Bushite PATRIOT Games

(apologies to Tom Clancy, whose similarly-named book, and subsequent movie, I've never been able to sit through)

So, tonight, Congress has passed a one-month extension to the PATRIOT Act as we know it, rather than pass the Conference Committee version to extend key provisions due to sunset on December 31.

This is among several victories of a highly technical nature that occurred in these weeks and shows that the ability to mobilize near-unanimous Republican support for the Bushite agenda is faltering; the opposition is gaining by forming tactical alliances shaving off small groups of Republican social moderates, libertarians, fiscal conservatives, and principled constitutionalists. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid has found his step by utilizing the intricate knowledge of Senate and Congressional rules which he has, along with that of other key Democratic operatives. Against the odds and the numbers, he has come up with some legislative wins. We should forgive any lack of ideological purity when we have a captain who can put the other team on the defensive and come away with some big upsets.

Of course, it is the nature of the Bushites to be obtuse, and so we should not be surprised by the effontery of Dubya's recent P.R. onslaught. Rove feels an election comin' on; even at a distance of 11 months we can hear the grinding of the spin machine. This time, though, the Talking Points are out of touch, reality-denying, and no longer with the same convincing swagger.

Let's go through a few of the recent jousts, the sound of battered helms, split beams, and shattered shields still ringing in our ears:

Torture: After months of fighting it behind the scenes, then finally professing public indifference, Bush folds and accepts the legislated prohibition of practices beyond the military field manuals by any American government entities. The votes were solidly against him in the Senate. The key point was that McCain accepted the power of the American military to do what they wanted, but simply insisted that their actions be properly put beyond that which is legally allowed. The perpetrators thus could hope to plead that their actions were for the right cause, perhaps bringing benefit to the nation, putting themselves on the line.

Bush immediately trotted out the argument when the beans were spilled on the Eavesdropping of American phone conversations by the Times and the Post, conveniently for Bushite opponents on the key day of the Senate cloture vote on the conference report for the PATRIOT Act extension.

This story has broken quickly (after being held up for a long time), but this much I have managed to understand: Our national security and intelligence capabilities include massively capturing all the phone conversations, then sorting out the ones of interest. In order to make use of these capabilities for domestic purposes (and follow the law), it would be necessary to gain frequent, quick, and extensive secret warrants to keep selected information. The FISA Law bends over backwards to give that to our federal authorities. Despite knowing this, Bush gave the go-ahead to forget all this legal claptrap and "just do it".

Now, when it breaks, his defenses have been planned for months or years (as with the Plamegate indictment). Number One defense is no defense: hell yes, I stop at nothing to protect the American people. And it's working, he says. Trust me.

Yes, there are some trumped-up, lily-livered opinions from Justice about the legal and constitutional justifications for violating the law and constitutional protections. The rest of it is a bunch of mumbo-jumbo which sounds like a reasonable appeal for the novelty of this highly classified technology to bust the envelope of the law, but isn't. The delicacy and complexity of the technology seems to have been built right into the understanding the law shows; it's just that Bush said "to hell with it".

It's still early for this one, but I have the feeling that the Administration is going to get thumped a few times really vigorously, the judiciary will get their back up against the Bushites, and the wheels which allow the feds to examine basically everybody's call to everybody else and sift out the .001% of national security interest will be greased even more.

Arctic Drilling: Yet again, the combination of environmentalists, skeptics, and a few realists has preserved the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for another year. This one remains a bit of a dream--it will only take one bad legislative year on this one to ruin the place forever, and it's probably going to come some day. In the meantime, leaving the stuff in the ground seems wise; at least when we finally drill it the value will be at an all-time high (by definition).

Budget Cuts: OK, on this one I think the Bushites will get their way in the end, in substance; the bill will finally pass. However, the debate has embarrassed them with their core group, the conservatives, who know that the cuts are unpopular and niggardly--small potatoes next to the cost overruns of Iraq and Katrina, and even to the tax cuts the Bushites want to slip by next session. My bet is that the tax cuts will be, themselves, chopped to fit the bed they made this fall.

