Here is what I found to be an amazing talk by activist and historian Howard Zinn. It directly contradicts the idea that the Civil War/ American Revolution/ and World War II were morally justified wars.  The talk was entitled “Three Holy Wars”.

Watch. Enjoy.

EDIT:  Just in case I didn’t make it clear enough. The list of usernames I placed here was meant to be a comprehensive list of users that I personally had seen involved in controversies. I did NOT mean it to call out, praise, insult, shame, honor, or critique anyone. I was not equating the users involved NOR was I exonerating them of wrong doing. If someone is offended by my inclusion of them on this list, please let me know and I will remove your username right away. If you think I shouldn’t include a list of usernames at all let me know in the comments and I’ll edit the post accordingly

Sigh…  I guess I should chime in on the age old topic. Xanga Drama. Seems like everybody’s got a post about it. I might as well add my own two cents. Plus I think my perspective is different from most people’s.

I guess for me it’s just all really very sad.

I’ve seen a lot of controversies on Xanga. So many in just the last two years. I keep seeing this whole Drama thing come up again and again.  And always the result is the same.

I see a constant string of Xangans either leave or greatly scale back their interactions with the Xanga community. Lots of bloggers who used to post regularly barely post any more. Many others don’t even comment. Others left with sad going away messages. Others mysteriously disappeared without ever saying goodbye.

And I know, it’s normal for there to be a turnover in any blogging community. People lose interest. People get discouraged. People have better things to do. It ebbs and flows, right?

But I think this is different. Theirs usually some controversy surrounding the departure. Some big huge mess that leads right up to it. It seems that far too often people don’t just leave naturally. They seem to be PUSHED.

No it’s not always intentional. Not always. Maybe not even often. Rather it just sort of happens. It’s just sort of has to do with the way Xanga is.

People get drawn in, they get addicted, they start to LOVE being here. Why? Because you can get so many followers. Because you can feel smart and feel like you’re a good writer. Because you can interact with many people with shared ideas. And because there is such a lively debate about things. There are so many different perspectives. Xanga isn’t one of those online enclaves where everyone just reinforces each other’s pre-existing beliefs. Furthermore it gets PERSONAL here. People share so many deep heart wrenching stories about themselves. People literally put a piece of themselves into their Xangas. Sometimes they hold nothing back.

There’s so much going on here. And there’s a lot of AMAZING people here. You can make friends here. GOOD friends. Friendships that can last beyond Xanga if you put the effort into maintaining them.

Yeah it’s addictive. All online communities are. But Xanga I think inspires a level of closeness between its denizens while at the same time making it so much easier for small blogs to attract large readerships that makes it all the more enticing. It’s like a love addiction. And we get so caught up we start to yearn for our next fix.

But there’s another side of Xanga. A darker side. The side that leads to the crash from the high. The agony of the withdrawal symptoms.

This is captured in that word you hear whispered about here and there and everywhere. That dreaded word. “Drama”.

At first when you join Xanga you don’t know what it means. You see a post about how there’s “too much drama” here and you kinda shrug it off. “What does that mean?” you think. Sure you see an argument break out here or there, but that’s *normal* right? It happens in all online communities.

But then it happens to YOU and it’s not at all what you thought it would be. You get embroiled in the conflict, lost in the DRAMA. And very quickly before you know it, that LOVE you had for Xanga turns to HATRED.

Or if not fullblown hatred at least a very bitter and cynical view, a sense of disgust. Why did it turn out this way?

You got hurt. BADLY hurt. And not just you too. Lots of people get hurt in these conflicts. ALL the time. Sometimes by people they don’t care about. Sometimes by people they thought were their friends. And when that happens… It’s hard to keep going on like nothing was wrong. It’s hard to stay a part of this community or to give it your all like you did a little while ago. It’s hard to swallow your pride and accept this hurt. It’s hard to find a way to heal.

I’ve seen it happen again and again with so many of my Xanga friends. I watched so many controversies evolve. So many “dramas”. I’ve seen ones arise involving the following Xangans:

purplepixiepoo, huginn, antisoccermom, fullmetalbunny, qccan, legendairy, vaultesl, yukinkoicy, badboydoomdaddy, modernbunny, celestialteapot, silentseekr, godlessliberal, inaneinsanity, raindrops23, vitamin_D, ISpeakLife, avenuetothereal, schristian, and of course thetheologianscafe and many more.

And I’m SURE you can add to this list. In fact DO SO. If you’ve been been involved in a Drama or a controversy here on Xanga or know someone who has put it in the comments.

Now some of these people don’t blog here anymore. Some blog a LOT less than they used to. Some considered leaving and had to be convinced to stay. Some focus their posts in protected blogs,  Some changed their usernames. Some went crazy with the banning button. Some took lengthy breaks before coming back with a cooler head.

Some just… stopped caring.

Maybe you think some of these people deserved it. Maybe they did. Maybe you think some of these people were in fact the Problem. They instigated it.  Maybe they were. Maybe you think some of them just need to develop THICKER skins. And maybe they should.

