Harold's Left:
The RNC has published a "purity test" to all Republicans seeking the support of the RNC in the coming election cycle. Any candidate wishing to get the monetary backing of the Republican National Committee will have to pass this test buy believing in seven out of the ten issues which the test iterates. In a party that already defines itself by exclusion, it seems like a backwards strategy from chairman Michael Steele who pledged to open up the party to members of more diverse backgrounds. However, all that this year has proven is that the conservative movement is almost entirely one of disgruntled whites who are proud to be intolerant, racist, xenophobic, and homophobic. Almost nothing about the Republican Party says "inclusion" except an unequivocal dislike for anyone who does not fit into "Sarah Palin's America". You know. The 'real' America; where there are not a bunch of Columbia educated elites, not a bunch of brown folks, not a bunch of young people sympathetic to the causes of the world, not a bunch of non-Christians. This is the America where being intolerant is not only expected, it is encouraged. So without further ado, lets look at the 'purity test' and point out some issues with a few items on the list.
1. We support smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits and lower taxes by opposing bills like Obama's "stimulus" bill
Oh, I must have it backwards then. Because why is it that under both Reagan and Bush II, the deficit ballooned the minute they got in office? Must be that Republican's proposal to fix our ailing economy would have been the tired old trick of cutting taxes on the wealthy and letting the money trickle down to the poor. I should go to some inner city public housing districts or some trailer parks in Appalachia and find out how well that money has been trickling. How the Republicans think that cutting taxes to nothing, plus splurging on illegitimate wars, equals a lower deficit is beyond me.
2. We support market-based health care reform and oppose Obama-style government run healthcare
So in other words the RNC supports private insurance companies over the needs and wants of the American people. Private health insurance is not a 'market-based' system worth preserving. What's the difference between Sprint, GMC, Logitech, Dell, Google, and Blue Cross/Blue Shield?
Well other industries make things and provide useful services, private insurance companies collect money, trim a sizable profit, and promptly figure out ways to con you out getting effective health care.
3. We support market-based energy reforms by opposing cap and trade legislation
According to conservatives; global warming, inertia, love, gravity, molecules, evolution, and science are all things made up by the liberal elite to confuse you.
4. We support workers' right to secret ballot by opposing card check
5. We support legal immigration and assimilation into American society by opposing amnesty for illegal immigrants
Notice their play on nativism here. They had to qualify their support for legal immigration (which I'm sure they would love to oppose especially if it means upping the number of brown folks) with the qualifier of "and assimilation into American society".
6. We support victory in Iraq and Afghanistan by supporting military-recommended troop surges
When does the military not recommend more war? Hence this is why the military is ultimately run by civilians like the President and Sec Def, because when you ask battle-hardened generals what their recommendation would be for the future of any military conflict they will always say "more conflict".
7. We support containment of Iran and North Korea, particularly effective action to eliminate their nuclear weapons threat
One of the only items on this list you will be hard pressed to fine many Democrats or Republicans who disagree with it.
8. We support retention of the Defense of Marriage Act
DOMA should be repealed. Period. There is almost no major legislation out there that is a greater threat to the Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment that this one.
9. We support protecting the lives of vulnerable persons by opposing health care rationing, denial of health care and government funding of abortion
This is ridiculous logic here. The only folks that have been denying coverage are the bozos in the private insurance companies that the RNC so happily supports. In my five years under the military's government-run, single-payer system, TRICARE, denial of services to myself or my family was not even a remote possibility. Question for Republicans: If the private insurance system is so good, why do we not let our veterans return home from war and fall under it? Could you image, I would get dropped from coverage because I got injured in the mountains of Afghnaistan (which I did) because private insurance will only find ways to drop you.
10. We support the right to keep and bear arms by opposing government restrictions on gun ownership
Yup, don't restrict anything. Let everything be legal under the guise of 'arms'. You want a Howitzer artillery battery in your front lawn? Cool, it falls under arms and should not be restricted. You want to mount M240B, 7.62 Caliber, belt-fed, machine guns on your roof? No problem, it constitutes 'arms' and individual liberty.
This list is a blessing for progressives because it only further allows us to expand out tent beyond the majority we already have and to shrink their tent to just a small cardboard box on the National Mall.
Harold's Left:
I have spent the last hour reading the Senate health care bill. Admittedly, it's dry and pretty tough to read. However, I am fairly excited that we are at the cusp of one of the greatest legislative achievements in American history.
How conservatives can live with themselves, and call themselves patriots, when we live in the richest country in the history of the world, and have over 10% of population without access to adequate health insurance coverage is simply stunning. How they can just stand by and let Western Europe and Japan just outperform our system in front of the entire world is appalling. How they can continue to be content with an overpriced and outdated system is ridiculous. Once again, as has been true throughout the arc of history, it will be up to progressives to move us forward as a nation to a more modern health care system that will cover 94% of Americans and reduce the budget over the next 20 years. Instead of talking about what's in the bill, which I am happy to say scales back the Stupak Amendment and keeps a public option, I want to focus on some of the hypocrisies the are present in conservative resistance to health care reform.
The first thing conservatives say in response to health care reform is that it is "too expensive". Isn't it funny how conservatives, who are the self proclaimed "fiscally responsible" among us, find no issue in paying 800 billion dollars for an uneeded war in Iraq, but are hesitant to give a healthy life to the citizens of this country? They stumped for us to spend billions and billions of dollars to "liberate the Iraqi people", hardly a necessary evil. It just goes to show that conservatives are not concerned about spending money for the actual things that help Americans the most like health care, but are more concerned with big, dumb, policies that make them look 'tough'. The thing is; it doesn't look tough, it just ends up looking dumb. Bill O'Reilly has claimed that raising the tax level on the highest bracket amounts to something that "Fidel Castro" would do, just highlights this preoccupation with stupidity and fear rather than fact. Taxes on the rich are currently the lowest they have been in over 50 years at 35%. In the 50's and 60's, when the U.S. saw perhaps it's greatest gains economically, the highest tax bracket was taxed at a rate of nearly 90%, in the 70's it was over 60% and even under Reagan it was over 50%. So Bill, if raising it to a level that is still under 50% equates to Castro, then what do you have to say about America over the last 50 years? See the graph below:
The second issue that conservatives have been apparently clueless about is that as a group that is supposedly obsessed with preserving "life", they seem to be at odds with it in their opposition to health care reform. Every year, nearly 45000 Americans die because of lack of adequate health care insurance. This happens when a part-time worker without insurance options has a lump in their breast, but cannot go to the doctor because they don't have insurance to quickly deal with their problem. This happens when a hard working blue-collar worker with diabetes is laid off of their job, losing their insurance coverage, and lacks any way to get insurance because of a preexisting condition. How conservative opposition to fixing these problems amounts to their supposed obsession with 'life' is unabashedly hypocritical.
