MotherJones.com | MoJoBlog - Social Issues and Political Commentary: April 15, 2007

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April 21, 2007

Perle, PBS, and the Iranian Dissident

A belated heads up to viewers of the PBS America at the Crossroads documentary featuring former assistant secretary of defense Richard Perle, "The Case for War: In Defense of Freedom." Midway through the documentary, Perle takes the film cameras and viewers with him to a Dubai hotel to meet an Iranian dissident who, Perle says, had just escaped from Iran. (In fact, the Iranian, Amir Abbas Fakhravar, had flown out of Tehran airport on a normal commercial flight -- more on that in a moment).

In the documentary, Perle and Fakhravar sit on a couch and Perle uses the young Iranian as a cipher upon which to project his views of why the U.S. should be promoting regime change in Iran. (In a Wired magazine blog review, writer Sharon Weinberger captures the scene: "'Oh my God, is he gonna kiss him?' my husband asked, as Perle gazed affectionately at Fakhravar"). Whatever the merits of the idea, it's worth reading my feature on Perle's chosen Iranian dissident cipher, "Has Washington Found Its Iranian Chalabi: Introducing the Talented Mr. Fakhravar," to get a better feel for just what a Hollywood version of faux reality Perle is basing his beliefs upon -- and potentially dragging the 82nd Airborne with him.

As I wrote:

But Fakhravar may be a false messiah. In interviews with more than a dozen Iranian opposition figures, some of them former political prisoners, a different picture emerged—one of an opportunist being pushed to the fore by Iran hawks, a reputed jailhouse snitch who was locked up for nonpolitical offenses but reinvented himself as a student activist and political prisoner once behind bars. Fakhravar and his supporters vehemently deny such allegations, saying that the attacks are motivated by petty jealousy and a vendetta by Fakhravar’s enemies on the Iranian left.

For those like Perle who want the United States to eschew diplomacy in favor of backing regime change, Fakhravar is an essential link in the argument for confrontation with Iran. ... But by choosing Fakhravar, they may have inadvertently accomplished the opposite, exposing the ruptures in the pro-democracy movement and throwing into question the notion that America’s problems with Tehran will be solved by a saffron revolution.

As later parts of the documentary show, Perle grew up in in the shadow of Hollywood, and as he says, many of his school friends' parents were blacklisted Hollywood writers. Perle's wishes for the people of the Middle East to enjoy the benefits of democracy may be deeply well intentioned, but reality has not lived up to almost any of his pronouncements about Iraq. The fact that Perle and the PBS film's producers seemingly failed to do any basic fact checking on Fakhravar's story is striking and fits the pattern. As Perle's pre-war expounding about Iraq and ardent championship of Ahmad Chalabi have shown, these things don't often work out according to the movies.

April 20, 2007

Victory for the Stanford Hunger Strikers!

Check out their last update for Mother Jones!

Corzine's Driver Was Doing 91 mph, But Guess Who's Really To Blame?

Give up? The Rutgers women's basketball team.

During this morning's MSNBC Live, New York Sun national and foreign editor Nicholas Wapshott told the country he thought the Rutgers team "must feel pretty terrible about what's happened to Governor Corzine." Corzine, whose driver was doing 91 mph., was--not surprisingly--a victim of a motor vehicle accident that has left him seriously injured. According to Wapshott, Corzine was speeding to get to a "totally unnecessary meeting of reconciliation where these women are paraded as inadequate."

Wapshott was talking with host Chris Jansing about Sen. Hillary Clinton's scheduled participation in a Rutgers forum on women and political leadership when he decided to let the world know how terrible the Rutgers team has to feel about Governor Corzine's accident. He also allowed that Imus's remarks were blown out of proportion and that Coach Stringer then had the team members "paraded as victims."

But he didn't stop there. He also took the opportunity to advise Clinton to tell the women at Rutgers to "grow up" and "be mature."

Most Americans Want Federal Government to Act on Global Warming But Still Don't Believe Scientists

A new survey shows that most Americans are worried about global warming. They not only believe in it but are really worried. What's interesting, however, is how skeptical they still are of climate change scientists. It's not as if the public has started listening to scientists. Rather, the growing concern is based on personal experience of crazy weather. The Washington Post reports:

• Fifty-two percent say global warming is "extremely" or "very" important personally, double the percentage that said so a decade ago.

•Seven in 10 Americans want more "much more" federal action on global warming.