But that doesn’t matter. It doesn’t change the fact that it’s HAPPENING. Far FAR too often…

It’s too easy to ignore it. To think of Xanga as just like any other quirky little community that has its share of disagreements. To think we’re like the community in the movie Fiddler on the Roof. Peaceful and secure in our traditions MOST of the time, but the occasional old animosities resulting in huge arguments lying under the surface.

But we’re NOT. It’s much worse than that. The DRAMA here gets out of control. The hurt feelings linger like a dour rain cloud coloring all that people say, all that we do. It’s like we’re constantly afraid. Tip toeing around each other, but pricklish and quick to anger anyway. We’re all trying not to be the cause of the next big Xanga Drama, while at the same time creating the very conditions most likely to trigger another Drama.

And then people start to think “This isn’t worth it. Why should I keep doing this to myself?” Can you blame them? Doing this. Blogging on Xanga stops making them happy.  For those who stick with it, it almost becomes a kind of chore. Something you do out of habit or some misplaced sense of lingering responsibility to the Xanga community or a hope that things might change.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure plenty of people are perfectly comfortable with their Xanga experience. Some have fun and somehow manage to avoid all controversy. For a long time I was like this. But for others I’m sure this situation is intolerable. Even if you yourself haven’t been involved in dramas, you maybe like me feel the community has gotten out of hand. That something precious is being lost every single time another blogger just gives up and closes the door or decides that this isn’t worth it anymore.

In a way DRAMA isn’t even a good term. It’s a term like “love” and “hate” and “life” where everybody assumes they know its meaning but really doesn’t have a clue.  It obscures more than it illuminates. It equates every little skirmish, every argument, every mishap. But they aren’t all the same. Some are misunderstandings. Sometimes it’s a case of blatant trolling. Sometimes it’s a legitimate difference of opinions. Sometimes it’s something darker, a kind of harassment or even a case of deliberate verbal abuse. Sometimes it takes on more of the character of a mob attack or a lynching. They aren’t all the same.

NOR are all the actors equivalent. But the word Drama equates them. If a Man beats his wife, we can call it “Family Drama” and yeah there’s some truth to that. But it’s also DOMESTIC VIOLENCE. It’s also ABUSE. It’s also CRUELTY. It’s also WRONG.  It’s NOT the same as a normal couple of having a spat. Here someone is in the wrong and another person is the victim. Maybe we need to start using more specific terms to deal with these situations.

When we say “Drama” and cry out from our holier-than-thou position “STOP WITH THE DRAMA ALREADY” we not only equalize the participants no matter who is in the wrong, we also are trivilizing their problems. When you say that, this implication is that this is just a Childish conflict. It invokes images of teenagers embroiled in their petty high school conflicts disjointed and unrelated to the rest of the world. It makes you think of acting. It makes you think the people aren’t really hurt, are just pretending or are just lying. Phrases like “Drama Queen” come to mind. Of course WE are above that. We smarter, wiser, more mature people who know enough to call a end to the drama.

Ugh, how arrogant.

It’s far too easy to forget that for many people the internet is NOT a GAME. When someone they think is their friend says something terrible to them or abandons them or treats them with no compassion. It HURTS. When a stranger comes up and ridicules them or attacks them, it SUCKS. It hurts and it sucks just as bad as it does in so called “Real Life”.  Remember just because something is done at a distance with someone you’ve never met doesn’t mean it isn’t real. Just because it’s online, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter.  For so many people it matters so very much.

So… what can we do?

I don’t know.  It’s not an easy problem to solve.

But I do know that we won’t make any progress unless we start talking about this. We need to open up a deeper more honest dialogue. We have to start sharing our stories and explaining ourselves and taking the time to try and empathize with one another.  So let’s start DOING that. Start talking about it. Not judging, not condemning. Just talking. Sharing. Understanding. And then let’s brainstorm and work together to come up with real community based solutions that we can implement. You can start by replying here or by posting your own entry on the topic. Let’s start to share our stories and brainstorm our ideas on how to deal with these situations better.

Xanga won’t live or die based on whether we do this or not. But that’s not the point. The point is to make this experience as good an experience for all of us as it CAN be. And hopefully the kind of experience that doesn’t lead people to want to leave or give up on it.

I think Xanga is worth it. Do you?

Before Iran went all crazy the big news of the day coming out of the Middle East was the famous Cairo Speech by President Obama. Now there’s a lot of good things in the speech and a lot of things I didn’t like, mostly the things he didn’t say that he could have.  But of course the part of this speech that got the most attention was Obama’s supposedly extraordinarily tough hard line response to Israel. Riiiight…

Anyways here’s the relevant part of what he said:

Israel must also live up to its obligations to ensure that Palestinians can live, and work, and develop their society. And just as it devastates Palestinian families, the continuing humanitarian crisis in Gaza does not serve Israel’s security; neither does the continuing lack of opportunity in the West Bank. Progress in the daily lives of the Palestinian people must be part of a road to peace, and Israel must take concrete steps to enable such progress.”

