Democrats for Liberty

Neighborhood Emergency Response

2006-03-22T13:14:00.000-08:00

As many of you know, I am working on a new film project - a dark comedy about the possibility of a nuclear attack on one of our cities. A friend recently sent me some comments by Secretary of Health and Human Services Michael Leavitt about bird flu. Here's a report from ABC:

In a remarkable speech over the weekend, Secretary of Health and Human Services Michael Leavitt recommended that Americans start storing canned tuna and powdered milk under their beds as the prospect of a deadly bird flu outbreak approaches the United States.

This whole bird flu thing, and my own script, got me to thinking - it's easy to critize the government, but what would I do differently if I were in charge? I actually may have come up with an answer. Later in his speech, Michael Leavitt talked about how a pandemic like bird flu would be like hundreds of Hurricane Katrina's, flooding our government with local requests to help. Ultimately, he suggested, we're on our own in such a catastrophic situation - thus stokc up on tune and powdered milk.

But, considering that even our own government is telling us that local response to crises is our best bet, why not start a nationwide, "neighborhood emergency response corps," modeled on the neighborhood watch system. This would invovle identifiying local volunteers, some basic training, and some local planning. In this way, when an emergency hit - terrorists attack, earthquake, hurricane, bird flu - the first responders could be our own neighbors. Each block of the country would look after itself, or at least have a plan and basic structure to attempt to do so. Imagine the comfort of seing your own neighbors band together to help each other. Imagine how much FEAR could be relieved by just having such a plan and training in place. Americans are very generous people - and in a crisis, they'd like to be able to help each other. It would go a long way to making our cities safer in the event of national crises... and relieve the national government to fight the most pressing and dangerous threats.

Anyway, let me know your thoughts on this!

The beginnings of dictatorship

2006-03-17T09:02:00.000-08:00

This one almost got past me. I remember last week reading a report where recently resigned Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O'Connor revealed that she'd had a number of death threats from right wing groups. That was as far as the report I read (the AP, I think) took it. But, I just heard on NPR about the rest of her speech. Here is the report from Nina Totenberg of NPR, who was at the speech (an actual recording has not, to my knowledge, been released):

I, said O’Connor, am against judicial reforms driven by nakedly partisan reasoning. Pointing to the experiences of developing countries and former communist countries where interference with an independent judiciary has allowed dictatorship to flourish, O’Connor said we must be ever-vigilant against those who would strongarm the judiciary into adopting their preferred policies. It takes a lot of degeneration before a country falls into dictatorship, she said, but we should avoid these ends by avoiding these beginnings.

I'm amazed that the mainstream press didn't pick this up more than it did. That's almost as frightening as her warning about the dangers we face. Again, I'd like to trumpet my own personal theme, the theme of this blog in a sense: what happens after the NEXT terrorist attack. We need to have a dialog about how we will respond next time, so that we can discuss it rationally, or a bit more rationally, rather than be totally manipulated by fear. Because if we let fear-mongering manipulate us, the terrorists will win and we will become a dictatorship.

Bomb dog gone wild

2006-03-16T13:01:00.000-08:00

So, March madness begins, and a bomb dog "hits" on a suspicious target. And the target? A hotdog stand....

Hmmm... maybe the dog was hungry?

Shooting Quail

2006-02-13T17:16:00.000-08:00

Please insert your favorite Dan Quayle joke here ---

What I'm most curious about the Cheney shooting /hunting incident is whether this increases or decreases his standing with the NRA. So far, according to news reports, they haven't commented, so maybe it's a wash. They're glad he's a hunter, just wish he's stick to birds.

I can see the bumper stickers now: Guns don't shoot people, Cheney shoots people.

You've got to be kidding me

2006-02-10T09:42:00.000-08:00

Okay, so I live in LA. The front page of the LA Times said it all for me toay...

"Bush Gives New Details About Old Report of L.A. Terror Plot" next to "Libby Says 'Superiors' Authorized Leaks."

Hmmm.... let me see, there are hearings on Capitol Hill about the unconstitutional, illegal wire-tapping of Americans in America without a warrant.

Jack Abramoff, who has pled guilty to corruption charges, says he met Bush over a dozen times and they joked together. He was even invited to the Crawford ranch.

The investigation of Karl Rove is ongoing... and Libby is set to go on trial for a politically motivated outing of a CIA agent.

The Adminstration knew about the levee breaks in New Orleans two days before they said they knew, and they did NOTHING.