•Eighty-four percent think that average global temperatures have been rising over the past century, and more than half say weather has become more unstable where they live.

•Unfortunately, 56 percent still believe there is "a lot" of disagreement among scientists about climate change.

•Only a third of respondents trust what scientists say about the environment "completely" or "a lot."

•Most shockingly, a quarter of those surveyed said they trust what scientists say about the environment only "a little" or "not at all."

Why are so many Americans so doubtful of science? Skepticism is good, but these seems less like the curious, engaged kind of skepticism than the apathetic kind.

Read updates on global warming (and denial) on The Blue Marble.

World Wonders: When Will the U.S. Learn that Guns Kill More, Better, Faster?

In the U.S. media, coverage of the massacre at Virginia Tech has analyzed almost every aspect of the shootings in far more detail than the issue of gun control. Newsweek has an entire package up, with stories warning against demonizing "boy's play" (I'm dead serious), the role of a South Korean action flic in Cho's behavior, a careful timeline of Monday's events, and stories about survivors and victims. Only one piece addresses the gun issue at all.

In the international press, the response was universal: When will the United States stop giving its citizens the tools to kill each other?

OK, so we're not going to ban handguns as England has done anytime soon.

Side note: In some of the comments to my previous posts focused on gun control, I was repeatedly pointed to the high crime rate in Britain. Not so. New York City, whose population is a mere seventh of that of Britain and Wales, had 10 times as many firearm-related homicides last year. Britain's rate was its lowest since the late '80s. (Overall crime rates in the UK are down by almost half since the mid-1990's [PDF].)

But here's what we could do. One, close the loophole allowing people to buy guns at gun shows with no background check. That's just insane! Two, make weapons designed to kill large numbers of humans illegal: Reinstate the federal assault weapons ban.

The international press also referred repeatedly to America's gun culture. Even the Australian PM John Howard, who has strongly aligned himself with Bush, blamed gun culture. What does "gun culture" mean? One of our editors remarked that Cho looked, in his video, for all the world like the cover of Guns & Ammo (ammo vest, holster, shooting gloves—fingerless on trigger hand). She ventured that the NRA had groaned a bit when they saw that. But the question isn't why a mass murderer looks like the cover of a magazine—(a) delusions of grandeur, (b) consumer magazines work by making you want to look like the cover—the question is why do we have magazine covers that look like mass murderers? Why do we make movies where the heroes look like—and, um, are—mass murderers?

The one Newsweek story that does address the gun issue also raises another fairly obvious point. Gun sales should be limited to people who don't have a history of violent mental illness. Newsweek suggests that the law already technically calls for that, but enforcement amounts to a question on the paperwork the buyer fills out: "Have you ever been adjudicated mentally defective or … committed to a mental institution?" Cho answered (falsely) "no," and then bought a semiautomatic weapon. I mean, they don't even take your word for it at the DMV that you don't need glasses.

The BBC observed that from the Democrats, nary a peep. Shame on them.

Pet Food Recalls: Blame Bush. No Really

Rick Perlstein has an interesting and persuasive little column on AlterNet today. It goes sort of like this: First they came for the spinach. Then they came for the peanut butter. Then they hurt my dogs and I got pissed. Post pet-food recall, Perlstein looked into the Food and Drug Administration—the agency responsible for ensuring the safety of human and pet food—and found that it, too, had fallen victim to Bush's starve-the-good-parts-of-government philosophy. Between 2003 and 2006 FDA safety inspections were down 47 percent and staffing, 12 percent. Safety tests conducted on food produced in the United States were down by three quarters from last year to this. Not only is no one making sure your food is produced safely, they don't even care about your dog's kibble.

I'm with Perlstein. Bush can take my money, my health insurance, and my civil liberties, but he'll have to pry my little furry friend from my cold, dead hand.

How to Resolve Sectarian Conflict in Iraq? Follow Israel's Model!

Since the Israeli wall was such a great idea—and has been so effective in reducing terrorist strikes against Israel—the United States has decided to build a 3-mile long wall in Baghdad. The wall will further the balkanization of the once diverse city by dividing one of the more "restive Sunni Arab districts from the Shiite Muslim neighborhoods that surround it." My favorite thing about it is that the Sunnis and Shiites actually agree that it's a bad idea:

"Are they trying to divide us into different sectarian cantons?" said a Sunni drugstore owner in Adhamiya, who would identify himself only as Abu Ahmed, 44. "This will deepen the sectarian strife and only serve to abort efforts aimed at reconciliation."

