Scribblings of the Metropolitician

9/11 as "Sociological Pornography"

Yeah -- the Repugs even pulled out new sequences of footage for our benefit, and just keep LYING.

And yes, I've already pointed out in my response to an ill-informed comment, that 9/11 and the 1979 Iran hostage crisis had anything to do with one another, whether specifically or in the general historical sense.

Thanks, ExpatJane.

A History Lesson for So-called "Patriots"

All of you who justify the loss of our freedoms, as they were defined and guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States of America, is bigger than political parties. And to those who have forgotten the basics of American history -- and those who call themselves "patriots" and wave the flag and talk about "never again" and act as if this is the first time America has been attacked or lived in mortal fear of being attacked, you need to stop the empty rhetoric and REVIEW.

What's going on with Bush and McCain's pornographic use of 9/11's imagery and symbols again and again and AGAIN is exactly what goes on when you simply don't have much else to offer than the same old technique of using fear to cow the population into doing whatever you want, and to use it as a bludgeon against anything reasonable and calm the opposition has to say. Basically, this has been Bush's M.O. since the beginning -- you disagree, you're with "them." You're against freedom. You're voting to have terrorists come attack us.

Not only does that offensive RNC video show just how bereft the right is of any useful ideas as to how to get us out of this mess (they've had seven years since 9/11 and things are much, much worse, not better). This is what they show us after 7 years? This is all they've got? Tough talk, harsh words, scary images, and policies that would give us 4 more years of the same?

And they would have us believe that they are "protecting" us?

The reason the Constitution exists is to set the boundaries of power and define how it flows. It's not a guideline -- its principles are bedrock. Yes, these principles have to be reinterpreted for newer circumstances, but as it regards the power of the executive, this is pretty simple to figure out since the situation we find ourselves in now have already happened, and the solution is clear.

John Adams and the Federalists justified all sorts of overstep with the Alien and Sedition Acts, and promptly used the power to squash political opposition and any criticism. It's a lesson we learned then, and was EXACTLY what the anti-Federalists, who shoehorned in what we call the "Bill of Rights" as the first 10 amendments to the Constitution in the first place, feared. Sure, "the enemy" was everywhere and the Federalists argued they needed that power to fully protect Americans, but in the end, such excessive power is always abused.

And as present, it doesn't matter whether they ARE or HAVE BEEN abused YET -- the assumptions upon which the Constitution was written assumes they WILL be, and rightly so, since even the possibility of such abuse is more than a reasonable threat to our overall freedoms, to the very basis of the Constitution itself.

No matter what anyone says about Clinton not being able to keep Big Willie zipped up, or Carter being a pussy, or what have you -- those are historically fleeting social/political trivialities. Fighting about gun laws, the federal role in school funding, gay marriage, or even abortion rights -- no matter how important they seem, they are still not Constitution-threatening issues. They are interpreted in TERMS of the Constitution, and no matter how politics may fall, they don't threaten the Constitution itself.

But certain aspects of the Patriot Act (or the secretly-written Patriot II, which was scary as shit, and basically the plot of Star Wars: Episode III, which would essentially legally define the shape of a police state), or the executive's insistence that the government has the right to monitor communications without a warrant, or the very existence of Guantanamo Bay's "enemy combatant" status (either you or me can be declared one if we are found to be a "terrorist" or have cooperated with one, and the basis of that accusation is secret, and hence difficult to contest, and Patriot II would have allowed any US citizen to be arrested, stripped of their citizenship, have not rights to a trial, and the government did not even in fact have to ADMIT whether or not they are holding you) -- these things are not at all in line with the letter or the spirit of that Constitution, one of the most important political documents in human history.

Yet these hardcore Bush boosters act as if to criticize, mostly on the basis of defending that revered document, means you're some kind of traitor. Or these idiots go around chanting, "Freedom isn't free." As if we "lefties" don't know that. As if it's easier to hold back and be careful about using our power, risking the lives of our troops, and sullying the trust of our allies, rather than lashing out in a frenzy of cowboy rhetoric, cruise missiles, and carpet bombing.

As if the planes on 9/11 didn't hit the friends of us "lefties", either. Last I checked, "left power" doesn't generate a force field past which terrorist bomb shrapnel, shards of glass, and burning flames can't reach.

