Unqualified Offerings

May I suggest that before people throw around a term like “surgical strikes” they try undergoing some surgery? It’s a big deal, people. If you were here, I would tell you, using a piece of my leg to help do so¹.

Doug Mataconis at OTB points us to a study estimating that deaths from an Israeli (or US) strike on just the Isfahan Uranium conversion facility could leave thousands dead or injured “after being exposed to toxic plumes released as the result of such strikes. They would reach the city within an hour. Such a scenario would mean that the people of Isfahan could experience a catastrophe similar to the gas leak in Bhopal or the nuclear meltdown at Chornobyl, says Khosrow Semnani, the author of the report, which is titled, ‘The Ayatollah’s Nuclear Gamble.’

People’s skin could be burnt [when coming in contact with the plumes], they could become blind, their lung could be destroyed, their kidneys could be damaged, and in the future they could face other health problems such as skin cancer and [other forms] of cancer,” Semnani says. The report analyzed the impact of preemptive conventional strikes on four key nuclear sites: Isfahan’s uranium conversion facility; Natanz’s fuel-enrichment plant; Arak’s heavy-water plant; and Bushehr’s nuclear power plant. Workers at those sites — who include scientists, workers, support staff, and soldiers — would be among the first victims of a bombing campaign. The report estimates that the casualty rate at the sites would be close to 100 percent.

“According to our estimates, the number of casualties of the bombing of the four sites would be about 5,000 people,” Semnani says. “If the bombing would include more than those four sites, then the immediate casualty would be up to 10,000 people.” The report warns that the grim scenario could be magnified by the lack of readiness on the part of Iranian authorities, who have a poor record of disaster management and who lack the capacity to handle deadly radioactive fallout in the aftermath of a strike on its nuclear sites.

Doug Mataconis adds the prudential reasons for not “creat[ing] enemies around the world,” but also points out that this kind of “precision” slaughter is simply evil:

The Iranian people most assuredly do not deserve to be punished for the actions of their government, and I’d hope that someone would consider this report before blindly sending us off into yet another war.

¹ Note that I got the partial glossectomy, which means more than 2/3 of my original tongue is still doing its thing, including essentially all of the topside surface with its wonderful, wonderful taste buds. Don’t cry for me, Blogospheria.

By Thoreau

I swear that this observation is about office politics, not national politics:

It’s great to have energy, forward-thinking ideas, and passion.  However, there’s a certain way of presenting those things that’s too…I can’t quite find the word…earnest, or preachy.  Today somebody managed to take something that I support 100% and elicit a “Wait, this sounds like Just Another Report when you present it like that” response.  I do support it, and I am actually willing to do it, and it really isn’t Just Another Report (it’s not even a report, it just has some of that vibe when presented the wrong way), but this person managed to sell it the wrong way.  He also managed to present it with such a progressive vibe that he got my knees to jerk the same way that they jerk when people try to sell me on warm fuzzy things.

I was trying to give useful feedback rather than be a concern troll (I swear that I’m ready to do the work), but apparently this is all because I’m a reflexively bad person.

I mean, have you ever met somebody who’s so into healthy and environmentally conscious eating that you just want to stuff your face with bacon cheeseburgers after talking to them?  I’m not opposed to healthy and environmentally conscious eating (I’ve actually been trying to improve on that front), but there’s a certain style of preaching that just never works.  And I’m not talking about lambasting (that also tends to fail, but I swear that this thread isn’t about who to vote for), I’m talking about well-meaning, enthusiastic testimonial that just sends the knee jerking the other way.  I admittedly associate it more with academics and organic foodies (i.e. groups that tend to lean left), but that’s just because I don’t spend a lot of time around people who won’t shut up about what Christ has been doing in their lives.

By Thoreau

On the off chance that your preferred candidate doesn’t win, here’s your backup plan:  JetBlue will help you flee the country. It’s worth noting that JetBlue doesn’t charge luggage fees and gives more legroom than most US carriers.  So, honestly, this could be far more pleasant than staying in the US to punch the hippies who refused to vote your way.

By Thoreau

I find nothing to disagree with in this piece by Samuel Goldman regarding the dumbing-down of the term “class warfare.”

