MotherJones.com | MoJoBlog - Social Issues and Political Commentary: June 4, 2006

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June 10, 2006

Yearly Kos: "This isn't about the Democratic Party; it's about the United States of America."

Another action-packed day at YKC 06. Here, for starters, are some highlights from Howard Dean's fine 8 a.m. address to bleary-eyed netroots-types. (Bleary-eyed, having spent Friday night at a party thrown by former Virginia governor Mark Warner, 108 storeys above the Strip at the Stratosphere Hotel and Casino; a party featuring Elvis and Blues Brothers impersonators, an open bar, thrill rides, "Kos martinis," and, yes, the dentally formidable presidential hopeful.)

Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee:

This is the handoff between the baby boomers and the millennial generation. ... This is a movement that's not so different than the one in the sixties, to take back America. ... In the sixties what we fought for was individual rights, equal rights under the law for every single American. We're still fighting for those things today, but we have lost our way, starting in 1980, when the "Me Party" took over from the "We Party."
Interestingly, none of the things the Republican Party predicted came true. They are the party of big government interfering in people's personal decisions; they are the party of secrecy and dishonesty. And they are the party of the largest national debt in the history of the country and in fact the history of the free world.
So now this is the generation that takes the country back to the ideals laid before us by Franklin Roosevelt and Jack Kennedy. But it's a different generation, and you know more about the world than we did. ... You understand that we are all citizens of the world...because of the [Inter]net. What we are now engaged in is a new American generation, a community, that wants to restore American values, the best American values...the American values of ordinary people.
What I think Americans really want is not just to beat up on the right wing. The president is at 30 percent in the polls; I think people get it. Now, a sentence every once in a while reminding people what they're doing is a very good thing. But I think people want a unified country. They really do want to reach out to everybody, understanding that we're all in this together. It's why the scapegoating politics of the right isn't working. And you're a big piece of that.
When the right wing took over the country, they did it by fighting every day for four years. And then their next cycle would start the day after the election. That's what we have to do in the Democratic Party. I do care about the Democratic Party; I think the Democratic Party is heads above the Republican Party. But the truth is, this isn't about the Democratic Party; it's about the United States of America. And the Democratic Party is the vehicle to reform America.
But this is a tough fight, and you don't win just because you're right. You win because you outwork the other guys, you're tougher than the other guys and...because you appeal to the higher instincts of people instead of to people's worst instincts. Those guys win elections by scapegoating people. From Ronald Reagan's "welfare queen" to George Bush's gay and lesbian Americans. ... We will not do that, because it's bad for America, and the one big difference between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party is that they will put the interests of the Republican Party ahead of the interests of the United States of America, and we will not do that.

Click here for video clips from the Yearly Kos convention.

Why are the comics tougher on Bush than the Democrats?

Tonight, on HBO, comic Lewis Black eviscerates George Bush, Dick Cheney and right-wing fundamentalists in a funny, biting way that the leaders of the Democratic party -- or even many progressives -- don't have the nerve or wit to do. (I saw the show live in May, and his take-down on Bush's cluelessnss while visiting amputated Iraq vets is a masterpiece of dark comedy and expert timing, joined by a hilarious defense of evolution and the fossil record against the ignorance of "intelligent design" advocates.)

Earlier in the week, Jon Stewart took on Bill Bennett over gay marriage with a devastating rebuttal of the right's notion that gay marriage threatens heterosexual marriage. He staked a clear moral ground on civil rights and gays as part of the human family, as opposed to the legalisms over state's rights that most Democrats used in opposing the gay rights constitutional amendment.

Perhaps the comics are showing us the way towards the "authenticity" that so many political experts say the public wants to see in their candidates, and that the consultant-driven presidential candidates of the Democratic Party in recent years have lacked.

June 9, 2006

Yearly Kos: Do blogs matter, anyway?

Over at Townhall.com, Jeff Emanuel, a young conservative and himself a blogger, wonders if bloggers and blogs, particularly liberal ones, are all they're cracked up to be (as we in the Riviera Hotel and Casino strongly believe). He asks, specifically:

1) Is the Daily Kos model (and are blogs in general) the way of the future or just a flash in the pan?
2) Just how much influence, if any, do Moulitsas and his “Kos Kids” have within the Democrat Party?

