The Guns of Auguste

BBC:

Alternatively, our correspondent adds, a high-casualty attack on US forces in neighbouring Iraq could also trigger a bombing campaign if it were traced directly back to Tehran.

But really - what are the odds of that happening?

Apparently I “lost time” again, because every time I do, Chris Clarke decides to write another blog post. I’m not sure what that means, or why I sometimes wake up with a splitting headache in the middle of Joshua Tree National Park*, but I do very much enjoy reading his writing, whatever the source.

* The worst part? Apparently it’s actually the Mojave Preserve, which helps explain why trying to follow Google Maps home usually ends me up in Yakima.

Against our traditions we are now entering upon an unjust and trivial war, a war against a helpless people, and for a base object — robbery. At first our citizens spoke out against this thing, by an impulse natural to their training. Today they have turned, and their voice is the other way. What caused the change? Merely a politician’s trick — a high-sounding phrase, a blood-stirring phrase which turned their uncritical heads: Our Country, right or wrong! An empty phrase, a silly phrase. It was shouted by every newspaper, it was thundered from the pulpit, the Superintendent of Public Instruction placarded it in every schoolhouse in the land, the War Department inscribed it upon the flag. And every man who failed to shout it or who was silent, was proclaimed a traitor — none but those others were patriots. To be a patriot, one had to say, and keep on saying, “Our Country, right or wrong,” and urge on the little war. Have you not perceived that that phrase is an insult to the nation?

For in a republic, who is “the Country”? Is it the Government which is for the moment in the saddle? Why, the Government is merely a servant — merely a temporary servant; it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn’t. Its function is to obey orders, not originate them. Who, then, is “the country?” Is it the newspaper? Is it the pulpit? Is it the school-superintendent? Why, these are mere parts of the country, not the whole of it; they have not command, they have only their little share in the command. They are but one in the thousand; it is in the thousand that command is lodged; they must determine what is right and what is wrong; they must decide who is a patriot and who isn’t…

In a monarchy, the king and his family are the country; in a republic it is the common voice of the people. Each of you, for himself, by himself and on his own responsibility, must speak. And it is a solemn and weighty responsibility, and not lightly to be flung aside at the bullying of pulpit, press, government, or the empty catch-phrases of politicians. Each must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, and which course is patriotic and which isn’t. You cannot shirk this and be a man. To decide it against your convictions is to be an unqualified and inexcusable traitor, both to yourself and to your country, let men label you as they may. If you alone of all the nation shall decide one way, and that way be the right way according to your convictions of the right, you have done your duty by yourself and by your country — hold up your head! You have nothing to be ashamed of.

Only when a republic’s life is in danger should a man uphold his government when it is in the wrong. There is no other time.

This Republic’s life is not in peril. The nation has sold its honor for a phrase. It has swung itself loose from its safe anchorage and is drifting, its helm is in pirate hands.

— Mark Twain

Since Pandagon is currently being slammed six ways from Sunday by everything from regulars to curious first-timers to spammers, it’s down, and you thereby are missing out on a great post by Amanda which really reminds me why I’m a Christian that kinda dislikes a lot of other “Christians.”

——————–
[Amanda Says:]

Update: To correct misinformation in the comments, I was not “fired”. I offered my resignation and it was accepted.

Because I had the nerve to be critical of the Catholic church’s stance on birth control and abortion—nevermind their political opposition to distributing condoms to fight HIV, a stance that has helped usher thousands and possibly millions to their untimely deaths—I’ve gotten a number of letters from people who call themselves “Christians”, as Bill Donohue also calls himself. Chrisitians are people who are supposed to follow the behavior and teachings of Jesus Christ. I mention this, because it seems to me that therefore, when Christians are contemplating an action that is morally questionable, it appears they should consult the Bible before acting.

Luckily, I happen to have a Bible laying around this house, because even though I’m not a Christian, I was an English major, and it is important to Know Your Ancient Mythologies if you are reading poetry. And I flipped to this passage that seems to have solid advice on what to do if you’ve got some asshole dragging a woman in front of an angry crowd and yelling, “SINNER!”:

The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst they said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?” This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground. But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.”

Granted, I don’t think criticizing the church for policies that hurt families and even get people killed is a “sin”, but my letter writers do. But I thought I’d bring up this story for two reasons. One, I’ve always been impressed by the subtext of the story. I suspect, strongly, that this story is part of the reason that Christianity was so attractive to women in its early days, because this sort of random misogynist scapegoating is all too real in a patriarchy, and this story must have touched a lot of women at the time, who would be impressed with Jesus’ unwillingness to play into such misogyny. In fact, from everything I understand, much of the history of Christian misogyny is one 2,000 year long backlash against early female power in the church.