The last issue (or non-issue to be exact) that conservatives are railing about is that health care reform is not a power entrusted to the government under the Constitution, and that subsequently Congress does not have the power to impose it. Hey conservatives... good luck proving this one. Many conservatives have tried to argue that in the powers given to the Congress, things like health care reform are not there. Progressives have cited the "general welfare clause" as perhaps the legal justification to do this. However, seeing that the General Welfare Clause has essentially been interpreted out of the Constitution, as it hasn't been used since Social Security in the 1930's, this clause is not even needed to justify congressional authority for health care reform. The "Commerce Clause" is what would be applicable here, as it has been used for everything from Medicare to Civil Rights Legislation. Given all of this, legally conservatives seem to be standing on a toothpick that already has a crack in it, and I suspect they will get nowhere in trying to prove this bill unconstitutional.
This bill is nearly one step closer to becoming law. If it is passed, it will be the seed that will grow into a robust form of health care insurance reform that will revolutionize the way that Americans receive health care. Here's what needs to happen:
- First the Senate needs to vote to bring the bill to debate (60 votes)
- Then several amendments will be voted on to change the bill in small ways
- Next Reid with file for cloture to end debate (This is the vote Lieberman is threatening to filibuster) (60 votes)
- Then an up-or-down vote on the bill itself (50 votes + 1)
- A committee will come together to merge the House and Senate bill into one
- The final bill, which cannot be amended with go to the House (218 votes) and the Senate (50 votes + 1)
- Finally it will be signed into law by the President
If passed, this will instantly define Barack Obama as one of our greatest presidents, if only for the accomplishment of passing the most important piece of domestic policy legislation in a generation, and maybe in over a century. What will happen with this bill is the same thing that has happened with every major piece of legislation that sees the most virulent conservative resistance; 25 years from now people will love it, and conservatives will eventually be forced to get on board with it, possibly even protecting it (ie. Medicare). We should be thrilled as progressives that we have once again shown the power of American democracy, and have a leader in Barack Obama who has put principle over politics (at least in some key ways) by stating that he is willing to "stake his presidency on health care reform". The fear-mongers will always be against progress. They will always be sitting in the backseat of the car with their tin-foil hats on while progressives continue to drive America forward.
Score another one for the home team. Great Job Harry Reid.
Harold's Left:
A man walks into a public building, he blows away the guard at the front door and inflicts violence on others. In his car and his home he has paraphernalia from various other radical "true believers" in the causes that this man believes are just. He has frequented several meetings, online and in person, where he discusses his willingness to inflict violence on as many of the people that he hates as possible, believing that it would be God's bidding. Is he a terrorist? Not according to conservatives.
A very depressed and disheveled man loses his job and becomes broke. He starts to blame his problems on all sorts of people, but he eventually focuses his hate on just one group. In his home, there is a massive amount of literature from his radical heroes on television who have told him to "rise up" against the groups that are seeking to "hurt" people like him. So he decides to walk into a place of worship and kill several people, to show that this place was wrong from condoning the sort of lifestyles it did. Is he a terrorist? O'Reilly, Beck, Coulter, Hannity, and Malkin never called him that once (hint: he was reading their stuff).
Both of these instances describe events, true events, that have happened over the last 24 months. Scary thing is; this is only the tip of the iceberg. The Southern Poverty Law Center, tracks this sort of violence and has seen a sharp uptick in these sorts of instances in the last 18 months.
Terrorism can be defined as the use of violence with the intent to coerce or intimidate, especially for political purposes. Under that definition, these acts above, and several others under the umbrella of right-wing extremism qualify as terrorism. So why is it that Fox News and others in the right wing media are not just reluctant to claim it, but downright refuse to? Oh... I know why, because many of the folks who commit these acts of violence are citing these people at Fox as part of the motivation behind their ideology.
The agents at Fox News, namely Hannity and O'Reilly, have been scrambling to claim that the massacre at Ft. hood was indeed an act of terrorism. I agree that Major Hasan's motivation was political in some way, whether it be his apparent religious motivation or his belief that soldiers should not be deploying to war, it's hard to argue that he didn't have some motivation other than just one of a deranged individual who just wanted to murder people. That being said, if this is in fact an act of terrorism, then why not the numerous acts committed by right wing extremists? The major difference? Hasan is a Muslim, and his shooting spree gives the right-wing an easy out to do their favorite things. Be intolerant. Be indiscriminate in their distrust of everyone different from them, and generally be compulsive in their two-facededness. As usual, conservatives cannot see into details or differentiate anything. It's either 'us' or 'them'. Anyone who says "Allah Akbar" must be a terrorist right? Here's an exchange between O'Reilly and Sally Quinn on his show:
O'Reilly: But you have a hard time saying the words "Muslim terrorist," and so does Obama. He has a hard time saying it. I don't know why you guys aren't saying it. You know, why, why?
Quinn: Well, I think, first of all, there are different kinds of terrorists. As I said, Timothy McVeigh --
O'Reilly: He's a Muslim terrorist! What do you mean, different kinds of terrorist? He killed people under the banner of jihad! That's who he is! What do you -- look, what do you want, him to come to your house with a strap-on bomb? The guy did it for jihadist reasons! "Allah Akbar!" That's the slogan! He mails Al Qaeda! Miss Quinn, you're a brilliant woman, and I'm not saying that facetiously. You are. A third-grader gets this, and you're resisting it! I wanna know why!
Quinn: Bill, you're making a very good case. I mean, he's Muslim, and he may well end up being a terrorist. We don't know for sure --
O'Reilly: I know for sure! Ninety percent of the people watching me know for sure! I don't know why you don't know for sure! What else do you need?
Quinn: I mean, you can call the guy who blew up -- you know, who shot up the Holocaust Museum a terrorist --
O'Reilly: Did he yell "Allah Akbar?" If he yelled "Allah Akbar," and he e-mailed Al Qaeda in Yemen, I'd call him that, Miss Quinn!
Quinn: OK, he's a Muslim terrorist.
O'Reilly: Thank you.