I forgot to include a bit on the PATRIOT Act itself! Like most Americans, they slipped this one in after 9/11 while I wasn't paying attention. This time, I am. Russ Feingold, one of the few who was paying attention the first time, has led the movement for some sensible restrictions on the totally-over-the-top power grabs and disregard for review, checks and balances of the Bushites. And it's not just about them; if we lose this battle now, we will never get these pieces of our privacy back. Bush is bleating on about how having to get a court order is going to cause terrorism, and similarly, we simply must have someone looking over our shoulder when we check out library books--a one-month lapse in the law would give "terra" a chance to check out all those secret tomes on making atom bombs and stuff and we wouldn't even know! Meanwhile, Feingold has put together the winning coalition of Democrats and libertarians and comes out of this looking very Presidential.

I thought the Internet poll on Lou Dobbs about The PATRIOT Act was interesting (capitalized because it has nothing to do with patriotism; it's a SLA: a seven-letter-acronym. Perhaps we should call it TPA--"The PATRIOT Act" or "Toilet Paper Act" for short. Basically, the Bushites use this stuff to keep their butts clean.) As I recall, there was about 20% who said it should be extended for 6 months; 10-11% total for longer periods; a few for a shorter period; and 60% said it should not be renewed at all. Too bad everyone in Washington knows better.

Anyway, during their bluff stage, the Bushites pretended they couldn't accept a short extension--can you imagine Dubya using the first veto of his administration to block an extension of the PATRIOT Act? Then, after being defeated on the Senate floor, they insisted that the extension had to be their way--one month instead of longer--to make sure it's out of the way before the election campaign and prevent any real examination of the questions involved.

2005: It's finishing the way it has been for most of the year: disastrous for the Bushites.
In these cases--standing up for internationally-recognized principles against mistreating prisoners, defending civil liberties against overweening federal goons, exposing the Bushite war on the less privileged, preserving the environment-- we got good outcomes, ones that benefit this country. Unfortunately, there are many other areas where Bushite incompetence, unintended consequences, lack of foresight, myopia, and bloody-minded arrogance have hurt us. Those are the ones where we couldn't stop him or change his direction.

I have to comment on this year's "controversy": is it "holidays" or is it "Christmas"? I feel the whole thing is a sham of a debate, as usual around here. I'm in favor of recognizing the global holiday that is Christmas, and putting a little spin on it: Christmas is about universal brotherhood (or the P.C. version of that word) and peace, recognizing that children are our future, and it's not just a sectarian event. OK, and it's also about getting lots of presents and being a glutton, too.

Happy Whatever!

Doris Lessing's Intelligent Design?

I refer here to the "Canopus" novels of Doris Lessing, of which Shikasta (1979) was the first and most complete in its explication of a system of regular visits and interventions in the Earth's biological evolution and, in particular, in humanity's development.

A fictional system, we may presume. But one that she uses quite brilliantly in Shikasta to suggest a possible explanation for many of the marvelous, fortuitous facts relating to our becoming the colossal, if superficial (in the planetary sense) factor we have become on our planet.

Shikasta is told from the viewpoint, omniscient if ever there were in fiction, of a veteran emissary of Canopus to Earth. This being has been involved with the planetary terra-forming, biological seeding, care and nurture of mammals, apes, and finally us reformed troglodytes (formerly reformed tree-dwellers). So she (for some reason I feel the character is feminine, though the name Lessing gives to the character in the present day is "George Sherban") has been through it all. The book is composed of extracts from the archives the character has reported back to home base over the eons, and particularly in the last 10,000 years or so.

Basically, they (those from Canopus in Argos) started things, along with their junior partner Sirius, who got part of the earth to perform their own experiments (the break-up of Pangaea, with Sirius getting to play with S. America, Australia, and the future Antarctica). There was also a third force, parasitic and jealous of Canopus, that keeps on infiltrating what was once a paradise (protected by Canopean beams of energy from harmful things like meteors, too much heat or cold, or black holes). As a result of these complex and partially malign influences, things have gotten knocked out of balance.