The best way to defend this country is to remember the core values that actually DEFINE us as Americans, as people who actually love freedom, don't TORTURE even our enemies, who are supposed to stand as the EXEMPLAR -- as the bright and shining "city upon a hill" -- and not as a bunch of reactionary, hypocritical blowhards who shoot first and ask questions later, keep people in the same secret dungeons as our enemies used to torture their enemies as well as some of US, and generally use our military power to intimidate and destroy, rather than merely protect our safety and direct security interests.

All that requires actual thought, and are not the actions that can be expected by the people and politicians in the RNC. Say what you want about Obama's alleged "inexperience" or this and that petty potshots -- the new, non-pussified Democratic party and REAL patriots are coming to reclaim that title, baby.

Because we're standing on the right side of history. And Bush and the Republicans and the backwards baseball hat "patriot" squad have had their chance.

On the Anniversary of the Middle School Girls Accident, Another Point of View

SOME BACKGROUND

I'm not an apologist for American empire, I vehemently disagree with the war in Iraq, and I am one American who supports Kunicich's demand to impeach President George W. Bush, who I believe has completely overstepped his bounds in the executive office and knowingly presented information he knew to be false to the American people in order to justify an unjust war.

I also believe in the rule or law and rationality, but I also value and respect those who believe in God -- and I don't think those things to be in conflict. I also believe that history should be taught with the intent to most closely represent reality as we can piece it together -- not as an exercise in nationalist pride.

As many who read this blog know, I am a critic of unquestioned nationalism, especially in its more kneejerk and jingoistic forms. I can accept a reasonable pride in one's country, but only to the extent that a real patriot should be able to criticize it, just as I can I agree with the metaphorical assertion that "Bin Laden Didn't Blow Up the Projects", and that the Bush administration was criminally negligent in the way it mishandled the Katrina disaster. I know that America has a huge problem with race, for example, or that civil liberties are being threatened in a way they have rarely have been before, even as we are failing to educate much of our nation's children properly.

IT'S NOT JUST "KOREA" -- IT'S ABOUT BEING A RESPONSIBLE THINKER

I say all this because too many people who come here because of a single post critical of Korea don't even bother to see that not only do I criticize this country in certain ways, I apply the EXACT same standards of judgement and theoretical critique to my own society. It's just that I live here right now, and Korea is an object of concern. I already think that I write about the United States here far more often than I should, given the fact that this IS a Korean blog.

Now, on to the link that I think all of you should be reading today. It has to do with the 2002 armored vehicle accident that killed two middle schools here and sparked a national anti-American hate-spasm when the two American soldiers were acquitted after being tried in an American military court, as stipulate under the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) that exists to protect American troops from prosecution in foreign courts (although SOFA agreements are not unique to the US).

I've written about the incident constantly before, and I realize that this splinter in my mind's eye (thanks, Alan Dean Foster) is the result of the fact that I, as a rational human being, am constantly bothered by not only the way the deaths of two human beings were so heavily politicized and their entire lives' meaning hijacked by radical political groups who never knew them, but also by a largely uncritical thinking public who didn't care at all about them when they actually DIED in the summer of 2002 during the World Cup that was hosted in Seoul, as opposed to when the nation's pride was (apparently) insulted by the acquittal of the two drivers who accidentally killed them -- as they should have been, because they weren't negligent and were operating the vehicle under military duty.

Yet, in the summer of 2002, Koreans were busy clapping their hands and cheering, and nothing was made of the incident until the then-radical groups who are always pushing an anti-American agenda (which is their right) successfully hijacked the incident into nationalist political theater, based almost entirely upon a bed of lies.

And I do mean that -- complete, outright distortions of the truth. And the beginning of the "mad cow" disease had echoes of this, even though it now remains to be seen where the political winds will blow this time.

I remember being shocked, as a good American liberal would be, to hear that the US military hadn't apologized and had refused to pay compensation to the girls' families. This angered me, and had it been true, my position would have been different. Except that the information given to me at the initial rallies where I heard about the incident was utterly false.

Yet it was only when I began to hear and see how extreme the nationalism was getting (leaving the anti-Americanism aside, which actually doesn't anger me, since while I myself don't share the sentiment as an insider trying to change a nation that I know to be good in its core ideals, I can understand some nations' criticism of the US because of our actual behavior) that I realized I needed to look at things with a much bigger helping of salt.