Well as it turns out that kinda annoyed some of the leadership in Israel so a few days ago Benjaimin Netanyahu Prime Minister of Israel gave his response. He said he accepts a 2 state solution BUT with certain conditions. In particular he said:

Brilliant!  I mean surely it’s a great idea to make Palestine a demilitarized state? Who wants violence and terrorists!  Nobody likes wars. Let’s just take away their military and their arms and all their ability to defend themselves, block off their airspace and control their borders! Other than THAT they can be as soveriegn as they’d like. I tip my hat to Mr. Netanyahu.

However, let’s presuppose YOU are appointed by President Obama and the United Nations with the enviable task of negotiating this great agreement that will END the stalemate in the Middle East and bring about a lasting Peace. Let’s do a mental exercise and see how that might turn out.

You heard Netanyahu’s brilliant speech so you think, “Great! I’ll just go to the Palestinians and offer them that idea and it’ll be done. Case closed.”

And to your great glee the Palestinians are quite receptive to your offer. They just have one little itsy bitsy condition that they must predicate their demilitarization along the lines provided and described by the good Prime Minister of Israel.  The Palestinians say:

“Sure we’ll demilitarize. But of course you do understand, that if these conditions are reasonable for us, then it should be equally reasonable to place those very same conditions upon ISRAEL. I mean, we all want Peace right? If it’s such a small burden for us to undertake, surely Israel will acquiesce to similar minor conditions. If they do that then we’ll demilitarize at once.”

So you say to yourself… heeeey, he’s kinda got a point! So you go back to Israel and present this possibility. The Israelis are nice reasonable people too of course and they see quite well the wisdom in the Palestinians idea. BUT, there’s one small problem.

“We would love to demilitarize, but you know we just wouldn’t feel SAFE demilitarized. There are all these Arab countries around us that have a history of plotting our DESTRUCTION. I mean that lunatic in Iran says it outright on regularly basis. Not to mention Hezbollah and other militant groups. We will demilitarize as soon as all these threats are equally demilitarized.”

You start to get a bit annoyed. But again you see the reasonableness of this request so you head off to Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, and a few other states in the area. You’re a bit nervous because these are a lot of people but to your pleasure they are ALL also very reasonable people. They say to you:

“If Israel and Palestine are demilitarized well OF COURSE we’d LOVE to demilitarize! There’s only one catch. You see we aren’t really that concerned with Israel. Our real problem is with the United States. I mean they’ve interferred in our elections. They’ve invaded some of our countries. They’ve baked Israel with money and arms for so long and secretly we really believe that deep down they just covet our oil resources. We just CAN’T feel safe until the US demilitarizes as well together with all its satellites and proxies.”

And Iran chirps in at the end:  “And don’t forget Iraq! They are our ancient enemies, AND they’re controlled by the US. They better be demilitarized or we’rre not in!”

Alright!! NOW We’re making progress! After getting Iraq’s concession on pretty much the same terms as the rest of the Middle East, you head on back home thinking your job is almost done.

“Mr. President”, you say, “I’ve almost procurred a complete peace settlement throughout the Middle East!”

“Seriously dude?!? That’s awesome!”  (yeah we all know the President talks like that in private)

“Not only that I’ve gotten ALL the countries in the Middle East including Israel, Iraq, Iran, Palestine, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and others to ALL agree to eliminate all of their military and arms!”"

“NO WAY! KICK ASS! Ok… wait… wait… hold on a second what’s the CATCH??”

“There’s just one little thing. All we have to do is agree to demilitarize the United States. No big deal. I mean we all love Peace right?”

“Now hold on a second Bob.”  Yeah I just named you Bob. Deal with it. “Are you saying the US has to get rid of ALL its arms?”

“That’s right. I mean I figured it’d be an easy thing for we are the peace loving nation of the world.”

“Well you’re right about that. We do love Peace. And I’d LOVE to demilitarize. I mean the money we would save alone would be enormous. But there’s just a few little problems here and there we have to deal with before that can be a possibility.”

Hearing those words your heart sinks because you know you’re going to have more work to do.

And pretty soon you’re off again. The President has sent you off to a few troublemaker states on his list that need to demilitarize before the US would even consider such a thing as demilitarization.  Afghanistan, Pakistan, North Korea, and Venezuela though you suspect he just threw Venezuela in there for good measure.

Afghanistan and Venezuela are fairly easy to convince. And Pakistan predictably demands that India’s military also be dismantled.  North Korea needs South Korea demiltiarized. Japan has no military, but Korea also wants Japan’s agreement not to generate a military. North Korea is worried about China too but they don’t press the issue so you don’t bother pursuing it. 

After hearing the US is on board, South Korea, India and Japan all line up lickity spit. So you’re back on your way to the US thinking that FINALLY you’ve got everything taken care of. Then the President lays the real big one on you.

“Bob. Look I’ve got a confession to make to you. The honest to goodness truth is we don’t really care that much about North Korea, Iran, or Afghanistan. I know, I know our rhetoric is all about stopping them and all that. But our REAL concerns are the same as in old days, We’re concerned about India’s growing economic power.”

“Oh don’t worry!”, you chime in quickly, “India’s already on board!”