"I feel this is the beginning of a pattern of what the whole of Iraq is going to look like, divided by sectarian and racial criteria," Abu Marwan, 50, a Shiite pharmacist, said.

The fact that Shiites and Sunnis agree on only one thing—wanting the Americans out—makes a pretty strong case that us leaving gives them a better shot at reunification than us staying—and building permanent cultural barriers.

(By the way, Mother Jones has a great photo essay of life along the Israeli wall.)

Blaming the Virginia Tech Victims, and Blaming the Blamers

Here's what two conservatives idiots had to say in the aftermath of the Virginia Tech tragedy. These comments are not only in incredibly poor taste, but demonstrate such poor judgment and such a complete lack of understanding of basic human instincts, it makes one wonder why the people who said them still have a venue to spout their opinions.

John Derbyshire, from the conservative National Review (yeah, this guy):

Where was the spirit of self-defense here? Setting aside the ludicrous campus ban on licensed conceals, why didn't anyone rush the guy? It's not like this was Rambo, hosing the place down with automatic weapons. He had two handguns for goodness' sake—one of them reportedly a .22.

At the very least, count the shots and jump him reloading or changing hands. Better yet, just jump him... And even if hit, a .22 needs to find something important to do real damage—your chances aren't bad.

Yes, yes, I know it's easy to say these things: but didn't the heroes of Flight 93 teach us anything?

Nathaniel Blake of the conservative Human Events Online:

College classrooms have scads of young men who are at their physical peak, and none of them seems to have done anything beyond ducking, running, and holding doors shut. Meanwhile, an old man hurled his body at the shooter to save others.

Something is clearly wrong with the men in our culture. Among the first rules of manliness are fighting bad guys and protecting others: in a word, courage. And not a one of the healthy young fellows in the classrooms seems to have done that. …

Like Derb, I don’t know if I would live up to this myself, but I know that I should be heartily ashamed of myself if I didn’t.

And thankfully, the strongest condemnation comes from conservative quarters, proving there is sanity on that side of the aisle. Derbyshire's colleague at the National Review, John Podhoretz, steps in:

I have to dissent, in the strongest possible terms, from John Derbyshire's shocking posts on Virginia Tech. The notion that a human being or group of human beings holding no weapon whatever should somehow "fight back" against someone calmly executing other people right in front of their eyes is ludicrous beyond belief, irrational beyond bounds, and tasteless beyond the limits of reason.

Amen, brother. Now get your coworker who is "ludicrous beyond belief, irrational beyond bounds, and tasteless beyond the limits of reason" booted from your office.

New Evidence that White House and Dep't of Justice are Completely Intertwined

Yesterday at the Gonzales hearings, after almost everyone had gone home, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island busted out some snazzy charts that effectively displayed the breakdown of the wall between the White House and the Department of Justice, a wall that even Gonzales admits is important to maintain because of (1) the need for DoJ work to be impartial, non-partisan, and free of politics, and (2) the need to avoid conflicts of interests in the occasional situation where the DoJ prosecutes someone from the White House.

In the Clinton White House, four White House officials -- the President, the Vice President, the White House Counsel, and the Assistant White House Counsel -- were allowed to make contact with three Department of Justice officials "regarding pending criminal investigations and criminal cases."

In the Bush White House, the DoJ has almost become a wing of the White House. Four hundred and seventeen White House officials, including national security staffers and all members of the office of the White House Counsel, can make contact with roughly 30 Department of Justice staffers.

We probably shouldn't be surprised, though. After all, before Alberto Gonzales was named Attorney General and took his position at the top of the the DoJ, he was the White House Counsel himself. Any hope that the DoJ would function as an independent body went out the window a long time ago.

Spotted on Kevin Drum's Political Animal and Think Progress.

Vermont Senate Votes to Impeach George W. Bush

I blogged two days ago about the impeachment drive currently underway in Vermont, and how it had seen success in local governments but had stalled in the state legislature. Well, no longer.

The Vermont Senate this morning approved by a 16-9 margin a resolution calling on the U.S. House to launch impeachment proceedings of Pres. George W. Bush and Vice Pres. Dick Cheney.

The Vermont Senate is the first state legislative body in the country to call on Congress to begin impeachment proceedings. Impeachment resolutions are currently active in Hawaii, Missouri, New Jersey, and Washington.