He said "Allah Akbar" so he must be a terrorist right? As I eluded to earlier, whether he is a terrorist is still not clear, although I lean towards the evidence that he was doing this for a higher reason than just indiscriminate killing, so he probably could be labeled that way. However, what's more interesting is O'Reilly's implication that he must be simply over the use of a term. In 2007, my unit brought in a platoon of Egyptian Special Forces soldiers to shadow us and show them how we train. Their platoon leader, a young bright Muslim, was even a graduate of the US Army Pathfinder School, which I can attest to as a graduate of the course myself, is easily one of the most difficult courses in the military, and consequently one of the most coveted. They were devoted soldiers. Our time with the Egyptian platoon culminated with us doing a parachute jump from 1500 feet with them. I was the first jumper in the door, with an Egyptian soldier behind me. As we got over the target and the jumpmaster alerted us "1 minute", the 25 or so Egyptians began to chant "Allah Akbar" as they prepped to exit the door. Which in literal translation means "God is Great". Does this mean that because they chanted "Allah Akbar" they were getting ready to commit a terrorist act? No, it was just their way of praising their God. Granted, yes many terrorists use this term before they kill people, but just because someone uses it does not mean they are a terrorist. It's a classic case in logic of 'mistaken reversal'. "If you are a terrorist, then you may scream "Allah Akbar" before you commit violence", is not the logical equivalent of; "If you scream "Allah Akbar" then you are a terrorist". But, who cares about those details right? Let's just hog tie all of them and find ways to ship them out of the country.
By the way. Great Job O'Reilly for basically muscling Quinn into admitting something she didn't want to in order to prove your point. I sometimes wish I could go on his show, because I guarantee it would not end that way.
And the cause of conservative intolerance just keeps 'a rollin along.
Harold's Left:
It's times like these that really make me trust Barack Obama's leadership and grit. Instead of just caving to Republican propaganda and being quickly complicit with Gen. McChrystal's request for 44,000 more troops, Obama is instead being the tough leader and demanding that his National Security Advisors give him a strategy that includes a legitimate way to exit the country. In a meeting with his War Council on Wednesday, the President was apparently pretty stern is his insistence that he be presented with an option in Afghanistan that is not "open ended".
This is an exhibition in quality leadership. The easy thing to do would be to just throw more troops at the the epic and colossal mind-freak that is Afghanistan. Some, mainly those on the right, would cheer saying "look... see, he is doing something". However, quick and over-bloated reaction to a problem does not constitute good leadership. Here's a pertinent military analogy. As a team leader on a small infantry/reconnaissance team, because of the forwardness of your training, it can be easy to think that 'more force' is the answer to so solve all of your encounters with an enemy. However, there are many times, critical times, when contemplative decisiveness, and perhaps restraint, is indeed the key. This is the scenario, similar to many I have faced in my time in the military...
You are the team leader of a five man element charged with infiltrating and gathering intelligence on a suspected Taliban house on the outskirts of a nearby city. You spend several days planning, rehearsing, and preparing for this dangerous mission. You are being asked by your commander to confirm or deny that the suspected HVT (High Value Target) is indeed running enemy operations from this house. You are to infiltrate the area, undetected, and conduct a 72-hour static surveillance in order to provide information that will accommodate a direct action strike against the insurgent compound. You insert in the dark of night with your team and set up a hasty surveillance site that is nearly undetectable from even 15 meters away. During the day, you and your team are all dug into this site. There is no leaving, there is barely any talking. During midday of the second afternoon you are on the ground, one of your men on flank security notices movement near your position. As you catch a glimpse of this person rising over the slope of the hill, you realize that he is merely a middle aged goat-herder, but he is headed straight for you. He moves up, tending to his goats, unaware of your presence until he steps on what should be solid ground, but is instead your camouflage net that is helping to conceal your position. You see his eyes recognize what is going on and you immediately have one of you men point his weapon at him and order him not to move...
Now (and yes, I realize I got a little carried away), this is where leadership comes in. You have three choices. Your first choice could be to use more force. You know that in the same area, only a few years earlier a Navy SEAL team was posed with this same quandary and they let the herder go, and he went straight to the Taliban, who then ambushed the SEALS killing all but one (true story). So with this in your mind, you perhaps think that killing this guy would be justified. Would it? It would be the easiest option. Just to meet the threat to your team with force. However, is that the sort of soldier you are? Your team does not want to abandon this mission. They want you to just shoot him with a silenced weapon and continue observing the compound. You feel pressure because you know that this operation is so important to your commander. You team tells you "we will vouch for you". Yet, this easy choice to cause more death, is not necessarily the best one. A real, tough leader takes the hard path, even when others say he shouldn't, and he does not let his pride to look aggressive override his restraint to stay justified in his actions. It's for this very reason that President Obama should be applauded for his ability to make the tough decisions even when the people surrounding him want him to make the easy one. That's perhaps the difference between Obama and Bush. Glad to finally have a strong leader as President.
Harold's Left:
The Catholic Church in D.C. is trying to stonewall the city council to support it's stance that discrimination gainst gays is the right thing to do. This Tuesday, the council rejected an amendment that would have essentially said that individuals involved in the wedding industry (ie, cake makers, caterers, etc) could refuse service to gays because of their own personal religious beliefs. This decision comes right before a decision next week by the council on whether any entity receiving government funds can discriminate against gays. The Catholic Church's argument is that these amendments are an intrusion on religious freedom and consequently the Church has threatened to end social and homeless programs that aid thousands of D.C. residents. Susan Gibbs, speaking for the Church, stated "If the city requires this, we can't do it... The city is saying in order to provide social services, you need to be secular. For us, that's really a problem." It is a problem indeed, because for the Catholic Church to be taking 8.2 million dollars in city funds over the last several years, it seems to have no issue taking 'secular' money.
The one councilwoman who seems to be pressing for discrimination had this to say, "Lets say an individual caterer is a staunch Christian and someone wants him to do a cake with two grooms on top. Why can't they say, based on their religious beliefs, 'I can't do something like that'?" That's an easy answer; because it violates nearly every civil rights law of the last half century.
During the 50's and 60's when civil rights were being argued in everywhere from the courts, to the schools, to the Congress; the primary argument of those who opposed integration was that it violated a private business owner's right to individual liberty to say that an individual or business cannot provide services to whomever it wants. Which would also mean it could deny services as well. This flawed reasoning was struck down ultimately because it was determined that any business or other entity that is open to the public as a whole, cannot deny service to various groups based on individual bias. Some business that has it's doors open on Main street to whomever walks in, cannot then say to a black person or a gay person, "we won't serve you". What's more is that an entity receiving federal funds, like the Catholic Church in D.C., certainly should not be able to discriminate against citizens. The council seems poised to largely ignore the Catholic Church's blackmail and move the cause of equality forward. Many of the councilmembers have commented that the church has proved to be "childish" and that they will not succumb to the threats imposed by it.
