We need a truth commission

The problem with torture

It feels strange to have to say this because it seems so obvious but torture is bad. Call it whatever you want – say ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ or whatever – it is still bad. Very, very, very bad. Saying this reminds me of an organization I heard about today (no joke, on NPR) called “People Opposed to Homicide.” Being in DC I have heard of all sorts of associations and whatnot, there is a “Pet Owner Association,” for example, but is there a “People Who Love Murder” group out there? I doubt it.

The idea of moral absolutes can be very tempting. With them you have lots of areas that are black and white rather than grey. My world has only a few of these. I oppose the death penalty. I won’t go into the thousand or so reasons but while making my life easier is NOT one of them (I mean intellectually, it does. Should person X get the death penalty? I don’t care if they are the Green River Killer, Pol Pot, anyone who organized the Rwandan genocide or whoever, the answer is no. I don’t have to think about it anymore.

On face value, the issue of torture is another moral absolute for me. The United States of America should not torture people. Never. Never times ten to the millionth power. We are not the United States of Jack Bauer.

Why?

  1. We undermine all the good we do and represent and create nasty precedent at the same time. We are the ‘good guys’ remember? We trot ourselves out as the beacon of freedom and justice and democracy. We are a force of good and light in the world. A force like this does not torture people. We set an example for everyone else. If we can torture people when we like, so can anyone else. Robert Mugabe is doing bad things to his people? If we let this go he can hold his head up high and say “You know, I was worried about our national security and didn’t know what to do and then I heard about what President George W. Bush did to people he thought we threats and said to myself, now there’s an idea.” And, yes I think that is possible.
  2. It doesn’t work. VP Cheney, who spent most his time in office in I think a cave or some other place has said that the methods they used provided useful information that protected us from more terrorist attacks like 9/11. Now I cannot prove this is not true but what he didn’t say was that this was the only way to get that same – or maybe better – information. Many, many experts in this have said that torture is not a good way to elicit information because a, some people will admit to anything they think their interrogators want to hear to make it stop (count me in that category) or b, the terrorist groups who would have this vital information prepare to be tortured. Al Qaeda tells its members to expect it if captured. PS to all the “24” fans out there, the military actually sent people to LA to ask its producers to stop showing Jack Bauer torture people to save the say. They said it was hurting morale because soldiers were asking “why can’t we do the things they do on TV?” No, I am not kidding.
  3. We don’t torture others to protect ourselves. Let’s not kid ourselves here. We didn’t sign the Geneva Convention because of altruism; we did it because, as Joe Biden put in a Senate Foreign Relations hearing, we don’t want our captured soldiers to be tortured. (ok, I paraphrased)
  4. If we can do it to others, we can do it to ourselves. This is not a thought I came up with, it was what Phillip Zelikow wrote in a memo to Condi Rice when he was one of her advisors. He reiterated the point this week and said that once we use national security as a reason to do this against enemy combatants we risk giving our government the right to do it to citizens. Given that the Obama administration may try to reverse a Supreme Court decision that requires police to stop questioning a suspect when they ask for or have a lawyer until that person is present, I am not sure Mr. Zelikow wasn’t on to something.

The more complicated question is what do we do now? Here is where my moral absolute fails me and my world becomes grey again. This question needs more thought but I have time.

President Obama cannot initiate any actions against the people who made this policy. Neither can Congress. To do so would just add partisan crap to an already sensitive subject. Any attempts by the Democrats to do this would just feed the never ending cycle of political retribution that began with Watergate (and if you think I am the only one that thinks this, ask around). This cannot be about political payback.

We need a truth commission modeled after the 9/11 Commission and similar to those held in Rwanda and South Africa. We need to take the politics out of it and put the justice back in. Seriously, it’s the best thing for everyone.

If it means we get health care reform this year, JUST DO IT!!!

Senate Democrats are considering using passing their health care reform bill under  ‘budget reconciliation’ rules that would allow them to pass it with a simple majority rather than the 60 votes they would need to avoid a filibuster.  I am all for it.  We have waited too long for this already and not only will delaying hurt the individuals who lack insurance but our current system puts our companies at a disadvantage when competing against foreign companies whose governments provide their citizens with care. 

 

My ultra paranoid side also thinks this is a national security issue – for economic and public health reasons.  As the planet warms up and as we travel farther and more often so do the vectors that carry infectious disease.  Even without travel, diseases like TB have already mutated to be drug resistant.  A large reason for this is that many who are infected cannot afford the lengthy treatment.  Add Dengue fever, Malaria, etc. to the mix you tell two friends, and they tell two friends and so on…  You get the idea.

