Quoted from Slate's Today's Papers section for February 8th:

The Post fronts, and the others stuff, news that the Justice Department is considering introducing a sort of Patriot Act II that would expand the government's powers to investigate and detain suspected terrorists. If the proposals are implemented—and that's a long way off, considering they're not even in a bill yet—they would, among other things, allow the feds to strip suspected terrorists of their U.S. citizenship (emphasis added). A draft of the plan was leaked to the Center for Public Integrity, a government watchdog group. 

That's right, boys and girls, the Justice Dept. now officially considers itself to have the power to take away the citizenship of someone if they consider them a terrorist.

Consider this, do we have a agreed upon definition of terrorist? Nope.

A naturally born US citizen, not necessarily an immigrant could have their citizenship removed, and thus be a) deportable, and b) (according to conservative assumption) lose their constitutional protections.

It is a fairly established matter of law, however, that even non-citizens have constitutional rights, otherwise immigrants in deportation proceedings would not have deportation proceedings, as they would have no right to a trial, and upon being picked up by the INS, could simply be removed from this country.  Tourists could be arrested for no good cause, and held indefinitely.

These, of course, are merely theoretical possibilities, right?

Some have already occurred.  Many of the middle eastern men seized in the post 9/11 sweeps remain in jail, not charged of any crime, not allowed to communicate with the outside world, much less with an attorney.  Jose Padilla, a United States Citizen by birth remains in custody without any charges being raised.

And all of this while these things are not "legal."  Make them writ of law (and with the courts being the way they are these days, there is no guarantee that such a bill would be found unconstitutional the way it should be, considering most of the Patriot Act itself is unconstitutional) and the Justice Department will be bolder.

Perhaps the next "terrorists" will be, say, anti-war protesters?

La noche mataba la luna,

la oscuridad, como un cuchillo

la cortaba.

La sangre, roja, blanca, derrotaba, amarga,

lluviaba entre la niebla.

La luna no sale,

la noche quien la creo

la mata

la busco, pero no esta.

Tracionera noche,

el cuchillo entra y sale, perforando el alma,

bebiendo la sangre

borrocho con el sabor

se du su hija.

Lamentable noche, patetica

vacia, sin sentido, oscura sin la plata

de la faz de ella.

Maldiccionada noche,

odiadble pariente quien podria matar

a su propia sangre.

Finally. Yes, I know. It is not tomorrow. Or even the day after tomorrow.

It’s more like almost last month. :P

My apologies, oh audience.

I hope at least some of you read the article I linked to in the last entry, as I am about to respond to it.

Let me quote the conclusion to Mr. Harris’ essay here in order to formulate my argument:

The same thing is happening today — and that is our true enemy. The poison of the radical Islamic fantasy ideology is being spread all over the Muslim world through schools and through the media, through mosques and through the demagoguery of the Arab street. In fact, there is no better way to grasp the full horror of the poison than to listen as a Palestinian mother offers her four-year-old son up to be yet another victim of this ghastly fantasy.

Once we understand this, many of our current perplexities will find themselves resolved. Pseudo-issues such as debates over the legitimacy of “racial profiling” would disappear: Does anyone in his right mind object to screening someone entering his country for signs of plague? Or quarantining those who have contracted it? Or closely monitoring precisely those populations within his country that are most at risk?

Let there be no doubt about it. The fantasy ideologies of the twentieth century were plagues, killing millions and millions of innocent men, women, and children. The only difference was that the victims and targets of such fantasy ideologies so frequently refused to see them for what they were, interpreting them as something quite different — as normal politics, as reasonable aspirations, as merely variations on the well-known theme of realpolitik, behaving — tragically enough — no differently from Montezuma when he attempted to decipher the inexplicable enigma posed by the appearance of the Spanish conquistadors. Nor did the fact that his response was entirely human make his fate any less terrible.

I am in essential agreement with the characterization of  fundamentalism (Muslim and otherwise) as a “mental virus” if you will, but disagree somewhat with the conclusion Mr. Harris derives from this metaphor.

