Isebrand.com

Nuke terror attack in US likely w/in 10 yrs

It's Halloween, and this provides a fright for sure.

From the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists:

....a nuclear terrorist attack on the United States is more likely than not in the decade ahead.

But (!) here we have a potentially yummy candy center:

the largely unrecognized good news is that this ultimate catastrophe is, in fact, preventable. The strategic narrow in this challenge is to prevent terrorists from acquiring nuclear weapons or the materials from which weapons could be made..... As a fact of physics: No HEU or plutonium, no nuclear explosion, no nuclear terrorism.

How? Graham Allison proposes the "Doctrine of Three Nos." I assume he realizes that 2 of the 3 nos, if followed as policy, will almost certainly require military intervention against North Korean, Iran, or both.

No loose nukes requires securing all nuclear weapons and weapons-usable material, as quickly as possible. The United States and Russia have proven themselves adept at locking up valuable or dangerous items: Gold is not stolen from Fort Knox, nor treasures from the Kremlin Armory.

No new nascent nukes means no new domestic capabilities to enrich uranium or reprocess plutonium. The 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) contains a loophole that allows nations to develop these capacities as civilian programs, withdraw from the NPT, utilize equipment and know-how received as a beneficiary of the NPT, and proceed to build nuclear weapons. The proposition of no new nascent nukes acknowledges what the national security community has belatedly come to realize: HEU and plutonium are bombs about to hatch.

No new nuclear weapon states unambiguously declares the nuclear club will not expand beyond its current eight members. Without endorsing the behavior of current nuclear powers, this principle recognizes that the most urgent task is to stop the bleeding before the problem gets worse. The urgent test of this principle is North Korea, which now stands three-quarters of the way across that line. In February 2006, North Korea declared itself a nuclear weapon state, but it has not yet conducted a nuclear test to gain forced entry into the group of nuclear nations. Preventing Pyongyang from becoming a "Nukes 'R' Us" for terrorists is the biggest challenge the international community faces in the Asian arena.

"Liar, liar, pants on fire."

My friend Evan saw this clip and wrote simply, "liar liar pants on fire." Yup, that about sums it up.

Worrying Harold Ford, Jr. (And contributing to his campaign!)

What's a liberal, what's a progressive, what's a populist? For that matter, what's a conservative within the Democratic Party? I'm not sure exactly how I define these four concepts; but, some concern about Democratic candidate for Senate (TN), Rep. Harold Fold, Jr., has me thinking about them.

From the Salon.com article, "How Would Jesus Vote?"

On the [senatorial] campaign trail, [Democratic Rep. Harold Ford, Jr.] portrays himself as a moderate, saying he opposes the politics of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, endorses the House Republican immigration plan, and supports a state ban on gay marriage. To prove his point, Ford's get-out-the-vote rallies often double as prayer meetings. During a recent debate with his Republican opponent, former Chattanooga Mayor Bob Corker, Ford repeatedly asked state residents to give him their prayers along with their votes. On his Web site, under the banner "My Faith Is My Guide," Ford writes that he is running for Senate "to put my faith and beliefs into action."

In light of only the Salon.com article there is no difference between Ford's stated policy positions and those of most members of the Religious Right. (My guess is that their would be differences on some economic issues, however.) What is more, Ford's "Gee, aw shucks," down-home style is nearly as practiced as George W. Bush's. Get this:

"[John] Kerry and I are very different people," Ford said, as he hurried toward the gates of Neyland Stadium, having arrived at the game against the University of Alabama deep into the second quarter. "I serve a big God, he gives me strength every day, and I go to work. I am not that smart. I don't try to outsmart him. I just go to work every day."

Ain't that sweet?

The differences between Ford and his Republican opponent are primarily differences grounded in the practicalities of Democratic Party workings, in the differences between Ford, who would have to work with more progressive fellow Democrats, and his opponent, who would work with the leadership of what has been one of the worst Congresses in American history; in the differences between Ford, who would count towards a Democratic majority in the Senate, and his opponent, who would count towards the now threatened Republican near-hegemony in U.S. government.

I believe that the differences between rationalism and religiosity, between a respect for the advancement of civil rights and folksy homophobia, are the sort of differences that in the longterm matter more than the differences between a Democratic homophobe and a Republican one. In the longterm. But not on November 7, 2006. On Election Day, the difference between a "D" behind a candidate's name and an "R" are enormous, for the difference is between control of the US Senate by Democrats among whom Ford's conservatism is aberrant, frankly, and by Republicans, among whom the radical, reactionary conservatism of Ford's opponent is grotesquely common.

