Friday, June 26, 2009

Iran

It’s been a difficult two weeks in Iran, and I don’t really have any insightful analysis to add about the situation over there. I’m not as familiar with Iran as I could be, I can’t read or speak Farsi, and I have no way to judge the tenacity of those who seek credible elections, nor the lengths to which the current powers that be will go to suppress those questioning its credibility and demanding nothing more than a fair election. There is a lot of very good analysis out there linked to by a few sites that have taken a keen interest. I recommend Andrew Sullivan’s site, which has been following this story with extreme interest.

I would love to be able to do the same, but I have no staff, and I’m not getting paid for this, so I’m even more limited as far as being able to comment in depth on what is going on over there.

What I will say is this: While there is much anger at what appears to be a stolen election—that anger directed at Khamenei and Ahmadinejad—it is important to remember that all of this started as a demand for a new election, one with greater credibility. It is clear that massive election tampering took place—fifty cities with voter turnouts in excess of 100% is hard to just sweep under the rug—and one can hardly blame the Iranians who voted for the challenger for being upset when the results came out 67% to 33%.

All these people were asking for was a new election. Of course, with greater scrutiny, fraud would be more difficult to perpetrate the second time around, so the refusal of Khamenei and Ahmadinejad to consider such a thing was met with understandable suspicion and fury. Their subsequent reaction—unleashing their hired Basij thugs to indiscriminately bludgeon and shoot peaceful Iranian citizens who wanted nothing more than to have their votes count—brings weight to the suspicion of the protestors.

Any American who is a student of the history of this country is likely to hold some sympathy for any revolution based in such similar values to the ones we hold dear. Our own country evolved, in part, on our fury about the lack of representation the American colonists had in Britain—we had no vote, no say in how we were governed, nor did we have any say into how our tax monies were used.

As such, many of my thoughts since the twelfth of June have been with the Iranian people—as the logo for the site indicates. The situation doesn’t look good: Khamenei has taken a stand which shows inflexibility, and it is clear that he has no problem taking lethal steps against peaceful protestors and innocent bystanders. The death of Neda Agha-Soltan on June 20 is proof enough of Khamenei’s value of human life—and Neda’s is far from the only blood on Khamenei’s hands.

My thoughts continue to be with them, and I hope for a resolution that errs on the side of truth and justice. Unfortunately, as we have seen neither from the Supreme Leader of Iran, I hold little hope that such a resolution will succeed without overwhelming, decisive revolution. Such an act is always difficult: it would require a hundred thousand revolutionaries willing to die for a cause, and no single person can be faulted from hesitating in the face of death.

And yet. We shall see. Salaam aleikum [peace be with you].

Sanford

Honestly, Governor Mark Sanford’s affair with an Argentinian woman while still married to his wife should be none of our business. What personal issues the man is having, or his marriage is having, or whatever should be none of our business. Sure, there’s a human-interest angle, but such things are inherently a personal matter and have no business in government.

So why talk about it at all?

Simple. The GOP has set itself up as the exclusive bastion of “Christian family values,” putting itself above all other political parties. As part of this ridiculous and irrational schtick, they claim (without any evidence, and with considerable obvious counterevidence) that allowing same-sex couples to marry will erode the “sanctity” of “traditional marriage,” that only they understand the difficult decisions that underlie issues like abortion, terminal stages of life, and other such dilemmas and therefore can dismiss any reasoning that goes against what they fervently and uncritically believe as “liburul evil,” and other such ridiculous rhetoric.

As long as the GOP puts such an emphasis on this level of self-righteousness, the normal human transgressions of its members are thrown into much sharper relief than they have to be. These transgressions stand as stark proof that the GOP is no better in areas of morality than any other political party, and in fact, the continuing un-self-critical self-righteousness makes them considerably worse.

One of my favorite Biblical quotes is one of those by Jesus: Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. Unfortunately, few of the GOP “Christians” follow Christ’s example with regards to rampant condemnation. Sanford himself called for President Clinton to resign in 1998 over his extramarital dabblings, and in December of that same year, he went on CNN’s Crossfire and, commenting on the affair of Bob Livingston (R–LA1, 1977–1999) said:

. . . the bottom line, though, is —I’m sure there’ll be a lot of legalistic explanations pointing out that the President lied under oath, uh, this, y’know, [Livingston’s] situation was not under oath—the bottom line, though, is that he still lied, he lied under a different oath, and that’s the oath to his wife, so it’s got to be taken very, very seriously.

Livingston, then Speaker-elect of the House of Representatives, fell in part because of his vocal support of the impeachment of Bill Clinton—his own affair pointed out his rampant hypocrisy. Sanford’s affair, as well, throws a sharp light on his own hypocrisy.

