged since Rabin.

To add to Cheney, there was some weird op-ed piece in the New York Post andHannity. But what has been striking to me is that the movie has not been easily translated into pure pro-torture propaganda by the Cheney right. It has not become a real rallying cry, so far as I have seen or heard, for Cheney’s argument that torturers are actually heroes. My simple possible explanation: if you want to use ZD30 to advance the cause of torture, it makes you face torture and the raw reality in which it was brutally and sadistically and methodically enforced (and lied about) by the Bush administration. So ignore the lame New York Post op-ed. Look at theNew York Post review:

Bigelow has made an essentially nonpolitical film — far from endorsing the likes of waterboarding, she and Boal leave audiences to decide for themselves whether torture was necessary to stop al Qaeda… So not only is “Zero Dark Thirty’’ one of the year’s best movies, it’s an inspiring one to share with your daughters. That is, if they’re old enough to deal with explicit torture scenes.

Notice the man’s simple inability to describe what he saw as anything but torture. Period. Which is a war crime. Period. You have to have sealed yourself off completely from fundamental moral principle and core human feeling to watch those scenes and call them “enhanced interrogation” without sounding like an extra from Nineteen-Eighty-Four.

In other words, you need to be a delusional propagandist like Hannity or someone who cannot – understandably – wrap her head around the idea that her father is a war criminal and should have been arrested and sent to the Hague a long time ago.

Fred Clark fumes over “the abortion myth”:

White evangelicals certainly were upset with the U.S. Supreme Court in those years, and Roe fit broadly into the pattern of the decisions about which white evangelicals were angry. But that anger wasn’t about abortion at all. That anger was about — to borrow Reagan’s preferred euphemism — “states’ rights.” It was about the belief that “that we’ve distorted the balance of our government today by giving powers that were never intended in the Constitution to that federal establishment.”It was about white evangelicals’  desire to run tax-exempt private schools without federal interference.

He quotes historian Randall Balmer:

The abortion myth serves as a convenient fiction because it suggests noble and altruistic motives behind the formation of the Religious Right. But it is highly disingenuous and renders absurd the argument of the leaders of the Religious Right that, in defending the rights of the unborn, they are the “new abolitionists.” The Religious Right arose as a political movement for the purpose, effectively, of defending racial discrimination at Bob Jones University and at other segregated schools. Whereas evangelical abolitionists of the 19th century sought freedom for African Americans, the Religious Right of the late 20th century organized to perpetuate racial discrimination.

And yet myths endure. Like the idea that the Stonewall riot began the gay rights movement. It didn’t. It was a critical cultural flashpoint of empowerment – but the gay rights movement had been around for decades already and some of its greatest heroes, like Frank Kameny, was a simple federal employee, not a finally pissed off drag queen (but good for her, of course, as well). But what am I gonna do when the president mentions “Stonewall” as the marker for gay equality? Let it go. After constantly getting pissed off about it. Bruce Bawer’s essay on the mythology ishere. As a corrective to new left historical revisionism, it’s well worth reading. As a deeper insight into what Stonewall meant at the time – read ACT-UP heroine Garance Franke-Ruta here.

A reader writes:

I can’t believe intelligent people still use the “I have a (insert minority) friend, therefore I can’t be a bigot” argument, and yet your reader used it repeatedly as the core of his or her defense.  Being a bigot doesn’t mean you can’t stand to be around or even enjoy the company of a suspect class, but rather that you consign the minority to some special assessment of inferiority. Hell, most misogynists marry women. And so what if a cadre of female Hollywood elite stand by the man?  My god look how many of the same class still rush to the defense of Roman Polanski.  Does the presense of HIS defenders magically remove a rape conviction?

Another broadens the discussion:

Did you see this video of Robert Downey Jr. (whose work I really like) asking us all to forgive his good friend, Mel Fucking Gibson? It’s a very pleasant and funny speech, which is a shame, given that it’s totally wasted on this horrid person.  But what intrigued me about the speech was the issue of when we are required to forgive someone, whether they are a public figure or not, after they have screwed up.

Downey seems to imply that Gibson is entitled to our forgiveness just because Gibson has personally embraced his own mistakes – and found religion.  I think more is required. Doesn’t the sinner have to publicly apologize, publicly recognize that he did a bad thing, and ask for our forgiveness?  I don’t recall that Gibson has done any of this. Maybe this is a theological discussion, but I think the standard for a public figure in our culture is pretty clear, regardless of any particular religious tradition.

For a Catholic, absolution is dependent on a sincere and expressed commitment to reconcile oneself with God again in the sacrament of reconciliation. For Christians, forgiveness is integral to our faith – and letting go of resentment is the crucial part. For the sinner in public life in a public capacity – a history of vile slurs against minorities, physical and emotional abuse of the mother of his child, etc. – I do think some level of sincere public apology is a reasonable civic request. I asked it of George W. Bush, as a fellow Christian, with respect to torture. No apology came. I did my duty as a civic voice; as a Christian, my imperative is to forgive regardless.

Chait spells out how Obama can unilaterally fight climate change:

The legislative path is totally dead. The Republican Party simply does not acknowledge unlimited dumping of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as a public-policy problem. Polls show that Republican voters are becoming even more skeptical of climate science even as the evidence strengthens. The administration does, however, have the chance to resolve the largest outstanding piece of the climate agenda by unilaterally imposing regulatory changes on power plants through the Environmental Protection Agency. Senate Democrats are laying the groundwork to back up Obama if he does so. This is the biggest single question of Obama’s second term, the issue that will probably determine his legacy more than any others.

Carl Richards asks. Kevin Roose’s answer:

I think you have, on one hand, a bunch of pension funds and sovereign wealth funds that are duty-bound to make a certain amount of money for their members, and would rather use a single-digit fraction of their cash pile to swing for the fences in Hedgistan (investing in a fund that might gain 80 percent in a year) than eke out 5 or 6 percent gains in plain-vanilla funds. I think you have, on the other hand, a set of high-net-worth individuals who want to invest in hedge funds because it makes them feel special and exclusive and gets them invited to cool parties, but are increasingly trying to scale back their obviously stupid investments (funds-of-funds) in favor of slightly less stupid investments.