 

Back to the Senate.  Republicans are very unhappy about the prospect of a filibuster proof bill.  Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH), who accepted and the declined an invitation to join the Obama cabinet, said that this would be the equivalent to “violence against the Republicans.”  Senators Orrin Hatch (R-UT),  Kit Bond (R-MO) and  John Kyl (R-AZ) have all said things that are similar.  The irony here is that while they think this would violate the rules of the Senate now, they were all for it when they needed to pass George W. Bush’s tax cuts in 2001 and 2003.  Gregg even supported it when GW wanted it to be used to open ANWR because he thought it was his ‘patriotic duty’ to support the president.

 

Honestly I am not a big fan of ‘they did it, so we can’ but this is too important an issue for too many people to let it get stalled by partisan bickering.  Nothing the GOP has done so far indicates they are being honest when they say they want to work with President Obama.  Proof:  despite the concessions made to appease their worries about the Obama budget, it was passed with zero Republican support.  If their goal is to be the ‘party of no’ and to obstruct everything, they should be pushed aside.  They didn’t elect President Obama.  Moreover they had almost eight years of total power and their policies are a big part of why we are here today. 

 

If you agree that health care reform is too important to put off call your Senators – 202-224-3121 or 202-225-3121.

Some period of time in review

Some period of time in review:

• Dick Cheney meets our expectations. Apparently he admitted to supporting waterboarding. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-cheney16-2008dec16,0,5456856.story  Looks like he may not be the warm and fuzzy VPOTUS we have all grown to know and love. And just as he leaves office, maybe the indictments won’t come through until after he and Dubya have left town. Can a POTUS pardon people in advance?

• Obama fatigue – catch it! Sorry. I love the fact that Barak Obama will be our president soon. He is a great person and will be a fantastic leader. It was an amazing night here in DC – election night was like Mardi Gras, the Superbowl, all tennis grand slams, every sporting event championship and New Year’s Eve rolled into one. For weeks people walked around being nice to each other, like the local government had removed the chlorine from our water and replaced it with Prozac or Xanax. It has been great but the scale has tipped. No, thank you, I do not need a toilet seat cover with a picture of the new first family on it. There are more stalls here with Obama memorabilia than Washington Post stands (maybe the newspapers should think about that as they all file for chapter 11.)• The holiday season is upon us but so is the apocalypse. No, I am not talking about the economy, the auto industry or the Illinois governor. I went to my second movie of 2008 – yes I need to get out more often – and heard some crazy music playing. It was the Chipmunks. It was a cover of an old Journey song. It was every bit as bad as you can imagine.

• Speaking of hell, if I am not there now I think I am headed there. Or at least that’s what every random religious door-to-door congregation in the city thinks because they come to my house five times a week. I am starting to think there is a big “Satan lives here” sign on my door. I thought I scared the Mormons away when I gave them a copy of “Under the Banner of Heaven” but they keep coming back. And if the two overly friendly women with the Watchtower come calling again I am just going to answer the door naked and see if that keeps them away.• Christian Bale may be about to jump the shark, he make take the phrase with him. One of the previews I saw was of a new Terminator movie. Bale’s big line in the preview was “You tried to kill my mother, you tried to kill me, I am not gonna let you.” Then let them kill me. Death sounds better than this. Didn’t the writers’ strike end last year?

• Keanu Reeves found his ideal role: disaffected alien. Don’t get me wrong, I love Keanu. I loved him as Neo (even despite that line “You can’t die, I love you too damn much.”) and who didn’t love him in “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure”? He uttered my favorite line in any movie EVER. In “River’s Edge” he says, “You just come around here to eat our food and fuck our mother. You motherfucker. You food eater.” If you cannot appreciate that line, well, I can’t help that.

• And because it’s there: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200811/swear-words

It’s a simple question of justice

It’s a simple matter of justice

 

This week a number of people have been up in arms over California’s prop 8.  Honestly, I have always been a fan of democracy but even too much of a GOOD thing can be bad.  California proves that again and again.  Fourteen years ago they passed another proposition that was all about discrimination.  Prop 187 denied education, any social services and a host of other things to immigrants and their children.  (FYI the only federal aid they can receive money from the Women, Infants and Children or WIC fund.)  Most of it was struck down as being unconstitutional as the Supreme Court had already ruled schools cannot get funding should they deny immigrants’ children, who are legal citizens, an education.  The real problem was that it spawned similar referendums in other states.  It’s so easy to find a group to vilify.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proposition_187

 

Now it seems that one group we all feel we can oppose, legally anyway, is gays and lesbians. I live in an East Coast city where people don’t generally want to be considered homophobic but the undercurrent of homophobia runs through the capitol.  Some papers tried to ‘out’ Members of Congress by publishing ‘the list.’ ‘The list’ was a list of gay staffers on the Hill. The point was to show the hypocrisy displayed by politicians who claim to oppose homosexuality at home but then support it in Washington, DC.  No, it was not as scary a period as the McCarthy hearing days but people on the Hill were running around wondering will my name be on the list? Sounds ‘Orwellian,’ doesn’t it?  At the end of the day, the way our society treats those we view as not being ‘normal’ is draconian.