“Very good. Very good. But even more dangerous than India, we’ve got China. And we’re still none too fond of Russia and all the other states that used to be a part of the Soviet Union. So…”  He pats you on the back. “Keep up the good work Bob and come back once you’ve secured their agreement.”

You give an exasperated sigh and head on out. A diplomat’s work is never done!

China first. They turn out to be a bit obstinate. They want no states on their borders or nearby to be militarized.   So mongolia, Cambodia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Taiwan, and a few others are your next destinations.

After securing their consent to demilitarize, it’s back up to Russia and its allies. Now, at first Russia seems all gung ho about it and you think this is going to be the easiest trip yet. Seems Russian intelligence has been watching you all along and approves greatly of this demilitarization strategy.  So they wait until the very last minute to drop the bomb on you.

“Comrad! As we discussed we will be demilitarizing at once and getting all our bordering nations to also demilitarize. You do understand though, that of course we expect that before we begin our most just demilitarization efforts we expect all our good neighbors in the rest of Europe will surely have removed all their military arms.”

You reply with all your diplomatic elegance and sophistication: “Shit.”

Europe it is. The Europeans should be EASY right? I mean sophisticated western powers and all that. NOT! Every single European country has its OWN conditions and they bicker about them back and forth for what seems like AGES.  And Great Brittain is amongst the worst! You see they have all these silly concerns that all these countries they did horrible things to over the last two hundred years might want to take their *revenge* on them or some such nonsense.

By the time you’re done with Europe you’ve traveled to every remaining nation in Africa, South America, and Central America, Greenland and Canada. You’re not sure WHY Canada had to be included. But everyone in the European Union were pretty much unanimous on the point. Maybe they were afraid the US might use Canada as a proxy nation for their wars.  It only took a few countries in Africa and South America before internal rivalries basically resulted in securing the agreement of all the rest.

But finally, FINALLY after all that you are done. You head back to the President who greets you with open arms!

“You did it yo! Rock on! U DA MAN!”

You accept the praise with a wry exhausted smile. And just say you hope we hurry up and get this over with.

So at the next meeting of the United Nations the agreements are signed. All the countries leaderships are there. And just before the United Global Demilitarization Treaty was about to be signed into law a niggling thought crosses your mind and you shout out!

“WAIT!!! Are we missing anyone!?!?!?”

Everyone stops and thinks really hard but for the life of them they can’t think of anyone. They shrug you off and get back to the business at hand.

And so the treaty is signed.

World Peace is finally obtained!

Under the rule of the United Global Military Empire of Australia.

See? Demilitarization was a BRILLIANT idea!

Yesterday as I drove around at random I saw a blue car with the words WHITE POWER brazenly spray painted in white paint across the back. The driver was white. So presumably they put it there intentionally. How nice.

Never in my life have I seen BLACK POWER spray painted anywhere. Nor any other kind of power. No doubt it existed back in the old days. Maybe it still exists some places today. But mostly I see the opposite. Pro-Caucasian propaganda.

It reminds me of all the KKK and Nazi stuff I used to see painted on the ground at the park on the walking trail near the University I lived near when I lived in Maryland. They painted WHITE POWER too and swastikas and other more blatant nastier stuff. Only in those days there was no one there to confront. I could only walk down the trail back and forth in brazen opposition wondering if anyone would ever appear. But the paint was old, months old probably and the University and the State were both too lazy to clean it up.  I suppose I could have complained right? But I’ve seen far worse in the cities and seen that rarely is anything done. Plus simply covering it up doesn’t teach anyone anything. It doesn’t change anyone’s perspective. It just makes them paint it again.

In this case though there was a person there in the car. I could have followed him. I did for a while. But I wasn’t exactly in the kind of mood for a confrontation. Not that day. Besides is it a crime? Let the person make a fool of himself with his absurd paint job.

Instead of confronting the person, and likely getting my ass kicked, I waxed philosophically about what the logic of a conception of “white power” must be. Power is work done per unit time. Work is energy transferred by force acting over a distance. So white power must then be some capacity to get work done by the color white over a unit of time.

So if I took my white napkin and put it to work would there be a way by virtue of its being white that it can transfer energy over a period of time?  What length of time before I get a meaningful amount of energy? A year? A millennium? 

Or is there a way to harness this power faster.  Maybe since it reflects light? May the car was referring to a new kind of solar energy production. Maybe the spray painter is trying to save the world from global warming!  Heck maybe his car literally runs on “white power”. That’s why he spray painted the back. The paint is actually reducing his energy usage by reflecting heat back into the atmosphere. That’s actually got some serious physical truth to it. 

Why didn’t he just paint the whole back of the car white though? Or buy a white car in the first place. That would make a heck of a lot more sense.  But then you see, he wouldn’t be able to spread the word! Obviously the fact that his car was blue was to spread attention. And the spray paint was telling everyone to use WHITE POWER to save the environment.

See? You should never judge a book by its cover.

Either that or the world continues to be as sad a messed up depressing place as ever. Oh well.

I hesitate generally to put my thoughts on the subject of abortion on paper not because I don’t have strong opinions on the matter but because in it more than most other subjects that split liberals and conservatives I can understand both sides to some extent.