Whatever liberalism or progressivism are, they're not well represented by Harold Ford's stand on social issues. But they sure as hell aren't represented by Ford's Republican opponent or the Republican Party.

Do I hope Ford wins? Yes! Do I like what he has to say according to the Salon.com article? No . . . I merely like the negative consequences the GOP is apparently suffering locally as a result of what Ford says. (I'm being upfront here that I'm not aware of Ford's positions beyond this single Salon.com article.) How much do I dislike Ford's faith-based homophobia? As much as only someone who's studied it and experienced it can. Regular readers will know that I was far in the front of the call for new Democratic candidates who would use visionary and specifically biblical language--even evangelical rhetorical "hooks"--exactly because they are powerful. (After all, Bush has done so successfully for 6 years, though the act seems to be wearing thin). But, I've always advocated its use in the service of an unapologetically liberal vision. What is more, I was quick to bemoan the false or at least false-sounding attempts to do so by politicians, like Sen. John Kerry, who would be better off being honest to what I think is their basically secular convictions, which are convictions that, in the long run, I think America needs more of, and which the Democratic Party is in a good position to represent. However, I have never wanted visionary and specifically biblical language used by Dems to support policies in concert with significant multiple parts of the Religious Right's own agenda. Yet, that's arguably what Ford is doing.

Nonetheless, how can the partisan in me not be pleased by Ford's strength in the polls? Sadly for Virginia, Ford's lesser-conservatism is liberalism in that state.

Could Ford be a sign of things to come for Democrats, or at least a harbinger of a fight within the Democratic Party between populist Democrats--who I tend to think of as Democrats who are largely anti-intellectual and substantially conservative on social issues and select economic issues--and liberal Democrats, who, as I see them, are more apt to be secular and, in terms of policy, innovative?

(An aside: Can one be a liberal and populist? I think so. I'm not sure. What would he or she be like? A Teddy Kennedy or Jerrold Nadler, but born in Iowa and sponsoring NASCAR teams? Intellectually, would he or she be a US-coal mining-town-born Richard Dawkins...obviously without the English accent, or a bull-riding, cowboy hat-wearing Sam Harris?)

Either kind of the two of many types of Democrats I've defined--"populist" and "liberal"--is more likely to save Social Security, demand that government not turn its back to the poor, or follow a more prudent foreign policy than today's Republicans!  In fact, the type of Democrat I've implied but not explicitly defined, the conservative Democrat--which Harold Ford, Jr. is, and which I think these days includes, by definition, a populist style--is more likely to take the correct stand on those issues than any sort of present-day Republican. That's not to dismiss the fact that even if Dems of all stripes can unite on critical, signature issues like Social Security, there might be other issues--like gay marriage or even science education (e.g., the battle between Creationism myth fans and those supporting the teaching of the scientific method)--that force the worst-case scenario of Democrats coming to internecine rhetorical blows. After all, Ford's thinking shouldn't be ignored by liberal Dems. So, will there at least be discussion within the Party over such issues? I think so. And I hope it will be in the spirit of mutual support, for in neither victory nor defeat can Democrats afford to tear each other down, and ought not to weaken Democrats grounded in conservative states who suffer no viable Primary challenges from their left. (Yes, you can read that as an endorsement for Lamont in CT for sure.) Conversely, no party can afford to have internal discussions stifled completely, not even in the name of "unity."

I hope Ford wins--yes, even the decidedly conservative Harold Ford, Jr. Democrats need Harold Ford Jr. to win. But I also hope that he comes to see some things differently, and perhaps comes to support--even if but incrementally--bolder, braver positions, and even to articulate them as he is apparently well-suited to do to his particular constituents--be they his constituents as a Representative or--let it be so--as a Senator.

If you are a Democrat and care about Democrats having a real chance at retaking the U.S. Senate, please give to Harold Ford Jr's campaign. If you are a liberal or progressive (I'm still not sure of the difference), you might have to hold your breath while you contribute; but, after you have sent your online contribution on its digital way, you'll remember--I hope--that it's money being spent in the final analysis against a radical Republican hegemony, and that if Harold Ford Jr. ever comes to liberalize his thinking, it's highly unlikely to be because of the influence of a Republican majority, but more likely through the encouragement of his colleagues among a Democratic-controlled Senate.