So, as the leftovers from a previous anti-American movement (and that's what that was, no other spin can really be put on it) try to re-inject Miseon and Hyosun into this mad cow debate, I think that the Korean public largely won't buy it, if only because most people have lost interest, while many people have come to recognize that embarrassing nationalist display of pure, unreasoning emotion in the face of pretty clearly-discernible facts for what it was.

THE POINT OF THIS POST

I suggest that you read this very concise and useful post from the ROKDrop, with which I concur on the major factual matters of the case, because I did a lot of research of my own on it, having read 'round the American, British, and Korean sources. In the end, the Korean sources were mostly based on hearsay and rumors, and many of them were blatantly racist (such as the then-popular "antimigun.org", which displayed the most vulgar of racist slurs and even posted pictures of Korean women (no surprise) standing with foreigners or US soldiers on the Internet as a means to intimidate them. Most of the Korean news sources were like this, and were blatantly partial.

Yes, I know about Korean pride and the feelings of inequality in the minutiae of the SOFA, even though the SOFA that Korea has with other countries such as Iraq (where a Korean soldier accidentally killed an Iraqi national and was tried according to Korean law) were and are basically identical. I know that there were military crimes in the past that stick out in the collective memory of the nation. I know all the Korean "pent-up emotion" arguments and sympathize with them somewhat.

Yet, those two men were guilty of nothing more than a traffic accident, horrible as it was. And had they been tried in a Korean domestic court, there would have been no possibility for a fair trial -- the political pressure for their heads would have been too great. THIS IS WHY THE SOFA EXISTS. The rabid demands for their heads on a platter to appease the honor of the Korean nation was itself proof positive that SOFAs are necessary to have between foreign governments. That's also one reason diplomats have immunity, as well.

In the end, the accident was horrible. No one wants to see anyone die. Yet, compensation and apologies were immediately offered by the US military and accepted by the families, the first set of which were given the very next day after the incident, even as official apologies were given by members of the chain of command all the way up to George W. Bush himself, a fact I was shocked to learn, since I had been witness to countless protests demanding compensation and "even a single, simply apology." Who would assume that this was simply an untruth? I guess Hitler was right when he said that the bigger lies are actually easier to fob off than smaller ones.

People at the time asked me, "Don't you care about the lives of two innocent schoolgirls?" Of course I do and did. I taught middle school girls the same age as the two who were killed. I teach high school girls now. I have real human connections with all kinds of Korean people, with the very same kind of students who were killed in that incident. If my very own students had been killed, and it had been believably deemed an accident, my opinion would have been no different. And no, it wouldn't have mattered if they had been Korean or American.

The crux of this issue was a difference between Korean and American law, the former of which can hold someone who kills someone without actual fault in a true accident liable for criminal prosecution, the latter of which does not. If some ajussi falls asleep drunk in the middle of the road and I run over him because I didn't see him, nor could I have been reasonably expected to, in the US I would never be sent to jail. This is exactly what happened to a Korean coworker's friend, who had done nothing wrong. Yet, in Korea, you will ALWAYS assume some legal fault, even if no actual fault is found. And that difference is institutionalized into the culture, and the way of thinking about guilt and compensation itself. It a different in the legal cultures of the two nations in question. That's point one.

Point two has to do with a greater feeling of wanting to change the basic relationship with the US as "big brother" and bucking at the still-extant signs of that relationship, which goes back to when GI's were throwing chocolates out of the back of Jeeps to giggling schoolchildren. Koreans tend to universally hate these memories, and even the visual depiction of them can raise hackles among the younger generation, which has different and newer notions of nationalist pride.

For example, the actual evidence of Americans in the historical memory is erased from schoolbooks through cartoony depictions of soldiers flying a UN flag on tanks with "UN" written on their sides, or through the glaring absence of a single American in a conflict as thoroughly American as the Korean War in the nationalist melodrama that was Taegukki. It's not that I was wanting my own nationalist pride to be assuaged by wanting to see a white face to make the film "legitimate," but come on -- it was the Korean War. Can you actually make a Korean War movie without a single American showing up at all? What about historical accuracy? Even a token for the sake of a feeling of historical authenticity? For that reason alone, a random group of white faces would have been apopos. It's not that hiring Eastern European extras on the cheap to actually PLAY American isn't actually standard practice on Korean television or anything, right?