The problem with behaving with self-righteousness, and still being all too human, is a sense of entitlement: because you’re so Obviously Moral, you have a little leeway in your own mind about what you’re permitted to do. It’s a common problem with people who see themselves as morally superior: they are unable to put their own moral failings under the same condemning scrutiny. We saw this with David Vitter and his dabblings with prostitutes. We saw this with John Ensign last week. The same condemnation that they brought to others was a condemnation that somehow didn’t apply to themselves.

Actual Republicans see this sort of thing as a matter of personal responsibility, and in this, Sanford has been unusually forthright, though tardy (if he were really a bottom-line kind of person, as he claimed during his press conference, he would have admitted to it before getting so obviously caught). Others in the GOP, however, have made claims that Sanford’s affair is proof that gay marriage is eroding “traditional marriage,” a bizarre notion that seems to overlook the fact that affairs of this sort have been happening since the dawn of time. Rush “No Longer At All Sane” Limbaugh has even claimed that Obama is ultimately to blame (pretty amazing, given that Sanford’s affair began last June). Such sentiments strike against the very heart of Republicanism. No one is to blame but Sanford himself, as sad as that is, and the sort of political opportunism that Limbaugh and others of his sad, sad ilk are displaying reek of desperation and deceit.

The only part of this unfortunate and embarrassing incident that is our business is this: did he abuse his office? Certainly, he lied to his staff about his whereabouts, and left his state without a viable governor for several days hoping nobody would find out—this shows extreme negligence and a profound lack of wisdom, and should be swiftly condemned by the legislature of South Carolina. It appears that at least one of those trips to Argentina was on the taxpayers’ tab—this is a somewhat more serious breach of trust. Whether he broke his oath of office is up to others to determine—I’m not familiar with South Carolina’s state constitution—but certainly he has made some soberingly bad judgments here. His personal life is his own business, but his public life is the public’s concern, and he should be judged based on his actions in his public life, as should Ensign, as should Vitter, and others.

But the GOP would be well served if it stopped kowtowing to self-righteous evangelicals, and stopped behaving like a theocratic and Pharisaical conclave. Its hypocrisy and self-serving attitude is reminiscent of another theocracy that’s been in the news. Oh, it’s a different religion, and a different culture, but the similarities between what the GOP wants to be, and what the mullah-run government of Iran already is, leaves me uncomfortable.

No, we can’t

Today, the Washington Post reported that the White House had a draft of an executive order that would allow indefinite detention without trial of some of the suspects being held at Guantanamo.

The administration denied that such a draft existed, instead saying that a task force has been established, and was expected to present its recommendations to the administration next month. Once those recommendations were laid out, the administration would then work with Congress to forge a solution to the problem: handling inmates who “could not be released or tried in civilian courts.”

I’m sorry, Mister President, but there is no such thing. If a suspect cannot be tried, he must be released. That’s how the law works.

That the previous administration made it impossible to prosecute these people by using torture is unfortunate. But if that means that you can’t prove their case, they go free. If they’re actually bad guys, that’s unfortunate as well, but those are some of the fundamental principles upon which this country was founded. If you want to turn them over to an international court (remember? we set up one of those once), fine. But the torture thing means that they’re probably going to go free, because evidence produced under torture is inherently unreliable and totally unethical.

Innocent until proven guilty, Mister President. You’re a lawyer. You know this.

If there’s an inmate you cannot try in a court of law, if you cannot win your case, they need to be released. If they commit another crime, that’s how it goes.

Justice isn’t perfect. But history teaches us that justice should be principled. Indefinite detention is a lousy, unethical policy. Please, please don’t implement this. Please.

RIP

Finally, if you’ll pardon me for straying from politics for a bit, it’s been a weird couple of days on the celebrity front.

Ed McMahon had been having health issues for some time, so his death wasn’t a tremendous surprise. However, it does bring an end to the Big Three of The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson (the other two being Carson himself, and Fred De Cordova). McMahon had a gentle sense of humor that served the show well, and his influence on the show cannot be underestimated.

Farrah Fawcett, too, had been having health issues for some time. I have a relative who had a very similar form of cancer as Fawcett did, though she did manage to recover fully. Fawcett’s passing saddened me a great deal after such a long fight.

And then there was Michael Jackson, whose heart gave out yesterday at the age of 50. For the last couple of days, however, it hasn’t been his iconic works that have been going through my mind: no Thriller, no Billie Jean, no Bad. It’s his early music, music he sang in his preteen years, that’s been going through my head. At the time, his voice was almost ethereal; it soared with the enthusiasm and clarity of youth. Songs like I’ll Be There (in spite of its creepy-stalkery bits), and ABC, and others such as I Want You Back, The Love You Save, and even his early solo work (Got To Be There, Ben and others). In spite of his increasingly bizarre behavior, Jackson’s command of music was always moving, and I don’t think it’s unfair to say that his influence on music and dance was global and permanent.

I will miss all three.