time to make out with a stranger in Grant Park again

Well, I voted. I successfully resisted the urge to vote for Rupert from Survivor for Governor just because it would feel a little amazing to vote for Rupert from Survivor. Pretty quotidian and predictable ballot for a guy like me.

My official prediction is the same as it would be if Romney had been reelected: we'll have four more years of militarism, inequality, a rapacious and unrestrained financial sector, failure to do anything meaningful about global warming, low-paying and low-quality jobs, record deportations, mass imprisonment of black men, lack of major relief for homeowners, capture of our political process by the rich, privatization of education through discredited reform efforts, failure to ease the student debt burden, the steady death of civil liberties, our collective punishment of the Muslim world, two parties that are wholly owned by capital, and our continued and inevitable decline.

I also think that, in a second term, there's a reasonably high chance that Obama will either order airstrikes on Iran or put Social Security/Medicare in play in a serious way. Neither of those could be protected from criticism by being called niche issues. The scary possibility is that this would split the liberal coalition in an destructive way. The scarier possibility is that it wouldn't. Given the conduct of liberal blogs in this election season, I seriously question whether those or any other issues are non-negotiable. But there's also a much better chance of a defense of Obamacare, and probably a Supreme Court nomination or two, and those are both incredibly important. And I hold out hope that maybe a second term Obama will push for marijuana legalization or something like that. (It's not a very rational hope, I know.)

I think our politics, economy, and environment are broken, perhaps irretrievably. But you move forward. I hope that people work to make the lesser evil a little less evil the next time we choose the lesser evil, and to blame their failures on them and not on people who agree that they've failed. And I hope they all actually take up the call they've put out so loudly, which is to work in the off years to push the electorate to the left, to make primaries meaningful, and to issue actually criticisms of Democrats in a way that advances the left-wing cause. Make them earn it, make them worthy of it.

Short term goal: no more major American cities swallowed by the sea.

Update: Good for Nate Silver, and to hell with all of the people who have criticized him. But I do think the take away about the polling being accurate is not that Nate Silver is a genius but that polling isn't that hard and inferential statistics are powerful, powerful tools.

Plus: gay marriage! Legalized marijuana! Woo!

Update II: "It's a center-right country" means nothing, whether spoken by a conservative or a liberal. And "Hispanics are a natural conservative constituency" is just wrong. I mean people have been saying that for thirty years. They vote like liberal Dems in large majorities.

Oh, I got to vote against one of the rape guys, Mourdock. That was a lot of fun.

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all over but the crying

Tomorrow's a big day. I think everyone will be happy when this is all over. It's been ugly, but then ugly is the only way that you get to the true, or the good. I hope with all my hopes that this issue won't be an issue in 2016.

If the drone program is still alive, and the Democratic candidate supports it and plans to keep using it, will I still be obligated to vote Democrat then? In 2020? In 2024? It saddens and scares me that so many will answer yes.

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Erik Loomis's 2013

Many checks have been written, lately.

There are a few people out there who both associate themselves with liberalism (or progressivism, if you prefer the weasel term) and who assert the actual legitimacy and morality of the drone program. To them, well, vaya con dios. We aren't likely to be able to talk about much of value. But most people on the broad left are defending Obama in spite of the drone program, insisting that you must (and almost all of them say we must) vote for Obama even though they disagree with this drone program. Yes, the drone program is a terrible mistake. But still, you must vote for Obama. Before the election is not the time. The years to come will be the right time. Congressional elections will be the right time. Not now, but later. Wait. Bide your time.

These caveats are a remarkably cheap currency, like promises to tip the bartender at a wedding later on in the night. But they do make them, and they are worth listening to. For months, now, I've been told that the time to address drones (and medical marijuana, and Afghanistan, and civil liberties, and Wall Street, and Guantanamo, and relief for home owners...) will come after the election. I've read these promises in comments and emails and in blogs and in tweets. I hope the promises are real and the intentions are true. Because if they aren't, and 2016 comes around and nothings changed, and the people saying that the time will come haven't worked to improve the system they constantly call imperfect-- well, then their hypocrisy and shiftlessness will be monumental.

So take this post by Erik Loomis. It's indicative of what LGM has become: it operates almost exclusively through assertions of bad faith and ad hominem, it focuses on the supposed failings of the left rather than on what the left is arguing, and it complains of sanctimony in the most sanctimonious style possible. He then, incredibly, turns around and complains of Matt Stoller's refusal to engage intellectually. (Hey Erik: saying that people criticize Obama just to be leftier-than-thou-- nice intellectual engagement!) There's also this nugget: "Those who are calling for a 3rd party run today have no interest in party building, just as Nader didn’t in 2000. They are angry at Obama and want to shove it in the Democrats’ faces by throwing the election to Romney." In fact, I know people who have worked tirelessly to build a real third party literally for decades. But luckily, mind reader Erik Loomis is here! He knows their true hearts. It's kind of fun, when you can do that. Well let me read some minds of my own: the LGM crew opposes any and all complaints against the drone program because they don't give a shit about dead children in Pakistan. I mean, hey, since Loomis just knows these things about other people, so do I.