The Catholic Church certainly has the right to not believe in gay marriage, or even gay equality. However, when they receive funds from the city, they are acting on its behalf, and in that sense its obsession with discrimination is illegal and intolerable. After the defeat in Maine by popular vote on an issue that should be upheld by the constitution and not individual bigotry, the city of Washington's probable enactment of this law is a bright spot in the ongoing movement to make gays full and equal citizens of this nation.
Harold's Left:
Sarah Palin has ratcheted up her stupidity level beyond even her generally unimaginable heights. Her reaction to the health reform bill passing in the senate has been not only blatantly ignorant, but also knowingly untruthful. Here's Shannyn Moore's take, a progressive radio host from Alaska, on just a mind bending miss quitastic is...
Is she equating the health care bill to the crucifixion, and the conservative comeback as the resurrection? Really? Go on, Sister Sarah, tell us how how the GOP is going to forgive us for all our sins and give us eternal life. The same GOP whose logo has inverted satanic stars. Anyone with half a wit of faith would call you on your blasphemy.
“We’ve got to hold on to hope, and we’ve got to fight hard because Congressional action tonight just put America on a path toward an unrecognizable country. “
UNRECOGNIZABLE? From what? A country that lies its way into wars? A country that tortures? A country that transports prisoners to other countries for torture? A country that wiretaps its own citizens? A country that neglects its veterans; poor and sick? A country that sides with corporations over its people? A country that looks away from evidence of environmental decay?
Well, I’m fine with becoming something other than the country you recognize.
”The same government leaders that got us into the mortgage business and the car business are now getting us into the health care business.”
The reason for the bailouts in the first place, Sarah, is because decades of Republican deregulation left no one minding the store. Former President Bush, by the way, pushed through the first bailout, and it was Bush whose 2004 campaign sought to lower barriers for home ownership! What about the same government that employs Blackwater XE over our military? What about our justice system being for sale to the highest bidding private prisons? All your honking about privatizing goods and services is a little late.
”Despite Americans’ decisive message last Tuesday that they reject the troubling path this country has been taking, Speaker Pelosi has broken her own promises of transparency to ram a health “care” bill through the House of Representatives just before midnight. Why did she push the 2,000 page bill this weekend? Was she perhaps afraid to give her peers and the constituents for whom she works the chance to actually read this monstrous bill carefully, if at all? Was she concerned that Americans might really digest the details of a bill that the Wall Street Journal has called “the worst piece of post-New Deal legislation ever introduced”? “
Oh, yes, last Tuesday’s decisive message that said, “Hey, Bill Owens, you’re in! First Democrat elected to NY House District#23 since the Civil War! Now go vote an “Aye” on the health care bill?” Right, that one. Betcha wish you had that $25,000 back about now. And the WSJ? Wow, you mean Rupert Murdoch’s paper? Oh…it’s…getting…clearer. On another note, the WSJ, last year, said you were a terrible candidate in a piece called, “Palin Failin’”…so I guess they are right some of the time.
”This out-of-control bureaucratic mess will be disastrous for our economy, our small businesses, and our personal liberty. It will slam businesses at a time when we are at double-digit unemployment rates – the highest we’ve seen in a quarter of a century. This massive new bureaucracy will cost us and our children money we don’t have. It will rob Americans of more of our freedom and further hamper the free market.”
Lady, you think the free market is eBay. Your party deregulated that free market into such a predicament there isn’t a coupon to save it. Check out the Gramm Leach Bliley Act, also known as the repeal of the Glass Steagall Act. Gramm, Leach and Bliley were the trio of Republicans back in 1999 that were just swamped with constituent phone calls demanding they do something about those pesky bank regulations that prohibited the merger of investment banks with commercial banks and insurance companies. You can use the “googles”. Thank your lucky stars Charlie Gibson didn’t ask you about that!
”Make no mistake: we’re on course to have government commandeer one-sixth of our economy. The people who gave us Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac now want to run our health care. Think about that.”
Yes indeed. The people that gave us Fannie and Freddie; hmmm…that would be your former running mate, John McCain’s campaign manager, Rick Davis. Davis headed the Homeownership Alliance, a mortgage industry lobbying group formed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Under Davis, the Alliance’s primary goal was to step-up the number of mortgages granted-setting the table for the the mortgage crisis. And yes, health care is kind of a big deal. We get that.
”All of us who value the sanctity of life are grateful for the success of the pro-life majority in the House this evening in its battle against federal funding of abortion in this bill, but it’s ironic because we were promised that abortion wasn’t covered in the bill to begin with. Our healthy distrust of these government leaders made us look deeper into the bill because unfortunately we knew better than to trust what they were saying. The victory tonight to amend the bill and eliminate that federal funding for abortion was great – because abortion is not health care. Now we can only hope that Rep. Stupak’s amendment will hold in the final bill, though the Democratic leadership has already refused to promise that it won’t be scrapped later.”
“…us who value the sanctity of life…” Are you out of your mind? You don’t even value a wolf running from a plane. You don’t value a young girl who has been raped. You want the death penalty and cry for more war. You wouldn’t know the sanctity of life if it dropped dead in your lap.
”We had been told there were no “death panels” in the bill either. But look closely at the provision mandating bureaucratic panels that will be calling the shots regarding who will receive government health care.”
Alaskans are still waiting for your explanation of the death panels under your aborted watch as governor. There are still over two-hundred dead who weren’t granted health care they were qualified for because of your negligence. Your legacy is “death panels” to some Alaskan families, and not because you spouted the phrase a few minutes before Charles Grassley.
”Look closely at provisions addressing illegal aliens’ health care coverage too.”
I wonder where Lazarus lived…
”Those of us who love freedom and believe in open and transparent government can only be dismayed by midnight action on a Saturday. Speaker Pelosi’s promise that Americans would have 72 hours to read the final bill before the vote was just another one of the D.C. establishment’s too-common political ploys. It’s broken promises like this that turn people off to politics and leave them disillusioned about the future of their country.”
Hey, WE ALL LOVE FREEDOM. Freedom from crazy is what I’d like right now. Transparent? You couldn’t be transparent in a Saran Wrap bikini. Open? Well, you’re open for business and that’s about it. You are rich to call Pelosi on a broken promise…you said you’d be governor and you quit. Again, I thank you for breaking a promise.