Here's his gleeful take:

The Daily Kos model, and blogs in general, are not just a flash in the pan. The Kos has been among the most-viewed websites for several years now, and his exposure appears to be growing rather than receding. He's penned an article in the American Prospect and been the subject of a piece in Campaigns & Elections as well as other publications. As long as Air America is up and running (perhaps not long), Moulitsas will have a voice over the airwaves as well.
The bad news is that Kos has just about the most-viewed blog on the planet. The good news—-and it is very good [sic!]—-is that conservatives have not been afraid to follow suit and have jumped on the opportunities offered by this medium. With the exception of Daily Kos, nearly all of the top blogs in the nation—Michelle Malkin, Instapundit, Townhall, Little Green Footballs, Club for Growth, and others—are conservative. More and more Republicans in Congress are even being convinced of the merits of the blogosphere, the result of a Capitol Hill blogging revolution currently being engineered by new-media enthusiasts like David All, communications director for Representative Jack Kingston, R-GA. Blogs offer an extremely quick and efficient way to get information out to large numbers of people and will become more and more utilized in the future—-not less.

Fair points. It's certainly true that, as John Palfrey, Harvard's top Internet-watcher, puts it, Republicans "have been much more effective than Democrats, generally, at integrating blogging and other Internet tools within campaigns. Even the Democrats will say Republicans were much better at using these things functionally."

Emanuel goes on:

As to the second question, Kos and his Kids (perhaps unfortunately) have little or no influence over the day-to-day activities of the Democratic Party. They stand firmly against any principles which lie to the right of pure socialism; thus, they cannot support any candidate who could ever have a chance of winning an important election. ...

Well, this is nonsense. If "Kos and his Kids" lack influence, it's not because they're wild-eyed lefties. I'm not quite sure what Emanuel means by "pure socialism," but reading Kos's book on the plane ride over here I was mostly struck by his--and co-author Jerome Armstrong's--flexible, pragmatic approach to electoral politics. They argue that if Democrats want to win more votes they're going to have to tame their special interest groups, and those groups--be they pro-choicers, environmentalists, or what have you--are going to have to learn, on occasion, to subordinate their narrow concerns to the common good. That vision of the common good is broadly "liberal," no doubt, but not "left" in any predictable, dogmatic sense. (It can occasionally demand, for example, that Democrats throw their support behind anti-choice candidates.)

But the question remains: how important are bloggers to the Democratic Party? Or, as this piece puts it, "Can bloggers significantly affect turnout or shape issues, or are they mostly echo chambers with little measurable sway? Will those trends change as more Americans turn to the Internet to get news, nurture their personal relationships and make commercial transactions?"

The answer is...nobody seems to know. Liberal bloggers have notched up some notable successes, powering the meteoric (if short-lived) rises of Howard Dean and Paul Hackett. And though Hillary Clinton is conspicuously giving YKC 06 a miss, Mark Warner, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and Howard Dean are scheduled to drop by, and Wesley Clark looked in earlier today. Even so, though Kos himself sees the convention as evidence that "We have arrived," it's Warner's equivocal, hedging approach that seems to capture the uncertainty around the blogosphere's influence.

"When I go anyplace now, I'll usually call some of the key bloggers," said Warner, who also is hosting a party for bloggers at this week's convention. "I'm trying to shift the debate from 'left vs. right' to 'future vs. past.'...
Blogging, Warner said, "may just be the tip of the iceberg" in terms of the impact the Internet has on campaigns in 2008 and beyond.
"How significant is podcasting going to be? Text messaging and video messaging to cell phones?" he said. "As people look at new ways to slice and dice demographics, the personalized way somebody can talk to you as an individual voter about the issues you care about?"

Translation: I have no idea where this thing is going, but I've nothing to lose by rolling the dice on these guys--for now.

Yearly Kos: "If you really want to do something for marriage, raise the minimum wage..."

Barbara Boxer was today's lunchtime speaker at YKC 06. The junior senator from California was introduced as "the model of what the netroots wants," owing to her liberal voting record and her position on the Iraq war. (She was one of 23 senators who voted against giving the president the go-ahead.)

The speech was rousing enough. The White House is "dangerously incompetent," and congress is "too eager to write the president a blank check and turn a blind eye," leaving an accountability void that bloggers and their readers have stepped in to fill. "You are the most powerful answer to [executive overreach]."