I do believe that this complaint against self-righteousness and sanctimony is the most self-righteous and sanctimonious thing I've ever read.

But Loomis assures us-- change is coming. He writes, "it comes through the hard work of organizing our communities to demand change. Eventually legal and political changes are necessary–but only after people are organized to demand them. Look at the major movements in the last century. The labor movement, African-American civil rights, the women’s movement, gay rights movement. Each of these movements spent decades (or a century) organizing for change. For each of them, there was a moment when it all came together and they could demand transformations of federal and state law, which for gay rights is happening right now."

 You'll note that people expressing their conscience in a bid to change minds and expand the realm of the possible don't count. They lack the purity that Erik Loomis demands.

Maybe things will change. Maybe all of the many defenders of Obama and his adventures in the Muslim world will actually do the things they claim they will do in the coming years. Maybe they'll organize for left-wing causes. Maybe they'll support radicals in primary campaigns. Maybe they'll pressure the Democrats to offer real alternatives, on foreign policy and on the drug war and on civil liberties.... Maybe Erik Loomis will have himself a 2013, you know? Maybe he'll match that outsized self-regard, that perfectly sanded lockbox of political and ideological and moral certainty, to an equally outsized left-wing project. Maybe all of them will actually attempt to do the things they are now saying they will do.

But I bet the large majority of them won't.

I bet that Balloon Juice will continue to be filled with absolutely unfettered, uncritical, ultra-aggressive support of Obama. I bet Tbogg will continue to treat the murder of innocent people as some sort of fringe nut issue, something worth mocking people for even caring about. I bet Kevin Drum will continue to express open-mouthed contempt for anyone who dares not support any given Democrat. And I bet Lawyers Guns and Money will continue being what it has become, which is one of the most spiteful and consistent hippie-punching blogs there is, a collaboration of people whose disdain for the left rivals that of 2003-era Slate or TNR. I bet Loomis and Lemieux and Farley will continue to demonstrate greater contempt for Glenn Greenwald than they can muster for David Frum.

I bet that prominent liberals will not bring pressure to bear on the Democrats or the Obama administration about drones or other issues. I bet, in fact, that they will work just as hard to marginalize criticism about these issues as they are right now. I bet that these same liberals will dismiss progressive primary challengers as unrealistic or unserious. I bet these same liberals will declare that we can't criticize the president now because X vote is coming up. I bet that in 2016, when Hilary Clinton or whoever is the Democratic nominees, we will be having the identical conversation that we're having now, and that once again, the Erik Loomises of the world will tell us to shut up and grow up. I bet they will again claim that this is not the time, that we have to wait, that we are worse than the Republicans, that dead Muslims are a fringe issue.... And all along the way, innocent people will pay with their lives for our broken system.

And they'll do it until the Democrats inevitably lose the presidency, in 2016 or 2020 or 2024. And when they do, and the infrastructure and legal justification for a system of assassination that has literally no accountability or review whatsoever is handed to the Republicans, suddenly, they will rediscover their sense of horror.

So the question is: what will Erik Loomis's 2013 be like? Will he beat the bushes for progressive congressional candidates? Will he excoriate the Obama administration for its lapses on his blog? Will he find the courage to do all the things he so pedantically and self-seriously insists other people do? Will he balance his contempt for those who want change from outside of the system with furious effort to achieve change within the system?

You know, I kind of doubt it. He can always prove me wrong. But I'll be watching, and waiting.

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drones and election 2012

I would never ever ever ever ever vote for Gary Johnson, being a socialist and all. But I do have to point out that if you're trying to justify the morality of a program by comparing it to the morality of another immoral program, something has probably gone amiss in your reasoning. I understand that Blumenthal is critiquing Conor's position particularly, but I find this so common in this debate, the bizarre rhetorical jiu jitsu people have to engage in to get to support of Obama against drone criticism. (Which isn't support of the drone program, as my commenters rightly remind me-- but then, we're getting into the jiu jitsu a bit again.) I think that part of the reason that this debate is waged so angrily by people who defend Obama against critics of drones is because they recognize the weird tensions in their own stance. Never have I been attacked so vociferously for my arguments by people who themselves acknowledge the correctness of those arguments.