”But despite this late-night maneuvering, many of us were paying close attention tonight. We’ll keep paying close attention. We need to let our legislators in Washington know that they still represent us, and that the majority of Americans are not in favor of the “reform” they are pushing. After all, this is still a country “of the people, by the people, and for the people.” We will make our voices heard. It’s on to the Senate now. Our legislators can listen now, or they can hear us in 2010. It’s their choice.”
The majority of Americans did not vote for you. The majority of Americans want reform. Our voices are being heard. In 2010, 2012, or any other 20…you will not be our choice.
I don't know that it can be said any better than this...
Harold's Left:
It's taken a hundred years to get here. Countless hours of effort. Thousands upon thousands of men and women who have committed their entire lives to reforming the health care system in America. It is truly a cause that effects each and every one of us.
When the House passed the health care reform bill just after 11pm on Saturday evening, there was an eruption of emotion and celebration from the Democratic caucus. Nancy Pelosi had tears streaming from her eyes. Many of the members of Congress described it as the very essence of the reason that they got into politics. I watched the entire vote like it was the NFL playoffs, clutching my seat with my eyes glued to the television obsessing over the vote count... 218... 218...
I know this is only the first major hurdle in health care reform, as the bill still needs to be passed in the Senate. However, I could not help but wallow in the enormity of the moment. I think back on my life and how, ever since I can remember, presidents and elected officials have been talking about health care reform. For all the grief some of us progressives have given the President (and I am certainly included in that number) the fact that he stayed vigilant and committed to making health care reform pass this test, even when he knew it would not be easy, even when knew he'd be staking his presidency on it, says alot. If he continues to stay focused (it's Obama, so there is not doubt he will) and gets this passed in the Senate, it's hard not to view him as the greatest President of our generation. If only for passing the most difficult and important piece of legislation this nation has seen since Civil Rights.
On the flip side, is everybody ready for the obstructionist backlash? We all better be, because this summer didn't have anything on the backlash from the conservatives if (and when) this bill is signed into law. They will vow that Democrats will go down in 2010. They will insist that this is the end of American liberty the same way Ronald Reagan did over Medicare in 1961 in his speech Ronald Reagan Speaks Out Against Socialized Medicine. They will cry and whine and throw all of the socialist, marxist, communist shots across the bow they possibly can. It's part of their makeup. Does not matter, they won't be getting much from Christmas this year anyway. What gifts can you give to people that hate everything?
As for the actual content of the bill itself. It is easily a step in the right direction. Yes, like many progressives I am appalled that 64 Democrats voted against a woman's right to choose and passed the Stupak Amendment. However, like Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) said last night "We'll live to fight that battle, I took one hundred years to do health care, nothing can dim that". Additionally, 39 Democrats voted against this bill.
One of those Democrats was freshman Rep. Larry Kissell (D-NC), the congressman that represents the district in which I live. I am slated to work on his campaign next year. I already had everything lined up to do just that, and until last night I was enthusiastic to do it. To ensure that my perennial swing district did not fall back into the hands of a Republican. To spend long days and nights knocking on doors and calling homes in a district that is literally a 50-50 split. He campaigned on a promise to be committed to health care reform. As you can imagine, I was mortified to find out a few hours before the vote in an email from some inside folks that he would be voting against it. This prompted me to do some soul searching. How can I spend my time working and campaigning for someone who goes against his party on the most important vote in a generation? Well, the answer is simple, I can't. I know that admission of that here may mean I am not welcome to spend my time helping him. I will have to live with that.
So with that said here are some of the things that make this an exceptional step forward:
- Abolishment of the insurance anti-trust exemption
- Coverage for an estimated 96% of Americans
- Pre-existing conditions can no longer be cause for dropped coverage
- No tax increase for 99% of Americans
- A reduction the in the deficit over the next two decades
- Sale of insurance across state lines as long as it's in accordance with that state's law
- A public option to allow competition and insure people who cannot get coverage otherwise
- Tax subsides to the poor who cannot afford health coverage
- Relief in tax burden for 95% of small business
- Young people can remain on their parents insurance until 27
Last night was an important night for America. It let us know that our system can still make change happen. We all understand that this cause is not finished, as now we have to get past the hurdle of the Senate. However as we move forward we can still rejoice in the victory that this passage signifies. Progress.
Harold's Left:
I just finished watching the pilot episode of ABC's huge premier show "V" (I know I'm a few days late). I generally watch my favorite shows like Lost, 24, and Heroes with not even the slightest hint of political slant. However, the Grinch himself, Sean Hannity, ruined it for me because before I got a chance to watch "V" I caught wind of Hannity's comment on how the show was an attack against "Obama-mania", stating "now that's a show I can get behind". Which is a huge thing for him because he generally sits at home and works on his list of things he hates. Last time I heard he was somewhere between Italian food and water... So anyway, because of Hannity's buffoonery I was cornered into having a political slant when I watched the show, even though I tried so hard not to. It's like someone telling you that they see your new gold GMC truck everywhere, and now whenever you drive you actually do see it all over the place because you are paying more attention. So having said that, did anyone else think the part about universal health care was shameful? The convo went something like this... (and I'm paraphrasing here)
A journalist was interviewing Anna, the leader of the Visitors about different things the Visitors would do to help them...
V: We will be expanding our medical services by opening up centers in all of your major cities
Journalist: You mean you will be providing full service medicine to everyone? (quizzical)
V: Yes
Journalist: You mean like universal health care? (appalled)
V: I believe that is what you call it
Okay. WTF? The V's go on to make comments like "we are here to spread hope" and "change is always difficult". Coincidence? I don't know. Either way, I actually thought the show was pretty good and I will still be watching it next week, but it does make me cringe that Hannity endorsed it that way.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| The 11/3 Project | ||||
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Harold's Left:
The massacre of 12 young men and women who were off to continue serving their country overseas by a maniac is hard to make a political one. However, both sides have done this successfully in about 24 hours flat. Leave it to the intolerant among us to make assumptions and drive the cause of bigotry after a terrible incident such as this one. Was Major Hasan a Muslim? Clearly. Was it a part of his twisted decision to kill his fellow soldiers? Possibly. Does it mean that all Muslim soldiers need to be "debriefed"? Uh no. In fact its pretty silly to even iterate such nonsense (leave it to Fox News of course).
