More on Angie Zapata and violence against trans women.

1. "It."

As Cassuto noted, when people objectify others, they find it much easier both to possess and to kill them. What he meant by objectification was not sexual, but literally treating a person as an object. Cassuto also pointed out that humans are never fully able to conceive of another person as a thing, and so they enter that space in between thing and human--they become monsters.

In most of these cases (Angie Zapata's and others), the transgender woman is doubly objectified--first as a woman that the person feels entitled to, sexually (the usual feminist definition of objectification) and then when they find out that she isn't exactly what they were expecting, she becomes a thing, and thus something that can be killed--"it."

It's that very monstrosity-through-objectification that is threatening, though, because if she were simply a thing, she would no longer be frightening and need to be killed. It's the fact that she's still at once the woman he was attracted to and yet not what he's 'supposed' to be attracted to that makes her monstrous, that requires her death, that creates this 'panic' that to some people actually justifies killing another person.

2. The media.

In the news, the trans woman is both acceptable victim because she is a woman, and deserving victim because she does not fit the box that we've put 'women' into. She's another step removed from the Natalee Holloways and Laci Petersons of this world--particularly from Peterson, who was so defined by her biology, her pregnancy, her fetus, always so obsessively named in the media.

It is appropriate for a woman to be a victim of violence, and even more appropriate for a woman of color to be a victim of violence--it's expected. News coverage of violence against women goes in a hierarchy, but trans women are at the very bottom of it, (well, trans women of color sex workers would be the very bottom) and that's just wrong. It's "not a typical hate crime"? Then what else is it?

Back to the monster theory for a second--do you think that people who commit hate crimes against those of a different race than them don't have a similar process in their brains that tells them people of this other race are less human than they are, different, Other, monsters, and thus killable? Is the so-called "irrational" reaction that made this man kill a woman less a product of his hate and fear than a Klansman's hatred for black people or a Nazi's hatred for Jews?

3. Sexual assault.

As I mentioned above, Angie Zapata was doubly objectified--first as a woman. The man who killed her stated for the record(!) that he found out she had a penis by grabbing her genital area. As if it's some male right to check for himself, right? To test out the goods?

Wrong.

So this guy not only killed a woman, he sexually assaulted her first, and then stole her car, and we're supposed to believe that somehow he's the victim in this case? I mean, if I grab some guy's cock, find out he's not circumcised, am I allowed to bash his head in and then drive off with his car because it offends me as a Jewish woman?

I doubt it.

Lisa has more.

Welcome Karthika!

I would now like to welcome the 2nd of our new bloggers, Karthika Muthukumaraswamy.

Karthika is a graduate student in journalism at Temple University in Philadelphia. She'll be writing on a wide variety of topics, including the media, science, immigration, and tennis. She recently had a piece on crowdsourcing published in the Guardian, which is pretty cool. As you can see from her post below, she has interesting takes on important issues and will start a lot of good discussions here. I know that I'm really excited about having Karthika write here and I hope you are too.

Film Review--Fletch (1985)

This week, I received the upcoming two-disc release of Fletch and Fletch Lives for review on DVD Verdict. Because I have to review the classic original alongside its abysmal sequel, I decided to write a few thoughts here about the movie by itself.

It had been more than a decade sing I’d last seen Fletch and, after an awful experience with re-watching Trading Places recently, I didn’t know how well it would hold up after all this time. No matter how much I loved the movie then, there were no guarantees about how funny it would be, especially given how decidedly not funny he is at this point. It took about three movies for me to tire of Chase’s bit and he’s become just about as bad as a comedian can get. So, as to the question of whether I’ve simply stopped liking his shtick or he’s stopped performing it well, I’m happy to say that it is him and not me who has the problem. Fletch is a damn funny movie that is among the absolute best work of Chase’s career, if it’s not the best film he’s in (which is Caddyshack, hands down, though more because of Bill Murray and Ted Knight than Chase). On a side note, I was very surprised to realize that this was rated PG in 1985 and oh how the rating systems have changed. There’s nothing gratuitously violent or sexual, but the language and sexual humor couldn’t even get a PG-13 rating today.

At this point in his career, Chase was the uncrowned king of the one-liners and, left to his own devices, comes across doing a Groucho Marx-style bit, except with more pratfalls. He’s good at it, spewing out a seemingly endless stream of smart-assed remarks to anyone he sees and then falling on his face. I’m no fan of pratfall comedy in general, but he makes me laugh with it every time, though it’s the lines that make the movie. Everyone’s a straight man to the aloof Fletch, whose self-satisfaction is beyond the pale (one of many reasons that this character is the most like Chase as a person). Abusing the kindness of junkies, sexually harassing women, and generally being a dick is Fletch’s game, but everyone around him acts, if not quite normally, that this is business as usual instead of the more deserving, less funny, response of punching him in the face. The only exasperation comes from the newspaper editor, whose hot story is being held up by our hero’s antics, this has less to do with Fletch and more with his stereotypically Jewish neuroses.

Technically, the characters are based on novels by Gregory McDonald but, in reality, Fletch, who is the only character with any depth, is a creation entirely Chase’s own. Not having read the books, I can only assume that the surrounding story is more closely adapted, but Chase was free to ad-lib all he wanted to the point where he has said that he directed the comedy. It’s hard to argue with that but, though every scene is constructed to allow Chase the most comic freedom, screenwriter Andrew Bergman and director Michael Ritchie have made a generally well-written and well-composed film for an action/comedy, certainly not my favorite genre with all its requisite shootouts and car chases, but the story is more compelling than most of its kind. Ritchie never allows plot coherence to get in the way of a good joke, however, the way it should be in a comedy. The classic lines and delivery, what everyone always stood in line to see from Chevy Chase, in the end, are what make Fletch so memorable and, to finish, these are my three favorite lines from the film, at least of what I can think of right now.

5. “It was something your wife said while we were in bed together. She said we had the same build. From the waist up, I mean.
4. “You know if you shoot me, you’re liable to lose those humanitarian awards.”
3. “I would have been here sooner, but a manure-spreader jackknifed on the Santa Ana. Godawful mess. You should see my shoes.”
2. “May I borrow that towel? My car just hit a water buffalo.”
and...drum roll, please....
1. [to distract a raging Doberman] “Look! Defenseless babies!”

The Internet Wars

Some people want to wage a war on the Internet. Much as this sounds like one of Dubya’s pet projects, it isn’t. That of course, would have been waged on the Internets. Or as McCain would put it, on a Google. This war is by former New Republic reporter Lee Siegel.

Now castigating the “Internet” might seem like an absurd, if not futile task: it’s not like it’s a single entity or organization, with a hierarchy and mean money-makers at the top. In fact, the beauty of the Internet lies in the lack of it all: its pervasiveness, its decentralization, and its equalizing quality. And those are exactly the things that Lee Siegel criticizes.

“In terms of people just venting their opinions, I really have to take a very unpopular position here and say I don't see how that can be harnessed for good. I don't know what good comes of that kind of clamor. It makes these individuals feel good. It gives them the illusion that they're being read,” he said on NPR’s On the Media recently and made me stop dead in my tracks – literally, because I had taken the luxury of taking a podcast of my favorite show on a jog, one of many things this free-for-all Internet allows me to do.

Like most extreme sentiments, Siegel’s dislike was borne of a personal mishap: about two years ago, as a reporter for the New Republic, he adopted a virtual personality to fend off harsh, and for the most part, unfair personal attack by commenters on the magazine’s Web site. When his Internet persona, “sprezzatura” (meaning, quite craftily, “deceptive simplicity”) was outed, Siegel was suspended by the magazine and castigated in the blogging world. This led him to write the book, “Against the machine,” which points to the many ill effects of the Internet in today’s society.

Siegel blames the Internet for feeding into a pop culture that puts everything on display, and denounces it as a huge popularity contest. Calling it “the first social environment to serve the needs of the isolated, the elevated, asocial individual,” he disses the so-called “connectivity” that the Internet brings, and proceeds to say that being glued to a computer screen brings anything but.

Let’s face it, there’s some truth to that. Wouldn’t most people prefer to sit at a bar to catch up with a friend or walk to a coffee shop to meet an acquaintance, rather than settle down in the confines of their bedroom and chat on a virtual window? After all, we all know that’s where the metaphor of “pajama-clad” blogger came from. It wasn’t intended to represent a demographic that is social and normal.

But that was several years ago. The world has changed since then. This is a world where people meet their significant others on eHarmony, political candidates campaign on youtube, and youngsters proclaim their allegiances on social networking sites. Many people’s idea of a reprieve is settling down in a media immersion pod for several hours with access to nothing but the Internet (a.k.a . Tokyo’s Gran Cyber cafes). Even without physical contact with another human being, the entire world is open to them – through instant messaging, SMS, social networking sites and blogs.