But I digress.

A CHANCE FOR REAL REFLECTION

In short, the national anger in 2002 was about nearly everything BUT the deaths of the two girls themselves. It was partially informed by the legitimate, pent-up desire to see palpable changes in the paternalistic nature of US-ROK relations; it was shorter-term jingoism as found in the "Fucking USA" song that started with a silly sports call; it was wounded national pride well after the fact of the girls' deaths themselves. It was a lot of things, but it wasn't just about the memories of the girls, especially when the parents of the girls themselves had asked the protesters to stop using their dead daughters' images on signs and slogans, especially the pictures of their disemboweled bodies with one girl's legs splayed lewdly open, where some of her bowels had been pushed out of her anus.

These images truly disgusted me, and not just for their graphic content. It occurred to me that the cheap political theater for which their dead bodies and living memories were being used should be disgusting to ANYONE, regardless of nationality. I had that thought in November 2002, even as the clueless American.

To all the Koreans who asked me, "Don't you care about the lives of two innocent schoolgirls?" I simply wanted to ask "Do you? Did you? Really?" Apparently, all those who carried those signs, their funeral pictures, while lewdly and rudely addressing them in the intimate form, by their first names, did not.

Because the parents had begged the organizers to stop using the funeral and accident site pictures. It was even more sad that all the ranting people in the rallies were so deluded by their kneejerk nationalist pride that they failed to see just what an utterly SELFISH act this had been. In the end, it was about "me" and "we" -- but not really about the girls. When they had actually died, the vast majority of Koreans were too concerned about national pride as it was attached to a black-and-white ball being kicked around a sports field; similarly, the public really only jumped in when the acquittal of the two soldiers became an insult to the nation.

Again, if the protesters we not only unable to see how offensive they were being, but actually had ignored the request of their parents to stop using their images in public, what else was it besides comepletely and utterly selfish? Yet, when I said this to Korean friends at the time, I was treated as if I had slapped them in the face. I quickly learned that to preserve friendships (and perhaps even my physical safety), it was just best to avoid the topic altogether. That is how bad it got. I really, really want Koreans to remember that. Because things are too quickly forgotten here after the thin tin pot cools, as they say.

Advertising companies, of course, understood the power of the symbology of the time, and put together a brilliant (if also insensitive, upon deeper reflection) campaign for a horror movie based on an old Korean tale, but dressed up with the perfect semiotic signs: addressing two dead girls in the familiar first name in exactly the way they had been invoked a year before by the screaming crowds (the movie was being released nearly to the day when the girls were initially killed), their wooden visages done up to resemble a standard Korean funeral portrait, except that the twin black stripes were expressed through their bows instead of actually across their faces, right next to the pictures of their two bloodied bodies, both of which had legs bare and exposed. Sound familiar?

Some will, of course, say I'm over-reading here. I don't think so, obviously. And if only because advertising execs have taken the same semiotics courses I have, and deeply understand the value of subtle symbols in terms of both individual and social psychologies, and are paid big bucks to make sure the economy of an ad's text, pictures, colors, and every detail down to the font type are maximized, it is difficult to think that anything could going out through a campaign as big as this was accidental.

And hey -- they weren't using the girls' images in a fundamentally different way than any of the protesters had. The only difference was that the execs and the movie industry were making a buck off it.

"I don't watch American movies."

NOTHING'S REALLY CHANGED

In the end, I think if this society valued the memories of the two girls killed in the accident, it would have fixed the cause of the accident. There is barely any sidewalk along the narrow, 2-lane highway the girls traversed on the way to school, and cars still whiz by at breakneck speed; there is no divider, and despite previous residents' complaints, little had been done to prevent something just like this happening in any other parts of that road.

And when an American armored car that had a huge blind spot on the right side came lumbering along it, with the two girls who had been listening to their MP3 player (another fact left out by the Korean press) -- this actually shouldn't be a surprise. It's just extremely bad political luck (or, if you are a Korean NGO, extremely good fortune) that it was an American armored vehicle that time.

In the end, once the clamor finished and all the protesters went home, nothing changed. For all the sake of the "memory" of the two girls, most of that highway is still a major pedestrian route, without a guardrail or sidewalk, which Korean middle schools presumably still walk up and down every day.