The trouble with abortion is the way the debate is generally framed it hinges upon an unknown: namely when exactly does human life begin to gain its intrinsic value?  Since the concept on intrinsic value of life itself is a matter under serious debate as is the question of when something can even be considered to a “human” life it’s rather obvious that this should be and is a thorny issue.  It becomes even thornier when you factor in that this unknown or undetermined value is often directly pitted against the life and well being of functioning non-controversial human lives that are generally deemed to have value.

As a result it really should entail some deep debate and serious thought to determine how civilized societies ought to deal with abortion.  I submit that I don’t think it is at all obvious was is or ought to be the law no matter how often proponents and opponents want to claim it is.

How would this serious debate proceed?  I think the parameters are not particularly hard to draw up. We might start by describing two meaningful scenarios as follows:

Scenario A:
Imagine there’s a woman in her early 30′s who has a good high paying job, and is married with two children. Suppose she’s perfectly healthy and carries a child to full term fully aware that she is pregnant the entire time and then the day before she’s due to deliver decides to have an abortion. Let’s say not only that but she’s had six abortions in the past. In all cases she refuses to explain the reasons and she has a Doctor who willingly agrees and complies with her request no questions asked performing the abortion even after determining that the fetus is fully viable and healthy and having no known genetic diseases or abnormalities. Based on all the science that is known at the time, that fetus would become a baby that would live a perfectly healthy life if delivered on the day it is aborted. Likewise the Doctor can see no risk to the woman or anyone else if she delivers the baby.

Scenario B:
Imagine there’s a 9 year old rape victim from a poor family whose parents are devoutly opposed to abortion. So she sees a Doctor and begs the doctor to perform an abortion without telling her parents. The doctor determines that the child has been pregnant for less than a week. To make the example all the more extreme, let’s suppose the doctor is able to analyze the embryo at this stage and determines immediately that the embryo poses an extreme risk to the life of the girl if she continues to carry it even for a few more days. Further, the doctor can determine that even if the child were able to carry the embryo to term it also has a very low less than 1% probability of survival and if it does survive it will have a high probability of being both physically and mentally handicapped. So the doctor performs the legal abortion in a safe and controlled manner allowing the child to live a normal healthy life.

Now I think, almost everyone would agree on the moral judgments we should apply to these two scenarios. In my mind at least a scenario like Scenario B is a justified abortion and a scenario like Scenario A is an unjustified abortion.

To claim that scenario A is justified would require you to make a distinction that a fully developed, completely functional fetus inside a woman’s body one day prior to its removal is somehow of intrinsically less worth than it is the very next day after it has been delivered. That seems intellectually dishonest. Or else to be honest you’d have to accept the convenience based elimination of 1 day old babies or 5 day old babies as well and develop some other standard through which human beings suddenly start to be considered to have intrinsic worth sufficient to allow them the protections of the State against arbitrary elimination. When will that be? When they can pass an I.Q. test?

Likewise to claim that Scenario B is unjustified you’d have to believe that conception imparts in some cells some kind of magical mystical power of “significance” that excludes it from any form of justified human intervention no matter who might be helped or harmed and no matter the conditions. You would basically be saying that rather than kill those cells you should condemn that child to take her chances and most probably die. Should the Doctor or the child decide to act in the interest of the child to destroy the embryo they should be treated exactly as you would any person who decides to kill another human being and be subject to the same punishments under the legal code.

If being Pro-Choice means I’d have to accept and acknowledge no moral critique of the woman or doctor in scenario A then I am NOT Pro-Choice. And if being Pro-Life means I have to condemn the girl or the doctor in Scenario B then I’m definitely NOT Pro-Life.  And by those definitions, I should hope that nobody else is either.

A nuanced conversation would be built upon these agreeable parameters and carefully and intellectually examine all the myriad scenarios between these extremes.  We would focus on minimizing the occurrences of abortion altogether and making as many of the abortions that do take place look much closer to Scenario B than to Scenario A.  Whatever tools that enable us to do that be they legal punishments, incentives, educational programs, increased contraceptive availability, more family planning, increasing or decreasing availability of clinics that provide abortions, parental notification programs or confidentiality programs, or whatever else we can think of would be on the table. Each option would be analyzed in turn to think about what the likely effect would be and how best to encourage the best possible results. As we implement policies we’d examine the results and modify our strategies as necessary.

That should be what we ought to be debating about. Is this particular strategy or that particular strategy a good one? Does it provide women with a reasonable amount of freedom? Does it protect the interests of the unborn to a reasonable extent? Is it consistent with our values? Will it lead to reduction in the number of abortions or unplanned pregnancies. Will it cause more abortions to occur earlier in pregnancies when it is safer and more likely to occur on an nonviable fetus or embryo? How expensive is it to implement? Will it encourage people to use unsafe means to perform their own abortions or go to the black market to receive medical treatment?  These are the kinds of questions we should be asking and talking about. Analyzing case by case. Studying strategy by strategy.