Siegel and those Internet naysayers out there should realize that the social nature of the world is changing. Of course there is such a thing as overdoing it, as with everything else. Once a Gawker icon, Emily Gould wrote a heart-wrenching account of how her life was laid bare to the world by unrestrained revelations in cyberspace. Cyberstalkers and voyeurs abound. There are times when the comments threads on blogs become a veritable breeding ground of curse words and hate posts, often lacking in any constructive subject matter.

But in an online age with millions of voices expressing views and opinions on every topic under the sun, what is a little noise? There is no question that the computer and Internet have revolutionized the way we perceive knowledge and acquire information. We probably don’t remember as much or retain as much. Is Google making us stupid, to use Nicholas Carr’s phrase by reminding us the date of the battle of Saratoga or even a friend’s last name? In a survey conducted recently more than half the young people could not recall their relatives’ birthdays and a third were incapable of
recollecting their own phone numbers.

Technology is making so much information available to us, and is performing so much of our mind’s work that we are now left to ponder thoughts and insights we never knew we had. Hence we contemplate the motives behind that opportunistic move by a politician, the inner psyche of a criminal or well, the changing behavior of an Internet-powered society, sometimes a tad too loudly.

As Clive Thomspon writes in Wired, “by offloading data onto silicon, we free our own gray matter for more germanely “human” tasks like brainstorming and daydreaming.” The vastness and potential of cyberspace has redefined memory and intelligence as we see it. What is the point of carrying that information load in our brains anyway, when we can put our minds to better use?

This is as good a reason for the vociferous opiners on cyberspace, as is Siegel’s assertion of a schoolyard mentality. And as our brain adopts different functions owing to the Internet, so it learns to filter the vast amount of content out there. The ability to select is after all an important aspect of this form of information consumption.

Something to think about. Now that Google has given us the time for it.

More on Obama, McCain, and the Caribbean

A few weeks ago I offered some tentative observations on what an Obama administration or a McCain administration may mean for foreign policy in Latin America. Last week, the Miami Herald looked more specifically at what either an Obama or McCain administration might mean for the Caribbean.

I strongly disagree already with those analysts who think McCain's stance on free trade would be good for the region. We saw in the 90s how free trade in Latin America ravaged far more stable and larger economies than there are in the Caribbean. And as for any policy experience McCain may be able to legitimately claim, I don't believe any of it he can claim for specific experience in and/or knowledge about the Caribbean. It's really not hard to know what McCain's adivor means when he says ''John McCain's vision for Latin America and the Caribbean basin is based on a belief . . . we need to develop an approach founded on peace and security, shared prosperity, democracy and freedom and mutual respect"; it means that he reserves the right to tell and, if necessary, to try to coerce the South American continent and the Caribbean (though let me stress here that the way the U.S. deals with the Caribbean region and with Latin America more broadly, something the article briefly blurs, are really two very different matters, both historically and presently) into doing what we think will benefit the U.S. the most, with barely any genuine concern for the goodwill of the other countries.

Of the three schools of thought voiced in the article, I agree most with those who "see the Caribbean as a low priority for each [Obama and McCain] and express little optimism that either will produce radical change," and I think Peter Hakim's right in claiming that "the lack of focus by either candidate on the region is a hint of what's to come regardless of who wins in November." Certainly, Obama's stance towards Cuba and the insistence he'll open a dialogue with Raul Castro is a major difference between him and McCain, but beyond that, and in the region more broadly, neither has really said anything, and there's no reason to believe they'll really have the Caribbean within their first 10 priorities (and I'm being generous here).

And that's not necessarily a criticism. Given the situations with the American economy, the war in Iraq, the war in Afghanistan, the ongoing insistence that only the U.S. can oversee a peace deal between Israel and Palestine, the need to confront growing, more egalitarian trade deals with rising giants like China, Brazil, and India, the Caribbean truly is a low priority for our next president. Sure, it would be great if we could try to crack down some on the wealthy who flee to the Caribbean for its status as a "tax haven," but that shouldn't be within the first 30 steps to fix the economy. And I suppose it's fine that "Barbadians [now you know what to call them] feel good" about Obama possibly becoming president, but what bearing should that have at all on whether the president does more for the region or not? Certainly, building up goodwill is fine and all, and if the next president can benignly and non-imperialistically or non-paternalistically become involved in the Caribbean, I guess that's fine. I just don't really see it happening that much in the next four years, given how things are and what the global geopolitical context is.

RIP - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

While 89 is a good run, particularly given you spent some of your life, no matter how briefly, in a gulag, I'm still saddened by Solzenhitsyn's death. I remember One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich as one of the best books I read in high school, and The Gulag Archipelago, which I just read earlier this year, was remarkable in the way Solzenhitsyn chronicled the horrors of the Gulags and the state that supported them while maintaining an eloquent, heartbreaking writing style that was nothing short of brilliant. While he had been in poor health recently, it's still a sad loss, and everybody should read the Gulag Archipelago.

And not to be too snarky in this, but I was a little bothered by the obit's line that read "[his books] inspired millions, perhaps, with the knowledge that one person's courage and integrity could, in the end, defeat the totalitarian machinery of an empire." For those keeping count, the "one person" in media accounts and obituaries who brought down communism has now been Ronald Reagan, Pope John Paul II, Boris Yeltsin, and now Solzhenitsyn. Maybe after the fifth "one man" dies, they'll get the picture that the Soviet Union and Communism "fell" for a wide range of reasons.

Channeling my inner Paul Harvey...

And now, the rest of the story (about the regulation of pesticides in California).

In 1977, a company was spraying an herbicide in Mendocino County, California (an important county for agricultural production—not only marijuana, though pot exports from the county are estimated at around $5 billion a year!) in an effort to retard the growth of hardwood trees in favor of growing more coniferous trees, which the company was harvesting. The spraying was done by plane, and the herbicide was found off the company’s property in several areas (including all over a school bus).

Mendocino County, which has been on the front lines of a number of environmental/agricultural regulation issues (from pesticides to banning GMO crops to seeking to certify marijuana grown there as organic), decided to regulate the aerial spraying of the chemical. This 1977 county ordinance was tied up in the court systems until 1984, first being challenged by California Attorney General George Deukmejian (Deukmejian was a Republican who later became governor; his administration rolled back countless environmental provisions in deference to business interests). The law was challenged on grounds that this kind of regulation was the state's jurisdiction, not that of municipal goverment. In 1984, the California Supreme Court ruled that prohibiting the use/application method of a herbicide/pesticide did not conflict with any state law, in that it did not duplicate or contradict any extant state law. From the reading I’ve been doing, it seems that logic went as such: since the state law did not expressly grant the right to use a particular method of application, the county ordinance banning it did not contradict a right expressly given by the state. Similar cases have arisen in the U.S. Supreme Court with respect to the conflict of federal and local laws, with somewhat mixed results. The Environmental Law Institute’s Deskbook of Pesticide Regulation has an interesting (if somewhat hard to follow for those, like me, who are among the legally uninitiated) discussion of the gray areas of these laws.

Industry quickly lobbied for a new state law-- the 1984 state law was quickly passed. This new law took on the municipal regulations head-on and expressly prohibited local governments from regulating “any matter relating to the registration, sale, transportation, or use of pesticides” and declared the local ordinances “void and of no force or effect”. Harsh, no?

That leaves us to California AB 977 (24 years later...), sponsored by Fiona Ma. This would restore the ability of local governments to regulate pesticides. This would be a hell of a law for a Republican to oppose—it is so easy to frame as a “Big Government telling local communities what do to” issue. Not that I find a great deal of ideological consistency on the right; it seems a non-rabid conservative could get behind something this, at least from an anti-Big Government standpoint.

Around South America

-In Peru, official outrage erupted as a magazine ran pictures of a nude model sitting astride the national flag. Defense officials are outraged, wanting prosecution of the journal, while the journal's editor suggests there is no higher patriotism than celebrating national holidays and symbols by placing a naked woman on top of the flag. Seriously.

-Alvaro Uribe offered the rarest of rare things yesterday: criticism of the U.S. from his own mouth. Uribe took the U.S. to task for giving extradited drug-lords lighter sentences in return for information. I'm not sure who's right or wrong here; I don't think that more draconian sentences is going to solve the drug problem in Colombia (working on the demand-side will), but certainly lighter sentences in the U.S. prisons probably don't have many drug-lords shaking in Colombia, either.

-Ecuador's constituent assembly approved a new constitution for the country, now sending the issue to a national vote referendum at the end of September. Among the items that would be included in the new Constitution (if the population approves it, which it may not do) would be broader social programs; more presidential power to accomplish things (as the system is established now, Ecuador's Congress, wracked by cronyism, inefficiency, and a political elite that does little but take care of its own, can and does easily prevent anything from being done by what is probably a too-weak executive authority; the new constitution hopes to amend this); the president could close Congress once, but Congress could also unseat the president (with elections following in either circumstance); and, very interestingly for a Latin American and/or Catholic country, give same-sex unions the same rights as opposite-sex marriages.