Next up is Vermont's House of Reps. We'll keep you updated. Thanks to Kos for the tip.

Oh, and PS - I also highlighted some truly fantastic Doonesbury cartoons in that earlier post. Very funny.

April 19, 2007

Joe Trippi Talks to Us About Joining the Edwards Campaign

Joe Trippi, the manager of Howard Dean's 2004 presidential race, who revolutionized political campaigning by embracing the internet, joined the campaign of Senator John Edwards today. He will serve as a media advisor to a campaign that is already distinguishing itself as one of the most tech savvy in the field: the Edwards website features an interactive blog and 23 different social networking tools; Edwards sends text messages to supporters via the geek-chic site Twitter; and he maintains (an occasionally raucous) virtual campaign office in Second Life. Trippi told me the Dean campaign is already looking like ancient history. Since 2004, the number of blogs on the Internet has grown by a factor of 50 and the launch of Facebook, MySpace, and YouTube has popularized social networking and Web video. "By the end of 2008, I think people will look back at the Dean campaign and say, 'Wow, it was so primitive, it was so yesterday,'" Trippi said. "I still think any of these campaigns are capable of just blowing the doors off and transforming our politics, and that's really likely to happen in 2008."

The campaign landscape on the Web has become much more competitive since 2004, when Dean had the virtual space mostly to himself, but also more volatile in ways that dark horse candidates can harness for quick and dramatic gain, Trippi asserted. "I really believe this: I think we are in a situation where one of these candidates could say something in a debate, or in a major address, or in a response to something that President Bush says, and all of a sudden, on that day, a million Americans decide, 'I'm going to sign up for him.'" He added: "That never would have happened in 2004; (the Web) wasn't mature enough."

Trippi said he's working for Edwards because he likes his stances on poverty, his work on global warming issues, and his position on the war, though, he noted, "it would be maybe a tough call between Obama and him on that issue, but they are both closer to where I am." He's also impressed by Edwards' effort to build a community of voters that would offer policy feedback and support well after Edwards is elected—something Dean was also interested in, he said, but never got to implement.

Abidingly speaking from a commuter train this afternoon, where his cell phone dropped our call probably 20 times and his voice mail quickly filled up, Trippi also pointed out an interesting parallel between his early political life and that of Edwards' wife, Elizabeth. Years ago, Trippi was drawn to the Web through the first bulletin boards on sites such as Prodigy and Motley Fool, and as a lurker and occasional contributor to blogs. "The same with her," he said. "I read her book, and I didn't realize that basically, when her son Wade had died, she was on the Web, and on greeting boards, boards where people came together and talked about what they were going through and the loved one they had lost, kind of consoled and talked to each other, and she had been a part of that community on the web for a long time before Edwards had decided to run for president. And like me, she started hanging out on political boards later in her life, when he was running. And that's why she is doing what she is doing today. But you don't see it in any of the other campaigns"--which Trippi believes have been slow to reach out to the blogs--"It came to her naturally, because of what she's been through."

Sloppy Media Coverage in the Wake of Virginia Tech Shootings

In the wake of the media blitz surrounding the Virginia Tech shootings, some are appalled at the airing of the videos, claiming insensitivity. Others may be wondering why the media has reported on the possibility of a backlash against Asians. Why has the media conjured up a scary threat of possible hate crimes with none forthcoming?

I think part of this answer lies in the media's attempt to address the fears of the post 9/11 climate. Many of us who are of Asian background waited with bated breath when the killer was identified as "Asian." That's a pretty damn big category: "Asian" could mean East Asian, South Asian, or Southeast Asian. And for South Asian Americans, vivid memories of post 9/11 backlash loom. People of South Asian descent were the first victims of deadly hate crimes. And just last month, Kuldip Singh Nag—an Indian American who is an Iraq war veteran—was assaulted by the police in Joliet, Ill., for being a "fucking Arab" and a "fucking immigrant."

So media outlets dutifully remind that entire communities cannot be held responsible for atrocities committed by a lone gunman, but meanwhile they are busy constructing and stereotyping the "Korean American community." Take for example this LA Times article. To its credit, the article points out that there is a history of minorities having to bear the brunt of collective punishment (think World War II). It also highlights how some Asian Americans are irritated that their so-called "community leaders" are falling over themselves to "apologize" and voice their "collective guilt." Minorities in this country shouldn't have to "represent" and "distance" themselves from every act that someone who resembles them commits.