Boxer was good on the GOP's sudden rediscovery of that preeminent threat to American values, the liberal-homosexual war on marriage--"if you really want to do something for marriage, raise the minimum wage, provide people with health-care"--and on the question of whether it's worth Democrats' time to push for George W. Bush's impeachment: not. Republicans control congress, so the idea wouldn't go anywhere; and anyway, the American people would view it as an unhelpful distraction from important issues. "There's only one thing to do," she said. "Change the Congress." Fair enough.

School of Americas Debated Again

Via Cursor, I see the House is debating yet again whether to close the School of Americas (now called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation). Here's a good, totally objective place for background. Here too. Already, four South American countries (Venezuela, Bolivia, Argentina and Uruguay) have in recent years stopped sending their officers for training at the school, which has graduated 62,000 officers and 11 dictators throughout its history, including Efraín Ríos Montt, Augusto Pinochet, and Roberto D’Aubuisson, the founder of death squads in El Salvador. Odds are, the House won't vote to shut the school down (Rep. Jim McGovern has been trying to get this done for years now), but might as well note the effort...

New Orleans area residents suffering from increased mental health problems

Mental health experts report that depression, including suicidal depression, and posttraumatic stress have become increasingly common among people who were affected by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. An educated guess is that more than 260,000 people are newly affected by anxiety, depression and substance abuse disorders, and there are not enough professionals or facilities to accommodate them. To make matters worse, many behavioral health professionals are also suffering from some of the disorders brought on by the devastation of Katrina and its aftermath.

A well-known television producer killed himself when he lost everything in Katrina. Several doctors have committed suicide, and only last week, an animal rescuer killed herself. In the days following the hurricane, the suicide rate in Jefferson Parish was double what it had been in the same period of 2004. As the population of New Orleans goes down, the volume of mental health problems increases.

Posttraumatic stress disorder is certainly on the rise, and now that the 2006 hurricane season has begun, posttraumatic triggers will increase. Discussions of tropical storms in the Gulf of Mexico, television footage of Katrina, Rita, and other big hurricanes, and repeated warnings about hurricane preparation cannot be avoided. One estimate is that a third of the people who lived through Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath are suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder.

To make matters worse, New Orleans area citizens continue to fight with their insurance agencies about the terms of their coverage, many have not yet decided whether to return to the city or have their houses razed, many are living in FEMA trailers or worse, and there is significant stress in homes housing more than one family or several extended family members. Add to that the unemployment or a lower level of employment since the hurricanes, and you have a formula for ever-increasing mental health issues.

People who were seriously mentally ill before the hurricane, or whose illnesses were made worse by the storm, cannot access hospital beds because of the low staffing in psychiatric hospitals.

In my own practice north of Lake Pontchartrain, I am seeing people who had problems prior to Hurricane Katrina's aftermath, but who were coping reasonably well. After losing their houses, jobs, money, or family members, however, they feel they can no longer cope with their daily routines, much less than the larger problems they face. Even people who lost nothing cannot erase the vidual images of people clinging to roofs, suffering in the Superdome, or having their pets taken from them and tossed into the street. A psychiatrist with whom I frequently talk said he is hearing the worst stories he has heard in his career.

Because of low staffing and caregiver stress, there is no solution in sight for what is now a mental health crisis.

Yearly Kos: "When you are a clean-money candidate you can basically give the finger to lobbyists. Which is a beautiful thing."

Greetings from the Yearly Kos convention in Las Vegas, where the netroots mingle with...overweight white people incapable of learning from repeated failures and helplessly chucking their money away on doomed long-shot bets. (That's right—the Democratic Party establishment.) YKC 06, as we insiders have learned to call it, shares space in the garishly carpeted convention center in the basement of the Riviera Hotel with…the NSA (The National Seniors Association, many of whose members appear to be wearing suspicious listening devices in arrogantly plain view) and the national "cue-sports" association.

More, when I figure it all out, on such details as the number of pale and underfed bloggers gathered here, not to mention the activists, mainstream media types, professional politicians, and starry-eyed blog groupies. (I will say for now that, as with most conferences, the panel discussions tend to be sparsely attended, with media folks overrepresented, while the big "keynote"-type events, like the speech last night by Markos Moulitsas-Zuniga (Kos), are packed, possibly owing to the availability of free food.) More, too, on YCK 06 as the progressive blogosphere's coming out party; more on the fact that such Democratic luminaries as Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi feel it necessary to make the pilgrimage here to touch the feet of Kos, this event's presiding deity. And more gratuitous and strained analogies between Democratic politics and the sublime human comedy that is Las Vegas.

