Please watch this episode of the Bill Moyers Journal regarding impeachment.
Impeachment
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Category Archives: Outrages
England, “Civilized” Police State
Sadly, it seems that England is edging closer and closer toward becoming a total surveillance state. This should come as no surprise.
On Collapse
Roughly 35 years ago, that which ought to be said now:
I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
Martin Luther King Jr. – Letter From Birmingham Jail
Litmus Tests
As many of you may know, I am currently knee-deep in the law school application progress. At this point, I’ve received some acceptances, some wait-lists (the most maddening of all,) and of course some rejections. Although a rejection is disappointing, I did aim high, so when Harvard wrote back replying that it would not be reserving a seat for me, I was not terribly shocked. This is not to knock the schools which have accepted me, (indeed I should have a definitive announcement soon,) but just a reflection of fact. There are simply more highly trained applicatants than there is space for them. To get into one of the top three law schools (Harvard, Yale, Stanford – or HYS in the jargon,) you not only need a perfect LSAT score and undergraduate GPA, but also have interned at the UN, started your own business and successfully managed the subsequent IPO. So, while I’m not Harvard material (sorry Mom,) I am confident in my abilities to do well wherever I attend and create a distinguished career.
One of my interests is environmental law, and I sometimes think about working for the EPA or other governmental agencies. This said, I realize that the competition for such important jobs will be fierce and that I will have to contend with the likes of those who graduated from HYS. Or at least I did before reading this article in the Boston Globe. The article discusses Monica Goodling (the former top aid to Alberto Gonzales who has resigned and pled the 5th) and the law school from which she graduated, Regent University School of Law.
This little known law school was founded by Pat Robertson, the Christian Dominionist who wishes to turn the United States into a theocracy. In the law school’s about us page, it claims: “The mission of Regent Law School is to bring to bear the will of our Creator, Almighty God, upon legal education and the legal profession.” Digging further, the student handbook (PDF) turns up some interesting details:
1. The Equal Opportunity Policy professes not to discriminate in regards to: disability, veteran status, age, geneder, race, color, national or ethnic origin. From this list, we can assume against whom they do reserve the right to discriminate.
2. In addition to the usual exhortations against drugs, alcohol and tobacco is prohibited. The motivation for this is stated as thus: “The Apostle Paul exhorts the body of Christ that, if they truly loved their fellow man, they would set aside their personal freedom by refraining from behavior that might be a stumbling block to their weaker brother.”
3. Sexual Misconduct. Disorderly conduct or lewd, indedent or obscene conduct or expression, involvement with pornography, premarital sex, adultry, homosexual conduct or any other conduct, which violates Biblical standards, is prohibited.
Not to belabor the obvious, but I also found out that John Ashcroft often teaches courses at the law school, although he is listed as a faculty member for Regent University’s Robertson School of Government. He taught a class titled “Human Rights, Civil Liberties, and National Security.” Regent is a Tier 4 school with a median LSAT score of 153.
The Boston Globe article outlines the history of the school and why over 150 Regent University alumni have been hired to Federal Government positions since the beginning of the Bush administration. One of the most blatant reasons for this alarmingly high number is the fact that Bush nominated the Dean of Regent’s School of Government as director of the Office of Personnel Management; the OPM is responsible for hiring civilians for Federal jobs. Regent Law boasts that 1 out of 6 of its alumni work for for the Government. Since those with law degrees tend to end up in the Department of Justice, it should come as no surprise the Goodling ended up in a senior position there. The article further describes that Ashcroft, while AG, changed the hiring rules for the DOJ: “Conservative credentials rose, while prior experience in civil rights law and the average ranking of the law school attended by the applicant dropped.” As Paul Krugman notes, this is but one example of the, “infiltration of the federal government by large numbers of people seeking to impose a religious agenda.”
The United States has never been perfect, but an important ideal it embodies is meritocracy, rule based on demonstrated ability. As a 162 LSAT recipient, I realize that Harvard isn’t interested in me. But in my rejection, I rest assured that those who were accepted did better than me on the test, and thus, supposedly, are more prepared for certain endeavors. I accept this without bitterness and understand that there is a class of people smarter than I am; I hope that these people put their skills to good use in the form of public service.