There are a few issues that Mr. Harris essay brings up for me:

1)     While I agree that some members of Al-Queda are victims of a fantasy ideology, are ALL members caught up in it? Due to the nature of the organization, it strikes me as possible that while one portion is in its fantasy ideology, another portion may view the conflict as a more strictly Clausewitzian affair.

2)     Mr. Harris speaks of “wiping” Al-Queda out just as we would mercilessly wipe out a disease.  However, do we refer to wiping out the populations who have contracted a disease, in a deliberate manner?  In other words, if Muslim fundamentalism is a disease, what is the best manner of “curing” it? The answer, I will argue, is more complex that simply attempting to kill all individuals who have contracted the disease.

Fantasy ideologies, as noted by Mr. Harris, are a feature of human political existence since at the least the French revolution. However, not all fantasy ideologies are alike in their effectivity.  Why? In part, because of the answer to both questions:

The victims of a fantasy ideology represent the extreme expression of a more broad based popular discontent.

In other words, while the adherents to a fantasy ideology have, for all intents and purposes, left sanity, and thus the rational discourse inherent to Clausewitzian war behind, their level of effectivity is at least in part based on how widely they are supported by the public at large, which is still to a degree rational.

I premise that all fundamentalist movements, be they religious or political, are in some part a fantasy ideology based on discontent.  Some, like the white supremacist neo-nazi far right militia type groups in the United States have not, thus far, had the hold or the power within their host country that other groups have had both in the present and historically, and that this lack of power is based on a lack of support for the group from the public. 

To simplify:

I argue that all fantasy ideologies share a common trait, much as real strains of the same virus do.  These traits being:

A-The members come from a group that feels discontented or disenfranchised in some manner.

B- The members feel embattled in some manner, they feel a risk of extinction of themselves or some value or practice which they view as critical to their survival be it physical or spiritual.

C- They pinpoint one or a few entities, ideas, or practices as the instrument of what threatens them with extinction, essentially making it the scapegoat of their discontent.

D- They believe the wider public are also victims of this entity, idea, or practice, but are too afraid of it or simply ignorant of it.

E- They actively dehumanize the members, adherents, or supporters of the entity, idea, or practice, as well as any opponents to their cause.

Now, the critical variable, as far as we all are concerned, is how effective the group in question is. How virulent, and how deadly, is the disease?

Much like a real disease, where a strong body is an advantage in shrugging it off, a mental disease like a fantasy ideology is better shrugged off by a strong mind. The influence of the disease lies wholly in the capability of the body politic to resist it.  In the modern United States, where our democracy, economy, opportunities, and various other such factors are in a state of “good health” even when we are in a economic slump. 

It does not take a doctorate in history to find abundant examples of this.  The birth of fascism and totalitarianism, for example, was a direct result of the weak political and economic state of the countries where it took its most deadly and virulent forms.  Stalinism was born out of the chaos that was WW1 Russia, Nazism, and Spanish and Italian Fascism were all results of the great depression’s effects on those countries.  The economic, political conditions combined to form massive discontent in all the respective countries, massive enough that a fairly small cadre of extremists were able to provide a blueprint that the wider discontent public bought, which consisted of blaming the problems that were the source of their discontent on certain people, parties, or ideas. 

In essence, here is the question this observation rises:

What is the difference, say, between say. Islamic fundamentalism, and American Neo-Nazism/Racism?

Answer? Popular support, which in the case of extremist movements like these, means popular discontent.

Thus from this argument, comes my first proposition at a solution:

If we wish to truly fight terrorism, we will have to make the “bodies” it has infected more resistant to the disease of fantasy ideologies.    In effect, the way you fight a disease best is not by killing the patient, but rather by targeting the disease itself, target what causes the disease or makes the body more vulnerable to the disease, or inoculate against the disease. 

In other words, we must make the views of the Islamic radicals as distasteful to the people of the countries they live in as they are to us.  While it is probably too late to change the minds of the radicals themselves, it is not too late for the people who live in the countries they inhabit. 

This will mean strengthening the economies and political freedoms of the said countries, which presents all forms of fairly practical and direct action.