For now, though, a word on an 8 a.m. panel I attended (yes, 8 a.m.! This Markos guy does have a sense of humor, after all). The subject was electoral reform and the speakers included grunge legend-turned activist Krist Noveselic of Nirvana fame and the estimable writer Micah L. Sifry. Sifry pointed out—and we all know this but it's worth belaboring—that money is screwing up American politics. The cost of waging a political campaign is massive and getting bigger all the time; prospective candidates who lack big-money backing might as well stay in bed; elected officials spend much or most of their time dialing for dollars and sucking up to donors rather than connecting with their constituents; and special interests buy special favors.

Sifry went on to argue that regulatory fixes (campaign spending limits, disclosure rules) are all fine and dandy, but what's really needed is…a paradigm shift (I know, I know; but hear him out…), one that breaks the dependency of political candidates on moneyed interests—a "clean-money" solution under which candidates, having proven their small-d democratic bona fides by amassing a sufficient number of small (say $5) contributions, receive enough public money to finance their campaigns and agree to forego any more private money. The great state of Maine has tried something similar with good results.

Seems to have potential in Arizona, too. One of the panelists was state representative Kyrsten Sinema, who, speaking from vivid experience, had this to say:

"When you are a clean-money candidate you can basically give the finger to lobbyists. Which is a beautiful thing."

For more on clean-money elections, see Fairvote.org, Public Campaign, and Cleanmoneyday.com.

June 8, 2006

Women's Rights in Basra Still Dismal

I take it today's the day when everyone's supposed to be upbeat about Iraq, seeing as how Zarqawi was killed, and Iraqis across the country are, rightfully, ecstatic about the fact. Nevertheless, Terri Judd's report in the Independent on the state of women's rights deserves a reading:

Across Iraq, a bloody and relentless oppression of women has taken hold. Many women had their heads shaved for refusing to wear a scarf or have been stoned in the street for wearing make-up. Others have been kidnapped and murdered for crimes that are being labelled simply as "inappropriate behaviour". The insurrection against the fragile and barely functioning state has left the country prey to extremists whose notion of freedom does not extend to women.

In the British-occupied south, where Muqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army retains a stranglehold, women insist the situation is at its worst. Here they are forced to live behind closed doors only to emerge, concealed behind scarves, hidden behind husbands and fathers. Even wearing a pair of trousers is considered an act of defiance, punishable by death.

Perhaps it's too obvious to need pointing out, but as a reminder, this is what's going on in Basra, the peaceful part of Iraq, where Shiites have—for the most part—set up a stable Islamic government in the provinces and insurgent violence, while not eradicated, is at a minimum. In other words, this is what "victory" in Iraq would look like. According to Judd's interviews, people in Basra say that laws setting aside 25 percent of the legislative seats for women have been a "smokescreen," and it's been impossible for those in power to do much to improve women's rights in the region.

Congress Approves Eye-Eating Fungus

Awesome. According to Jeremy Bigwood of In These Times, the House recently an amendment authorizing the use of an "eye-eating fungus" to spray on crops in Colombia as part of the U.S. government's "war on drugs." The Colombian government is against the measure, seeing as how the fungus can attack humans and "cause redness and pain that can lead to blindness—requiring a corneal replacement," and could well mutate into something worse in the future.

In related news, Plan Colombia is still a billion-dollar failure that hasn't reduced drug use but has gotten a lot of people killed.

Turning Against the War

The chorus of voices denouncing the war in Iraq is pretty loud these days, but the addition of critiques by its early proponents continues to be striking. And in his op-ed today, Michael Young, opinion editor for the Lebanese Daily Star, does just that. Young doesn't regret his earlier support for the war, and there is no lost love between him and the Iraqi leaders—or would-be Arab reformers—critical of the occupation. But the noted Lebanese political pundit is also far enough removed to call the war a huge disaster, and to do so with more thoroughness than most Americans care to, even now. Like the My Lai massacre back in 1968, Young writes, Haditha "makes the notion of winning hearts and minds laughable."

Even for those of us who supported the war, it's plain that this is a March 1968 moment, though Johnson had a much easier choice to make than Bush. South Vietnam was never as crucial a place as Iraq is, and for the US there is, quite simply, no way out. Democracy is a long-lost hope; Arab liberals who congratulate themselves for having discredited the war from the outset can lustily applaud the humiliation of the last administration that will plead their case in many years. If there is no way out for Bush, freedom in the Arab world has also hit a brick wall.