-Bolivian indigneous groups from the Eastern lowlands are planning to meet with Congress in September to discuss how Chevron lied to Congress in an attempt to avoid paying $16 billion (with a "b") in damages for polluting the region (the decision stems from a case filed way back in 1993, and still has to receive a judge's approval some time next year). Representatives from the Cofan, Secoya, and Siona tribes are trying to get reimbursed for environmental damage caused by "dumping 18.5 billion gallons of toxic waste into Amazon waterways from 1964 to 1990, thereby decimating the ability of the indigenous groups to live off the rainforest. Texaco [bought by Chevron in 2001] also built roughly 1000 unlined open-air waste pits that have been leeching toxins into the soil and groundwater for decades." The indigenous leaders will be traveling in order to talk to Congress themselves and explain how Chevron's lobbyists, including Trent Lott, John Negroponte, and many other governmental officials past and present, have misled Congress and tried to get the U.S. government to pressure Ecuador to drop the case with the threat of withdrawal of economic support from Ecuador. (Erik may be right about coal companies in the U.S., but in my book, globally none is as despicable as the oil companies are.)

-Argentina's president Kristina Fernandez Kirchner has an amazingly sane take on how to deal with the drug issue, proposing to decriminalize possession and work harder at rehab programs and going after distributors and dealers (if you're going to attack the supply-side, that's the way to do it).

-The New York Times finally gets around to talking about the economic growth in Brazil that I've discussed before (for example, here, here, here, and here). The report offers the general picture of growth, but there are some pretty impressive stats, including the facts that "Brazil has shrunk its income gap by six percentage points since 2001, more than any other country in South America this decade," and that "while the top 10 percent of Brazil’s earners saw their cumulative income rise by 7 percent from 2001 to 2006, the bottom 10 percent shot up by 58 percent." I would just blatantly point out what the New York Times does not here, but is something I absolutely believe: these changes have happened in large part because of Lula's approach to governing, which has not shied away from investment but has avoided privatizations or short-term fixes, while simultaneously investing public money into social programs. Certainly, Brazil still has a very long way to go in terms of the income gap. Still, the facts that Lula's social programs are doing more than anybody predicted, people are gaining more access to purchasing goods that they previously never could afford, and Brazil's economy doesn't have any signs of slowdown ahead, as its currency is doing great and it's industrial base has diversified, are all excellent news, and I think a lot of the credit does belong to Lula on this.

-While we're on the subject of Lula, he took a new step in environmental protection, setting up a fund designed to "promote alternatives to forest-clearing for people living in the Amazon, and support conservation and sustainable development." As critical as I (and Erik and Randy) have been of Lula on environmental policy, this is truly a great step, primarily because it not only puts money into conservation efforts, but also because it puts money towards social programs that will hopefully prevent people from deforesting for money. I don't begrudge him his efforts to maintain sovereignty on the Amazon and in fact actually think the fund finally puts some efforts behind Brazil's rhetoric. (Up to this point, Brazil has often insisted that the Amazon is its business, and has often bristled at outside help, but without ever really trying to do much financially itself). Anyhow, this is just a small step, and will not radically shift Lula's environmental legacy. That said, it's still a great step in the right direction, and it's the best step he's taken environmentally yet.

-And finally, an interesting (if sometimes disjointed) article at the Times uses the rumor of a Brazilian immigrant winning the lottery to get into broader issues of what "the American dream" means to immigrants, how the economy's collapse is affecting them, and the ways in which modern technology allows Brazilians in the U.S. and Brazil to communicate more quickly than ever.

Korean Pachelbel

Andrew Leonard at Salon has an short, interesting piece on the odd permeation of Johann Pachelbel in Korean pop culture. He links to a small number of Korean versions of Pachelbel's pieces, including a beatboxing piano player. The best of that set is a version of his Canon in D, the most famous of his pieces, played on the gayageum, a sixth-century Korean instrument akin to the zither. It's a fantastic rendition. I'm sure there's a lot of the stuff out there, but I don't think that I've ever heard one classical tradition interpret another. If anybody knows of anything, clue me in.

On another note, I'm sorry for my absence from the blog over the past month. Sometimes, no matter how much I love doing it, the process of writing is the most brutally frustrating experience in the world for me.

Just How Low Brazil's Media Can Go

Courtesy of the Latin Americanist comes this linked report on Aecio Neves and the media's treatment of him. Aecio Neves is the grandson of Tancredo Neves, former Minas Gerais senator and the first president-elect after Brazil's military dictatorship (Tancredo died after the election but before the inauguration, leading to his running-mate Jose Sarney assuming office in an interesting game of politicking that is too fascinating but lengthy to go into here). Neves has been the favorite for the PSDB's candidate in 2010 among political analysts since even before Lula's re-election in 2006, when many thought he'd make a run (he declined, saying he was too "young and inexperienced" to be president, as he wasn't even 50 at the time; he'll be 50 in March 2010).

I see absolutely no reason not to believe anything in the report itself. O Globo is even more evil than it comes out in the report. O Globo's political, social, cultural, and economic ideologies have always been patnetnntly clear - it's the worst kind of right-wing propaganda machine hiding behind the facade of "news." It is already throwing its support behind Aecio because it suspects that it can get the best relations with him if he is elected. O Globo enjoyed a love affair with the presidency during the Fernando Henrique Cardoso years, and Neves is from the same party (PSDB). Additionally, while Lula has remained cordial, he hasn't just bowed in when Globo put pressure on him in the media, nor has he given O Globo the kind of unrestricted access it wants of a president. Indeed, it's not a stretch to say Lula has been the worst president for O Globo in over 40 years, for a number of reasons: Lula has refused to so openly go into Globo's pocket as his predecessors (although his government has still been cordial to Globo); Globo's ownership and political line is right-wing (Roberto Marinho, O Globo's late founder, was in bed with the dictatorship from the 1960s to the 1980s, even going so far as to describe a million-person protest against the dictatorship in the early 1980s as a gathering for Sao Paulo's 400th anniversary, and NOT a political protest); and Lula's class, background (as laborer and labor leader who never went to college), and speaking (he's not the most intellectual speaker) all are exactly the kinds of things O Globo reacts against and tries to put down across both its news and entertainment programs. That O Globo would throw itself behind Neves so early (elections aren't until 2010, let's not forget) is no big surprise, and fits in perfectly with O Globo's efforts to not just influence, but directly change Brazil's political scene and its right-wing ideologies.

As for Estado de Minas Gerais, the newspaper, that's no less of a non-surprise to me. Minas prides itself on its political importance, and between the 1890s and 1930s, Minas and Sao Paulo alternated presidents, with each state taking turns providing Brazil's next president (in a political period called "Cafe com Leite" - coffee with milk. Minas was Brazil's leading dairy producer at the time, and Sao Paulo, coffee). However, since 1930, Minas has had only one president, Juscelino Kubitschek (the man who moved the capital to Brasilia), and he left office in 1960 (again, Tancredo Neves, while elected president, never served). Estado de Minas has nothing to lose in supporting Neves, and plenty to gain, both in terms of being a leader of regional identity, and in the rewards it may reap from Neves should he win.

The one thing I would say (and this is far from a defense of the man himself) is I'm almost certain Neves is not behind this. Again, the Brazilian media, and especially O Globo, has been one of the fiercest practitioners of self-censoring journalists who do not toe the company line politically. Certainly, Neves can and has exploited O Globo's favoritism towards him, but in that, I can't blame him; any politician who had O Globo throwing itself at him or her would do well to take advantage, particularly because pissing off O Globo can very realistically end your political career; it's simply an organization that you do not want to piss off unless you really have nothing to lose, or owe nothing to O Globo (and certainly, Lula owes nothing to O Globo). So it may be Machiavellian of Neves to take advantage, but I'm sure that he was not the one who has initiated all this - indeed, O Globo was really behind Neves in 2006, too, until he simply said he wasn't going to run for president yet.

I'd like to say that this report was really shocking to me, but it's not; it's still depressing, but the fact that Brazilian media, and especially O Globo, is a corrupt, monopolistic organization that serves as right-wing propaganda and worries more about its commercial power than reporting the news is no big secret. Still, it's worth watching the report, particularly for those wanting to better understand how Brazilian media operates.

Violence against trans women.

Because I should write about it but I just can't today. I have too much to do. So please read these. And think about what happens when we make a person "it."

At La Chola.

At TransGriot.

At Questioning Transphobia.

At Shakesville.

At Feministe.

(Violence against women and its portrayal in the media is one of my major topics of study, and I'll be all over this soon, I promise. Because violence against trans women is both violence against women and boundary policing, both abusing a victim that is easy to pick on, that society won't blame you for, and the media portrays it consistently like the trans person in question was asking for it. And fuck them.)