But then, the article goes on to say:

For Korean Americans, the sense of shame may be particularly acute because of their cultural commitment to interdependence. "Here in America, we think of ourselves as much more separate and autonomous," said Stanford University professor Hazel Rose Markus, an expert in cultural psychology.

"Foundational to Korean thinking is the sense that you need to … adjust yourself to expectations. It's very, very important that you protect your family face and reputation, recognize that whatever you do has consequences not just for you, but for others as well."

"Korean thinking"? Wasn't the idea to suggest that you cannot make generalizations about the presumed thinking of entire peoples? The "Korean community" is no more cohesive and homogenous than the "Muslim community" or "South Asian community." When the shooters of Columbine went on a rampage, no one in major media outlets quoted "experts" saying, "You see, foundational to white thinking..." They didn't go looking for loosely defined "white community leaders" to gauge the white community's collective response. Describing "Korean thinking" and treating the 1.3 million Korean Americans as a uniform group that has informal "representatives" who speak for them is just sloppy.

—Neha Inamdar

Carnage in Iraq? Bush Miffed at Criticism; Gates in Israel.

Is this a farce?

Yesterday was the deadliest day in Iraq since the security surge began. Despite the military's attempts to barricade the Sadriya market, a car bomb there killed 135 people. The total death toll for the day was 230. Defense Secretary Gates was in Israel, and promised that troops would "persist." Meanwhile, back at the White House, President Bush became "visibly angered" when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told him, in the Washington Post's paraphrase, that he was pursuing a lost cause at the cost of American troops in order to protect his legacy. The truth hurts, doesn't it?

Young Hawks

If young people are supposedly more idealistic, then idealism has nothing to do with pacifism. People in their twenties, according to a New York Times/CBS News poll, approve of the Iraq War more than their grandparents. And more youth approve of the invasion than disapprove. Janet Elder writes:

Forty-eight percent of Americans 18 to 29 years old said the United States did the right thing in taking military action against Iraq, while 45 percent said the United States should have stayed out. That is in sharp contrast to the opinions of those 65 and older, who have lived through many other wars. Twenty eight percent of that age group said the United States did the right thing, while 67 percent said the United States should have stayed out."....

"I think old people tend to want to solve things more diplomatically than younger, more gung ho types," said Mary Jackson, 28, a homemaker from Brewton, Alabama. "Younger people are more combative."

Younger people are also more optimistic. Forty-nine percent of them said the United States was either very likely or somewhat likely to succeed in Iraq, while only 34 percent of older people said the same thing.

For a more realistic young idealist, meet Ava Lowery, the Southern homeschooler whose antiwar videos get 30,000 hits a day.

New Hampshire to OK Civil Unions

Earlier today, New Hampshire Governor John Lynch said he will sign legislation legalizing civil unions in the state. Lynch explained, ''I believe it is a matter of conscience, fairness and preventing discrimination.'' The measure hasn't yet cleared the Senate, but is expected to do so with ease. Even so—surprise!—state Republicans were outraged. Fergus Cullen, the state Republican Party chairman, told the AP, "The Democrats are going too far, too fast, and Governor Lynch is going along with them. These are not the actions of a moderate governor." The Dems had a pretty handy comeback: ''It's never going too far when you give people their rights," said Democratic state Rep. Bette Lasky.

New Hampshire will make a New England trifecta, joining Connecticut, Vermont and New Jersey among states with legal civil unions. Massachusetts, of course, has legalized gay marriage.

For an economic defense of gay marriage, click here. For an explanation of why the religious right is hellbent on opposing it, click here.

Gonzales: I Didn't View Job Performance Before Firing US Attorneys

Wanted to point out an important moment from Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' ongoing testimony on the Hill. After telling multiple irate senators that he was not intimately involved in the firing of the eight U.S. Attorneys (he claims he relied on the judgment of his senior staff), Gonzales admits that he was so out of touch that when it came to actually approve the recommendation of those senior staffers to fire the eight USAs, he didn't bother to examine the USAs performance on the job.

The factors he used in lieu of something as inconsequential as "job performance" go unstated.

Two U.S. Attorneys Fired for Not Prosecuting Cases on... Porn?

For real. And the cases were "woefully deficient" to boot. Check it out.

Is There a Breach of Nat'l Security Protocol in the Wolfowitz Girlfriend Scandal?