Of course the big problem that I find is that the debate we are actually having is not anywhere near that deep. It’s not nuanced. It isn’t even particularly interesting. And much of this distortion of the debate has resulted from the extreme hard line position that many of the Pro-Life advocates have espoused to the exclusion of all other possibilities and the exclusion of any form of nuanced analysis.

And yet even that position I have some empathy for.  Many of these people have convinced themselves that EVERY. SINGLE. ABORTION.  is the death or even murder of a baby. Namely they see the impregnated egg as having the exact same value of human life as any newborn baby.  They are judging the value of life by the potential a grouping of cells has to become a full grown human being. In other words they see Scenario B as not a reasonable necessity but a terrible tragedy.

And under such a logic is it any wonder that the rhetoric becomes so charged? They call it a “world wide abortion holocaust”.  And they speak in terms of millions of deaths per year. If such a holocaust were really happening then there’s all kinds of behaviors that could be justified in order to prevent it. Lone gunman shooting abortion doctors would not be problematic morally, just strategically, in that they don’t effectively further the cause of eliminating abortion. And you can actually hear that if you read the statements of many anti-abortion groups after the Tiller killing. They argue not that the murderer was unjustified because killing doctors who are just following the law is morally reprehensible, but that the murder was unjustified because it won’t lead to saving more babies lives. As if absolutely everything morally reduces to a question of what can be done to save these millions of innocents who are being brutally murdered.

But IS every single abortion a murder? I find that position unsustainable and it’s actually pretty easy to argue against. Not only is it legally false on the surface it also just doesn’t make much sense morally. Some abortions are done on fetuses that are already dead. In those cases it’s clearly not a murder. In other cases abortions are done when both the mother and the child are at risk of dying but the probability of the fetus surviving post birth is very slim. In these cases the abortion is done in order to save the life of the mother. In such cases as that we can say that this is a scenario much akin to medical triage on a battle field or the scene of an accident. The doctor chooses to save the life most likely to survive. I don’t think anyone can rationally call a situation like that a murder either.

But IS every single abortion done on a live fetus or embryo even a baby-death? Surely we can all see that that is not a particularly nuanced position. It’s a blanket statement not based on any characteristic elements of any particular abortion or abortion in general except for the fact that certain cells might grow into a baby and a human being without inordinate human intervention. It’s a position that Scenario B may be necessary but still is a horrible tragedy that should be mourned.  So it becomes hard to argue against. Opponents can’t bring up details and facts that would dissuade them because their very basic premise excludes all factual analysis. When does something become alive? Does it have to have a head? A brain? Does it have to respond to stimuli? Does it have to move? Have a heart beat? Are our skin cells alive? Is sperm alive?

But you can’t argue with someone who believes without a doubt that impregnating an egg really does initiate life and significance. There’s no reals grounds to argue. It’s just a basic difference of opinion. At best you can do is try to show to catch them in hypocrisy as in to claim that pro-life people who espouse this view don’t engage in behavior that would be consistent with that view.  (if there is a holocaust, seriously why aren’t you rebelling in the streets?) But that kind of argument doesn’t invalidate the view in itself and could have the adverse effect of causing the proponents to engage in even more irrational or dangerous behavior in pursuit of consistency.

Fortunately though I believe that not all or even most of the people who proclaim themselves as pro-life have such a hard line view of the nature of human life. Though perhaps this is me just being too optimistic, but I’m pretty sure the majority of people who are pro-life either feel that current laws are too lenient or that abortions occur too frequently or too late in a pregnancy or all of the above. In other words they think too many abortions are like Scenario A and more if they are going to happen at all need to be like Scenario B. That’s a position I think we can understand and work with and reach a common ground.

Likewise I like to think that most Pro-Choice advocates are those who fear moral condemnation and illegality being placed upon abortions that are at all close to Scenario B, that in the zeal to outlaw Scenario A far too many women who have legitimate reasonable reasons to have an abortion will be denied that right. That too I think is a reasonable position that can be worked with to reach a common ground.

And I think that is very possible. Abortion need not be a divisive topic in the future. We can move beyond it if we stop, take a deep breathe and start to talk about the fundamental issues in a serious and honest manner. We’d need to stop with the oh so prevalent “murder” talk though and the “slavery” talk is probably no more useful. Certainly the childish picketing and obstructionism of people engaging in services that are currently legal is even less helpful.

We need to stop condemning one another for our differences in opinion and start trying to find a way to work together. It isn’t really that hard just as long as we don’t reduce the debate down to catch phrases and childish labeling. We need to move beyond “pro-choice” and “pro-life”.

Or barring that I guess we can yell at each other and kill one another all the while waiting for the development of some perfect 100% accuracy, dirt cheap contraceptive and distribute it throughout the world to every human being currently living and every new human being at birth. Thus making unplanned pregnancy a virtual impossibility.

That’s fine too I guess. Good luck with that.

Big news this past weekend is the growth and spread of socially conservative parties throughout Europe at the expense of socialist and left-wing parties. Amongst these is the British National Party, which earned seats in the European Parliament. Previously a tiny fringe party, the BNP has shown a steady growth in strength and influence since its founding 1980.