The Pathetic Local Justifications of Mountaintop Removal

Mountaintop removal is one of the greatest environmental travesties in the world today. It is almost without question the most severe environmental degradation issue the United States faces today. I have argued before that nobody cares much because it takes place in West Virginia and eastern Kentucky, a land filled with conservative poor white people that environmentalists neither know nor trust.

But in any case, the coal industry and their local stooges consistently pull out this refrain for justifying why mountaintop removal is good for the local community:

"A lot of people look at mountain top removal [mining] as a negative, but I see it as a positive. We need to stop apologizing for coal ... I want us to promote mountain top removal, because we need flat land. We can not have economic expansion without places to do things and part of mountain top removal is for places like hospitals, airports and different type of merchants."

Lieutenant Governor Daniel Mongiardo, Kentucky. Via Grist.

I have seen this exact same refrain before in other places, particularly local West Virginia and Kentucky newspapers. It is utterly absurd to anyone who knows the area. Flattening mountains will never bring economic prosperity to southern Appalachia. Big business is simply not going to move there. Unless they flatten the whole region, the roads are too narrow and the area is too far away from major cities to make sense as an industrial hub. The citizens, in no small part because of the rapacious coal companies, are among the poorest and least well-educated in the country. The jobs they want to compete for are already in the developing world, because no matter how much the coal industry tears apart Appalachia and no matter how desperate the citizens are for decent work, they are not going to be able to compete with the cheap labor of Mexico, Guatemala, Bangladesh, and 50 other nations across the world.

I also don't think that the coal companies and local elites who make these arguments really believe other businesses will move into the region either. They claim these benefits to justify the incredible environmental and economic damage they are doing to Appalachia. By giving people false hope for a better future, they undermine the legitimate criticism they get from local citizens groups and those few people in other parts of the country who care about what is happening there.

Coal companies are the single most evil entity in the United States. I firmly believe this.

Escovedo

I really appreciated David Hajdu's article in The New Republic on the great Alejandro Escovedo and his new album Real Animal. I recommend everyone check it out.

Escovedo is one of my favorite musicians. I have seen him several times at The Continental Club since I moved to the Austin area last year. Hajdu is particularly right about one thing--his new songs are not that great. I haven't heard the album but I have not been moved by most of the songs he has played off it. Hajdu is basically saying "Escovedo really deserves the attention he is finally receiving as an older and sick man. This despite the fact that the album is not that good." This makes sense to me.

My recommendation--go buy his phenomenal 2001 album A Man Under the Influence, then go buy Bourbonitis Blues and With These Hands. You will think these are all awesome albums. Then you can buy his more recent work.

Historical Image of the Day

W.E.B. DuBois, 1918

Welcome to Our New Blogger, Yann Kerevel

Alterdestiny is continuing to expand. The post below on voting in New Mexico was written by Yann Kerevel, a Ph.D. student in political science at the University of New Mexico. An expert on Mexico, Yann will expand our coverage of Latin America, making us one of the best Latin American blogs out there if I may say so. He will be discussing other matters, political and nonpolitical as well.

Personally, I am hoping for some posts from Yann on Roky Erickson and Santo films.

We have at least one more amazing new blogger coming on board as well and I will introduce her after her first post as well.

The sad state of voter registration in New Mexico

While Erik asked me to participate on this blog to write about Mexico, I thought I’d make a quick post about New Mexico (sorry Erik if I'm already breaking the rules!) while I continue working on my first post about Mexican politics. (Stay tuned for an analysis of the proposed reforms of Mexico’s national oil company, PEMEX).

In the last two days I’ve been approached twice by people trying to register new voters in Albuquerque who have asked me to fill out another registration form even after I tell them I’m already registered. The second time it happened, I asked the guy who he was working for and he told me ACORN.  Not only was I annoyed by this attempt to get me to fill out another form, but also by the unprofessional appearance of these two individuals. Neither of them had any visible identification for whom they worked for (a organizational t-shirt would have sufficed). Since voter registration forms require sensitive information (social security numbers), I find it frustrating that third party voter registration efforts would think that sending out people that look unprofessional is the best way convince people to hand over information that could potentially be used for identity theft. I probably sound like a grumpy old man here, but voter registration should be taken more seriously, and a simple dress code with an ID badge is not too much to ask for. I don’t want to lay all the blame here on one organization, I know similar problems existed here in 2006 in the Democratic campaign for Patricia Madrid.

However, ACORN has come under a lot of heat for the actions of some of its temporary workers here in New Mexico for providing misleading information, as well as in Virginia and Pennsylvania for falsifying voter registration forms. A lot of problems, including my own experience, seem to stem from the organization’s requirement that workers meet some quota before being paid for their work, leading some of them to submit fraudulent registration forms in order to get paid. Some of these problems are not necessarily related to the organization, as a number of non-partisan groups are filing a lawsuit against the state of New Mexico for particularly restrictive laws that require organizations involved in voter registration to submit forms within 48 hours of being collected in bundles of 50. This particular law seems to encourage these groups to gather as many forms as possible in a very short amount of time. The other problem, which does not seem to be mentioned all that often, is that political campaigns, ballot counting, election administration, and voter registration efforts have to typically rely on a particular subset of the population who are unemployed, work for temp agencies, or for some other reason are not regularly working. It is great that our political process can give temporary work to people who need it, but the consequence is many critical aspects of our elections are run by the least educated part of the population. I am not suggesting that these people should not be participating, but that maybe a recognition of this situation could lead to some better training by organizations involved in the electoral process. Ideally, we could do away with all this voter registration controversy and get rid of voter registration entirely as in North Dakota or move towards same-day registration as in Wisconsin and Minnesota.

Historical Image of the Day

Langston Hughes

Hooters

Steve G asks a very important question:

I don't get Hooters. What are they selling? You look at the name, the way they write the o's, the marketing, and you figure it's about breasts. But in reality, it's just a regular restaurant. A bunch of guys watching NASCAR, eating wings. WINGS! Even when Hooters serves chicken, they don't let you see a breast. So, my sense is that it is a topless bar for people who don't want to go to a bar and don't want to see anyone topless.

The whole thing seems to be a bit like Confederate Civil War re-enactors. I haven't joined the real Army to go to an actual war in Iraq, but I just want to say I'm a rebel who has sympathy with the non-politically correct side of things...just not that much of a rebel.

Someone please explain Hooters to me.

I also need Hooters explained to me. Moreover, does anyone else remember the short-lived Hooters Air? That also could use an explanation. I've never actually been to a Hooters, but it just seems like a place to engage in low-level sexual harassment and eat bad food. I can't say this is particularly appealing to me in any conceivable way. No doubt I lack the testosterone and ability to bond in manly ways to ever understand.

Return of the Son of Random 10

It's been awhile, but I'm going to revive my random 10 here. It's purely for selfish motivations - I enjoyed doing it, plain and simple. I may not do it every Friday, and I'll probably only offer comments on random songs when I'm so inclined, but there you have it.

(And a quick comment: "The Freed Pig" is one of the best singles of the 1990s. The Sebadoh original is great, and Kim Deal's sped-up version makes it even edgier. Just great, great rock, 90s or otherwise, both versions).

1. "I'll Believe in Anything" - Wolf Parade
2. "New Orleans Joys" - Jelly Roll Morton
3. "Knock Knock" - The Hives
4. "Pabellon de Las Rosas (Vals)" - Juan D'Arienzo & Su Orquestra Tipica
5. "Freed Pig" - Breeders
6. "Yonder Stands the Sinner" - Neil Young
7. "I Missed the Point" - Neko Case
8. "After Hours" - Velvet Underground
9. "Long Divison" - Death Cab for Cutie
10. "French Tickler" - Sonic Youth

Brazil Resuming Nuclear Reactor Construction

Lula has authorized resuming the establishment of a third reactor, which had sat idle for 22 years at Brazil's Angra dos Reis nuclear power plant, in southwestern Rio de Janeiro state. The power plant was originally decreed in the 1970s as part of the military dictatorship's demonstration of how Brazil was finally attaining the levels of "development" it required to assume it's rightful place in the world (in what I would call Brazil's historical "order and progress" complex). The idea of the power plant was borne equally out of the fact that many members of the military brass saw nuclear power as the next necessary step to achieve progress in Brazil, as well as being influenced by broader geopolitical factors, including Argentina gaining nuclear power. Interestingly, the public met such plans with an at-best lukewarm response in Brazil when they first came up, but after Jimmy Carter heavily pushed Brazil not to turn to nuclear power, it attained a level of popular nationalism the military government itself could never have achieved on its own, thereby giving the project far greater popular legitimacy as well. Brazil ultimately gained its nuclear technology and capabilities via help from West Germany, and began working on two reactors. The third, begun in 1986, was quickly abandoned as Brazil entered inflation rates in the hundreds and even thousands in the late-1980s and 1990s. Now, with a booming economy and a growing need for energy, Lula has authorized resuming construction of the third reactor.