Ike said: Don't do it.

Fifty years ago today (Oct. 29), Israel attacked Egypt in collusion with the UK and France; in early November, the UK and France entered the conflict militarily, as had been secretly agreed among the three allied nations. UK forces seized the Suez Canel (photo), which all along had been the real purpose of the three-nation assault on Egypt.

This invasion of an Arab country was in defiance of international law and world opinion. The US did not support the invasion. In fact, the US response forced the UK troops to withdraw in humiliation. Recently, Geoffrey Wheatcroft of The Boston Globe wrote about this in light of the invasion of Iraq.

From the article:

[UK Prime Minister] Tony Blair has quite enough worries. But he might still find time to reflect on the events of 50 years ago, when an attack on an Arab country--involving a conspiracy to misrepresent the real reasons--brought a dismal end to the career of [Prime Minister] Sir Anthony Eden.
.....

In 1956, not only did London and Paris act in secret collusion with Tel Aviv, the United States was almost hostile to Israel--and toward ill-considered Western adventures in the Middle East. Today, Blair might ponder whether he should have acted as President Bush's candid friend, in the way that Eisenhower did with Eden, counseling the president against a rash enterprise rather than grandiosely supporting him ``to the last."

.....
[At the time, Prime Minister Eden] was reminded in friendly but forceful terms of the sheer unwisdom of ``the use of force" against an Arab country-which would, ``it seems to me, vastly increase the area of jeopardy." The ``appeaser" in this case was General Dwight David Eisenhower, the 34th president of the United States, in the day when things were different in the White House and the Republican Party. If Eden persevered in his folly, Ike wrote to the prime minister on Sept. 3, 1956, in words just as chilling today, not only the peoples of the Middle East but ``all of Asia and Africa, would be consolidated against the West to a degree which, I fear, could not be overcome in a generation."

So, Ike knew: for the British to invade an Arab nation then, without the support of other nations, would turn the world and particularly the Islamic world against the UK. So, Ike knew: Don't do it.

In this regard, I like Ike. I think Rev. Bu$h & NeoCon Republicans, Inc. (Donald Rumsfeld, Chairman of the Board), may not.

Defeating jihadism: a 5-point strategy better than Bush's unwinnable "war on terror"

In The Boston Globe article, "No Win," Andrew J. Bacevich, professor of history and international relations at Boston University, argues that with US and Israeli failures to "achieve decisive victories in Iraq and Lebanon" mark the ending of "the age of Western military dominance in the Middle East." He asserts: "It's time for a new strategy."

From the article:

Muslim radicals have evolved an Islamist way of war that is as complex as it is cunning. [They]...do not rely on terrorism alone. [Their] resistance blends violence and nonviolence. It includes abductions and assassinations, subversion and insurgency. It entails attacks on infrastructure,.... popular mobilization and protest, social services and legitimate political activity, propaganda...for internal consumption and propaganda...for foreign audiences.

[Such r]esistance is a strategy not of conquest but of denial.... The inhabitants of [the Middle East] now have options other than submission or collaboration.

.....
For both the United States and Israel, the real issue is not how to defeat the Islamist way of war but how to circumvent it, rendering it irrelevant. This implies resetting the terms of the competition.

.....
Over the past five years, the quasi-permanent ``war on terror," as conceived by the Bush administration and generally endorsed by the government of Israel, has enjoyed a fair trial. During that period, it has bred widespread anti-Americanism, generated sympathy for the Islamist cause, and provided ``the terrorists" with a ready supply of recruits. To continue down this path will only produce more of the same.

If the ``global war on terror" is unwinnable as currenty conceived, what is to be done? For the United States, here's a five-point alternative strategy.

First, terminate actions that are self-evidently counterproductive, above all by extricating ourselves in an orderly way from Iraq.

Second, revive in modified form the Cold War principles of containment and deterrence, incorporating explicit security guarantees for Israel, much as the United States has long guaranteed the security of Europe, Japan, and South Korea.

Third, initiate a new Manhattan Project to develop alternative sources of energy, thereby increasing US freedom of action and reducing the flow of wealth to the Persian Gulf, wealth that ends up subsidizing the Islamist cause.

Fourth, through police action, in collaboration with our allies, redouble efforts to dismantle the organizations comprising the radical Islamist network.

Fifth, patiently nurture liberalizing tendencies within the Islamic world, not by preaching or threats of regime change, but by demonstrating at home and inviting Muslims abroad to witness, the manifest advantages of freedom and democracy.