If an unexperienced graduate of a 4th tier law school established only to further a narrow-minded and undemocratic agenda is promoted to great heights in the DOJ, I can only wonder how many more such individuals are crafting policy within our Federal Government. Although it seems that the Bush house of cards is starting to tumble (see banner, top right) the damage that has been done will take years if not decades to reverse. When qualified candidates are passed over for at best partisan hacks, or at worst fascists bearing flag draped crosses, the peril to our democracy can not be over-stated. This, and Iraq, and Katrina, and Walter Reed, this is the face of compassionate conservatism, this is the revolution started by Regan and re-awakened by Bush post-9/11. This is what our country has become under Bush and these are the “values” to which roughly 1/4 of our own citizens apparently adhere. If we do not all do our part to stop this, the world will have lost a beacon for enlightened government.
A Sad Day For America
I deliberately waited until I was done with school and had a snack to look up Bush’s speech on Iraq. Although I was already 99% sure about what he was going to say, I needed to see it. Watching Bush’s speech left me feeling angry, sad and powerless. In addition to asking that more American troops be sent to fight in the same manner which has thus far resulted in little but increasing bloodshed (and record profits from some segments of society,) Bush has outlined his strategy for Iran and Syria. Granted, I am no fan of either of the regimes in those nations, but I cringed as he said:
Succeeding in Iraq also requires defending its territorial integrity and stabilizing the region in the face of extremist challenge. This begins with addressing Iran and Syria… We will interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria. And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq.
While I agree with the premise of rooting out terrorist networks, history has shown that Bush’s actions upon such threats lack any semblance of nuance. The recent war in Lebanon should be an indication of what may be in store for Iran. Also infuriating was the lack of any mention of Israel, whereas almost every other Middle Eastern nation was mentioned by name. Although the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is oft used as a scapegoat for inwardly directed grievances within the Muslim world, to deny that Israel is a key part of this entire larger picture is astonishing. To many within the Muslim world, the belligerence of the state of Israel coupled with Western backed incursions serve only to reinforce the notion that a larger crusade is being waged against them. Although this may be incorrect, out government, certainly, is aware that perception often trumps reality…
So I did what I could, and I called my Senators and House Representative. Luckily for me I come from a very blue state, and at each Congressman’s website, a statement opposing Bush’s speech had already been posted. All I did was lend my two cents, expressing support for a concerted opposition to this recycled nonsense. And no, I do not know what the “correct” answer is at this point; in fact I believe that we have gone too far for there to even be one anymore. We must retreat.
Let me add that last night while looking for some good examples of speeches for my students, I stumbled across one by Charles Lindberg advocating isolationism during the buildup to the Second World War. The rhetoric, with its thinly veiled anti-Semitism, was truly chilling. But his sick speech served only to reinforce my pride at the sacrifices that our soldiers made during that war, for no doubt a great leap of faith must be taken even when one is presented with a just case. But in that epochal struggle, the sacrifice ran deep, including those who remained at home.
Thus, when George Bush claims that, “the challenge playing out across the broader Middle East is more than a military conflict. It is the decisive ideological struggle of our time,” I would like to think that if we are indeed faced with a threat of such magnitude that every American would be asked to sacrifice. Yet, on December 20th of 2006, Bush encouraged us to “go shopping more.” I am reminded of Terry Gilliam’s dystopian film Brazil in which disobedience to the state carries the penalty of a reduced credit rating; the masses shop amid violence and terrorism. Indeed, it is frightening how easily it is for Americans to go about business as usual just as 20,000 more of us are being asked to again do that which has gotten us nowhere.
And so the war goes on, a tired and thinly stretched army is pushed even further, we are told to hold our judgment until November (a year!) and war-profiteering corporations breathe easier knowing that new contracts will be penned and existing ones extended. If this does not get the American people onto the streets demanding change, it seems as if nothing will.