Sidney Blumenthal has an excellent article in Salon today about the Wolfowitz girlfriend scandal. The outrage this far has focused on these facts:

In 2006 Wolfowitz made a series of calls to his friends that landed [his girlfriend, Shaha Ali Riza] a job at a new think tank called Foundation for the Future that is funded by the State Department. She was the sole employee, at least in the beginning. The World Bank continued to pay her salary, which was raised by $60,000 to $193,590 annually, more than the $183,500 paid to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and all of it tax-free. Moreover, Wolfowitz got the State Department to agree that the ratings of her performance would automatically be "outstanding." Wolfowitz insisted on these terms himself and then misled the World Bank board about what he had done.

Okay, old hat, right? Well, not exactly. In order to get the job Riza got at the State Department, she'd need a security clearance. And those aren't given to foreign nationals who formerly worked for international aid organizations. Riza is "a Libyan, raised in Saudi Arabia, educated at Oxford, who now has British citizenship" and according to Blumenthal, "Granting a foreign national who is detailed from an international organization a security clearance, however, is extraordinary, even unprecedented." Did Paul Wolfowitz compromise national security just to get his lover a job?

Blumenthal is calling for an investigation. It would be downright Al Capone-esque if the disgrace that finally rid us of Paul Wolfowitz's nefarious influence came about NOT because of the ill-advised and disastrously-executed war he schemed up, but because he gave away a few too many perks on the way to the bedroom.

Hour 150 of the Stanford Hunger Strike - Now With Video

Stanford students fasting for a real living wage for workers on their campus have been providing us with regular updates on their progress -- both the progress of their health and the progress of their negotiations with the university administration. You can find all of that here.

As the students try to survive day six without food, we've added video. You can see one such video below, visit their collection on YouTube, or visit the regularly updated page linked to above.

Gonzales to Testify Today on U.S. Attorney Firings

Alberto Gonzales will testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee today, where he can expect harsh questions from Chuck Schumer and others about the U.S. Attorney firings. Even though Gonzales is expected to be extremely apologetic, he will continue to insist, "I know that I did not, and would not, ask for a resignation of any individual in order to interfere with or influence a particular prosecution for partisan political gain. I also have no basis to believe that anyone involved in this process sought the removal of a U.S. attorney for an improper reason." The quote is from an advance copy of the prepared text of his opening statement.

Frankly, I don't know what administration gains from dragging America through this any longer. Gonzales certainly isn't a superstar worth paying a heavy price to save, and have no doubt about it, the administration pays a heavy price by prolonging the USA scandal and the speculation about whether or not Gonzales will resign. In keeping the scandal alive, they are giving Democrats an open-ended opportunity to dig for more dirt, and they are crippling their own ability to make law enforcement policy. Gonzales has been prepping for this testimony for days, if not weeks -- he certainly isn't getting anything done in respect to his real duties as AG. That's obviously not in America's interest. I'm wondering how it's in the Administration's.

Update: The American Prospect has 14 questions the Senate Judiciary Committee should ask Gonzo. Read them in you need to bring the scandal into focus.

April 18, 2007

Mental Health Care Funding May Finally Get its Due, Probably Not

That Cho Seung-Hui was on medication and was entered for a time in two mental facilities is telling, as it reveals what most people thought of the unknown gunman, that he was mentally unstable. That there were several authority figures who were alerted to this fact before the shootings, the school counselor, the campus police, the Blacksburg police, is of interest but what should they have done exactly? The school could have expelled him, I guess, but for writing a play with violent content? For being anti-social? The stalking thing? Probation maybe, but there was no way to lock the guy up, the woman called him "annoying," not a sociopath.

One problem this exposes is that we aren't a prevention-oriented society. We put people on meds rather than into counseling. And we address problems after they manifest, not before. Which is why we'll soon see Bush changing his commitment to school violence prevention funding, which he recently proposed cutting by $17.3 million.

Mental health always gets short shrift in funding circles because it is seen as relatively invisible in terms of illness. The mental health of young people, and I'll say this again, of the troops returning from Iraq, is something we can ignore for only so long. Incidents like this jolt us into reality. What happened in that classroom building is every day in Baghdad for thousands of young men and women, some of whom came from unstable backgrounds to begin with.

And at some point we are going to have to get back to the everyday reality of mental illness and finding ways to address what we all realize now is deadly serious. And we're also going to have to realize that we're still at war, a war that this month alone has meant the deaths of 63 U.S. soldiers, and that we just can't afford to stray and linger on any one rampage for too long.