It amazes me that this party exists in this day and age let alone is growing in power.  This party explicitly excludes membership of non-white non-British persons. At least two of its leading members have spoken directly of doubting the holocaust and have made other overtly anti-Semitic statements. One leader was caught photographed with a leading member of the KKK.

More generally they are very against immigration, come out strongly opposed to affirmative action, and have taken a hard line anti-Arab position politically.  The advocate the repeal of anti-discrimination legislation and assert that there are biological racial differences that determine individual character and behavior of members of the various races. They believe that preference for your own race is a natural part of human nature. Basically in other words they are a pro-Caucasian party. It should also be no surprise at all to hear that they are also very anti-homosexuality.

But what makes this even more scary is that these people are also State-ists.They believe in social policies that are remarkably “left-like” as in arising from a strong central government taking control of the economy as well as implementing social policies that enforce their anti-immigration stance.

In other words if you ever wanted to see a Nazi party in the making, this is it.

And they aren’t the only ones. Throughout Europe other parties that have positions remarkably Nazi-like have gained significant representation. Italy’s People of Freedom, Austria’s People’s Party, Denmark’s DPP, Hungary’s Jobbik party, the Netherland’s Party of Freedom, Poland’s PiS, and Romania’s PRM all have elements of that kind of a culture within them, be it either a strong xenophobic streak or a profoundly anti-homosexual component or a just blame arabs policy.  And many of them still promote liberal, statist economic policies just so long as they are tilted the right way and don’t involve major bailouts. These parties are all scary in their own way. You can read more about them here.

Most of the support these parties are getting is coming from native citizen (white primariyl) working class individuals and families who see themselves being screwed by the bailouts and the growing income equality gap. Namely those who are both rejecting current neo-liberal capitalism AND at the same time seeing social policies that they see as screwing them specifically and in their minds are created to help everyone of every other race and nationality BUT their own as the real problem. It is those who feel they are unfairly punished for past sins of the holocaust and slavery that they themselves had nothing to do with and see immigration as stealing away their jobs and livelihood.

What scares me the most is not the moderate success the BNP and those other parties like it have gotten througout Europe.  It’s the very real possibility that a party very much like it could very easily arise in the United States.

It could arise from either existing major party or from a brand new party. But right now I see one branch of the Republican Party being far closer to this extreme and right on the verge of making the shift to a BNP like party at any minute.

Right now these Republicans that call themselves “true” conservatives, catered to by loud mouthed radio and television hosts have all the xenophobic, blame the other guy characteristics of any of these other Nationalist parties. However, in the US they have been so far pretty overtly anti-government. This created some severe internal tension in the party when President Bush engaged in policies that strengthed and expanded the role of the central government. These tensions were in part exploited by the Democratic party to win its recent elections. 

But the Republican party need not be anti-government programs. As they search for a shift to become more “relevant” post their election defeats it’s entirely possible that they might shift the other way becoming pro-State.  From what I see from most of the conservatives I read online who have something to say about the current government, their rage is mostly against the social policies of the Obama administration. That is they take most seriously things like the abortion debate, immigration, and judging from the character assassination currently underway of judge Sonia Sotomayor also the issue of affirmative action is one they strongly identify with. The pro-guns, second ammendment wing of the party is still pretty adamant too, as is the anti-homosexual wing.

There is some consternation of course about the bailouts. That’s everywhere across the board. Liberals and conservatives both are seeing it as having been a really bad idea nowadays. The problem is, currently conservatives have only been able to say “bailouts are bad” while parotting the old “keep government out” philosophy that we know doesn’t work, which many people still credit as having gotten us into this mess in the first place. But even if it weren’t for those lingering doubts, people who are suffering don’t generally respond well to a “do nothing” strategy of opposition. They want a party that promises to do big things to change things around and make their lives better.

So what if Republicans start doing that? Rather than being anti-social security, and anti-unemployment, and anti-healthcare they start to come out strongly in favor of State based programs to improve all of those things. As well as promising to help manufacturing and create good high paying jobs for Middle Class citizens? What if rather than decrying the auto-industry, they start to speak up about how it’s a shame and a travesty that the Obama administration let the great GM fail and how the Republicans would work to save jobs for Middle Class Americans? And waht if they combine THAT with the rhetoric of tax cuts that has already proven so effective for them? They’ll argue for eliminating payroll taxes, capital gains taxes, CO2 taxes, gas taxes and sin taxes (well certain ones) all which of course will sound good to the average citizen dying under the weight of a stagnating economy and excessive debt.

Of course that isn’t really a tenable position. You can’t promise people broad social programs, support of manufacturing, and extreme tax cuts all delivered by the government and balanced budgets and expect that to work out.  The numbers just won’t add up.

Except you can.  There is a way. Just so long as you promise it only to the people who matter.  Here’s where the xenophobia, anti-immigrant, anti-homosexual, anti-affirmative action, etc. etc. element comes in. You’ll see policies that promise well funded retirements and medical benefits and education for upper middle class mostly white traditional American families but screw everyone else. 