And the president comes out with old news about "success" in the War on Terror. I remember hearing about this a few years back. Come on, how pathetic can you get - even if intelligence from the illegal wiretapping was part of stopping this plot, it doesn't make it right that the wiretapping was done without a warrant. It's not like FISA would say no.

How stupid does the President think we all are? It's classic bait and switch. When things go bad, bring up the never-ending "War on Terror." It's actually disgusting to me -- making political points off the tragic loss of life.

I'm angry - there's so much good we can do in this world, and this is what we get? This is leadership?

Depression over New Orleans

2006-02-07T15:18:00.000-08:00

Many of you who know me personally, also know that I've had a long-standing interest in New Orleans, sparked by one of my college friends, Kevin Lezak, who lived there for many years and introduced me to New Orleans style jazz.

Kevin and I went back to New Orleans and shot some documentary footage over Halloween weekend. (I'll try to figure out how to get that up on the net soon). At the time, I was in shock. The destruction was so bad, and over such a huge area that it frankly was overwhelming. We met a lot of people there who were trying to figure out what to do about damaged homes, lost jobs, and the future.

At the time, I had a hope that the city would come back, that some of the problems institutionalized there might be improved in the "new" New Orleans - poverty, lack of opportunity, poor public schools, and a very high crime rate.

But, recently, I've become very depressed about the future of the city. Reports I'm getting back from my friends describe a place that is not recovering very quickly. Violence broke out at a Second Line Parade recently, a frightening and sad reminder of the dark side of New Orleans even amidst a positive event.

Most frightening, it seems like the recovery of New Orleans has become less than even second page news. People aren't talking about it anymore. I don't hear the same outpouring of support. The Bush administration seems to be doing very little, except for occasional PR appearances. Where is the leadership on this? The major redevelopment plan published by the mayor has met with mixed reaction. Yes, it's a daunting task, but this is America, this is supposed to be what we're good at -- coming up with a crazy, positive vision and then following through.

I hope people are out there doing this, and I just haven't heard about it. Because I'm afraid of losing the beauty and soul of New Orleans... and fear isn't a good place to start rebuilding anything.

Spying on Americans

2006-02-07T15:12:00.000-08:00

I just couldn't resist this one. When supporters of the war in Iraq like Christopher Hitchens are joining an ACLU lawsuit against the government, you know you have problems. I just can't believe people aren't more up in arms about the syping without warrants issue. The defense of the administration is amazing in its brazeness. The same old strategy always seems to apply - use the term "war on terror" and it justifies anything. But, I just have to ask - what are we fighting for? Yes, I want to win and protect Americans, but I don't want to sell our whole constitution up the river. Because, if spying inside the USA without a warrant is justified under "War Powers" given to the president, despite the existence of secret court to authorize such actions, then anything would be justified. Where does the slipperry slope end, and WHEN does it end? Because there is no end to the "War on Terror," is there?

The administration says - "just trust us, we're defending you." Well, our political system was set up to build in checks and balances, just in case. And these checks and balances are being lost.

I think Orwell is laughing at us - 1984 was really 2006!

Freedom of the Press

2006-02-07T15:04:00.000-08:00

I went to an interesting book signing over the weekend - author/scholar Reza Aslan talked about his new book, No god but God, a look into the ideas behind Islam. He was engaging and had a lot to say. I'm just getting into the book, and will report back soon on it.

In the meantime, the "Cartoon" protests in the Mid East are making headlines. My friend, Alan Lazar wrote this letter to the editor (picked up here on Andrew Sullivan's blog) that I think is a great and engaging piece on fundamentalism and religion...

There's a tendency among many writers on the whole Danish cartoon crisis to criticize the violence of the extremist Islamic response while at the same time chiding the Danish newspaper for not being sensitive on this issue - the idea of freedom of expression with 'responsibility' towards peoples' religions. There's even being the suggestion by some at the BBC, that the Muslims 'have a point' - we do not generally in the west publish Holocaust deniers, for instance, because of the sensitivity of the issue.

What nobody is saying is that it's exactly in the realm of religion that freedom of expression should be guaranteed more than anywhere else, and if it weren't we'd all still be worshipping idols and languishing in spiritual backwardness.

Jesus and Mohammed and Buddha and multiple other religious figures have been outcasts or heretics or misunderstood at first, and yet, in the great sweep of human history brought us closer to God. They all had to fight existing religious authorities to make their voices heard. If the freedom to blaspheme, the freedom to question all religious ideas and authority is denied to us, we are potentially denying ourselves the chance of getting closer to God, and an understanding of God's greatness.