We've had this debate endlessly around here, and I know my more critical commenters are just as frustrated by what they see as my lack of responsiveness on the drone issue as I am in what I see as theirs. (Pardon my syntax.) I do think that there's one issue here that should be getting more attention: the unusual degree to which the drone issue is chosen by the Obama administration. I know many of my fellow lefties were frustrated by the health care fight and unsatisfied with PPACA. The same goes for me; there are many things I wish they had done differently, tactically. But I recognize an issue like health care as a situation where the Democrats are seriously constrained by the need to pass legislation through a hostile Congress. There's only so much they can do. That doesn't mean that you abandon principle or accept every choice, but you spread responsibility.

But the drone issue is not that way. It's a secret program with no Congressional mandate at all. It's not a matter of troop commitment and doesn't have that much play in the popular political consciousness. I imagine only the most high information voters know about the program at all. And as Commander in Chief of the military, Obama could simply shutter the program. (I mean, they haven't even officially acknowledged the program, aside from bragging about it and joking about it, as bizarre as that sounds.) Sure, some Bill Kristol types would complain. But it's not nearly as high profile or high risk as Afghanistan, and in an election dominated by the economy, I seriously doubt it would make a big difference either way. The drone issue is special because it is both so heinous and so irrefutably a matter of Obama's personal responsibility.

Of course, the reason the program continues is simply because the administration really believe the drones to be doing some good, above the costs in innocent blood. I find that both immoral and flatly wrong, given the fact that terrorism is a very minor threat to the United States, that it's clear that we frequently send drones without being entirely clear who we're targeting, that drones are precisely the kind of issue that stokes anti-American hatred and makes more terrorists, and that in general the drones represent the failed, revenge-minded mentality that we simply cannot shake since 9/11. The interesting part, as someone who keeps getting flogged in these debates, is that almost all of the people who are now arguing in support of Obama made those same arguments a few years ago-- and many do now. Anyway, I guess we all know where we stand.

The election is a few days away. I'll be going to the polls on Tuesday in a state where my vote is unlikely to make much difference in the Presidential election, but vote I shall. In the Senate race between Joe Donnelly and Richard Mourdock, you've got a really interesting test cast for the lesser evil/anti-vote crowd. As I mentioned once, abortion is the issue most often invoked as a reason to support Obama at all costs. Here, you've got yet another Republican cretin saying horrid things about abortion, in this case claiming that women getting pregnant from rape are part of God's plan. The problem is that his opponent, Donnelly, is also anti-abortion. Last year he received a 20% from NARAL as a Congressman; every year before that, he got a 0%. He's consistently received high marks from the National Right to Life Committee.

So: as a pro-choice zealot who favors unrestricted access to abortion for all women, what do I do? I think most people will tell you that I need to vote for Donnelly, an anti-abortion guy, and do so specifically to support abortion rights. And I probably will. But if it's the case that the lesser evil position requires me to vote for a pro-life candidate because I am pro-choice, it might be time for us all to take a breath and think this through. I really would like it if the legions of lesser evilists would look a little more deeply into their political ideas and maybe reassess a few things. The lesser evil mentality is quite strange in that it acknowledges itself as a deeply imperfect and unfortunate stance and yet is expressed with absolute and unwavering conviction. I hear the lesser evil argument all the time. I very, very rarely hear it expressed in a qualified or restrained way. Instead it is usually expressed as though no one of any intelligence or character at all could ever oppose it.

If the people who advocate supporting candidates who don't really represent your views are serious when they acknowledge that it's an imperfect way to operate, I wish they would demonstrate their commitment to changing that imperfection. I've heard it a thousand times-- it's an imperfect world! the system is violent! we're constrained by reality!-- and okay, fine. Then please show your support for the good-enough politicians in an bad system, but also work hard to improve that system. That acknowledgment shouldn't be a hand wave. The system is so flawed in large part because principled people are so willing to compromise about those flaws. If you believe you're supporting the better of two bad choices, fine, but then work to make the choices better in the future. If you want a model, look at Digby. I don't agree with her about everything, but she proves that you can support Democratic candidates and relentlessly push the Democrats to be better and do it without once calling for the public execution of Glenn Greenwald. A Democrat and a leftist and liberal about political differences-- it's not impossible.

We control our politics, it's a human system, so every argument based on how the system is flawed is ultimately an abdication of personal responsibility.