Lest this sound too cynical, Young does make a few recommendations, the first of which is that Rumsfeld get the boot, and quickly.

GOP Agenda Sputtering

It's great news by any measure that the Senate failed to repeal the estate tax today, although I'm shocked that it was so tough, seeing as how there are more Republican senators than there were in 2004, or 2002. Same thing with the vile gay marriage amendment; more Republicans in the Senate, but it failed by an even larger margin than it did the in 2004. Don't know what it means, but it's a good sign. One can only hope this ridiculous flag-burning amendment will get shot down as well.

U.S. Military Kills Zarqawi

I was just reading Mary-Anne Weaver's long profile of Abu Musab Zarqawi in the Atlantic Monthly and suddenly, the man gets himself killed in an airstrike. So, he's dead. Good riddance, and this does seem like genuinely good news for Iraq, although I guess the smart thing to say is that his death won't make a difference to the overall level of violence there. That's what Weaver's piece suggests. "If Zarqawi is captured or killed tomorrow, the Iraqi insurgency will go on," according to a "high-level" Jordanian intelligence official.

That's almost certainly right. The Sunni insurgency has mostly been run by Iraqis opposed to both the U.S. occupation and the prospect of Shiite rule of Iraq. Zarqawi played at best a supporting role. At one point, it seemed like Zarqawi's willingness to engage in big, bloody attacks against Shiites was genuinely exacerbating what was then a nascent sectarian war in Iraq. Maybe he was making a real difference then. But nowadays that sectarian war isn't so nascent anymore, and Sunnis and Shiites are capable of killing each other by the dozens each day without Zarqawi's help. One can hope that getting rid of Zarqawi will change things, but it seems unlikely.

Meanwhile, over at TNR's blog, Michael Crowley notes that some caller on the "Diane Rehm Show" wants to know how many civilians were killed in the raid. Seems like a fair question to me. There have been lots of airstrikes on "safe houses" thought to be harboring Zarqawi. Here's a failed strike on an al-Qaeda safe house that left 40 dead last November. Here's another one two years ago, on a wedding party, that left "40 dead, including children." Another missed attempt at an al-Qaeda leader, possibly Zarqawi. And that's just after a quick google search.

These all add up. Sure, it's easy to say that there's a moral difference between accidentally killing civilians while trying to track down mass murderers and the actual mass murderers themselves, but at some point the fact that we're doing counterterrorism by dropping "precision-guided munitions" on lots and lots of houses across the country should make people realize that there's not really a moral way to conduct this war. I guess that counts as insufficient cheerleading...

UPDATE: Steven Benen provides a bit of historical context, noting that the Bush administration had the opportunity to take out Zarqawi before the war, but needed him alive to preserve the fiction that Saddam Hussein was harboring terrorists. On the other hand, perhaps Zarqawi's death will give the White House the excuse it needs to declare "victory" and start pulling troops out of Iraq.

MORE: Fred Kaplan's piece on Zarqawi's death is (as usual) quite good.

June 7, 2006

John Bolton upset over U.N. official's criticism of U.S.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton said today that a U.N. Deputy Secretary-General's remarks about the United States "can only do grave harm to the United Nations." Deputy Secretary-General Mark Malloch Brown said yesterday in a speech that the U.S. relies on the U.N as a diplomatic tool, but then does not defend the body before critics at home. Brown went on to say that news of the U.N.'s good work that reaches much of the U.S. has been "largely abandoned to its loudest detractors such a Rush Limbaugh and Fox News."

Bolton called Brown's remarks a "very, very grave mistake" that could undermine Secretary-General Kofi Annan's efforts to effect a reform agenda for the U.N. Bolton told Annan that his deputy's remarks displayed a "condescending, patronizing tone about the American people."

Are We "Tolerating" Syria?

This week’s issue of The Weekly Standard features a classic bit of neoconservative logic. David Schenker, a former Defense Department advisor and resident scholar at the Near East Policy Institute in Washington, argues that the Bush administration is "in effect tolerating the Baathist dictatorship" in Syria. Now it's been just over three months since the US imposed its harshest-ever sanctions on the country; two years since the passage of the Syrian Accountability Act; and a mere three years since the Syrian government was deemed a "top target" for regime change at the hands of the US military. Yet in Schenker’s view, all this shows is the administration’s faintheartedness.