I'm a religious person, Jewish by birth and still identify as such. But I have read widely in other religious texts - Christianity, Islam and also Eastern religions like Taoism, Hinduism and Buddhism. Anyone who has really thought much about God, and anyone who has real respect for God, knows that each of these religions has something good to say on what God is about.

What the fundamentalists fail to understand, and this is how they land up BETRAYING the greatness of God, is that none of us humans, small and probably insignificant creatures in a huge cosmos, really can claim to know anything about the mind of God, the nature of God, and what he or she or it truly is. All we have is hints, and all we can do is grasp, often unknowingly, to try and touch and understand God's greatness.

I went out on a boat near the Channel Islands in California on the weekend with my partner, and we were lucky enough to see a pod of Orca whales - amazing creatures. I sat and watched them and thought about this whole cartoon crisis. You know when you see these huge beautiful animals, whether they were created by God, or if God was just complicit somewhere in the great cosmic scheme that gave us such beauty and grace and majesty, you have to be angry at anyone who claims to have a monopoly on the meaning and nature of God and God's will, and what God wants. True respect for God means knowing we only have tiny glimpses of God's greatness and God's will, and we are exceptionally arrogant to ever think otherwise.

Great legal language

2005-02-28T18:41:00.000-08:00

So, I'm becoming the clearinghouse for civil liberties lawsuits. Maybe it's because judges have the time to really work on their rhetoric. Also, frankly, it's giving me hope for the future of our Republic. This latest is from a Judge Henry Floyd, a Bush appointee, regarding Jose Padilla, a US citizen jailed as an "enemy combatant."

The court finds that the president has no power, neither express nor implied, neither constitutional nor statutory, to hold Petitioner as an enemy combatant...

If the law in its current state is found by the president to be insufficient to protect this country from terrorist plots, such as the one alleged here, then the president should prevail upon Congress to remedy the problem.

On social security

2005-02-12T09:55:00.000-08:00

I'm just going to add my two cents worth here on these private acounts for social secirty. I'm all for allowing people to have more choice in their lives, BUT.... the whole idea of "social security" is.... SECURITY. Has anybody looked at what social security can pay out? It's a tiny amount, just enough to keep someone housed and fed. That's what it's there for. Shifting part of it to a risky private account tied to the stock market seems like a recipe for disaster to me. What if we had another stock market shock? We could face a situation where a whole generation of reitrees are suddenly getting a lot less payouts than they'd like, and a depression-like stock market event is exactly when the government has less resources to bail them out. It seems like another case of the rich getting richer (the influx of money into the stock market will mostly help corporations and their major shareholders) and the poor taking on more, not less risk. If we're really serious about getting people to save a bit more and take responsibilty for their retirement, we should keep moving in the direction of offering tax credits for IRA's and other private accounts that already exits. Maybe simplifying the whole process, and really making the benefits clear to individuals would be the way to go if this is the real goal.

Richard Clarke is back

2005-02-12T09:46:00.000-08:00

This caught my eye in Sunday's New York Times -- turns out Richard Clarke warned Condoleeza Rice very specifically about Al Qaeda in January of 2001 and proposed a series of steps to go after them. Why are we finding this out now? Why is nobody in this administration held accountable for their failures? It's like there's a blind spot in both the media and the American public. It's time we do something about it.

Elections in Iraq

2005-01-31T11:12:00.000-08:00

I'm always looking for good news and reasons for optimism, and am very heartened by the elections in Iraq. After all the death and destruction over there in the past few years, it's nice to see some progress. Of course, insurgents will continue to attack, and who knows how much longer American forces will be over there, but at least there's some hope of progress now. The longer US troops stay over there, the more the perception of them as occupiers rather than liberators. The question is how to train an Iraq army, and get out of there, wihtout leaving a country on the verge of a sectarian civil war.

Guantanamo detainees in the courts

2005-01-31T11:06:00.000-08:00

An interesting decision by U.S. District Judge Joyce Hens Green just announced will not be the final word. This one will probably go all the way up to the Supreme Court. But the logic here seems to make sense. You lawyers out there will have to inform me about the applicability of the 5th Ammendment to non-citizens.

Although this nation unquestionably must take strong action under the leadership of the commander in chief to protect itself against enormous and unprecedented threats, that necessity cannot negate the existence of the most basic fundamental rights for which the people of this country have fought and died for well over two hundred years...