Cho's Dark Manifesto Points to Lessons Not Learned

So maybe you're feeling news-blitzed about the Va. Tech rampage. I was feeling that way until about 10 minutes ago, when I stepped out to get some coffee. On the way, I saw the huge headline on the local paper: "Nation Asks Why." When I returned, there was breaking news that Cho had sent a "multimedia manifesto" to NBC news and that it was "disturbing" and "incoherent": more evidence that Cho was mentally ill.

Really it's a simple math equation. Mental illness exists. Specifically, schizophrenia (which despite April's earlier post is almost certainly what Cho suffered from) occurs in about 1 percent of the population. Untreated schizophrenia almost always leads to violent behavior, and mental health care in this country is abysmal and difficult to come by—and yet Bush is still cutting funding for it. You know what's easy to come by? Guns. If you don't have a record, just pop in to a gun store and pick one—or two, or three—up. There's no legal limit on how many rounds each of them can fire. If you do have a record, just go to a gun show and voilà. As long as guns are easier to get than mental health care, we will continue to have tragedies like this.

The other thing that the mystified question "Why?" overlooks is that mental illness can look kind of banal from the outside. Cho was aloof, quiet. The warning signs were not especially dramatic. He inappropriately contacted two female students. He wrote violent things in creative writing class. But it wasn't until his private thoughts were submitted to NBC and made horrifyingly real to the students of Virginia Tech that we could see how devastating mental illness is. Maybe the university could have done more, but they did force him into a mental health facility at one point and he still slipped through the cracks. You can't detain every deranged person. But you can keep them from obtaining weapons of mass destruction. And the Rambo-like photos of himself Cho sent NBC also make it pretty clear that glorifying violence doesn't help either. Americans talked a lot about that after Colombine and then did exactly nothing.

Why Don't We Talk about Gun Control Anymore?

Remember the Democratic Revolution of '06? It ended this week. The court just ruled against abortion rights and for a ban that tells doctors how to treat their patients. Monday, it became glaringly obvious, again, that gun control is the only reasonable position to hold, yet even the Democratic power centers in Congress oppose it: Dean, Webb (who needed to have his gun in the Senate) and Reid.

Looking at the MoJo Top Story box—when it was about gun control, that happier time of yesterday—I wondered why all of the stories except this one dated back to the '90s. Well, I'm here to tell you it's not our fault. It's because the Democrats dropped gun control like a hot potato in 2000. Many analysts blamed Gore's strong gun-control position in the Democratic primary for his loss to Bush in the general election. The Dems believed that swing-state voters were relatively pro-gun—which seems like a pretty inaccurate conclusion since the issue isn't banning hunting rifles but semi-automatic assault weapons.

But gun control is another one of those issues where the sane position is lost amid the ruckus the crazies make. Most Americans support gun control: In a recent Gallup poll, 49 percent of Americans said gun-control laws should be made stricter, and only 14 percent said they should be less strict. A Salon article explains the Dems' punt thusly: Robert J. Spitzer, author of "The Politics of Gun Control," says that "the typical gun control supporter is somebody for whom the issue is not a No. 1 concern, it's No. 6 or No. 8." Slate looks at it this way: The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence—the nation's gun-control lobby—donated $90,000 to pro-gun-control candidates in 2006. Pro-gun groups gave their candidates $3 million—33 times more.

The result? The federal assault weapons ban, passed in 1994, was allowed to expire in 2004. One of the guns Cho Seung-Hui used was in fact illegal under the assault weapons ban, and became legal again in 1994. And Slate reports:

The only meaningful federal restriction on handgun purchases, the Brady Bill, was considered a huge accomplishment when it finally passed in 1993 after a decade of lobbying. But thanks to the private-transfer or "gun show" loophole, about 40 percent of gun sales remain invisible to law enforcement, rendering the law's mandatory background checks easily avoidable.

Isn't it time we stopped allowing crazypantses like Wayne La Pierre to dictate our gun policy? After all, there are nearly 30,000 deaths from firearms a year in this country—2 to 3 times as many as in other developed countries.