(Photo by Lynsey Addario/Corbis. Wounded US troops preparing to be airlifted out of Iraq. More rarely-seen Iraq photos can be viewed here. Warning: the images are graphic.)

POOF! Then: zap! blam-o! "Praise the Lord!"

Michelle Goldberg, an acquaintance of mine through Talk To Action and, far more importantly, the author of the critically-acclaimed, Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism, recently had an article in New York Magazine, "The Rapture Takes Manhattan," about the video game, Left Behind: Eternal Forces, which takes place after a biblically prophesied event called the Rapture, a future, miraculous, physical meeting in the sky of Jesus Christ with all Christians--an event that millions of American evangelical and fundamentalist Christians believe will literally occur...very soon. Non-Christians (as conservative evangelicals and fundamentalists define "Non-Christians"--e.g., most Episcopalians, I'm sure) will be left behind to suffer at the hands of the Antichrist. (One of my favorite bits about the game is, according to Jonathan Hutson, how the "dialogue includes people saying, 'Praise the Lord,' as they blow infidels away.")

I wish to make an offer at this time to my fellow New Yorkers who will be raptured. Contact me by e-mail with your phone number, and we can make arrangements to get me an extra set of keys to your apartment. I pledge to the best of my ability to care for your left behind dogs, cats, and birds (other species are negotiable) in your absence, until, of course, I end up in hell or wherever.

From the short article that is worth reading in full:

Left Behind [is] the massively popular series of end-time-themed thrillers that have sold over 60 million copies. Just in time for the Christmas season, the series is now also a computer game, called Left Behind: Eternal Forces, out next month. Strangely, although very little of the action in the books takes place in New York, the game is set here, offering a lovingly detailed rendering of Manhattan as battleground in a holy war. “I’m hopeful, from a popularity point of view, it becomes as popular as Christian rock,” says Troy Lyndon, CEO and co-founder of Left Behind Games. Players of the video game control a religious militia battling U.N.-style “Global Community Peacekeepers.” To triumph in Eternal Forces, players need to make converts, so in addition to snipers, tanks, and infantrymen, the Tribulation Force includes Evangelists and worship leaders. (The Global Community, meanwhile, has “rock stars” and “cult leaders” to pull souls into darkness.)

.....
As it happens, before they were Evangelical entrepreneurs, the people behind the game were New York Jews. Lyndon, 41, whose secular-gaming résumé includes helping design Madden Football, was born to a Jewish mother on the Upper West Side. While she raised him as a Catholic, he identifies as a Jew—albeit one who believes that Jesus Christ is the son of God (he also describes evolution as a “hoax”)....

.....
[P]olls say about 40 percent of Americans believe in some form of biblical Armageddon.

The Third Way

When I first heard about third-way.com, I thought of the moderate progressivism ("center-left") of Bill Clinton's presidential administration, which was called "the third way" by some commentators, and is most likely what the Third Way website means to evoke.

However, I also thought of the Liberal Democrats in Britain--moderate on economic issues and liberal or libertarian on social issues. (Caveats: the economic/social divide of issues is artificial, though common; and I have read next to nothing about the libertarian tradition in the Britain.... So, I use the term "libertarian" above as an American, and I'm sure my description of the Lib-Dems in the UK would be considered horribly simplistic by better informed readers.)

Frankly, I also thought about the Anglican tradition, too, often referred to as the "via media" or a "third way" between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. (When weighted as I am with that ever-impractical degree, an MA in Religion, such trivial observations intrude.)

As a look at a general kind of governmental centerism, I suppose this chart from the Center for Economic and Social Justice might help explain the "third way." Maybe.

It seems to me that The Third Way site is a website meant to market, as it were, Democratic Party-style progressivism to Independents and self-identified political moderates. Yes, I believe that it is important for Democrats--for progressives especially--to reach out to moderates, to produce ideas that can resonate with moderates, to create for moderates "products," as it were: e.g. indirect and direct delivery mechanisms and units of thought or communication that embody progressive ideals attractively for moderates. Therefore, I think that the third-way.com website addresses an important need.