I am really ambivalent about this. Many Brazilians argue that if there is any country in the world that does not have the right to tell countries whether they can or cannot use nuclear power, it's the United States, given its arsenal and the fact that it's the only country that has used a nuclear weapon against an enemy. While I'm not sure that the latter part is fully germane to the issue at hand, I generally agree that any nation that has already attained nuclear power and has an absurd amount of nuclear capabilities, particularly in the military area, they really do not have a very strong base upon which they can tell other countries not to use the power they have enjoyed for decades.

Additionally, while nuclear power may not be the best options, I think it's demonstrated that, if done correctly, it can be safe. Yes, there are risks; there always were, always are, and always will be. Yet the fact that Brazil is looking to improve its energy system by moving beyond hydroelectric power. I'd still really like to see Brazil further explore wind power, which it's showing no sign of doing (though things can change). That said, I suppose if Brazil wants to turn to nuclear power in order to not have to dam up so much of the rivers in the Amazon and elsewhere, I'm ok with that.

However, this is where my ambivalence enters. While hydroelectric dams are definitely damaging to the environment, the disaster that could happen with the nuclear plant is infinitely worse. And again, that doesn't mean things will happen, but the sheer risk makes me antsy. Additionally, I've travelled around Angra dos Reis, and the location of the nuclear power plant is one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen, with amazing beaches in the region and thick forest butting up against small mountains; even the historical legacy of the area is great, as Paraty, an old colonial town that has been for the most part preserved, is less than an hour away from the plant. And there's no question that the plant could have amazingly awful damage, given that it rests directly on the oceanfront. Certainly, nuclear meltdown is nuclear meltdown; nonetheless, I have no doubt that there could be many places in Brazil that could host a nuclear power plant, and why the military government picked one of the most beautiful parts of the country (only 3 hours from Rio de Janeiro) is beyond me. In this sense, then, I'm really hesitant about Lula's decision. I don't presume to tell Brazilians where their power should come from. Still, the location of the plant makes me uneasy, and again, I just don't understand why the government doesn't investigate and invest in wind power more, especially given the amount of coastline that Brazil has.

All this is pretty much a long way to say I'm just not sure about Lula's decision today. I hope to god it works out well, and it probably will; France hasn't had any accidents, and it's drawing 78% of its power from nuclear power, and while accusations of corruption often fly in Brazilian politics, I'm fairly certain that nobody (even Brazilian politicians) is so stupid as to try to employ corruption when it comes to nuclear engineering and technology. I guess at the end of the day, I have the same unease about nuclear power as I do everywhere, that equal combination of "it will probably be fine" but with that vague "but what if..." and fleeting thoughts of Three-Mile Island and Chernobyl, all combined with a knowledge of the physical location of the plant that makes me sad and confused as to why anybody would put nuclear energy there.

Pesticides, bad state laws, a worthless EPA, dead bees, class warfare, and workers' rights…

I feel so welcomed to California. Yesterday they held an earthquake just for me, about 20 miles from where I live, and now I’m learning about the litany of problems facing my state’s agricultural industry.

This started this morning while I was listening to NPR; they were doing a story about a coalition of groups in Sacramento that is suing the EPA to outlaw the pesticide endosulfan in commercial agriculture. This particular pesticide has been linked to a variety of reproductive disorders and other health problems, and is banned in the EU and many other countries. The EPA, being the toothless shell of a regulatory body it ought to be because of its asshat appointees, has done little to regulate any pesticide manufactured by the Bayer Corporation. Today’s LA Times has an article about Bayer’s Gaucho and Poncho pesticides and their possible links to the death of large swaths of the California bee population (I’m not even going to get into the racist nature of Bayer’s nicknames for these farm chemicals…)

Why does the EPA need to be involved? In California, there is a fantastically horrible state law that bars local governments from enacting any kind of control over pesticides. Since the state agency refuses to do anything about endosulfan and local governments are prohibited by laws to protect themselves, the EPA is needed. Currently, there is a bill in the California Assembly to change this 25 year old law (bill AB977 for all of you Californians who want to send a quick message to your reps), but until this industry orchestrated law is changed, the EPA could (and should) be forced to help out.

Oh yeah, and for the real kicker—endosulfan is not legal for use in lawns and golf courses. This neurotoxin is only used in commercial agriculture (i.e., your cute little kids and your golfing buddies at the country club have nothing to worry about, but the EPA and State of California don’t give a shit about the people working the fields). So often the environmental questions of the day are framed in opposition to working class issues, but this example reinforces what is becoming increasingly obvious to more and more people—the survival of the working class and the environment are often tied together in the same struggle.

I Haven't Seen a Goof This Egregious Since Moonraker Put Mayan Pyramids in Brazil!

As I've outlined before, there are already many reasons to be outraged at the Disney movie Beverly Hills Chihuahua. The Latin Americanist points us to one offense that falls on the lighter side. Take a look (hint: the Incas, who built Machu Pichu, live in Peru, not Mexico).

Tim Kaine and the Absurdity of Punditry

A lot of the VP speculation is now centering on Virginia Governor Tim Kaine. I have no particular problem with the man, though I don't know very much about him. I guess he has the advantage of being a young fresh face from a state that Obama has a very good chance of winning. I probably would be OK with the pick, though I'd really rather he pick a qualified woman like Janet Napolitano or Claire McCaskill.

But I find it laughable that every Democratic politician from the state of Virginia has to be a potential VP candidate. Hey pundits, I hear there is a city councilman from Richmond who hasn't been considered yet! Better get on it!

While Kaine, Warner, and Webb all have some advantages, the real reason they are being pushed by the punditry is that Virginia is the only conservative state any of them ever spend any time in. They think Obama needs a moderate to conservative state running mate. They know absolutely nothing about the South or the Mountain West. So they reflexively turn to Virginia. They can read about Virginia politicians in the Washington Post. They see their campaign ads on TV. And that's good enough for them.

Let's face it, pundits are lazy people. They go for cliche over analysis. They repeat the same themes ad nauseum. They make overaching claims for small events. They don't want to have to work to come up with their talking points. That might take time away from their dinner parties. So they turn to what's easy. For VP speculation, the easy way out is Virginia politicians. And thus we have the attention on Tim Kaine.

In other news, Trapper John over at Kos is guessing that Obama will pick Tom Daschle. This is, um, strange, but I guess plausible enough. It would solve the supposed experience problem. Trapper John is right that the VP selection here isn't going to make much difference since the election is all about Obama. He calls Daschle a Cheney-like selection, which I guess is true. But if Daschle is as inspiring as he was when he was the Democratic leader in the Senate, I guess the VP debates will be a good time for a nap.

The Knoxville Tragedy and Republican Responsibility

I was deeply shocked by the shooting at the Unitarian church in Knoxville, Tennessee. I used to live in Knoxville and knew people who went to that church. I did not know either of the people who died, though I do know one of the church spokespeople quoted in the report.

Actually, let me rephrase. I am shocked, but not surprised by the shooting. The shooter targeted the Unitarian church because of their acceptance of gays, liberals, and other people hated in Knoxville.

Let's change the scenario a bit. Let's say it was a young kid who did the shooting. He was a disturbed child but didn't have any particular hatred for gays or liberals. And let's say he shot up a Baptist church rather than a Unitarian church. Can't you already hear the Republican talk radio blathering on about the "culture" that allows such things to happen? They would blame heavy metal or television or comic books or some other cultural phenomenon that had nothing to do with the killing but is easy to scapegoat. They would also talk about how liberals hate Christianity and that their secularism made churches a target for attack.

Well, now I am going to engage in some damn scapegoating of my own. I blame the religious right, right-wing media, and the entire Republican Party for the shooting in Knoxville. They have said horrible things about gays and liberals for years. They have painted gays as child-abusing perverted sadists. They have made the word "liberal" into a perjorative. They have said that gays and liberals (and feminists and radicals and abortionists, etc) are going to hell and that we will deserve all the suffering we get. In east Tennessee, I would guess that at least 2/3 of the churches preach this kind of hatred. The Unitarians are a strong exception to this rule. Thus, they became a target for a disturbed person. But this disturbed person was spurred on by the atmosphere of hate one entire political party has used for its own purposes over the past 40 years.

The right covering up its own hate is not an isolated incidient either. If you've visited the Oklahoma City Memorial, you might have noticed a gaping silence over context and responsibility for the bombing. It is interpreted as the act of a couple of loonies. But there is nothing on the relationships between the militias and the Republican Party. There are mentions of Ruby Ridge and Waco but nothing on how the right built on those events to spur a climate of hate against Bill Clinton and the federal government as a whole and nothing on how Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, and the Republican leadership fanned the hatred for their own purposes, hatred that created a climate allowing Timothy McVeigh to act.