In an ideal world, everybody would agree with me, or at least a supermajority would agree with me.  In the next best world, political debate would be between progressives and the staff at The American Conservative (Buchanan excepted).

By Thoreau

I’m not saying that, substance-wise, it would have made a difference, but am I the only one who thinks that the last 4 years would seem less exasperatingly weird if somebody else had won the Peace Prize in 2009?  I mean, he was going to do what he was going to do, and the situation in Afghanistan and elsewhere is what it is, but maybe we’d all feel a bit differently if “Sometimes I think that peace prize winners shouldn’t have a kill list” were just a nonsense lyric.  It just adds a layer of irony to the situation, and irony doesn’t help with the sorts of frayed nerves we’re seeing in these discussions.

By Thoreau

Regardless of whether your state is a swing state, and regardless of what you think of the presidential candidates or the differences between them, one thing we can all do is support marijuana legalization ballot measures.  The Drug War gets less attention than drones, but it fills mass graves in Mexico, it fills prisons at home, and given the pervasive significance of the drug trade in Afghanistan I think it’s fair to argue that it is responsible for more than a few drone attacks.  Anything that we can do to help roll back the drug war will ultimately have huge humanitarian benefits for the poorest and most vulnerable among us, both at home and abroad.

So, put your money where your mouth is.  Colorado, Oregon, and Washington all have ballot measures to legalize marijuana, at least in small amounts, for recreational use by adults.  Several other states have medical marijuana initiatives.  Do your research and send a donation to one or more campaigns to help them in the home stretch.  Personally, I lean toward supporting the Colorado initiative, precisely because it is a swing state.  I want the 2016 candidates, whoever they might be, to know that a key state that they need to win has a voting majority that favors legalization.

But whatever campaign you favor, pick one and help them in the home stretch.

I’ve decided to run an exchange of sorts, which already got started by Nell and CharleyCarp in comments a couple threads ago. Here’s the idea.

1. You’re a wavering progressive, reluctant to cast your vote for Obama because of drones, civil liberties, general US militarism or, hell, lack of a public option. Whaddaya want?

That is, say a thing that another blogreader (or writer) could do to advance your goals – our goals – and earn your vote thereby. Because you recognize that justice is just like that William Stafford quote I am throwing around.

2. You’re an Obama voter who wants there to be as many voters as possible. You believe politics is the art of the possible and that the perfect is the enemy of the good. You read the particulars posted per step 1, and agree to fulfill one or more. Because if politics is full of messy compromises, this kind of deal is a cinch.

The specific example on the table. Nell said that would-be persuaders, “as an easy first step,” could

Sign the petition opposing the drone policy Robert Naiman is carrying to Pakistan soon.

CharleyCarp agreed to do exactly this a little later.

This isn’t a perfect example, because I don’t think Nell specified, e.g. that doing this would actually work, or that she wanted X signatures or whatever. But it’s in the direction I’m talking about. “Donate to _____.” “Come to _____ demonstration.” “Send a snail-mail letter to both your senators demanding an oversight hearing on drone attacks.” “Post a criticism of the president’s medical marijuana policy on the front page of Rumproast.” Use your imaginations.

Some guidelines and strictures: If you’re a non-wavering progressive and there’s not a god damn thing anyone can do to get you to vote for Obama (again), talk about it somewhere else. You can even use other threads on this blog; just not this one. If you’re a loyalist Dem who simply will not indulge this kind of shenanigans, you too please find another thread to lodge your protest. You can even use other threads on this blog.

In either case, you’re welcome to post your response to your own fabulously successful blog and throw me an effing link.

That said, I’m okay with haggling and what in RPGs we’d call “OOC chatter.” I’m not okay with anyone changing terms after a deal’s been agreed. Obviously the vote itself is on the honor system, and likely many of the terms will be too; so I can’t do anything about it if you say, “I’ll vote for Obama if someone paints a peace sign on their own pony” and someone else sends in a picture of their pony with a peace sign on it and now you say, “Well, it’s just one pony. I want three.” But I will frown very hard over the internet at you.

Above all remember, people, what the man said: Politics is the art of your face!!!

By Thoreau

Kevin Drum asks how third party voting worked out in 2000. Well, if we’re going to learn lessons from 2000, then let’s not forget an important lesson:

The electoral college is real.  We know this because the guy who got more votes from the general public didn’t win.