One thing Mr. Schenker seems to be short on is alternatives. What should the Bush administration be doing? While many experts agree that this administration’s Syria policy has been uninspired, even ambivalent, the more frequent conclusion among scholars is that "diplomatic engagement," or at least constructive dialogue, is the best way to handle Syria. Chiding the Bush administration for "tolerating" Bashar Assad implies that we ought to do to Syria what we did to Iraq. Unfortunately for Mr. Schenker, that would be a tall order for the US military at present. So somewhere amidst all that lambasting of Damascus, it would be helpful if he could provide us with some other, more productive ideas.

June 6, 2006

After gays and flag-burning, what's next for GOP?

With the President and his panicky Republican allies seeking to rally the base with constitutional amendments against gay marriage and flag-burning, what else can they do to win support? They're betting that the rural, Midwest and Southern voters who fell for their pandering before will respond again, even if they lose on those red-meat issues in Congress. But to shore up their support, here are some other measures under consideration by the Bush Administration:

1. Mandating that all grade-schoolers learn to read directly from the Bible -- with chapbooks just like in colonial days.

2. Administration supporters are working with the Fox News Network to launch MolestTV, a 24/7 cable network highlighting coverage of trials, arrests and in-depth profiles of accused and convicted child molesters, mostly focusing on gays (even though critics of the new network note that a majority of pedophile cases involve heterosexuals.) Bill O'Reilly will anchor an hour show on the network, "Fighting for Our Kids," focusing on politicians, liberal journalists and judges who are "soft on crime" while featuring regular appearances by representatives of the North American Man-Boy Love Association (NAMBLA)

3. Executing a few scary-looking accused terrorists with "funny-sounding" Arabic names who have been held at Guantamano Bay.

4. Cracking down on all that cursing on HBO, once and for all.

5. Having Attorney General Gonzales order the arrest of mostly Jewish reporters for publishing leaked classified information about our secret intelligence-gathering and interrogation (i.e., domestic spying and torture) operations.

The closer we get to November, here are some other desperation moves being considered:

6. Putting out an all-gay list of fugitives and serial murderers on the FBI's Most Wanted list.
7. Banning all condoms and contraceptives from drug-stores because they promote "teen sex cults."

8. Pushing a constitutional amendment calling for life imprisonment for all doctors who either perform abortions or tell patients how to join NARAL.

9. Finding one of those flag burners, somewhere, and ordering a federal SWAT team to invade his house for a high-profile arrest. (Failing that, arranging through shell groups and third-parties a payment to an undercover Republican operative willing to be the perp and take the fall. That's Karl Rove's idea, but some administration insiders say it goes too far, dubbing it "Operation Reichstag.")

10. When all else fails, starting a pogrom. But this time, include illlegal immigrants, too. It's helped rally the base in other countries, so why not try it here?

Kristof Defends Sweatshops

Normally I wouldn't link to a Times Select column, partly because I have no intention of paying for it and partly because most of the Times' columnists are rather dull. But I picked up the paper today and found Nick Kristof writing what must be his fiftieth or sixtieth column praising Third World sweatshops. Paul Krugman likes this argument too. It's "cute". It's also wrong. Here's an excerpt:

Well-meaning American university students regularly campaign against sweatshops. But instead, anyone who cares about fighting poverty should campaign in favor of sweatshops, demanding that companies set up factories in Africa. If Africa could establish a clothing export industry, that would fight poverty far more effectively than any foreign aid program....

The problem is that it's still costly to manufacture in Africa. The headaches across much of the continent include red tape, corruption, political instability, unreliable electricity and ports, and an inexperienced labor force that leads to low productivity and quality. The anti-sweatshop movement isn't a prime obstacle, but it's one more reason not to manufacture in Africa.

That last sentence is insane. Campaigns against sweatshops may be a lot of things, but one thing they're not is omniscient. For every Gap and Nike they expose and vilify, there are ten other manufacturers who escape bad publicity altogether. If companies thought it was profitable to set up sweatshops in Africa, student campaigns couldn't deter them all. Clearly there are other reasons.

Kristof then talks about a garment factory in Namibia which was forced to close because it was cheaper to import clothes from China. But that's an argument for trying to raise labor standards in China, where working conditions are famously dismal, rather than for trying to force Namibia down to China's level. Writers such as Kristof—and Krugman—seem to be under the impression that critics of neoliberalism are all idiots and don't realize that if you raise labor standards in, say, Namibia, manufacturers might flee to some more brutal country where working conditions are even worse. But of course we realize this. That's what the criticism is all about.