Completely OWNED

What a tool.

I can't stand when so-called "conservatives" try to get all historical, yet know less history than the average grade schooler. Especially when it's the crux of one's point. Look it up on Wikipedia at least, fer chrissakes., before going on national television and making an idiot of oneself. Or, alternatively, shut the f**k up.

This tool got owned on national television. I'm sure he'll go back to his radio show and whine about how he got railroaded or something -- but in the end, he's just stoopid dumm.

A Sad Day Has Come

This is the last time I will post here. My time as the "Metropolitician" is up.

I've realized a lot of things over the last week or so, since falling for a certain young lady of a more conservative persuasion, who has quite literally rocked my world. I realize that a lot of the liberal ideas I had formerly and formally adhered to were largely misconstrued notions I had held, distortions of ideological ramifications that simply had no precedence in either established fact, dilapidated fiction, or even (and not either) the demonstrated dialectics of most people's dystopic desires.

In short, a new kind of love has made me into a harder, more turgid man.

No longer will I carry the torch for a a deluded liberalism, nor be the voice for lefty illiberality. What I truly hanker for is a haughty helping of a hunk of cheese that isn't defined in terms of a mere neo-Freudian kitsch, but the kind of cheese one can count on, like money in the bank; indeed, one needs sustenance so solid and reliable one can literally stick it in a pipe and smoke it.

So I can no longer continue to write here, after having fallen for someone like the one who has learned to call me "oppa." Such is an experience I never thought I could have had, either as a black man, or a Star Trek fan, and her highly-developed sense of what I have previously called here mere "fetishized femininity" has caused in me an emotional rise that is quite epic in its tense and torpedo-like tautology. Indeed, they didn't call Moby a "Dick" for nothing, as they say. Unlike the proverbial Ahab, my little lady has actually caught her whale.

When wondering why I have decided to forgo any further forays into formalism and endorse not Barack "Aladdin" Obama, but rather John McCain, the answer becomes perfectly obvious, does it not?

When you ask yourselves these questions, as you struggle for the answers, yet still can't bring yourself to face the truth, realize that Tom Cruise once said, quite poignantly, that the "truth could not be handled" and that in a similar situation, Al Pacino pointed a finger and said that the entire Supreme Court was indeed, very much "out of order."

In the same way, I was once out of love, and was so lost without her, but believe you me -- I now realize that it's hip to be square. Or did not Huey Lewis not give you that news?

So, it is with heavy hands that I make my last entry here, since the Metropolitician that was me has completely and totally ceased to be he.

For Pak Geun-hye's youngest daughter knows how to hit me where it counts, and to not just do that to me once, but likes to hit me, baby one more time, all the time, if you catch my meaning, number one Negaroni! See, I don't shrink away from saying, loudly and proudly, what needs to be said. And if you didn't get it from the passage above, you need a double dose of dis doubletalk. April mothafuckin' fool's, bitches!

Word to your mother, yo!

Obama: A Perfect Speech, a Perfect Candidate

I am still reeling.

Is this man for real? Am I in some weird kind of dream?

And did he really, in this day and age, write that speech himself?!

Did I just see a black candidate for President of the United State just make clear, in perfect rhetorical form, what many Americans can barely even bring themselves to talk about, what few of us Americans feel comfortable discussing in mixed company?

Did I just see a political speech actually lay down historical anchors, with mention of the slave trade protection clause in the Constitution, deft presentation of sociologists Massey and Denton's analysis of how wealth production in the black community was prevented by discriminatory Federal Housing Adminisation, GI Bill, and exclusionary real estate practices? Then move right into the silent anger of the black community, followed by mention of how the black community has often been complicit in its own misery?

Did I also just see a black candidate for President of the United State channel sources of white frustration, talk about why many whites reject the criticism of "white privilege", and the understandable fears and prejudices that makes whites guilty of being nothing more than human, as opposed to "racist?"

Whoa. This is the most powerful and historically lucid speech I have seen in all my short 36 years of time spent on earth. This is a man who is not only a uniter, but eminently "presidential" and who truly transcends the petty politics of reductionist identity. It is worth watching in its entirety.

[Read the transcript.]

This speech is simply amazing, on several levels.

Firstly, it was a risk. He let people off the hook, put himself potentially on it -- he didn't make political potshots, and kept it classy.