What do you see at Oklahoma City? Well, you actually get more discussion of so-called environmental "terrorism" as you do of the connections between militias and the rise of the right. Every little incident of some hippies burning an SUV is highlighted to show that terrorism is a real threat to America. Well, terrorism may be a threat to America but I don't think it is from hippie monkeywrenching groups. As far as domestic terrorism goes, the real threat is from right-wing hate groups that have ties to powerful Republicans.

Perhaps I am being unfair by saying that the entire right-wing establishment has a share of responsibility for the Knoxville shootings. There is certainly not any direct connection between Rush Limbaugh and the killer. But I can say this for certain. I am being a lot less unfair than Republicans who make threadbare connections between killers and heavy metal. At least I can legitimately say that a man acted on the hate spawned by the Republican Party and its supporters in a direct way. That hate has taken the lives of two innocent people. The Republican Party, the hate preachers, and right-wing radio demagogues have blood on their hands.

One of the Greatest Generals in History?

Am I the only one who finds John McCain's constant referring to David Petraeus as "one of the greatest generals in history" absurd? By what standard? He seems pretty competent, certainly more so than the military officers leading the troops during the beginning of the war. But how precisely is he even one of the greatest generals in American history? Greater than Washington? Then Grant? Then Eisenhower or Sherman or Lee?


I'm certainly no expert on military history. But I don't think I am missing anything here. McCain's desperately trying to show that the Surge has worked and is giving Petraeus all the credit. This despite the fact that Iraqis seem to believe the Surge is irrelevant and that the violence has dropped because Iraqis themselves were sick of the killing and started to work through their sectarian problems to rebuild their society.


Anyway, the idea that Petraeus is one of the greatest generals in history might be the single most laughable theme of this presidential election, rivaling perhaps only Fred Thompson's entire candidacy.

Racism, sexism, etc.

So I'm cross-posting this from my blog. There's a bit of backstory to it, but all the links are there if you need them.

So the stuff I was writing about here has mainly been excused by the fans of that vile cartoon by the idea that it wasn't intentionally racist! Just like that New Yorker cartoon was excused because it was SATIRE, man! Satire!

This is the thing: most of us are not intentionally racist. Most of us are not intentionally sexist. Yet these things still exist. (Yes, some people are gleefully, openly racist and sexist, but we're not talking about them here. Don't derail me.)

M. LeBlanc at Bitch, Ph.D. wrote an excellent post about racism and sexism a while back that I think you should read. Really.

Racism isn't only about burning a cross on your lawn or about saying that you wouldn't vote for Obama because he wants to enslave white people. It can be as simple as locking your car door when you drive through a black neighborhood, or assuming in your head that the black woman you see walking down the street with her kid must be unmarried. Or saying that the men in that cartoon don't have the right hair texture to be black.

Sexism isn't only about telling your wife to quit her job and get back in the kitchen, or jerking off to really offensive porn (whatever your idea of that is). It's assuming that a woman who looks a certain way is stupid. It's perpetuating a false dichotomy between "male" and "female" characteristics and according only the male ones value. (Why do you really think you value not wearing makeup and not shaving? Is it because doing those things makes you less a tool of the patriarchy, or because not doing them makes you less feminine?)

We all do a million little racist and sexist things every day. I do. You do. Barack Obama does and Hillary Clinton does and Noam Chomsky does and Beth Ditto does.

I love to harp on the fact that people are not either good or evil. There is not a line between the good guys and the bad guys that we can see. This isn't a Batman movie (and hell, even that recent Batman movie played with those lines in a way that made me quite happy).

I'm not saying that there aren't people who cross lines that make me unwilling to forgive them. Dick Cheney? No matter how much he renounced, I don't think I'd ever be cool with Dick. Jesse Helms? Jerry Falwell? I did not cry or pronounce one word of regret when they died.

But having it pointed out that you unwittingly participated in something racist or sexist should not be a call for a huge defensive freakout designed to point out that you're one of the good ones and therefore what you did couldn't possibly be wrong or bad, because you didn't intend for it to be!

In literary criticism, we don't worry too much about the intent of the author. We look at the signs and signifiers, and interpret the message based on those.

This is a long-winded way of saying if someone calls you out on racism or sexism, the best thing to do maybe is give it a couple of seconds of thought, at least, and decide if they're right. Then, the proper response is, if the questioner appears to be even remotely in good faith, "I'm sorry I offended you. I didn't mean to be racist/sexist/ableist/whatever."

Then you learn from it and get over it. It doesn't make you the devil, or discount the good things you've done in the past, or even make most people hate you. It makes you human.

The Big Move

Well, here I am in Redlands-- once again back in Southern California. We had an earthquake today and I saw three Hummers at one stoplight. This place is really weird.

Moving was an experience. We had some great Southern New Mexico-style Green Chile enchiladas in Deming, NM, and enjoyed seeing the many, many NM truckstops that offered volume discounts on fireworks. I listened to Rush Limbaugh for 15 minutes outside of El Paso, and turned it off when some dumbass redneck was ridiculing alternative energy proposals and oinking for more drilling. Arizona was an interesting state to traverse, and I even got hooked into a progressive talk radio station in Phoenix (after seeing the station's anti-McSame billboard right on the interstate-- gutsy!). The wind farm in the Coachella Valley, California was by far the most awesome sight on the trip. On I-10, you slowly come around the mountain and down into a valley that is just packed with large windmills. There are 4,000 windmills in the San Gorgonio Pass in the San Bernadino Mountains, which produce enough electricity to power Palm Springs and the entire Coachella Valley. I can't describe what it feels like to be looking at that many windmills all at once, up and down and on top of every mountain and hill-- very crazy. I felt like I was in a Mario Brothers game or something.

My Texas to California move now being over, I will be posting regularly again.

And I know he's off the campaign and all, but Phil Gramm is still a dickweed.

A Colombia Follow-Up: FARC, Paramilitaries, and Cocaine in the Rural Areas

Following up on my observations and thoughts on Colombia the other day, today the NY Times has this article up on cocaine production and FARC/paramilitary violence in Colombia's rural areas. Suffice to say, despite Uribe's recent efforts to show how successful he's been against the FARC, it's far from a victory by any stretch of the imagination (even wingnut imaginations). The article offers is an important reality check on those who are getting overly hopeful for Colombia (something I fear I may have inadvertently taken place in by not qualifying enough how ambivalent my hope for Colombia is now; things still look better than they have in a long time, but that doesn't mean they are better).

In addition, Simon Romero, the article's author, brings up the drug trade and its ties to the struggle. I suggested that, even if the FARC were to disappear, there's no good reason to believe the cocaine production and the violence tied to it would drop, and the article seems to back that up: "while the FARC’s share of the cocaine trade has declined, Colombia’s share of the world cocaine production has remained stable at about 60 percent. That means opportunities for new players like Colombia’s resurgent right-wing militias [my italics] and small-scale armed gangs taking the place of disassembled cartels."

Which leads us to the U.S.'s involvement in Colombia. It's been repeated so often that it may sound like a tired argument, but it's worth repeating once again: the "War on Drugs" does not, cannot, and will not work as long as it focuses strictly on production. When fields are attacked, they are either quickly replanted and/or pushed into more remote regions where it's easier to conceal your production. Additionally, the U.S. has made no secret in its willingness to pump lots of money into Colombia to fight "terrorism" (and, since Bush became president, maintain one of its few friends in the region in the figure of Uribe). However, given how close some top-level Colombian officials are to the paramilitary groups, the tie of U.S. foreign aid to Colombia is not hard to follow. I have no doubt that some of the U.S. funds end up in the hands of Colombian paramilitaries who are directly involved in the drug trade. Thus, while the U.S. is on the one hand spending millions and millions of dollars to combat drug production in Colombia, it is at the same time offering money to governments (both present and past) that are in bed with paramilitaries who are increasingly producing drugs. And even the farmers who are simply growing cocaine for survival aren't ignornat peasants; they are finding new ways to produce, all while the demand in the United States (where almost all of Colombia's cocaine goes) does nothing to force them to turn to other, more legal crops. So the United States ends up throwing money away by trying to combat the production of cocaine, while failing to address issues of demand or even reconcile how they can tacitly (and perhaps covertly) support groups involved in the drug trade even while combatting the drug trade.

These two pictures of the continuing local violence in rural areas and drug production are indeed depressing, and serve as an important reminder of how far Colombia has to go. Do things look better than they have in a long time? Sure. Does that mean that they are even close to improving? Absolutely not. And it indicates how many other problems Colombia will face, even if the FARC were to collapse. So while we can be thrilled that hostages have been released and that FARC has sustained true losses, it is still, as Erik said, a group that is often little more than an organization of criminals and thugs. As depressing as it is, the problems Colombia is facing run far deeper than a "revolutionary" group involved in a 40+ year civil war, and the country is still far, far away from the day when these types of conflicts can come to a close.

Progressive Christianity

Hi guys and gals. I know I haven't been posting here much (and that's partly because of ye olde blogwar, over whether it's feminist to insult women for how they look if they look stereotypically attractive, that I got into at my own place--interested? Check it out), and I'm completely exhausted and not up to writing too much here at the moment.