Another Drop in the Bucket, Baghdad Government Pledges $25 Million in Aid for Refugees

Iraq has promised $25 million in aid for Iraqi refugees who have fled Iraq. This was announced yesterday at the UNHCR (U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees) meeting in Geneva. The Baghdad government is actually being more generous than the United States has been. Not hard to do -- Bush has pledged a paltry $18 million to handle a crisis his State Department has deemed its "top priority." (I guess if dollar amounts are any indication of priority, it's pretty clear what the U.S.'s are.) The only problem with Baghdad's pledge? It's nowhere near enough. As Kos notes, today at the meeting in Geneva, both Jordan and Syria claim they spend a billion dollars each year managing the rapid influx of Iraqis flowing across their borders. Currently, Syria is home to more than a million Iraqis and Jordan houses nearly that many as well. The International Organization for Migration claims one million more will flee Iraq this year. Last month, a UNHCR spokesperson, Lauren Jolles, painted a picture of life in Syria, of a country bursting at the seams:

Syria's economy is now groaning under the strain. The population suffers from water scarcity, electricity blackouts, increased competition for jobs and higher rent and food prices.

Jolles said that the United Nations aid conference will have to yield a very large aid package for these countries bearing the brunt of the exodus. I don't think $25 million is what Jolles had in mind.

Would You Have Voted For McCain the Independent?

John McCain didn't waste anytime trying to score Jesus-points after the Supreme Court handed down its decision in support of the "Partial Birth Abortion" ban:

"The ruling ensures that an unacceptable and unjustifiable practice will not be carried out on our innocent children."

Since the world does not need another political eulogy for John McCain, I offer instead a "what-if." Instead of his current stumble to the right, what if McCain had chosen to run as an Independent? Sure '08 represents his last shot, and many argue that without RNC money he can't win a bid for the presidency. Maybe so, but it's getting clearer every day that the "New McCain" can't win either.

In 2000, the "Old McCain" (remember who walloped Bush in New Hampshire's open primary) had broad support among moderate swing-voters, McCain looked like a sure contender for the White House before he was smeared by Rove's push polling.

Had he run this time as an Independent, he could have distanced himself rather than thrown all his chips in on Iraq. McCain, the campaign finance reformer and the closest thing the conservatives had to a Global Warming Paul Revere, was actually admired by quite a fair share of Democrats. Had McCain run on his own ticket, he would have at the very least had done what Ralph Nader tried unsuccessfully to do--add some life to the corporately-sponsored and painfully-orchestrated presidential debates (No offense Jim Lehrer).

Instead, he has set a new bar for pandering to the kingmakers on the religious right and made assessments of the situation in Iraq that make Bush's seem factual. If he manages to win the Republican nomination, he will be seriously damaged goods and it's hard to imagine how he might ever re-capture his once revered reputation as a "straight-talker"[You Tube]. And to tell the truth, despite statement like today's, he seems to be having trouble proving the authenticity of his religious zealotry.

—Koshlan Mayer-Blackwell

Partial Birth Abortion Ban's Both Arbitrary and Dangerous

Before we get into the Supreme Court decision that will allow a ban on late-term abortions, let's get one thing clear: there is no such thing as a "partial birth abortion." This term was born of the clever marketing of the anti-choice movement (or "pro-life" as they like to be called) and has no medical foundation whatsoever.

Still, today the high court ruled today that the 2003 Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act does not violate a woman's constitutional right to an abortion. Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the majority opinion said that the bill's opponents "have not demonstrated that the Act would be unconstitutional in a large fraction of relevant cases."

The case is the very move that choice advocates have feared since the ascendancy of a conservative court under President Bush. Of the million or so abortions that happen each year in this country, 90% happen within the first trimester and are not affected by this ruling. It's the other 10%, the women who, whether it be after moving through the hoops of waiting periods, parental notification, or the lack of clinics, who will be impacted. What will become of these vulnerable women, who have already made what's likely the hardest decision of their lives? Doctors may spurn the ruling and go ahead with the abortion anyway, but those who do face fines and jail time. For all involved, what is considered a safe procedure just got more dangerous.

"Partial Birth Abortion" is an arbitrary legal term, not a medical one. A late-term, or second or third trimester abortion usually involves a different method of removing the fetus, usually D&X, or Dilation and Extraction, which means the fetus is removed intact. The PBAB puts a broad interpretation on the type of extraction method, making a medical judgment call on procedure rather than a time frame. Because the ban refers to a type of procedure rather than a time limit, say 12 weeks, any abortion performed where protecting the health of the mother with a less-invasive D&X would be preferable, is now illegal.

"Today's decision is alarming," Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in the dissenting opinion. It flies in the face of previous high court abortion decisions and "refuses to take them seriously."