It's honest and I respect Obama for not simply dumping a friend because it's politically convenient, especially when it would have been actually understandable -- nay, even expected -- that he do so.

He manages to rise above the mud-slinging fray and actually let Ferraro off the hook by equating her with Wright, and for suggesting that not only are her feeling expected, but even understandable.

He, for the first time since I have been politically self-aware as a political being, articulated the problems endemic to American society -- health care, housing, and education -- in terms of the need to rise up beyond the "not my problem" way of thinking when watching the "kids on the other side of the fence" go to failing schools, live in dilapidated and dangerous surroundings, or go without health care. Ever since Jonathan Kozol's book Savage Inequalities both angered me and cause me to well up with tears, I have never heard a politician make the central point that it's a crime for Americans to watch other Americans live like this, regardless of them being "other people's children."

[Source: The New York Times]

And this speech puts to bed that ridiculous but persistent notion that Obama is "all talk." After going toe-to-toe in several debates with the sharpest political animal imaginable, after showing that he is perfectly capable and deft when getting nitty-gritty on the "issues" but obviously has chosen to speak-to-inspire when on the campaign trail -- now, he has displayed a "third mode" for me.

The man knows how to integrate powerful political rhetoric with the hard facts of history, with an emotional suasion and clarity that speaks directly to the hearts of Americans of all backgrounds, who sit in their corners, too afraid to talk with one another, too timid to exchange anything other than polite pleasantries across the racial/ethnic divide, while the big, fat elephant continues to sit in the room, preventing us from solving any of the corollary issues that continues to keep our nation less than it should and could be.

This is a man who has just demonstrated that he is truly a class act, a level above anything Clinton or anyone like her could muster up, even on their best day.

This man is a true LEADER, and the most deserving of being elected President of the United States that I've seen in my lifetime. He's not the "not-Bush" John Kerry, or "Slick Willie" or even any of the men I've read about in history book for whom I might have voted (and hindsight helps): Carter, Johnson, Kennedy, FDR.

Is Obama as great as any of them? Quite possibly, but he ain't been president yet. But he's on the short list already, and I damn well wanna find out.

I'm voting for Obama WHEN he's chosen as the democratic nominee. I haven't this excited about politics in my life.

And back on earth, in the realm of petty politicking, I'm sure Hillary is hating that speech, because it was just so damn good, and she wishes she had made it. Well, if that were even possible.

Damn, Obama's good.

And that's the thing. He's not even trying to be. "Good," that is. He is just who he is.

And anyone watching that speech knows he just hit a fucking home run outta the park. Gone. Over the bleachers. Hit a skylight, too.

Gone!

Non-Sensical Comments as Well as Comment System

Typepad's comment filter is broken. I can't reply to Quius, and I can't even post test comments such as "I am a tree" on my own blog.

Good job, Typepad.

Here's my response to Quius, as well as comments like these:

I'm not going to waste my time refuting these pointless points in detail. Let me make it short:

- "Koreans have nothing against..." You don't speak for all Koreans. Irrelevant.

- "Some Koreans have married Jews." Irrelevant.

- "Most Koreans didn't even know about anti-Semitism until the West..." Not true for the Korean nationalist intellectuals, who in the 1890's trhough the early 1900's were reading Chinese and Japanese translations of racist Western sociology, anthropology, and history and very much translating Social Darwinism, racist notions of nation and culture, as well as anti-Semitic views into latent Korean ideology that has remained a streak among Korean "intellectuals" to this day.

- "Most of the major movie studios and media outlets are jewish-owned." OK, movie studios. Back when penny arcades and "moving picture shows" were considered lower-class pursuits, fresh Jewish immigrants often ran these businesses, much like Koreans coming from the 70's and 80's dominated greengrocers and liquor stores. Well before "movies" became a billion-dollar industry, many Jews were already placed here. The same is true for comic books, many of which were penned by Jewish hands when Jews found little room in other mainstream artistic and publishing outlets. It wasn't some "grand plan" and Jews were just lucky that these "vulgar" arts became mainstream only a couple decades later. Learn some history.

- "Financial companies" and "overcoming racism in Europe." Well, for as much as talk of Jews controlling Europe had far more currency than it does today, they certainly didn't seem to be able to stem the Holocaust that quite nearly wiped out all Jewry in Western Europe. Some influence, huh?