A)    Cease supporting and assisting dictators and Kings in the Middle East wholeheartedly.  Change our foreign aid to be targeted from the bottom up, rather than from the top down, so that aid flows from the US to the people rather than from the King/Dictator to the people (but most of it to the Military and secret police in order to maintain their hold on power) and furthermore make all foreign aid based on realistic and gradual goals of transitioning towards a democratic system of governance.  So long as the United States is seen to be supporting dictators and Kings while it mouths the words “democracy” it will be hated by the people oppressed by these governments, and will rightfully be seen as a hypocrite.

B)    When transitioning into a open capitalist economy, it will be necessary to make sure it is not made into a de-facto neo-colonialist enterprise, whereby western based multi-national corporations use their resources to completely overwhelm local competition.  This too, will build resentment.

C)    Understand that all institutions, even democracy, will have to be adjusted to local cultural norms.  Democracy does not work quite the same way In the USA as it does in Canada, or Germany, or France or Britain.  Every constitution, every government, must be formulated by the people of the nation in question to fit their particular cultural needs. 

This will mean a long and involved process of yes, that dirty word, nation building. In a few years, our behavior may gain some support for further efforts from, at the very least, our traditional allies, and perhaps some from the Arab world as well. Not the dictators or monarchs, to be sure, who will begin fighting against us, but this will, in the end, only help our cause, as finally we will be seen to be fighting for what we say we represent: The people, rather than dictators and kings who we tolerate so that the supplies of oil will flow.

Their efforts to oppress their people to maintain power will then not seen to be sanctioned by the US, but rather undermined.

This process is likely to disturb the flow of oil from the area, a painful but necessary step for which me must prepare ourselves by truly making attempts to lessen our dependence on oil, be it our limited domestic supplies or uncertain foreign supplies, by furthering the research, development, and construction of renewable sources of energy.

Also, in the end, this process will be disliked by our own multi-national corporations, as by strengthening the economy of the Middle East, we will be plowing fertile ground for competition, and by limiting in some manner the reach of the same, we will make them unable of stealing the domestic markets of these countries from local business. 

In the end, as will be explained in a later installment, there are few things that would be worse from a corporate point of view than the rest of the world suddenly blooming into economic prosperity with strong local business that provide competition for them.

But that is for later.

I just read this. It is in regards to the September 11 attacks. it is HIGHLY recommended, analysis and critique will follow when I get home, I promise.

Warning long read.

http://www.policyreview.org/AUG02/harris_print.html

Alas, our sweet victim never did return any response to our vaunted and much unread web log.

Pity.

Morality, right and wrong, has recently come to our esteemed attention.

My parents are liberal, and like most folks, I grew up, to some degree, with the inherited beliefs of their parents.  But heritage is not destiny.  Like most people, there was some point, some period, where I came into my own political consciousness, when I decided when and why *I* was a liberal.

This process is an ever evolving one, or at the least it should be. No opinion should be wholly set in stone, no point wholly closed to discussion.  To determine with finality that a thing is so, is to close discussion, to end it, and to become a fundamentalist.

One of the reasons I become a liberal, admittedly, was out of disgust at the tactics the conservatives used, the close mindedness of some of their followers. I was a Mexican by culture, living in California during the 1990's and the days of Pete Wilson, Prop 187, and the great Californian immigrant scare.  I, personally, experienced racism on a level and to a degree that would seem more fitting in the days of Jim Crowe than that supposedly enlightened decade, where such things as racism and sexism were supposedly dead.

I became a social liberal because I believe it was not the right of the government to govern the private sexual and intellectual lives of its citizens.  I became a economic liberal because I despise the dehumanizing effects capitalism and money has on human dignity, on the human soul.

But as my political consciousness matured, I became aware of a troubling fact.  Just as there were conservatives whose viewpoints, opinions, and tactics served to end debate and dehumanize opponents, there were liberals capable of this same thing. 

I reserve a special place in the portion of my brain which feels scorn for liberals who I define as "people who hurt the cause." 