However, I believe just as passionately--perhaps more so--in nurturing progressivism itself. A look back into the archives of Isebrand.com, including a look at my post following the Kerry-Edwards defeat, will show that I believe that an important lesson to learn from the Religious Right's successes and the Republican Party's successes since 1992 is that defending the Constitution's Enlightenment foundation and ideals requires a long-term plan that educates American voters in the value of liberal ideals over the course of many years. In fact, the GOP successes since 1992 were born of planning, efforts, and investment in conservatism and its cultural positioning as far back at the 1970's. "Investing in liberalism itself," is what I have repeatedly called for. (A reference here.) The Republicans' mechanisms for investment included college-level leadership programs, think tanks, media innovation, research, research, and research, and writing, writing, and writing. And money. Lots and lots and lots of money.

Yes, I believe that a "third way" outreach to moderate American voters is critical to the success of the Democratic Party. But, I also believe that such outreach is insufficient--doomed to fail, in fact--unless the nation as a whole can have its center pulled more to the left, to the liberal, to the progressive perspective.

Note to Dem candidates

Donkey Rising says this strategy is worth consideration for Democratic candidates:

...downplay "position-issues"; they leave you open to attack. Instead link the Republicans to "conditions negatively valued by the electorate"

Below is, in my wording, the tripartite message that Donkey Rising likes, plus my rah-rah tag. :)  But, let me first offer a reminder about the theme I've been stressing here relative to the GOP, one that, in my opinion, all Democratic candidates would be prudent to couple with Rising's 3-parter. My theme is basically that the Republicans are making and have made us more vulnerable to terrorism (and--one might add in light of reckless GOP environmental policies and the disasterous GOP mismanagement of the Katrina response--to the consequences of natural disaster). Or to put it emotively and overly-simplistically: Republicans are liable to get a lot more Americans killed...abroad...and at home.

*Republicans are incompetent managers of government (e.g, Iraq, Katrina)
*Real incomes are falling
*Unemployment is rising
ON TUES., NOV. 7.... Vote for Democratic Party candidates!
America needs to get back on track.

Dworkin's question: gay marriage

Legal scholar Ronald Dworkin wrote an article, "Three Questions for America," in a recent issue of The New York Review of Books. In it he considers the teaching of evolution in public schools, the pledge of allegiance, and gay marriage. It is a refreshingly honest article in a matter-of-fact style.

On the question of gay marriage, here is some of what Dworkin's has to say. (Emphases are mine.)

Married couples enjoy more favorable tax rates, insurance opportunities, intestacy and inheritance status, workman's compensation benefits, and the opportunity to participate in medical decisions affecting their partners. So the prohibition in almost all states against same-sex marriage is a cause of substantial economic and other deprivation.

.....
[I]t would not injure the stability of different-sex marriages also to encourage stability in same-sex partnerships. Some defenders of a ban on same-sex marriage...concede that states should recognize a special "civil union" status, which same-sex couples may enter.... Such a step reduces the discrimination, but falls far short of eliminating it....

[W]e can not create a substitute for poetry or for love. The status of marriage is...a social resource of irreplaceable value to those to whom it is offered: it enables two people together to create value in their lives that they could not create if that institution had never existed. We know that people of the same sex often love one another with the same passion as people of different sexes do and that they want as much as heterosexuals to have the benefits and experience of the married state. If we allow a heterosexual couple access to that wonderful resource but deny it to a homosexual couple, we make it possible for one pair but not the other to realize what they both believe to be an important value in their lives.

It becomes dramatically clear that the cultural argument against gay marriage contradicts our shared ideals of personal dignity.... [Consider that what] I said about the cultural heritage and value of marriage is equally true of the general institution of religion: religion is an irreplaceable cultural resource in which billions of people find immense and incomparable value. Its meaning, like that of marriage, has evolved over a great many centuries. But its meaning, again like that of marriage, is subject to quite dramatic change through organic processes as new religions and sects develop and as new threats to established doctrine and practice are generated by secular developments in science or politics or theories of social justice.... American religious conservatives, even those who regard themselves as evangelical, do not imagine that the cultural meaning of religion should be frozen by laws prohibiting people with new visions from access to the title, legal status, or tax and economic benefits of religious organization.

The cultural argument against gay marriage is therefore inconsistent with the instincts and insight captured in the shared idea of human dignity. The argument supposes that the culture that shapes our values is the property only of some of us—those who happen to enjoy political power for the moment—to sculpt and protect in the shape they admire. That is a deep mistake: in a genuinely free society the world of ideas and values belongs to no one and to everyone. Who will argue—not just declare—that I am wrong?

Make Your Vote Count - A Forum

Download a PDF of the flier here.