At any rate, it's not clear that manufacturers always and everywhere move to where wages are the lowest. Wages in Mexico are four times what they are in Indonesia, yet Nike has factories in both countries. There are specific reasons for that, of course, but it goes to show that countries don't necessarily need the lowest wages and worst working conditions on the planet to attract investment. Here's a good study by David Kucera finding a weak relationship between labor standards and foreign investment. And it's not at all obvious that specializing in low-wage garments is the only way for Namibia to develop (it might be one of the worst, in fact).

There's also the argument that industrialized countries had to go through their own sweatshop phase to get to where they are. Well, sure, some places did, but those places also saw serious fights for better working conditions at the same time. New York's garment workers battled against sweatshops for most of the 20th century—remember the Triangle Shirtwaist fire?—and consistently made gains until they were undermined by the Mafia and corrupt union bosses in the postwar period. Now sweatshops are flourishing in the city, which only goes to show that labor standards tend to worsen unless someone, somewhere, is fighting for them.

Conservatives Against the Gay Marriage Amendment

The Center for American Progress is not the only group laying into the President for his support of a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, up for discussion in Congress this week. A new report by Dale Carpenter of the libertarian Cato Institute—tellingly titled, “The Federal Marriage Amendment: Unnecessary, Anti-Federalist, and Anti-Democratic”—also takes a scathing, 20-page swipe at the amendment.

His reasons for opposing the amendment are ones that even many opponents of gay marriage might support. For Carpenter, a law professor at the University of Minnesota Law School, the central issue at stake is the protection of federalism, the principle by which certain areas of law are relegated to state control. Marriage law has always been one such area—and as Carpenter shows, that tradition has caused none of the "confusion and chaos" that FMA proponents think divergent state policies on same-sex marriage might.

Carpenter is not alone among conservatives in arguing that FMA undermines state autonomy. But his more salient point is actually a lot grimmer: for all the panicky talk of impending gay weddings across the country, none of the restrictions on same-sex marriage currently on the books in the United States are likely to change anytime soon. At present, 44 states have already prohibited same-sex marriage, 18 of them through their own constitutional amendments.

Supporters of the President’s strict definition of “the most fundamental institution of civilization” have been whipped into a frenzy by baseless speculation. They argue that a veritable pandemic of same-sex marriage legalizations could result if just a few states legalized the practice. But this isn't likely to happen. State courts often do consider other states’ rulings on a subject, Carpenter says, but "the lone state or few states to recognize same-sex marriage will hold the minority view for a long time." And though, as President Bush said in his speech yesterday, lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of same-sex marriage bans are pending in several states, none are likely to succeed. Even if they did, at the present rate, a higher court would almost certainly overturn them. The FMA, in other words, would likely remain redundant for quite some time.

Self-Reliance, Idaho-Style

Mark Schmitt's post here isn't to be missed. A number of self-described conservatives in this country, especially out West, are under the impression that they're all highly self-reliant and don't need government assistance for anything. Idaho's governor recently said: "Here in Idaho, we couldn’t understand how people could sit around on the kerbs waiting for the federal government to come and do something." But he then goes on to cite an example—a dam breaking in 1976—in which, as Schmitt explains, the federal government did have to come in and do something. Curious delusion, that.

Religion in the Public Sphere

A new report from the Center for American Progress says that religion and morality are deeply important to the vast majority of American voters—but with different political implications than one might think. While more than two-thirds of voters report praying at least once a day and over half say they attend religious services weekly, only a minority of them think that their own religion’s teachings ought to shape public policy.

More surprisingly, most respondents said that the values behind religion should underlie broader debates on poverty and hunger, homelessness, and government corruption. Yet fewer than half think the same about hot-button issues like abortion and gay marriage.

Those numbers, at least, should come as little surprise. Americans are on the whole a pious bunch and, especially after the 2004 election, Democratic pundits argued that to win the confidence of those voters, the party needs to do a better job staking out the moral high ground. What makes the CAP findings compelling is their suggestion that there might be other ways to do this than simply touting one’s religious devotion.