In 2000, there were only 8 states where any third party candidate got more votes than the margin: Florida, Iowa, Maine, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Oregon, and Wisconsin.  In the other 42 states and DC the third party candidates could not, in any way, be blamed for the results.

There are positive and negative things to be said about voting for or against any of the candidates.  Even in safe states, there are defensible cases to be made for voting for a major party candidate.  However, as a simple procedural matter, the consequences of a third party campaign depend on which state(s) the campaign targets.  If you wish to argue that a major party candidate is a wiser choice even in a safe state, so be it.  However, that is quite distinct from arguing that a third party candidate is a reckless choice in a safe state.  The case for recklessness is only valid in swing states.

Fellow Babies: O Ye Keynesians and Realists and Party-line voters; you John Coles and Brad Delongs and Scott Lemieuxs and your colleagues and commentators. Like me, you are voting to reelect the president. Like me you even think, with whatever misgivings, that it’s extremely important that this happen. Like me, you would like to convert wavering anti-war progressives to your cause.

Or maybe I only think you’re like me in that, because you are going about our mutual business in a funny way. If there’s one thing I know, from the inside, it’s conversion narratives. And what I know is, you will never hector anybody into your position. You’re not going to shame somebody onto your side. And at some point, if you’re honest with yourself, you’re no longer even trying to convert them. You just want to hurt their feelings.

This is an effective strategy for, maybe, at some point, hearing the lamentations of their women, but that is anti-feminist. So pick another goal.

Here’s what really works for getting anybody to agree with you on something important: Witness. And Waiting.

Witness means stating your own perspective on events with respect and a certain mildness. As for the Waiting part, people need time to process. Now, we don’t have forever, but we have weeks and weeks. At some point, it’s smart to stop talking for a bit, let people’s feelings cool, and let the parts of your argument that fit the particulars of genuine Witness go to work. Ideally, and I tell you this as somebody whose intentions are on your side but whose sympathies are with your interlocutors, you should not just wait starting now, you should wait starting now using positrons, so that you turn out not to have written most of what you wrote over the weekend.

Or, you know, you might also try making deals. Politics, I have read so many times from you all just in the last couple days, is a messy art of partial successes and unsatisfying compromises. So, like, offer something! “I get your passion on the drone war and civil liberties. But I’d still like you to vote for Obama. If you do that, I’ll help reduce militarism in America by __________.”

I may have missed it, but I haven’t seen that offer even once. But I can’t help thinking it would get you further than making fun of people’s ponies or whatever.

Social democrats, civil-libertarians, peaceniks, Occupy-symps, environmental “extremists,” left-libertarians and DFHs of America – that is to say, my people. Let’s talk about the election for a minute.

Conor Friedersdorf wrote a thing and then Henry Farrell wrote a thing and then I wrote a thing and then Erik Loomis misread several things, and suddenly, otherwise-pleasant center-left venues like Lawyers, Guns and Money and Mother Jones became as avid for hippie-punching as any Sunday-morning roundtable of Very Serious Persons. But I don’t want to talk about that right now. I want to talk about the election. For a minute.

I can’t tell you what you, mon semblable, ma sœur, should do about this situation. Instead I’ll tell you what I’m doing. Cause it’s my blog.

I personally don’t think anything we do re this November’s ballot, including voting Libertarian or Green, will fix the country’s bipartisan commitment to militarism and panopticon. So I favor deciding what to do with November’s ballot for other reasons. That does unfortunately mean choosing which slate of war criminals should occupy the White House starting in January, as opposed to whether a slate of war criminals should do so.

That hurts! I mean, I’m not putting you on here. It’s a shitty choice. In my case it compounds the stupidity I feel over thinking I was voting for something else entirely in 2008, and I hate feeling stupid. The reasons why I think it’s worth doing anyway are:

1. This (making the country more humane) is going to take more than one night.
2. On issues from health care to women’s rights, a Democratic victory will make many people’s lives better than a Republican one.
3. The actual voting will be over quickly.
4. Because voting will be over quickly, it will not stop us from doing all the other things we might choose to do to make the country genuinely better over time.