A while back, we got into a discussion of religion and politics, and Christianity as a progressive force as opposed to a regressive, controlling one.

To that end, I'm posting a link here to the first Carnival of Progressive Christians, over at A Secret Chord. Purtek and Philomela have done a great job assembling posts by various and sundry progressive Christians, some of whom have churches they belong to, others of whom feel alienated by the direction the church has gone in.

It's pretty interesting, especially the "Sex-positive Christian" posts. Please read.

An Ugly Development in the Economics of Soccer in Brazil

As bad as the story about Dominican baseball players was, this story about a private company in Brazil buying soccer players' contracts and reaping a profit if they make it big really makes me uncomfortable. Basically, Traffic, a private company, is buying up the contracts of young, promising soccer players, and then making deals with Brazilian teams to let these young men pay. The teams pay the salaries, and by playing on big teams in Brazil, they have the chance to get the attention of European clubs and maybe get signed there. It may sound good at first, but I have a lot of problems with what Traffic is doing.

Firstly, as the article points out, buying players' contracts and then reaping the rewards of the transfer to Europe (something required in soccer) really pushes FIFA's rules banning third parties in soccer (in an effort to effectively prevent what is happening in the Dominican Republic). However, what really makes my skin crawl is this: "Instead of investing in the stock market or real estate,” Julio Mariz, Traffic’s president, said, “these people are investing in buying the economic rights to football players.”

I'm not so naive as to pretend that there is no sport where players aren't used to make a private profit, and many sports probably privately view atheletes as these types of "economic investments;" indeed, the notion behind signing a Lebron James or an Alex Rodriguez is certainly in part the hope that the name will bring fans to the games, thereby helping the private ownership to turn a profit. But the money remains in the hands of those who are nominally the owners; it behooves them to try to invest in the team. Ceratinly, not all owners will use the money they make to improve the team (the Pohlads come to mind here), but by and large, the system seems to work for the most part (though admittedly because organizations like MLB, the NFL, and the NBA put into effect things like the luxury tax or the salary cap to help self-regulation). But by letting a third party enter into the equation, this simply kicks up to another level the ideological exploitation of players for the hopes of personal profit for a private company.

And this leads into my third problem with this setup - it takes the profit out of the hands of the clubs. The Times treats this like a new form of free agency, but that isn't really accurate. When European clubs want to sign Brazilian players from other clubs, they have to pay the player's previous club the "transferral fee." Therefore, if a player does great but decides to go on to play in Europe, his club is financially rewarded for its loss. This is huge, because soccer clubs aren't like baseball or football or basketball teams in the U.S. Each club is literally that - a club open to public, where your kids can learn to play soccer, basketball, learn gymnastics, learn to swim, and any number of other physical activities, as well as social events. These transferral fees in part help the clubs keep those activities going. Certainly, soccer gets the bulk of the money from these deals, but it doesn't just go there. And while you do have corruption among many of the clubs' boards where personal gain may be happening, at least some of the money has to go to the clubs. When an organization like Traffic becomes involved, that's no longer the case, and the club loses a major source of income for its programs. And of course, because soccer is first, that means lesser (but still important) activities like swim lessons, basketball, and all the others, will be cut first. And of course, previously, if a club was selling a lot of tickets to games and making money for the club due to a popular player, and that player then went to Europe, the transferral fee would help cover what might be an initial drop-off in game attendance. But with tactics like Traffic's, that's no longer an option, either.

Botafogo's president says there is no other way, given the rising economy and the growing difficulty of getting good young players to stay in Brazil long enough, but I can't believe this. He's absolutely right that it is increasingly rare to see young players in Brazil staying very long (when a young star of 17 years old or less emerges, the question is never "if" he'll go to Europe, but "when," "Where," and "for how much), but Traffic's operations do nothing to stem that flow from Brazil for bigger money. I really don't know what else can be done, either, because the clubs in Europe and in other parts of the world just make more money, and can offer more, than Brazil can; in some ways, the sporting world is one of the final arenas where old imperialist relations still play out regularly.

The article closes with Brazil's Football Agents president claiming that, while Traffic's approach is flawed, this could help gain investment for Brazilian clubs. To put it lightly, I'm not convinced. Rabello's partisanship as head of Football Agents should be clear enough, but additionally, agents and third-part groups simply will not make the clubs any money. They will poach young players, lease them only until they can make the maximum profit, and then send them to Europe, reaping the rewards while Brazilian football clubs suffer even further and witness a greater decline. Brazilians are the greatest soccer players in the world, but issues like this make the prospect of Brazil's national football league dim indeed.

Putting Human Rights Violators in Jail, from the Caribbean to Argentina

Last week, Argentina sentenced Lucio Benjamin Menendez, 81, to life in prison for his role during Argentina's "Dirty War," along with six others. Menendez's conviction was particularly important as he was head of the military in the Argentine province of Cordoba; as the story points out, the torture center in the region, which Menendez oversaw, had only 17 survivors of its more than 2200 political prisoners. And that's worth stopping to think about and repeat: only 17 of the more than 2200 people who passed through there survived.

In spite of these numbers, Menendez's conviction (as in the cases of other, previous convictions of military leaders involved in human rights abuses) focused on four specific incidents, finding Menendez guilty in his role of "overs[eeing] the kidnapping, torture and murder of four activists who protested against the military government that lasted from 1976 to 1983." Prosecutors in Argentina (as well as Chile and elsewhere) have used this approach to great effect, not overextending their cases and relying on the few that will virtually guarantee convictions and make sure those men who participated and are still alive will spend the rest of their lives in jail for their deeds; such is the case with Menendez. The fact that Menendez (and the other 6 officers and one civilian, about whom I can find nothing) was found guilty is nothing less than great.

And in the northern half of the hemisphere, Emmanuel "Toto" Constant, a former Haitian paramilitary, is also going to find himself in jail. While Constant was under investigation for mortgage fraud in the U.S., his role as the head of the FRAPH paramilitary group (which was in part bankrolled by the CIA) came to light. Constant and FRAPH involved in the Raboteau massacre against Aristide supporters in 1994, when dozens (estimates are between 26 and more than 50) people were massacred as the military took over the Haitian government. While U.S. authorities had agreed to a plea deal with Constant for time served (10 months) in the mortgage fraud and larceny case, upon learning of his role in the Raboteau massacre, the judge ordered Constant to stand trial for the mortgage case.

This week, Constant was found guilty in New York, and is facing up to 15 years in jail. This reporter hit it on the head: "[Constant's] a thief as well as someone who commits human rights violations." One can still hope that he stands trial in Haiti for the actual human rights abuses, but regardless of how he ends up in jail, it's great news that Constant is going to jail, one way or another.

It's Always All About America

President Bush is upset that Asian and Latin American nations are subsidizing gas prices, thus protecting their citizens from the price spikes that have hurt Americans this year. These nations are doing so for a good reason--rising gas prices threatens their power. But more fundamentally, it's hard to feel bad for Americans. Although these subsidies are unsustainable at their current levels and ultimately are bad for the environment since they spur continued growth in oil consumption, they are also choices made by governments to support their poor and new middle class in their attempt to have a better standard of living.

But then Americans don't really care about that. We only care about maintaining our own outrageous use of resources at cheap prices. When this is threatened, it's someone else's fault, not ours. Our lack of consideration for other nations doesn't stop at gas prices though. Dave Noon quotes Kay Kagan's insistence that the only nation which counts in the Iraq war is the United States.

At the end of the day, the United States is not in Iraq for the benefit of the
Iraqis. American forces are not fighting to allow Iraqi leaders to make hard
choices. The U.S. is engaged in Iraq in pursuit of its own interests in fighting
terrorism and resisting Iranian destabilization and hegemony. Reconciliation
agreements within the Iraqi parliament are part of what is required to secure
those interests over the long term, but they are not now and never have been the
reason for the presence of American combat forces in Iraq.

This is how most Americans think about. Iraqis were never real people, either for the war supporters at home or for the government. Dave is outraged by Kagan's statements (as I am, for they are truly disturbing). But she's really only expressing how many Americans have always felt about this war. The fact that Iraqis may have thoughts of their own and are acting upon those feelings by pressing the U.S. to get the hell out of their country is very difficult for Kagan, the administration, and the Neocons to deal with. After all, weren't the Iraqis supposed to welcome us with open arms?

More broadly, this insular way of thinking typlifies Americans interactions with the world. The world exists to serve U.S. interests, feed us resources, and accept our power without questioning. When those nations do something really outrageous to defy the United States, we want to bomb them. But when they do small things, like subsidize their drivers or ask the U.S. to create a timetable for withdrawing from their nation, we are confused, not knowing how to respond and whining like babies without a bottle.