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no one declaring victory on Libya could possibly care about Libyans

Back when the Libyan intervention was happening, and previously anti-interventionist liberals were pulling their hamstrings in their rush to the complete opposite side, I pointed out that political victory is short, but genuine humanitarianism takes time. Improvement in the material conditions of human lives is indifferent to the election cycle. The reality in Libya will continue to develop for years and decades. If you actually care about the Libyan people, you can't be declaring victory now.

So take something like Jonathan Chait's piece on why he's totally crushing on Barack O. Chait breezily asserts Libya as some sort of a victory, without bothering to justify that idea. (That breezy quality is indicative of the whole piece; the word "drone" does not appear within in.) If your actual concern is the well being of the Libyan people, this is an incredibly premature stance. But more importantly, even right now, it's absurd to call Libya a "win." Some of the very first actions taken by the new government were to codify homophobia; the Libyan delegate to the United Nations said that gay people threaten the future of the human race. Large parts of the country are outside of the control of the government. The country is torn by constant tribal violence. Minority groups within Libya such as black Africans and Christians, protected by the Qaddafi government, have met with brutal oppression and violence. The Libyan economy faces enormous challenges. And as for the most basic desire of those who supported the toppling of Qaddafi, removing an authoritarian dictator-- the new government shows major signs of being itself an unaccountable and strong armed entity. All of this doesn't even begin to discuss Benghazi and the simmering anger it revealed.

So why does Chait get away with offhandedly asserting that Libya is a positive for Barack Obama? Because the conventional wisdom is cool with it. The conventional wisdom likes short-term answers, shallow understanding, and glob assignations of good or bad. And despite the brief flirtation with notions of American failure during Iraq, the conventional wisdom prefers to talk about American triumph. So Chait can throw the ludicrous claims of Libyan victory out there, aware that most of his audience will just suck it up.

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Hurricane Sandy is already political

I observed a Facebook argument this morning about the current weather crisis and what it means to politicize tragedy or disaster. I restrained myself from entering into it; it wasn't going very well in general. The offending party had compared Hurricane Sandy's likely aftermath to that of Hurricane Katrina and referenced the different socioeconomic statuses of the two cities and their people. The offended party declared this an unfair and untoward politicization of a tragedy. I think he was certainly open to criticism, particularly considering how lacking we are in facts at the present time. But going after him for politicizing an already political event is the wrong way to approach the question.

Hurricane Sandy, like everything else, is already political. It came into the world political. Knowing that is the easy part. Making the distinctions and arguments that correctly address that political nature is the hard part. If he was really saying that Manhattan residents are less deserving of compassion or help because of their general level of affluence, as she claimed, then yes, that's stupid and wrong. (I didn't think he was saying that, for what it's worth.) But it's stupid and wrong not because it politicizes a somehow politically neutral situation but rather because it's wrong factually and morally. Conversely, anyone who wants to claim that the relative political and economic strength of affluent Manhattanites compared to poor black residents of the Lower 9th Ward won't impact disaster relief and response is being obtuse. (It must be stressed that there are plenty of poor people in New York City, and talking in these broad strokes is, I think, rarely helpful.) We have to separate different kinds of arguments, we have to separate the moral status of victims of tragedy from their political and economic status, and we have to make sure we are arguing the point we want to be arguing. We have to be careful.

Natural disasters are both sensitive and political, in part, for the same reason: because they are arbitrary. That arbitrariness is why people believe that disaster response should be equitable across difference, as opposed to response to poverty or hunger, which they assume (wrongly) to be the fault of the people so suffering. And the fact that our response to natural disaster is inequitable despite this arbitrary nature is exactly why we can't hide from politics. To refrain from entertaining political questions of natural disasters out of aesthetic resistance is to risk perpetuating the disadvantage of those most likely to be hurt by them.

Perhaps the response to Katrina would have been more forceful and more timely if the Bush administration had not been convinced that as a natural disaster, the hurricane was beyond politics. Whatever the case, Katrina was political before it ever touched land, before it even was known to meteorologist; Katrina as a phenomenon that transcended a weather pattern was the result of systematic inequalities that were the result of very specific and very conscious political choices. And so, too, will Sandy be revealed to be not just a hurricane but a nexus of social, economic, political, and ideological choices-- human choices, things we control-- that will be laden with political content we cannot responsibly ignore. There's no excuse for failing to be sensitive and considerate to those who are currently enduring a dangerous crisis. There's also no excuse for failing to recognize that this crisis is political whether we talk about it in those terms or not. The negative consequences of engaging in such political consideration are emotional; the negative consequences of failing to do so are material and thus more dangerous.

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A bit of a different perspective on Sandy

For fun, I thought I would check out the air traffic over the northeast right now, using Flightradar24. The results were as dramatic as I expected. Below that is a shot of the Midwest to give you a little contrast.

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