It was (is) sort of like the current Iraq thing, only for better motives (something like: it's what they do, bringing life, etc.) Basically, Canopus has some great powers: its beings basically live forever, can move heaven and earth, mess around with genetics, there's something about crossing dimensions (perhaps a string theory reference?), even a very tricky process to go into human life through the barbaric childbirth process, then heavily influenced by the intoxication of life on Earth, fulfilling their destiny and Canopean guidance by being in the right place, at the right time, for some critical act. That's how they work, mostly, these complex days, but previously they risked direct external appearances.

In our religious legends, they're the angels, the Hindu avatars. The cycle of religious founders that started about 500 B.C. and ended with Muhammad (among which there was an exceptionally perilous outcome in Judea in the first century A.D.) was a phase in their concern for us--a series of warnings to all the lands to change our sinful ways. Despite all their efforts and powers, though, they can't quite fix what has been knocked off kilter, and thus we are in this parlous state.

I don't want to criticize here the Pennsylvania judge who rather decisively threw out the notion that a public school system can teach intelligent design because of church-state separation reasoning. But it seems to me that Lessing's world hypothesis, which can explain so many things, shows that there is a basis other than pure religion to create an intelligent design concept. OK, there's no proof; it's basically a thought piece, which in the other Canopus novels she tries to flesh out with some stories from other planets in the Canopean sphere of influence.

The part I like about it, the nut of truth that drives the whole concept, is the vast similarity between the systems of religion of man. Each of them seems to foolishly (and improbably) believe that it, alone, is right. This reality suggests to her that we are a species that has trouble remembering facts, passing them on coherently, but one that's not forgetting everything, either. She's struggling to make sense of this meta-fact and find the part that could be true behind all the thousands of years of playing "telephone".

Iran Nuke Post at TPM Cafe

Signed up with this one to Matthew Yglesias who asks someone to save him from his inclination to oppose Iran getting Nukes:


[new] Re: Save Me (3.00 / 0) (#31) by chinshihtang on Dec 11, 2005 -- 12:03:55 AM EST
A nuclear Iran is no worse a problem than a nuclear Pakistan, and we're getting through that (though there were some scary moments with India). Pakistan, indeed, would have made more sense as a place to conduct strategic opertaions than Iraq.

That's history, now, and Pakistan will be a rogue power with nuclear weapons for the next few years, or a subcontinental partner with India in a Predator-vs.-Alien kind of symbiosis.

I digress. The only advice I got is that I just don't want anything to blow up with either Iran or with North Korea until we get this Bushite down the road in 2009. We can't trust him. Or the Rove/Cheney axis (jettison Rumsfeld, the unlikely victim of Plamegate) which rules his world. And, somehow. through some crazy electoral college logic, he rules ours.

Sure, we should advocate that Iran stay within the NPT. But we're hypocritical at best to insist that they do so when we so cavalierly toss aside our commitments to international law.



I got this response:

Re: Save Me (3.00 / 0) (#37) by BruceMoomaw on Dec 11, 2005 -- 12:53:35 AM EST
Chinshihtang: "A nuclear Iran is no worse a problem than a nuclear Pakistan, and we're getting through that (though there were some scary moments with India)."
Really? What evidence do you have that we're "getting through it"? Do you see any sign that the Pakistani government is more stable than it was, or that the degre of public sympathy for al-Qaida has diminished? (I believe Pew Research Center pegged it earlier this year at 50% of the populace.)

"Pakistan, indeed, would have made more sense as a place to conduct strategic operations than Iraq."

Not, of course, when it already had the Bomb, and we had no way of knowing where all the Bombs it had were. Which is also why we don't dare attack North Korea now. The only thing we can do to resolve the Korean situation at this point is to make it clear that (1) we won't pay one cent to keep Kim's government propped up in power; but (2) we WILL do absolutely anything necessary to allow it to give up power peaceafully without being massacred by its own people. To do that credibly, however, we have to be capable of occupying and stabilizing the place -- which, of course, is something else we're totally incapable of doing as long as we stay entangled in Iraq.