I’m also impressed by how so many people who claim to follow Jesus have basic reading comprehension problems when they regard this story. (Not all—for instance, some fellow Pandagonians take their faith seriously enough to read the Bible and try to follow its precepts.) From my mailbag:

I pray that I had some small part to play in your “resigning” from the Edwards campaign you libelous fraud!

That’s from a Vivian Thomas, who also wants me to know that I’m a worthless hag.

Catholics are concerned about killing unborn children, you stupid bitch. Chop away if it suits you, but we don’t have to accept that as moral. That’s why it’s called a religion. Look into it.

Frankly, if I were a churchy person, this “Look into it” thing would insult me, since R.R. from Tallahassee, FL is all but saying that religion is his excuse to declare his misogyny “moral” so he doesn’t actually have to think and decide what his morality is for himself.

Amanda,

after reading your vile screed against Catholics and the Holy Spirit, I just had to see what you looked like. (I envisioned you eyebrow-less, with no visible pupils, and a blank, dead stare.) I see I was correct about the blank, dead stare, but other than that you’re not too bad. I then thought maybe you were mad at God (and by proxy Catholics) for making you ugly, but now I’m figuring you’re just mad at him for making you a woman.

Annette D’Amato is somewhat right, that I’m angry—but not that I’m a woman, but that people like her have such uncalled for contempt for women. But I am impressed that I gave her a small bit of education. Contrary to what people have been telling her, feminists are not demons without eyebrows (she missed the boar’s teeth and snakes on our heads), but human beings.

Andy Driggers from Dallas, TX was also so moved by my criticisms of religious anti-choicers, that he wrote:

Problem with women like you, you just need a good fucking from a real man! Living in Texas myself, I know you haven’t found that real Texan yet. But once your liberal pro feminist ass gets a real good fucking, you might see the light. Until then, enjoy your battery operated toys b/c most real men wouldn’t want to give you the fucking you deserve b/c the shit that would come out of you ears.

Reminder: Donohue was claiming to be so hurt by my “bigotry”. Yet, for some reason, his supporters write me and they are more interested in telling me that my womanhood is repulsive to them. Interesting—almost as if his claims to speak for Catholicism were in fact dog whistles to scare people about women’s equality.

As I told some close friends in the days that Donohue was on the news, spraying code words about “get the feminists” (which explains why he roped Shakespeare’s Sister into this, even though she really had nothing to do with any of this—except she’s pro-equality, which is what is really what offends Donohue and all the people who gave that anti-Semite airtime), a good half of my hate mail could be summed up, “You have a pottymouth, you stupid cunt.” An example, from Paul Bernard of Scottsdale, AZ:

i like the way you trash talk i don’t particularly want to have sex with you but i would like a blow job.

Right wingers right now are pretending like sexism has nothing to do with me, which is an argument that works if you think a) men get emails about how they need to suck a dick on a regular basis and b) that there’s nothing whatsoever sexist about allowing men to curse but hitting the fainting couch if a woman does.

Bud Phelps, another person who opposes “bigotry”, as defined by right wing shill Bill Donohue.

It’s just too bad your mother didn’t abort you. You are nothing more than a filthy mouth slut. I bet a couple of years in Iraq being raped and beaten daily would help you appreciate America a little. Need a plane ticket ?

Time to wake up and smell reality—real bigots follow the siren call of the fascist right wing. Why would they even bother with liberals and all our equality and human rights and other tedious ideas?

Romanco De Leone was also moved by Donohue’s poignant claims about insulating the Catholic church from legitimate criticisms.

YOU RACIST WHORE. FAT UGLY BITCH. SUCK MY LONG COCK ASSHOLE I HOPE YOU KIDS NEVER LIVE AND YOUR PARENTS DIE A TRAGIC DEATH YOU ASSHOLE BITCH!

I HOPE YOUR WOMB IS BARREN AND YOUR CAREER PLUMMETS TO HELL YOU BITCH

But I shan’t belabor the point. I haven’t even begun to scratch the surface of the hate mail the Bill Donohue’s “Christian” campaign against me has inspired. This is all stuff from days ago—I’ve gotten more than 100 since. Hell, from the looks of my email from last night, I’ve had more than 100 in the past 12 hours from self-proclaimed Christians who want me to know that I have hurt their feelings and this has nothing, nothing whatsoever to do with their own misogyny and tendency to witch hunt.