Water Economics and Conservation

It's not often that I get a request to blog on something, but Rob wanted me to talk about this debate on water and economics. As you all know, I really can't resist a bearded man. So here we go.

The economist David Zetland argues that we need to let market forces decide water rates. Only then will conservation happen.

If we had a reasonable price on water, we could have a sustainable water supply everywhere, forever.

People will have 100% reliability IF they are willing to pay. If businesses want reliable water, they pay. If poor people want to use water for more than drinking and sanitation, they pay. If a guy wants to irrigate his golf course, he pays A LOT.

The food supply would shift to higher value crops (less alfalfa and more broccoli). Food prices would go up, but they would reflect the true cost of growing food, not the subsidized cost from unsustainable practices.

Zetland's argument repeats the same problems I have often have with economists--it assums that all people are the same with the same power to buy and sell their goods and labor. I agree that we waste a lot of water and the low prices of that water is a major reason. But what about the poor? Should they have to pay higher rates for water in order to bring usage under control? Should water be treated like any other commodity? I have to answer no. I'm not sure that Zentland disagrees with me so much on this, in that he seems to believe that people should have water for basic uses, but then many of his readers don't have this commitment.

In 2000, the World Bank forced Bolivia to privatize some of its water. The right-wing government of the time sold the rights to Coachabamba's water to the multinational corporation Bechtel. Bechtel decided to charge a supposedly fair market price for the water. But of course, no Bolivian could pay for it. This led to enormous protests in the streets that eventually led to the death of one protestor. Bechtel withdrew after the Bolivian government paid them a large sum in compensation. The backlash to this helped along the rise of Evo Morales.

One major problem with letting market forces decide prices is its amorality. Society must take into account how its practices affects the poor. Another problem of course is that market forces don't actually exist as independent operators. They are constantly manipulated by the wealthy and governments to support big business and the rich. Those who scream the loudest for laissez-faire economics are the first to seek government intervention when the economy doesn't progress in their favor.

Several major progressive bloggers support Zetland's plan, including Matt Yglesias and Kevin Drum. To me, this helps demonstrate the disconnect between too many leading left-leaning bloggers and the world's poor, as well as the happy acceptance of economists' constructions of the market without question. A more interesting criticism comes from Froude Reynolds, who questions our background on current water issues. He claims we have all read too much Marc Reisner, who wrote Cadillac Desert. This book condemned how California agriculture has used water throughout its history. Along with Donald Worster's Rivers of Empire, Cadillac Desert brought a lot of attention to one of America's most disturing industries. But Reynolds is right. Cadillac Desert is over 20 years old and a lot of its points aren't necessarily valid today. Agriculture doesn't dominate water in quite the same way as it did 50 years ago.

However, I think Reynolds overstates when he says that the system is "much less outrageous." It is just as outrageous, but in different ways. Agriculture still wastes a tremendous amount of water growing things in places where they should not be grown. Golf courses, housing developments, and theme parks waste gargantuan amounts of water. We allow people in Phoenix to grow orange trees in their yards, we promote pools in Los Angeles, and we love the fountains in Las Vegas. Our society is still based on the profligate use of water and this water is still used primarily by the rich for the rich.

This leads us back to the problem of the market-based solution. Zetland is no doubt right when he says that raising water rates would force people to use less overall water. But the problem is that the golf courses, agribusiness farms, casinos, and wealthy McMansion owners could and probably would still pay those rates. It would be the poor that would suffer. They would not be able to pay for the water they need everyday. The middle class would suffer too. Perhaps they waste money watering their lawns. This should be discouraged. But in a world of rising commodity prices across the board, can we afford to let mysterious market forces raise the water rates of everyone to ensure conservation? I wouldn't support that.

So what can we do? What options make sense? I think the most logical and fair way to adjust water usage is to combine Zetland's ideas with government internvention on behalf of the poor. Water should remain very cheap up to a certian level of usage. Today's poor, both in the United States and around the world, deserve clean water as a right. It is up to governments and international organizations to ensure that right. But after those rights are taken care of, then I think it is quite logical to raise water prices by quite drastic measures. This might not be the so-called laissez-faire market that Zetland and other economists like to talk about. But it does essentiallly the same thing. Through government policy, we can ensure the rights of everyone to supplies of good water while also lowering overall consumption and waste.

The crazy thing about this idea is that it supposes the idea of a government that works for the majority rather than the rich. The unreality of this possibility is perhaps the biggest obstacle from implementing a water plan I could support.

Favre--Please Go Away!

I'm not sure what I want more, Brett Favre to go into retirement, get hooked on painkillers (again) and fade into oblivion, or have him come back with the Jets or some other team and throw 54 interceptions this year.

One thing is for sure, I am sick of Favre's ego, as seemingly are the Green Bay Packers.

Says Favre

"I said, 'Let me compete, you'll know I'll win this job' and Ted said again, 'Brett, things have changed. Aaron Rodgers is our quarterback.' It's pretty clear -- and this is what I told the commissioner -- that they want me to go away, stay retired. They would much rather see me in a Packers' uniform, paying me $12 million to be a backup -- which you know they really don't want -- rather than see in another uniform, no matter what they say. They'll drag this out, asking a king's ransom [in a trade], hoping it all goes away."

Or maybe they are sick of your act and know they need to move on with their franchise. They know you are never going back to the Super Bowl and that if they keep living like it was in 1997, not only are they going to send their team into the toilet, but they are going to have completly wasted their first-round draft pick from 4 years ago when you were talking about retirement for only the 7th time.

Thoughts on Colombia, the FARC, and the Possibility of Hope

I agree with the majority of Erik's points below: that the FARC hasn't been anything more than a criminal organization hiding behind a thin veil of "ideology" for decades; that things are genuinely looking better than I could have hoped for in terms of civil conflict (and its potential end) in Colombia, and this shift has indeed been far more rapid than I could have imagined; and, regardless whether the FARC disappears or not, paramilitaries can, should, and need to be brought to justice, for they have been as involved as the FARC (if not moreso) in drug production and running and the murder of innocent civilians in the name of (stop me if this sounds familiar) "combatting terrorism."


That said, I think the hope still has to be somewhat guarded. First, the FARC isn't gone yet. As I've said before, the recent setbacks have been embarassing, and the deaths of major FARC leaders (including second-in-command Raul Reyes, Ivan Rios, and Manuel Marulanda Velez) are significant. That said, that doesn't mean some charismatic leader can't emerge or come out of nowhere to give the FARC new impetus. There are reasons to believe that FARC may very well be entering its death throes, but this isn't the first time that this outcome has seemed possible.

Another issue that of course will demand attention is what happens with the cocaine production. Both the FARC and paramilitary groups are closely tied to its production and sale in Colombia. Should the FARC be eliminated, I don't see cocaine production just dropping or disappearing. The demand is still out there globally, and there will certainly be others, be they members of the paramilitary groups or just standard drug-lords with no politics other than profit, who will want to fill the FARC's void (again, if there is a void ever). The possible end of the FARC does not mean an end to cocaine production or the violence tied to the industry, and the government will really have to work hard via social and economic programs to turn cocaine producers into productive units in other, more legal areas. Given how Colombia's presidents have acted in the past, I don't see a lot of reason to be hopeful of this.

Thirdly, as Erik alluded to, there is the issue of paramilitary groups. They are as awful and violent as the FARC in many regards, indiscriminately and often contemptuously killing innocent civilians and extracting payments from international companies via protection rackets, all in the name of the "war on terror" or "drug war" or in the name of combatting "subversives." Colombia has refused to deal with this issue, especially under Uribe, in part no doubt because both the current and past governments have been in bed with the paramilitaries via "unofficial" (and sometimes official) channels. Colombia needs to tackle the paramilitary issue as much as it does FARC. I have shards of hope that, were FARC to fade away, dealing with paramilitaries would be facilitated as human right organizations could deal more directly with paramilitary violence in ways similar (albeit in different contexts) to those campaigns in Chile and Argentina. Nonetheless, such hopes are indeed just glimmers without the promise of much coming of it, particularly given the close ties of multiple politicians, administration officials, and even presidents tied to the paramilitary groups directly or indirectly. Certainly, as time goes on things could change on this front, but right now, I see no real reason to believe the politicians will stand down on this issue and let the true issue of paramilitary action at all levels, illegal and governmental, come to light.

All this is not to belittle where things are right now. As Erik correctly pointed out, this is the most hopeful we can be about Colombia for a long time. Of particular interest is how Colombian politics might play out on the ideological level if the FARC were to all but die out. Would they be as beholden to the U.S.? Would Colombians start electing more centrist and leftist leaders? Would the rightighst politicians who are popular right now really be able to maintain their popularity in a political context where the opponent on whom they base their legitimacy no longer is a threat? There's no way of knowing now, because the FARC still is around, even if diminished for the time. Still, one can't help but think that maybe, after 40+ years of conflict and 25+ years of stagnant, useless violence that has torn the country apart, things are looking better than they have for awhile.