"That's history, now, and Pakistan will be a rogue power with nuclear weapons for the next few years, or a subcontinental partner with India in a Predator-vs.-Alien kind of symbiosis."

Thou sayest it. How likely is it that it WILL turn into a "rogue power with nuclear weapons" in the near future? Enough to scare the hell out of me -- but it's too late for us to do anything about it. It is not, however, too late for us to prevent Iran from becoming still another deadly theat of the same kind. (Or, rather, it wasn't too late for us to do so before we got entangled in Iraq because of the cretinous overoptimism and duplicity of the Bushites.)

Thanks for paying attention, Bruce. Here are two responses I made (the second being the afterthought that's the main point):

Re: Save Me (3.00 / 0) (#87) by chinshihtang on Dec 13, 2005 -- 03:03:53 PM EST

True, North Korea was also a better focus for our energies than Iraq. Alas.

I was advocating operations in cooperation with Pakistan, helping to secure its western borders. And, no, I don't think that the regime is stable (more reason to work with it now), but I do think they have plans to protect their nukes within their military no matter what craziness might happen with their political regime.

Re: Save Me (3.00 / 0) (#88) by chinshihtang on Dec 13, 2005 -- 03:07:59 PM EST
We've lost control of nuclear proliferation (if we ever had it). There are more holes in the dyke than we've got digits.

The answer, though, is not stepping on the ambitions of the wannabes, but something more fundamental in our approach to nuclear weapons as a global society. And we, of course, are doing the opposite of providing sound leadership in this area.

On the record Admission

Someone (never mind who) asked me whether I "hate Bush". This is my response:


I certainly don't hate the person, George W. Bush.

I do hate Bushism, though. As I do most Bushite policies and governmental decisions. Both for their choice of means and for their inevitable unintended consequences. As a good American, I hope for their success in many things though I am always skeptical of their ability to bring them off.

So I am not at all fond of this Bushite Administration. The Administration of the 41st President, George H.W. Bush, was not at all Bushite, another example of the distinction between hate for the person/(s) and for the "philosophy".

Similarly, and as Islam is not "the" source of Iraqi government in its constitution but is "a" source, Dubya is not "the" source of the Bushite administration we have, but his questionable contributions cannot be denied.

Delay update

Delay is off for conspiracy, but the money laundering was very real. Let the courts decide whether his fingerprints are on it.

My Letter to Debbie...

in response to Debbie Stabenow's request for input on the agenda, on behalf of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, seeking priorities for 2006:

With regard to health care, jobs, homeland security (including emergency preparedness), energy and environmental policy, we should have clear programs of action that we stand together behind. These would be appropriate coming from the DNC as the national party's top organization. Obviously, they would be very different from the Bushites'. I suggest our health care program includes both a revision of the ridiculous Medicare prescription program and something to address those many without health insurance, particularly the young.

If you want to really drive a tidal wave against Republican control, though, you must not be afraid to hit out at the Bush administration with one voice on Iraq. The theme I would propose is "100 Americans a Month" until such time as Bush begins to talk seriously about dates and timetables. After that, it will become clear whether there can be a bipartisan approach to Iraq or not. Regardless, the Cheney/Rove axis leaders need to come under consistent pressure for their roles in politicizing the intelligence interpretations behind the initial invasion and attempting to suppress through personal attacks (as in Plamegate). The goal should be to marginalize them permanently.

You must insist on American behavior in the world that is consistent with our values, as has been frequently lacking with the Bushites.

Finally, on the Supreme Court nomination debate (or "Alito-sis", as I call it), I suggest Sen. Reid utilize the "two-speech" precedent which will prolong the debate, keep the issues present, while observing Senate rules and avoiding "Nukler War". Important as the swing vote's change (from O'Connor to Kennedy) will be, it's more important as a symbol of the hijacking of the government we have all been witness to these 5 years.