- And Israel. Yeah, yeah, "they" have lobbying power. But the concerns about Israel are bigger than that – anyone forget the Cold War? The beginning of major tensions in 1954 with Iran? The US overturning Mossadegh and installing puppets such as the Shah, which directly led to the fundamentalist backlash that was Khomeini?

- "America's blind support for Israel" Yes, I disagree with policies that seem that way these days. But it's not just "Jewish money" - it's geo-politicial circumstances, too. Hello? Fundamentalist/radical governments, the specifics of the PLO and Islamic groups becoming bedtime allies because of shared interests (one mostly political, the other overtly anti-Semitic)...come on, I don't agree with Israel on a lot of levels, but they are fighting for the right to exist while surrounded by some pretty hostile governments who would like them to cease to exist. And have attacked them with the purpose of carrying out that goal. But to say, in the end, it's just "Jewish lobbying" and not some very real, very concrete circumstances is...just...well, ignorant.

And calling Israeli nationalism, bad American foriegn policy, or anything else "fascism" in anything other than the rhetorical sense is just plain simplistic. I make the rhetorical parallel between Nazi anti-Semitism and some aspects of Korean ideology, but I never go so far as to say "Korean national ideology = Western European fascism." That's just ludicrous.

Quius – have you anything to say grounded in actual knowledge of history or logic? Have you any arguments based on anything other than superficial hearsay, which is itself mostly just recycled ignorant stereotypes?

It sounds to me like you're a high school or early college student who actually hasn't done a lot of reading about history or society; it sounds to me like your ability to constuct a rational, sound argument is pretty poor.

So far, you haven't offered anything in your comments besides, "I heard somebody say this" or "Everybody knows that X is true about this group." Frankly, your logic and way of thinking is pretty intellectually flimsy.

Wow - Nice to Know The Tools Are Still Sharp

I waded through the silly debate over "intelligent design" when the issue was in the news over the last few years, but came to the conclusion on this blog – which helps me work through issues and figure out where I am on things by writing about it publicly – that "intelligent design is not only an insult to science, but to faith as well. But it was a process:

"Chuck D - Public Enemy #1!"

"Why the Idea of Intelligent Design Is – and Isn't – Stupid"

"The Polarization of the Stupid"

In a nutshell, my thinking on the subject is that ID is obviously not science, but it is also not religion/faith, since these idiotic ID advocates are essentially saying they have found "proof" for the unprovable: the DNA machine is so complex and beautiful that some Being must have made it. OK, if you say so, but that's not science, and it's a betrayal of the principle of faith to say it is anything different from feeling the beauty of the Grand Canyon and feeling the presence of God.

That's a personal thing, and perfectly valid to the individual. And people come to possess faith in all kinds of different ways, ones that cannot by bottled up into a formula or process.

It's probably my cultural compatibility with Christianity, coming from a pretty Christian Midwest, that explains my interest in the subject, especially in terms of history; but it's the lack of the ability to make that "leap of faith" that so impressed me at the end of Indiana Jones 3 that prevents me from being a Christian.

But it's not because I see any conflict between science and religion, since an intelligent look at the subject tells you that there really isn't as much there as one would think.

And I'm glad that my few conclusions about the subject is echoed by a specialist in the matter, which gives great assurance to this spirited amateur:

Haught is an intriguing figure in the debate over evolution. He was the only theologian to testify as an expert witness in the landmark 2005 Dover trial that ruled against teaching intelligent design in public schools. Haught testified against intelligent design, arguing that it's both phony science and bad theology. But Haught is also a fierce critic of hardcore atheists like Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett, who claim that evolution leads logically to atheism. He says both sides place too much faith in science. "Ironically," Haught writes, "ID advocates share with their ideological enemies, the evolutionary materialists, the assumption that science itself can provide ultimate explanations." [From Salon.com]

I'm gonna go read Jon Haught's books. Another one worth reading, and which has borne out what I've been saying about the idiotic people in the Christian Right who completely misunderstand the historical and theological factors that led to the separation of church and state, is American Gospel, by Jon Meacham. It's not academic, having been written by a journalist and being essentially a string of quotes linked by time periods, but it's a good coverage of the issue.