Quick personal story. My only real friend that I keep in contact with from basic training was a Muslim soldier. I think we bonded because we had to. We both took ample amounts of disdain from the rest of the platoon. Him for being of Jordanian decent (he was born in Portland, OR) and me for being black. He had a masters degree when he entered the Army, and joined for the same reasons most of us did; to serve his country. He has since gone on to become a Green Beret, one America's most elite fighting units, and served all over the world in the interests of his nation. Does a soldier like this need to be debriefed? It's almost laughable to think so.
In predictable fashion some on the far-right have already blasted Muslim soldiers. World Net Daily has published a false report that Major Hasan was part of President Obama's transition team. Yup, it didn't even take a full day for some of the radicals to try and tie Hasan to Obama.
Shepard Smith of Fox News commented that "the name tells us alot" in an Op-Ed post on FoxNews.com. I suppose it tells us about as much as the soldier who gunned down five of his own in Baghdad earlier this year or Timothy McVeigh when he bombed the government building in Oklahoma City.
Fox and Friends has already stated that there should be "special debriefings" for all Muslim soldiers in the military, presumably all 10,000 of them.
Sgt. Fahad Kamal pictured above, who worships at the same Mosque in which Hasan has frequented in the last few months, commented "I want to believe it was the individual, and not the religion, that made him do what he did... It’s an awful thing. I feel let down. We’re better than this.” Kamal understands, I believe, as many others do who are a minority in America, that the actions of one are tied to the ethnic group at large in a way that is just not done with the majority.
All of this being said, I have little to no sympathy for Major Hasan's excuse that he did this presumably because he did not believe in going overseas to potentially fight other Muslims. First of all, a soldier's personal conviction about any conflict in which he is ordered to serve should have no bearing on how that soldier executes any mission. I certainly and unequivocally disagreed with the Iraq War, yet I spent twelve months of my life serving there. Not as a psychiatrist behind the "wire" either, as a grunt on the ground in the actual fight. Secondly, when you raise your hand and take an oath as a soldier to support and defend the Constitution, you do so voluntarily. You also do so knowing that you may be asked to fight against people who look like you or share your religious beliefs. This is not an excuse for not carrying out your duty. If I was asked to carry out missions against Africans who look like me, or Christians who believe like me, I would not see that as in any way paramount to my allegiance to America. Period.
Sgt. Kamal is right, Major Hasan is a disgrace, but not just to Muslims, to all of us.
Harold's Left:
The rule of law. You hear politicians say it all of the time in reference to part of the fiber that makes America a truly unique civilization. I'd certainly like to know how the following plays into that...
Two days ago in Milan, Italy, 23 Americans were tried in absentia and convicted of illegally capturing Hassan Osama Nasr (aka Abu Omar) off the streets of Milan in broad daylight in 2003. Nasr was reportedly flown to Eygpt where he was tortured with electric shock, beatings, and threats of rape. The CIA suspected Nasr of recruiting insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was subsequently released in 2007. The investigation into the rendition of Nasr came not at the hands of the Italian government, but the Milan local district attorney's office independently. They pursued these charges out of Milan in a quest for not only justice, but to symbolically show that the U.S. cannot conduct operations anywhere it wants to without jurisdictional approval.
Renditions are essentially Bush-era tactics that allow for CIA operators to 'pull' anyone they want, from anywhere they want, whom the believe could be involved in terrorism. No trial. No due process. What's more is not only are these individuals just taken off the street, they are tortured. Again without trial, without due process.
Conservatives will claim that when progressives applaud this sort of decision we are once again "rooting against America". To the contrary. There is absolutely nothing American about taking people of the street (regardless of what we suspect they did) in another nation's jurisdiction, and torturing them without due process. If anything, this is the exact opposite of what America should stand for. Do progressives want to us go after people who wish to do us harm? Of course. However, we want to do it the American way; in the constrains of the laws upon which we live by everyday. We want to do it in a way that does not further perpetuate the international stigma of American arrogance, thus creating even more enemies. We want to do it in a way that is responsible and legal.
Imagine if China or Russia snatched up an American citizen and flew them to some island and tortured them. Would we ever accept that? Of course not, nor should we. Yet, it seems almost silly not to hold ourselves to the same standard of conduct.
President Obama changed the Bush policy of outright renditions by essentially saying that we can take people as long as we ensure they are not tortured and prisoners are "rendered to justice". A step in the right direction, but not certainly not ending the practice. Let's keep moving forward until we are truly adhering to the rule of law.
Harold's Left:
Paul Krugman is perhaps my favorite economist in the world. His book Conscience of a Liberal is a brilliant illustration of liberal ideals and how they have continued to make us more economically stable throughout history. So this begs the question then. Why would Obama pick Larry Summers over Krugman to head up his economic team? Well, because Obama is a centrist grabbing maniac and it this point it has become sickening. First off, Larry Summers was part of the three-man team who's policy of strict de-regulation lead to the collapse of the derivatives market in 2007, which essentially trashed the economy. The other two men? Timothy Geithner and Alan Greenspan. Two of the biggest free-marketeers of the last 15 years... and no wonder we can't get the stimulus we need. This is interesting because Krugman was a vital part of the Obama campaign in 2008 and one of his biggest spokesmen on the campaign trail. So why not when it actually counts?
Krugman has asserted that even though we see a growth in GDP of 3.5% right now, we still are seeing the sort of growth in the private sector yet to force unemployment rates down. Here's his argument in an Op-Ed in the New York Times:
The good news is that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, a k a the Obama stimulus plan, is working just about the way textbook macroeconomics said it would. But that’s also the bad news — because the same textbook analysis says that the stimulus was far too small given the scale of our economic problems. Unless something changes drastically, we’re looking at many years of high unemployment.
And the really bad news is that “centrists” in Congress aren’t able or willing to draw the obvious conclusion, which is that we need a lot more federal spending on job creation.
About that good news: not that long ago the U.S. economy was in free fall. Without the recovery act, the free fall would probably have continued, as unemployed workers slashed their spending, cash-strapped state and local governments engaged in mass layoffs, and more.
The stimulus didn’t completely eliminate these effects, but it was enough to break the vicious circle of economic decline. Aid to the unemployed and help for state and local governments were probably the most important factors. If you want to see the recovery act in action, visit a classroom: your local school probably would have had to fire a lot of teachers if the stimulus hadn’t been enacted.
And the free fall has ended. Last week’s G.D.P. report showed the economy growing again, at a better-than-expected annual rate of 3.5 percent. As Mark Zandi of Moody’s Economy.com put it in recent testimony, “The stimulus is doing what it was supposed to do: short-circuit the recession and spur recovery.”
But it’s not doing enough.