It’ll start of course with illegal immigrants being the easy targets. They’ll be driven effectively into a permanent underclass eliminating the possibility of the rapidly growing hispanic population threatening the current power structures. Those who don’t flee back to Mexico will become a cheap and exploited labor pool with few to no tax cuts coming their way. The tax structure will be tilted in such a way that they get none of the benefits and incur all the costs all justified by the fact that they’re “illegal”.

General policy will screw the poor in general. It always does. But unlike in the past, any kinds of problems this economy has will be explicitly blamed on the undesirable elements of society. Meaning inner city denizens and criminals (read blacks), immigrants (mexicans and hispanics), terrorists (arabs), homosexuals (gays), and liberals (anybody else they don’t like). You’ll see policies like universal sales taxes that don’t have food exceptions, or at least no food exceptions for the kinds of food the poor people are likely to be able to afford. You’ll see increased taxes on cigarettes. You’ll see increased penalties for drug use and abuse. You’ll see more and more funding going into police forces and the military. You’ll see a systematic dismantling of programs designed to promote multiculturalism or racial balance in schools or any other institution. Any kinds of scholarships that support a particular race or class or gender will be decried as “racist” so that the majority of new scholarships and grants end up going to the ruling class. You’ll see draconian laws against abortion.  These will push people into back room abortions where death will be all too common an outcome mysteriously unreported of course. Segregation of schools will be implicitly allowed as lower end schools are allowed to district themselves in such a way as to exclude membership from poorer neighborhoods.

That’s a minimum. When those policies don’t work completely two avenues will be immediately available. First they’ll blame international forces. Arab “terrorist” states abraod of course will be a major target. So will central and south American “communist” states. So they’ll do expansionist methods to try and crush resistance and spread US power abraod. Thus giving us direct access to resources in these other states of course and sending them back home. Red China will of course be villified as well. They always are.

The other avenue will of course be further oppression at home. Obviously there will be unruly people at home protesting these policies. Their disloyalty will be the problem keeping American from reaching its destined greatness. They will have to be clamped down upon.  First an increase in law enforcement funding. More prisons. More lockups of protesters and anyone of the undesirable classes who commits even the smallest crime that can be used as a pretense. Of course illegal drug users will be locked up first. Especially marijuana users. Cigarettes I bet would become entirely illegal so it can be used as a useful pretense to lockup more poor people.  Anyone who undergoes or performs an abortion will of course be jailed. There will probably be a law that allows anyone who withholds information about an abortion to be locked up. Of course anyone suspected of being an “illegal” whether they are or not will be locked up until it can be sorted out. Similarly all arab citizens found roaming the streets will be emprisoned just to be on the safe side. They might be terrorists after all. Soon a law will be passed making it illegal for homosexuals to marry or even live together or make public shows of affection, this will allow arbitrary arrests of gays as well.

As these measures increase, unrest will increase as well and soon it will be impossible to even maintain pretenses. Rebellious social elements will just have to be aprehended without pretense. There won’t be enough money or time to hold trials for all these people. So they’ll just be held indefinitely in internment camps. Martial law would eventually have to be called. Soon someone will get the bright idea that it’s far cheaper and easier to simply kill these people.  What justification will they use? Probably some notion of treason or charge of “domestic terrorism” enforced through dummy courts. Assuming they have to have some pretend justification. They may not need to. They’ll just start executing people and dumping their bodies in large ditches.  None of this will be reported. Anyone who tries will be rounded up with the rest.

And then you’d have it. Effective Naziism. Only a stone’s throw away.

Of course all of this is idyll speculation. Presumably there’s all kinds of opportunities for well meaning people to stop this madness from coming about long before it happens. Presumably we’ve grown more as a people in general than that and are unlikely to be so utterly mislead by demogogurey and vile rhetoric. Fairness will mean to people more than getting what’s best for me and my people but getting what’s best for the society as a whole.  But you never know. We’ve seen this darkness arise in the past. Judging from the recent elections we can see the remnants are still strong in Europe. And when people are hurting from an economic crises that’s the time when they are most susceptible to that oh so human instinct to find something, anything, to blame for the way their lives have gone wrong and why their lives are so hard.

It’s always easiest to blame the people who are weakest. The people who don’t fight back. They are the ones who will be exploited first but it’ll spread and spread and spread.

That’s the risk we ALL have a responsibility to fight against. For if we do not stop it, we’ll be stuck with a future for which we have only ourselves to blame.

Ken Saro-Wiwa was a political activist and organizer in Nigeria. He lead a non-violent crusade against Shell Oil company to prevent them from destroying and polluting their lands in the pursuit of oil.  He was a Hero.

For his heroism he was arrested by the military dictatorship that ran Nigeria in collusion with Shell. He was forced to sit through a sham of a trial and then watch 8 of his companions get executed before he himself was hanged.

I don’t mean to paint all oil companies with the same brush. But the record of environmental attrocities commited by MANY oil companies to native lands is huge.  Time and again multinational oil companies have shown a ruthlessness and blatant disregard for human rights that ought to have earned them universal condemnation all around the globe.

So tell me? Why is it that we should exert sooo much effort to ensure our measures to combat climate change, reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and protect our environment don’t cut into the precious profits of these oil conglomerates?