According to the study, only 7 percent of Americans think that being a moral person requires "honoring religious tradition and faith," and only 20 percent approve of politicians "using the political system to turn religious beliefs in actions." Of course, many more probably consider church-going a good indicator of morality, even if it isn’t requisite. Progressive themes may resonate with voters, as the study’s authors contend—now we just need to get politicians who expound them to do the same.

Greener Car Insurance

In Harper's this week, Dean Baker has a rather elegant proposal to reduce the amount people drive—simply change the way car insurance is calculated:

Currently, auto insurance is viewed as a fixed expense. People pay the same amount for their insurance no matter how much they drive. This means that when someone is comparing the cost of driving to work with the cost of carpooling or public transportation, they won’t factor in the cost of insurance, because they will pay the same whether they make any particular trip or not.

This would change if drivers paid for insurance by the mile. Taking rough numbers, the average person drives her car around 10,000 miles a year and pays a bit less than $1,000 each year for insurance. This means that the cost of insurance is approximately 10 cents per mile. If for each mile they drive drivers paid 10 cents for insurance, then on average they would pay the same amount for insurance as they do now—but they would have much more incentive to cut back their driving.

Quite clearly this is preferable to a simple gas tax, which penalizes people who can't cut back on their driving, because it rewards people who can cut back instead. (That's not to say gas taxes still won't be necessary to reduce carbon emissions down to sustainable levels; they almost certainly would be.) Oregon has already started doing pay-by-the-mile insurance, so presumably it's pefectly possible nationwide.

Do the Toronto Arrests Prove Bush Right?

Obviously the big news in Canada is that 17 terrorism suspects were recently rounded up in Toronto. Jeffrey Imm of the Counterterrorism Blog has a good news round-up, if you're so inclined. But I've seen a couple of right-wing blogs suggest that this "proves" that Bush was right to sidestep FISA and engage in warrantless wiretapping—because it's the sort of thing that could catch terrorists. Just like in Canada!

Er, but as Glenn Greenwald points out, virtually no one opposed to Bush's various surveillance programs are opposed to legal wiretapping and surveillance, which is what, as far as we know, the Canadian government appears to have done. The whole point is that Bush went outside the law. Now it also seems, if I understand things correctly, that Canada's surveillance laws are somewhat less libertarian than our own. Notably, the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2001 allows the government to eavesdrop on phone conversations without a warrant if one party is overseas (and the means of ensuring privacy seem rather meager), although electronic surveillance still requires judicial approval.

Again, what Canada has in place looks a bit more Big Brother-ish than even the Patriot Act—and there's a legitimate debate as to whether that sort of thing is necessary or not—but that's still very different from having the executive branch sidestep courts and laws and all that business to authorize wiretapping whoever it feels like.

Junkets for Politicians

Private groups are paying for members of Congress to see the world. Too shocking. And it's all on page A1 of the Washington Post:

Over 5 1/2 years, Republican and Democratic lawmakers accepted nearly $50 million in trips, often to resorts and exclusive locales, from corporations and groups seeking legislative favors, according to the most comprehensive study to date on the subject of congressional travel.

From January 2000 through June 2005, House and Senate members and their aides were away from Washington for more than 81,000 days -- a combined 222 years -- on at least 23,000 trips, according to the report, issued yesterday by the nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity. About 2,300 of the trips cost $5,000 or more, at least 500 cost $10,000 or more, and 16 cost $25,000 or more.

Hmm… paid travel seems to be the holiday gift of choice nowadays. The Post did some stories a while back about corporations that paid for federal judges to fly to some resort or other and attend various seminars. It all looked rather suspicious to the innocent eye. But then again, surely we'd like members of Congress—and maybe even judges—to travel around the world, no? Maybe not to "resorts and exclusive locales" or half-day "seminars" at sunny golf courses paid for by arms dealers, but at least to other countries for genuine fact-finding purposes. Once upon a time a rumor made the rounds that only 10 percent of House members even had passports. Maybe someone made that number up, but it was a bit unnerving, and it's probably no way to govern.

So maybe the answer is to create some sort of public travel fund for Congress, and ban all private junkets. That would mean that taxpayers would be paying for politicians to go travel the globe, and that's a bit unseemly, but it would also put a dent in all this legalized bribery. That might even be cheaper in the long run, seeing as how—according to the Post's account—all these junkets paid for by Boeing and General Atomics and Northrup Grumman are going to result in Congress buying more and more useless yet expensive high-tech weaponry in the future.