Suppose that the economy were to keep growing at 3.5 percent. If that happened, unemployment would eventually start falling — but very, very slowly. The experience of the Clinton era, when the economy grew at an average rate of 3.7 percent for eight years (did you know that?) suggests that at current growth rates we’d be lucky to see the unemployment rate fall by half a percentage point per year, meaning that it would take a decade to return to something like full employment.
Worse yet, it’s far from clear that growth will continue at this rate. The effects of the stimulus will build over time — it’s still likely to create or save a total of around three million jobs — but its peak impact on the growth of G.D.P. (as opposed to its level) is already behind us. Solid growth will continue only if private spending takes up the baton as the effect of the stimulus fades. And so far there’s no sign that this is happening.
So the government needs to do much more. Unfortunately, the political prospects for further action aren’t good.
What I keep hearing from Washington is one of two arguments: either (1) the stimulus has failed, unemployment is still rising, so we shouldn’t do any more, or (2) the stimulus has succeeded, G.D.P. is growing, so we don’t need to do any more. The truth, which is that the stimulus was too little of a good thing — that it helped, but it wasn’t big enough — seems to be too complicated for an era of sound-bite politics.
But can we afford to do more? We can’t afford not to.
Harold's Left:
We took one on the chin tonight. No, it does not mean much about how America views Obama. By any count the President is still the most popular politician in America. That being said, there are still some fairly interesting things at play here. Let's take a closer look:
New Jersey -
So we have Corzine, a wildly unpopular governor, up against a pretty likable Republican in Chris Christie. I think most observations were that it was going to be very close, as most of the polls had the two running neck and neck. Christie won for a few reasons. First, Democrats were not enthusiastic about Corzine whatsoever. Why should they be? He is not very personable, he's an ex Goldman Sachs executive and he has raised taxes without really convincing voters of the important benefits there taxes are giving them. This is a little disappointing because New Jersey has droves more Democratic registered voters than Republican. However, in off-year elections like this one, the voting demographic tends to be older, whiter, and more conservative. All things that did not work in Corzine's favor. Add on top of that the fact that Democrats are becoming more and more disillusioned with some of the centrist-grabbing leadership in Congress, and it made for a Christie victory. Plus, a down economy plus being and incumbent general equals failure.
Virginia -
If Bob McDonnell does not horrify you... he should. He's essentially Pat Roberson's manchurian candidate. Here's how the Washington Post describes McDonnell:
ON MORE THAN one occasion, Robert F. McDonnell, the Republican candidate for governor in Virginia, has offered a soporific description of his graduate school dissertation as a "thesis on welfare policy." This is false.
In fact, Mr. McDonnell's study, written in 1989 at age 34 in support of his master's degree in public policy and degree in law, is a full-throated attack on liberals, modernity, the Great Society and inheritance taxes, among other supposed ills, which he linked to and blamed for homosexuality, declining morality and the degradation of the traditional family, along with the proliferation of pornography, out-of-wedlock sex, day care, birth control, pregnant teenagers, divorce, single mothers, working women and feminists.
The thesis is a wistful ode to a bygone 1950s America, when, Mr. McDonnell noted, 70 percent of American families were led by working fathers and homemaker mothers, and "every state in the union made sexual intercourse between unmarried persons a crime." Sounding at times like an Old Testament prophet, Mr. McDonnell wrote that government must discriminate in favor of married couples and against "cohabitators, homosexuals or fornicators," for "[t]he cost of sin should fall on the sinner not the taxpayer."
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A deeply researched, passionately written manifesto, the thesis posits a detailed Republican strategy to roll back the evils that Mr. McDonnell saw as afflicting American society generally and the family in particular. On the eve of his political career, Mr. McDonnell was a committed and convinced culture warrior of the right.
The article goes on to describe how McDonnell has attempted to re-brand himself as a moderate since 2005. Well, he's governor now, and the guy who believes in nearly everything that we progressives don't is in charge of the a state that went for Barack Obama just one year ago. One of the most important lessons from Virginia is that who is running is as important as anything. Creigh Deeds is about as a weak a gubernatorial candidate as I can imagine. He's from the rural part of Virginia, is a absolutely terrible speaker, and generally weak on the issues (he said he would opt-out of the public option). McDonnell is the opposite. He's got a million dollar smile, can schmooze with the best of them, and looks like a rock star compared to Deeds in any comparison of speeches. Additionally, the same fate that befell New Jersey also ruined Virgina; Democratic indifference toward the election and minorities and young people not showing up at the polls.
New York's 23rd District -
This is one of the only bright spots for progressives nationally. Many of the conservative movement's biggest stars went against the New York Republican Party's candidate Dede Scozzafava and supported Conservative Party candidate Phil Hoffman, a social conservative, who has become the poster child of the movement's belief that they should be sticking to the conservative playbook when electing officials. Despite all of that, and the fact that NY-23 has been a Republican leaning district for over a century, Bill Owens, the Democratic candidate, won the election. This was a win for progressives because it shows that perhaps Republican's belief that they got trounced in 2008 because they were not "conservative enough" may be (and I of course believe is) untrue. Now I just want to know if Joe Scarborough will eat his words after guaranteeing that Phil Hoffman will easily win the seat in NY-23.
Maine's "No on 1" -
This disheartens me more than the sum of everything else that happened tonight. With the loss Maine's "no on 1" initiative, no same-sex marriage provision has ever held up against a vote by the people. I am of the belief that civil rights issues should not be up to the whims of a general vote, or at least it should not be the end all. In some circumstances I do believe a direct democracy is a good thing. However, if we would have left voting rights for African-Americans up to a vote in Mississippi in the 1960's there would have been an easy defeat. This is one of those instances where adhering to the Constitution trumps any vote by the people, unless that Constitution is amended. The 14th amendment cannot and will not be denied, and I am confident that we will see same-sex marriage as a commonality in my lifetime.
Harold's Left:
Ever noticed how Republicans become deficit-nazis whenever a Democrat gets elected to office? They throw massive fits in the way of tea-parties that seem to bear little resemblance to the event in which it is named. They parade around pundit after pundit on cable news who call for an intervention on government spending. They literally scream from the hills that every program or initiative to move social justice and economic equality forward is simply too expensive or too much change too quickly. The problem is, the facts don't back it up.
Let's take the above image and talk through it as if it were a story...