For those who were paying attention in history class, and remember that Roger Williams was exiled out of Mass Bay colony because he wanted to separate church and state to preserve the integrity of the CHURCH from the muddying and corrupting influence of worldly governments, this motive is crystal clear.

The present efforts to characterize America as a "Christian nation" along the lines of some theocracy are simply misguided and wrong.

If people want to set up a Christian theocracy in America – fine – it's one's right to try, even if it's Constitutionally, historically, and theologically (at least from the point-of-view of anything remotely more Protestant than Anglicanism, which is pretty much anything on the American side of the Atlantic) unsound. I have the right to advocate for a whites-only state, found a political party dedicated to putting an Xbox 360 into every home, or even one extolling the virtues of "man-boy love" – but reasonable people, laws, and the Constitution should make short shrift of such silliness.

As they should with those suggesting that the government should give a red penny to fund private religious organizations conducting religious activities.

On the other hand, the book provides a much-needed corrective to the idea that there is no such thing as "civic religion" in the US, which there always has been. Using religious symbology doesn't force one to adhere to the idea, especially since "God" is non-specific (that wasn't and has never been accidental) and doesn't actually have any concrete impact on one's life.

Case in point: you may have to swear on a Bible in court, but it's not the Bible that's going to get you sent to jail, but laws regarding perjuring oneself. People getting all up in arms because of some imagined dissolution of the church/state wall because of mention of the word "God" in public rituals also forget history.

Another case in point: the Constitution. How are rights defined as "inalienable"? Because they come from "God." Sorry – that's the logic, and a smart one it is. The point wasn't to say that these rights come from the one, true Christian God (and efforts to use just such language was quickly and vigorously dispatched), but simply from a plane higher than human affairs, and hence, untouchable.

They are simply "inalienable rights" and taken as the starting point for everything else. Basically, you can't fuck with that logic, since it exists on a plane removed from our ability to do so. Hence, that basic assumption stands, unable to be assailed short of resetting the entire system from scratch.

In other societies, rights stemmed from class, bloodlines, connections, and other ephemera of the worldly plane. Making the ultimate "hyperlink" to "God" solves this problem quite nicely, thank you very much.

Ah, history and context. It's so helpful towards cutting through the petty bullshit of the present.

And it's nice to know that the tools in the woodshed are still sharp, my recent vent-fest over the non-valuation of foreign intellects in Korea notwithstanding.

On that note, I need a vacation from Korea. Badly.

Thailand! Never been. Fruity drinks, sandy beaches, and spicy food for two weeks is my diagnosis. And maybe some Xbox. Can I get that on a beachside bungalow?

Maybe in February/March.

"Sieg, Heil!" Korean Style

[From the Donga Ilbo]

For those of you who don't read Korean, it says, "JEW" and "Jew Power" in the stars and stripes field. Lovely. (HT to the Marmot's Hole)

Here's one from the Nazi era. Love to see Korea keeping it old school, along with the tradition of Hitler bars, overt anti-Semitic ranting, and completely fallacious historical constructions that have their origins in the general Western European anti-Semitism that led to the Holocaust, and whose Prussian offshoots were passed onto the Japanese, who then influenced Korean intellectuals in the late 1890's and early 1900's. Jew-hating isn't new in East Asia, it only seems silly (since there are hardly any Jews here), but it's serious business – as the Aum Shinryaku showed when they gassed the Tokyo subways as a way to rid Japanese society of the (symbolic) Jews. [link here]

[Source -- "He is guilty for the war (WWI)!" -- translation mine.]

It doesn't matter if there are no Jews in Korea -- anti-Semitism has been and is alive and well, and is always a dangerous pattern of thought. Not just to Jews, but for all of the intellectual lightweights and demagogues who are not intelligent nor well-educated enough to present their ideas in a way that doesn't completely duplicate the racist anti-Semitism that eventually resulted in the Nazi's final solution.

Note: Anti-Semitic comment rants will be summarily deleted and the user banned. So don't waste both your and my time even making a Typepad ID to do it, please.

"No End In Sight"

Anyone out there seen this? I think I'd like to.

Whew. I hope those who voted for a Bush second term are happy. We should have never gone into Iraq, and now, we can't get out. "Quagmire." I learned that word in middle school, and applied it to history in high school. Too bad the bigwigs in charge of the country didn't think about that before getting us into a war we didn't have to wage.