——————–
[Auguste Says:]

Take it from me: Real Christians don’t get offended (well, much, anyway) by the kind of things that Amanda has to say. A lot of them agree with her, and those that don’t agree recognize that what others believe or don’t believe has no effect on one’s own personal faith.

Until and unless they lead massive campaigns to make damn sure that you either follow what they believe, or suffer for it. It’s sickly funny that the “oh-no-dhimmi” types who love to tell scare stories about how Muslims want to make sure that non-Muslims have no options, or opinions, or rights to live as they want, have no problem making common cause with William Donohue, a Christian Dhimmist of the very first order.

At TAPPED:

Bill Donohue is a fucking loon; just because he runs something called the Catholic League (last I heard, it had no official relationship with the Vatican), doesn’t mean that every single Catholic in the country listens to what he has to say.

In fact - going back to my last comment - another tactic would have been for the Edwards campaign to say, “look, sometimes we all say things we wish we could have phrased differently. Take, for example, the comments Bill Donohue made about homosexuals…”

You can fill in the rest - pull a jujitsu move and use Donohue’s force against him.

Perhpas we should be grateful, though: better to weed out Edwards early on, rather than nominate him and only find out in the general election that he’ll pull a Kerry when he gets swiftboated.

I’m starting to think that my vote will go to the candidate most likely to tell the right to shove it when they pull their swiftboating bullshit. And given that she’s already been through that particular wringer, I’d say that means I could be voting for Hillary.

Well said.

No, Hynes

Patrick Hynes, of Ankle Biting Pundits, is also a consultant for John McCain’s PAC. Now, in terms of conflict of interest, a blogger working for a political candidate is (as ruled on in the landmark case Rightwing Assholes v. Kos) Not A Big Deal. It was, however, to Patrick Hynes (from Wonkette):

“On Tuesday the former Director of Internet Organizing for Dean for President, Zephyr Teachout, revealed that the selfsame Markos Moulitsas Zúniga (who goes by the handle “Kos”) had been a paid shill for the Dean campaign, accepting fees for promoting the campaign of the angry little ex-Governor of Vermont on his blog. Oh yeah, Zúniga also gave “advice” to the campaign…. This mini-scandal is, probably, the blog equivalent of Rathergate or the Williams scandal.”

Kos, you’ll remember, had a disclaimer up. Hynes, later, did not.

(Parenthetically, this part of the Wonkette post also caught my eye, but I won’t comment further:

Sadly, since ABP’s pre-June 2006 archives were scrubbed in a site relaunch, we can’t find what else John McCain’s blogosphere mole had to say about ethics, disclosure and payola. Too bad.

)

But this was all covered last summer. Remember? Remember the shitstorm it churned up when it was revealed that Hynes was a total hypocrite and corrupt to boot? Neither do I. Especially interesting considering that Hynes seems to regard “conflict of interest” as nothing more than a random combination of three english words.

Radley Balko, a policy analyst at Cato who blogs at The Agitator, questioned Hynes’ integrity in working for AARP soon after leaving Cato, where he said Hynes’ job “was to be the PR point guy for Cato’s Social Security Choice campaign.”

Balko complained that AARP is “probably the one group that did the most to derail President Bush’s plans for private [retirement] accounts.” “Perhaps one of the righty blogs defending Hynes’ integrity can explain his representation of … the group that wants to expand Medicare, kill private accounts and enact all sorts of other monstrous, big-government federal entitlements,” Balko added.

Reached by telephone, Hynes said such criticism is irrelevant because he is “not even doing any policy work for AARP.” He reiterated his previous description of the consulting work: “They have a blog, they want to make it a better blog, and I’m helping them do it.”

But here’s the thing: I’m not even writing this post to point out Hynes’ ethical lapses. No, I’m here to highlight Hynes’ extremist stances on social issues.

Hynes wrote a book called “In Defense of the Religious Right”, which, among other things, compared today’s Christian moralizers to - I’m not kidding - abolitionists. Daniel McCarthy, writing in Reason:

“[T]he GOP is, perhaps, God’s Own Party,” not only because religious voters today prefer Republicans but because the party originally arose from the Second Great Awakening and the abolitionist movement. Abolition itself, he writes, “was the result of Christians imposing their moral values on their fellow Americans.”

You could probably get more facile and incomplete than that statement, but you’d have to be working really, really hard. By that standard - and with an actual understanding of history - slavery was the result of Christians imposing their moral values on their fellow Americans. Moreover, comparing the abolitionist movement to the war against contraception or gay marriage seems grossly offensive.