In the 1950'sw there was an ideological struggle going on in the Republican Party. On the one hand you had those who were still doggedly opposed to the New Deal, over a decade later, claiming that it would spell economic disaster for America. Nevermind that it was exactly the laissez-faire, "let the free market roam" mentality that led to the disaster in 1929. Anyway, President Eisenhower had a choice. He could attempt to roll back some of these programs like Social Security and get rid of government agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission, or he could concede that they had been successful, even if not conceived under his own party, and move on to govern in a way that left those programs in place. Let's just let the graph tell you what his choice ultimately was. He chose the later. Furthermore, because of that we enjoyed an era of relative economic prosperity. During the 60's, Both Kennedy and Nixon stayed mostly par for the course, and ushered in an even greater decade of prosperity. However, during the 60's there was also a quiet little monster that began to gain steam with guys like Barry Goldwater, William F. Buckley and Ronald Reagan; movement conservatism. They used white backlash to the social change of the 60's to win elections and ultimately impose their radical agenda on America. If nothing else, Reagan was a master politician who could effectively convince America that government was evil, a nuisance. That taxes were essentially an assault on individual liberty. He duped millions of poor whites in the South to vote for him on the basis of his opposition to minority social programs and gave those Southern voters little to nothing in return. Why is there such a drastic uptick in Debt to GDP ratio the minute Reagan takes office? The first thing Reagan did was slash taxes on the rich. He believed (sometimes it's hard for me to iterate this without laughing) that wealth would "trickle-down" to the rest of America as long as the rich had plenty of extra money to spend. Yet, it wasn't just Reagan's attack on taxes, it was his all out war on government that proved harmful. He rearranged programs like Medicare and Social Security, making them less efficient. What's more is he changed the political discourse. He made people believe that all of these silly things he was doing to wreck the country were actually the 'American Way'. Okay, so moving on to Clinton. Although, Clinton did little in the way of repealing some of the things Reagan did, he did raise taxes and stimulate the economy. Only problem is Clinton did little in the way of changing the national discourse and by in large embraced laissez-faire capitalism under the auspicious of the ultimate free marketeer; Alan Greenspan. Even so, given all that, Clinton reduced the debt ratio and even ran a surplus in the government. Then comes Bush. So once again you ask, "why is there a spike in the ratio the minute Bush gets in office?" Well that's because Bush, like Reagan, made it his first objective to cut taxes for the rich, and on top of that start an 800 billion dollar war in Iraq.
So that brings us to now, 2009. Given the history of the debt (and deficit) in America, you would think the tea party protesters would be protesting against the policies of Reagan and Bush. Yet, inexplicably, they are not. They are fixated on the cost of every single program that will do insane, crazy, scary things like provide health care insurance for most Americans or save the environment. Nope. They'd rather cry when Obama cuts funding for completely broken and nonsensical programs like the F-22 fighter plane or an Eastern block missile defense program. Or better yet, when he commits to getting us out of a nearly trillion dollar illegitimate war that could have paid for the public-option and anything else health care related in a heartbeat. They'd rather support us spending 65 billion a year on a war in Afghanistan that is going nowhere.
So you've got to ask. What is their agenda really? The party that is supposedly fiscally responsible seems like it is ultimately fiscally irresponsible. I wonder what their excuse will be seven years from now when Obama has reduced the Debt to GDP ratio and slashed the deficit... Probably that somehow Bush's policies trickled down after all these years.
Harold's Left:
Are we at war with Pakistan? It's an important question that brings up a myriad of different issues as to how America should proceed in our pursuit of Al Qaeda. Here's the dilemma:
The Taliban has reorganized in a big way. Not only have they regained a foothold in Eastern Afghanistan, which is where I spent most of 2009, they have gained a notable foothold in the lawless part of Western Pakistan. This area of Western Pakistan called Waziristan, near the Afghan border, is not under the direct control of the Pakistani government, which allows it to be an ideal area for the Taliban to stage attacks in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Taliban has also forged alliances with Al Qaeda in this area, presumably providing a safe haven for some of the organization's top leaders. Although the Taliban is not a direct threat to the U.S. homeland, they have amassed an assault on the weak Pakistani government that could prove a grave threat to U.S. security; as Pakistan is a nuclear armed country. Taliban control of a nuclear armed country is not a favorable situation for America.
So with that, the White House, along with the Pakistani government, has launched an offense against targets in Waziristan targeting key leaders from both Al-Qaeda and the Taliban in the area. America, under the direction of the Obama administration, has ratcheted up the attacks on the area, as well as the Pakistani government sending troops into the area to fight the Taliban in the unforgiving mountains on the border. Over the course of this year, we have engaged in 44 drone missile attacks in Pakistan, ten more than all of 2008, and it seems they are only increasing in frequency. Since 2006, 83 drone attacks have killed nearly 1000 people in Pakistan. At least 20-25 of those people have been key Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders, with another 500-700 of those people being lower level militants. That still leaves at least 250 people (and that's a low-ball number) who were killed that were Pakistani civilians.
This poses a particularly unique quandary for both the United States and Pakistan.
For Pakistan because it puts the leadership of the government at odds with the people it governs. On Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's trip to Pakistan this week, she was bombarded with comments by students and journalists as to whether the U.S. drone attacks in Pakistan are lawful. "You had one 9/11, and we are having daily 9/11s in Pakistan" commented one journalist. "What is actually terrorism in U.S. eyes?... Is it the killing of innocent people in, let's say, drone attacks? Or is it the killing of innocent people in different parts of Pakistan, like the bomb blast in Peshawar two days ago? Which one is terrorism, do you think?" claimed another student. Both viable and important questions for the people of Pakistan to ask. This is at the crux of the problem for the Pakistani government. It is in their strategic interest to fight the Taliban and keep them from creeping any further East toward Islamabad. Yet, to do this the Pakistani's have to work with the U.S. in order to hit the Taliban from both sides, a position that is not popular with its people.
For the U.S., the dilemma is even more complicated. With mounting civilian casualties and ambiguity as to the international legality of the drone attacks, Obama and the U.S. are in a tight spot. On the one hand, letting the Taliban control a nuclear armed Pakistan in any way seems like an unthinkable possibility for any American leader. On the other, continuing to mount civilian casualties in attacks that have shady international legal backing undermines U.S. credibility in not only Pakistan, but around the rest of the world. When Pakistanis pose the question "Would the U.S. allow this type of action from China or Russia", the answer is undoubtedly no. This only emboldens the international community's claims that the United States is the only nation that seems to be above the law, while simultaneously requiring other nations to abide strictly by it.
So the answer to the original question of "Are we at war with Pakistan?" is no, not directly. However, we do seem to be at war with ourselves, albeit in the way of our own moral standing.
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