 

My position on the issue of gay marriage has evolved over the years.  Growing up in San Francisco (partially anyway) may have had something to it.  If you find love, you are lucky.  If you happen to find it with someone of the same gender, who cares?  I thought we were supposed to revere love and marriage?  I was always taught that marriage promotes stability in communities.  It is supposed to be a good thing.

 

Having said that, while I got in trouble with some for – and I swear on all I hold holy – being ‘too open minded’ in college (one year two women moved into my dorm suite and let me tell you the fur flew for months when we found one woman was openly bi and the other was a lesbian) the idea of gay marriage never meant much to me.  Being straight, it wasn’t something that impacted me directly so I just didn’t think about it.  Then I attended an event that changed everything.

 

My parents lived in Washington, DC and a few friends came to town to go to the annual Pride march.  The funny part of this story comes first.  We had another friend visiting from San Francisco, also for the march.  The catch about him is he always walks around naked.  The first time I met him he was naked and I was much more embarrassed than him, he didn’t care at all.  In any case, a caravan of women arrive at my mom’s house, most are lesbians who probably had not need a naked man in a long time, and that’s when our friend answered my mom’s door  in the nude.  What I would not give to see the looks on my friends’ faces.

 

But that’s just a funny anecdote.  The important thing happened later.  There was a mass wedding held in front of the Department of Justice.  I never understood the significance of getting up in front of the world – your family, friends and God (if you believe in one) and telling someone that you love them and want to spend the rest of your life loving them.  Moreover, the government treats married couples differently.  It’s not just the tax code or health benefits.  You become part of a unit.

 

My personal belief is that your sexual orientation is something you are born with, like your eye or hair color.  You can try to change it but you will get roots later.  I also wonder what threat gay marriage poses to straight marriage.  I have asked people who oppose gay marriage (and adoption) what it is they oppose, are they secretly gay?  Does the gay lifestyle (and I don’t actually think there is one ‘gay lifestyle’ anymore than there is one ‘straight lifestyle’) so appealing that should gay marriage be allowed everywhere that straight couples all over America will decide (in my head it is always in unison) Oh, my God!  I can legally marry someone of the same gender as me!  I am outta here!  Is straight marriage such a fragile institution that we have to limit it this way?  (Actually it might be very fragile, seeing as the American divorce rate I think tops 50 percent, making me think we should make it harder for straight people to marry.)  How are straight people hurt by gay marriage?

 

Prop 8 was a real disappointment because most of the nation thinks people out there are more progressive.  They are not but that’s what people think (Reagan was from CA as was Nixon).  I am glad people are protesting.  I am happy Steve Young’s (Mormon and descendent of Bingham Young) Bay Area home had signs opposing prop 8. Oh, FYI, there was a time when we owned slaves (well not me, I am a woman, women were also property), African-Americans & women could not vote and children were allowed to work.  Gay marriage (and adoption) will become legal.  It’s not a matter of when or if, it’s a simple question of justice.

Thank you, Howard

As we all expected, Howard Dean is leaving the DNC in January when his term expires. He is probably one of the only people in politics to stick to a self-imposed term limit. The last person I know of who did that was George Washington. I think he always planned to do this and would have even had Barack Obama asked him to stay, which everyone also knew was never going to happen.

The irony of something rarely gets missed, by me anyway. Here it almost hits you in the face. Howard Dean began the ‘fifty state strategy’ and got a lot of crap for it. This plan helped win the election for Obama. I have heard there is some bad blood between the two men but have not found anything to prove that. It is customary for a president to pick the chair of the party but I don’t feel Dean has been given the credit he deserves. The Nation ran this back in February: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080317/berman.

I don’t know how President-elect Obama feels about Dean. I am not sure it matters and it would be natural to want someone from his inner circle there. The problem is that Dean rebuilt a party that was in trouble all over the country. His departure, while expected and blah, blah, blah makes me wonder what direction the DNC will take now. Given the recent success of Dean’s plan (in both 2006 and 08) I hope they continue it.

PS. Note to sensible readers, I know everyone just loves the Huffington Post. I don’t. This is because they do not believe in fact checkers. That is important because when they ‘break’ a story it is hard to tell if it is real and they have put stories up that were later found to be false. If you read it on a regular basis, just keep that in mind. You’ll get better breaking news from Drudge.