Category: General

Yay Elections!

I’m not dead, just busy & not feeling well.

Go Iraq! Glad something good has gone on after all the suffering, torture, and death we’ve inflicted on the people. Hope we have the good sense to get our troops the hell out of there sooner rather than later.

A lot of people are talking as if this somehow justifies the war, which is of course ludicrous, but you can’t blame them, after how badly things have gone, for trying to grasp any good thing that happens and use it to justify their support for a war whose original justifications all turned out to be lies, a war in which America disgraced itself in its pro-torture policies and lack of respect for the most basic international law, a war in which the statements of the Administration became indistinguishable from those of Rudolf Hoess at Nuremberg.

So, yeah, free elections in Iraq are a very good thing! Would that they were achieved by just, lawful, and decent means; would that they were not a product of such evil.

UPDATE: James in the comments below links to a story which points out that far from being the point of the invasion, and a justification for its violence, elections of this sort were opposed repeatedly and vehemently by the Bush Administration, and that they were forced into it by the nonviolent protests of many thousands of Iraqi citizens led by Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani demanding free elections. So it is the height of hipocrisy for pro-war, pro-Bush folks to portray this as a justification for the invasion — it happened because Bush relented in his plans in the face of nonviolent protest, not because Bush’s violent plans succeeded.

Lesson: Nonviolence can win and produce democracy even in the face of violence.

Bush deserves credit — for backing down and giving in to the will of the Iraqi people in this matter.

Treaty of Tripoli on America as a Christian Nation

Founding Fathers Saw America as the First Entirely Secular Government

Surprising quote from the Treaty of Tripoli:

“As the Government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Musselmen; and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.”

Boy, have we forgotten our history. This document was drawn up during Washington’s presidency, approved by both houses of Congress and signed by John Adams during his presidency. Nobody ever questioned the wording of this paragraph.

The page this was found on is fascinating — it thoroughly debunks the “America founded as a Christian nation” concept.

Via Mefi.

Epiphany

I realized some stuff about myself, and work, and life today that are personal enough that normally I wouldn’t blog them, but they matter a lot to me and on the off chance that there is someone else who needs to hear them as bad as I needed to realize them, I’ve put them online here.

Please, Johnny… Make It Stop

Via Mefi, the most disturbing Johnny Carson clips ever.

This is taken from a public access show, and there’s a kind of outraged young man introducing the clips. Ignore him.

You can take this to be about Carson, as the narrator does, or you can take it to be a little picture into what American media and attitudes were like in the mid 70s, in case you’ve forgotten or weren’t born yet. The 70s are supposed to be *after* America stopped being all racist, but there’s this transitional period where people haven’t yet learned how not to make asses of themselves about racial issues or make really uncomfortable racial jokes.

We’re better about that now, right?… right? I guess our children will be the judge of that. :)

Here’s a mirror.