To understand the concept, let me ask the following question:

Which is viewed as a worse…… When the enemy kills our troops, or when our troops, through incompetence, misunderstanding, or sheer bad luck, kill some of their own? (friendly fire) 

I would be willing to bet it is the second.  See, the enemy is *supposed* to kill our troops. That's what enemies *do*.  But our own guys should *not* be making things harder for us.  Thus liberals who hurt the cause deserve extra special condemnation.

Where do morals come into play? This is where:

The conservatives do what many term "moralizing" telling everyone what is wrong, what is right.  Making moral judgments. 

This serves to dehumanize the individual, and it does so through those very moral judgments.  So long as a form of higher authority (God) is used to back a point up, the debate over that point is essentially finished, by the simple fact that through the expedient of using god you have essentially make the following argument:

1) There is an omnipotent, omniscient being. (God, Allah, Yahweh, pick your poison)

2) This being created human kind.

3) This being created rules for these humans to live by.

4) These rules are written down in this here book. (Torah, Bible, Qu'ran, pick your poison)

5) If you do not follow these rules (which the speaker has interpreted) you are an evil sinner.

6) There is no real need to discuss these rules (or the interpretation) since they came from a omnipotent, omniscient being, and who being such, is clearly a higher authority than any mere human being.

7) Straying from these rules will make us sinners. Thus compromise of these rules is impossible.

8) Anybody who argues with us or does not follow the rules, is a sinner, or an agent from the devil (or the religious equivalent thereof) Thus, these people are to at best be ignored, and at worst to be rounded up and killed as the sinners they are.

--

Now, what we have done is taken away the need, or even the desire, for discussion, and we have also prohibited change, or compromise. Furthermore, we have established that anybody who argues with us is clearly mistaken, since we have the "morally right" view, and they have the "morally wrong" view.  Such sinful people are naturally not to be listened by folks like us.

This is the foundations upon which fundamentalism are built.

Now, here comes the kicker. Some liberals have decided, that to combat fundamentalism, we must withdraw from the discussion of "right and wrong" in the first place, by arguing against the very idea of “right and wrong.”

This, ladies and gentlemen, is a mistake.

See, there are two sources by which we can determine whether something is "right or wrong"

1) God. (or other higher power)

2) Human dignity, freedom, value.

The point where both fundamentalist Christians/conservatives and radical liberals both manage to dehumanize the people involved can be seen most clearly in the debate over pornography.

The conservative argues thus:

Pornographic is evil, it must be banned.  (the people are sinners, they are evil, they are degenerates, thus not human)

The liberal may retort:

Pornography is fine, it empowers the individuals in a expression of sexual freedom.

Now, I do not agree, or hold to the view, that any individual who is in, or views a pornographic type of material is evil. I must also disagree with the second view.

If I tell a fellow liberal "pornography is wrong" the response I may receive is "your moralizing, you don't have the right to judge them" (the people in the material or using it)

And I would response with the following:

Pornography is wrong not because the people who create it, act ini t, or view it are evil, but rather because it dehumanizes and takes away the human dignity of all of the parties.

The people who act in it or create it are viewed, or treated, as mere sex objects, not as the human beings that they are.

The men who view it, are encouraged to treat the women they see as mere sexual objects, and become mere objects themselves by being encouraged into acting as little more than receptacles of male lust. Too often have I heard the argument that a man "needs" pornography, "needs" sex. From both sides.

Men are not animals. They are human beings, and as such we must demand equal responsibility from them.  They have a capability, a *responsibility* to express their feelings in a socially appropriate manner.  Every time I am angry, I do not kill, or even hit someone.  Thus with sexual urges. Every time they are felt, they do not require a "fulfillment" they do not require a strip club, a movie, or a willing female.

The men who view it, the women in it (and the men, yes) they are all victims and victimizers equally. 

And in the end, if we refuse to say that some things are wrong, all of our human dignity stands endangered, as it is the basic concept that some behavior is unacceptable, or undesirable, that allows us a more free, a more tolerant, a healthier, a more equal, a more responsible society by allowing all of us to know what we do NOT want to be doing to each other.