But even allowing for his ethical lapses, and the occasional offensive statement, McCain especially screwed up in not vetting his blogger’s points of view. Hynes is a fringe character, the wingiest of wingnuts. From Reason:

In support of his contention that “secular leftists are determined to remake American culture and society in their own warped image, to tear down traditional pillars of America’s moral strength,” Hynes cites a litany of court cases, legislative acts, and instances of civil disobedience: Griswold v. Connecticut (which effectively legalized contraception nationwide), the Stonewall riots (which launched the modern gay rights movement), 1960s New York and California laws legalizing abortion (the California law was signed by Gov. Reagan), and more.

If McCain was looking for a blogger to move him out of sync with the American people, he looked in the right place. The majority of Americans support civil unions, if not outright marriage. 62% oppose overturning Roe v. Wade. And given that 96% of Catholics use birth control, treating Griswold v. Connecticut as a Commie pinko plot from hell is not likely to play in Peoria.

McCain would be wise to fire Patrick Hynes now, before America wakes up to the kind of extremist he has working for him. It’s not usually considered good strategy to embrace the minority position on every issue. It’s a sure path to what I like to call “not getting elected.”

——

Contact information for the McCain PAC can be found - Okay, listen. Obviously, I’m not seriously arguing that Hynes ought to be fired, unless his ethical violations are a serious problem. But my argument against Hynes’ politics ought to have about as much influence over McCain as Pepsi has over Coke. (Or Coolah Energy - seriously, that shit is awesome.)

Bloggers know their audience, and I’m betting Hynes doesn’t spend a lot of time wooing McCain’s moderate voters by threatening to take their condoms away, just like I know Amanda’s not going to be saying “fuck” in a press release. “Scuttle-the-blogger’s-career” is not a winner for the Republicans.

…can be found here.

Update: Glenn Greenwald has more on Hynes and others and, being Greenwald, does it better.

How I feel about Civil War, basically:

Steve McNiven, Dexter Vines, and especially Morry Hollowell, however, do not.

I like the plot for its “shake-shit-up” factor, but the actual scripting lacks oomph. Big time.

But that art? Fantastic.

Radio: The Smiths, “How Soon is Now”

Augustlet: I know this song. How do I know this song?

Me: Well, kiddo, you know it from the beginning of that show Mama used to like called Charmed. [Note: He always went off to play when it came on, but not before hearing the music over the opening credits. ]

Augustlet: Ohhh okay.

Me: But this is the original version, and it came out when Daddy was a kid.

Augustlet: Before they were even thinking of the show? Okay. Is this a man or a woman singing?

Me: It’s a man. His name is Morrissey.

Augustlet: Oh. He doesn’t sound like you, though, he sings high.

Me: Well, that’s what we call an artistic choice, buddy.

Augustlet: He sings more like me. I don’t have a voice like you do.

Me: Well, no, you don’t, but when you get about 13 or 14, your voice will get [demonstrating] loooower.

Augustlet: Oh, you mean the older I get, the lower my voice will get?

Me: Kind of. Most of it happens when you’re a teenager.

Augustlet: I get it. As I get older, maybe I’ll start to sound like the guy in this song.

Radio: Johnny Cash, “Personal Jesus”

Me: You couldn’t ask for anything better than that, buddy.

Augustlet: Yeah.

I don’t know if you’ve read Pandagon today, but it’s undergoing some changes, some for the better, others involving me. But never fear, intrepid reader! The Guns of Auguste will live on!

I can’t reveal exactly how I will choose what topics and posts will appear on which blog, but it involves this equation:

Is there any reason for me to post this video? Probably not, but I don’t care:

All non-feminists who wish to initiate a discussion of the “end of sexism” and the “nonexistence of the patriarchy” must immediately and fully defend this story. Said defense may not consist of the words “isolated” and “incident” unless they are preceded by “this is clearly not an.”

Update: Cautiously encouraging news.

Hogue said that the officers did not technically violate departmental procedure. During their initial investigation of the rape, they discovered the victim was wanted for failing to appear in court on a juvenile case. Since the records showed the young woman still owed $4,500 in restitution, she was arrested.

That’s where, the chief says, the officers’ supervisors should have stepped in.

“Our procedures did not provide supervisors with discretionary oversight,” he continued. “We have amended our policy so that shift commanders have the authority to review circumstances surrounding incidents involving victims of violent crime and make a final decision that appropriately balancing compassion and duty.”

That’s not a complete response, of course, but at least they’re not closing ranks.