In sum, there can be no question that the Fifth Amendment right asserted by the Guantanamo detainees in this litigation -- the right not to be deprived of liberty without due process of law -- is one of the most fundamental rights recognized by the U.S. Constitution.

Just kidding!

2005-01-23T17:41:00.000-08:00

So, it turns out all the rhetoric about spreading liberty and democracy around the world - it's just rhetoric. We have now been told that it does not actually mark a new policy by our government, just a long-term desire. Wow, I'm inspired! So we can keep supporting Saudi Arabia and Pakistan and Egypt with their non-freedom loving governments because it's in our self interest, while spreading "freedom" where it fits our needs. How convenient! It's not so much a long-term goal, we're now told, as a vague and unrealistic desireable end state. So much for leadership...

Freedom's on the march?

2005-01-21T13:19:00.000-08:00

So, the President's rhetoric feels good - heck the idea of spreading liberty across the world fits with the whole concept of my blog. But the complicated question is how to achieve it. Here's a good summary of the inherent policy contradictions our government is facing on this issue.

If we actually support democratic freedom, won't we have to do something about Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Egypt? It's an interesting dilemma - where real politik hits idealism, what does the US do? And if we attack Iran, do we really think an inherently democratic front will rise up and rebel? I think the problem there is that we installed a couple of dictators, and the current government is a reaction to that!

Can't wait to hear the administration's answer to all these questions. This is one issue where's a lot easier being on the outside than inside!

What can we do?

2005-01-18T14:21:00.000-08:00

There seems to be a lot going on in the world right now - elections in Iraq, Tsunamai clean-up, inauguration in DC.

I did spot this small article in the LA Times, and wanted to share it with you -- Ending Extreme Poverty Is Realistic, Economist Tells U.N.

Hearing it from an economist was interesting -- made me realize or think that solutions to some of the biggest problems are actually much closer and doable than I often think in moments of despair.

Look for more to come in the weeks ahead on this blog. I'm thinking of starting a new blog/theme -- tracking the evolution of thought on "what is human nature" -- which seems to silently underpin all of our current political discussions, both in the US and abroad. Stay tuned.

Gonzalez & Torture

2005-01-06T11:43:00.000-08:00

It's not surprising that the administration refuses to release the actual memos that Attorney-General nominee, Gonzalez, wrote or approved regarding torture and the Geneva Convention. Obviously, they have something to hide. But what really surprises me is the defense he's using:

"I will no longer represent only the White House. I will represent the United States of America and its people. I understand the difference between the two roles."

Um, why is there a difference in relation to how we treat prisoners? I could see there being a difference if there was some specific personal action the president needed help with (like keeping assets in trust or relations with personal staff), but when does the President not represent the best interestes of the people of the United States of America with regard to how we conduct foreign policy?

Humor from Palestine

2005-01-06T11:30:00.000-08:00

A little moment of humor in an otherwise dark part of the world. Turns out Richard Gere stars in a get out the vote commercial in Palestine. That's great, except that the Palestinians don't seem to know who is he. When informed that he's an American movie star, they reacted rather predictably:

We don't need the Americans' intervention. We know who to elect. Not like them -- they elected a moron.

Can anything positive come out of the tsunami?

2005-01-04T17:29:00.000-08:00

The Canadian Press have published an interesting article comparing the outflow of concern about victims of the horrific tsunami to other suffering in the third world. While the tsunami provides immeidate and thought-provoking scenarios and struck Western tourists and local residents alike, there are other ongoing crises in the third world that we don't respond to as readily. The hope is that the connections we forge, the understanding that we are making an impact by donations are other efforts here might lead to broader ongoing efforts to help those in the third world. Is it really just that so many starve to death every day while we spend billions on war and machinery?

More on foreign policy

2004-12-22T10:25:00.000-08:00

As mentioned on this blog a few weeks back, there's an interesting policy discussion going on in the actual "liberal" press and blogs (I mean partisan publications, not those accused of being liberal) about the foreign policy approach of the Democratic party and the progressive "left" in general. Peter Beinart proposed a get tough on "Islamic Totalitarianism" in the same way classical liberals got tough on totalitarian Communisim at the beginning of the cold war.

In the New Republic, he responds to some of his critics, answering some of my own questions about how he defines "Islamic Totalitarianism." He makes it clear that he's talking about Al Qaeda and its brand of reactionary thought, which frankly is disappointing to me. He seems to gloss over dictatorships like Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, lumping them in as friendly allies that are in danger of being taken over by Al Qaeda. I think he's formulating his policy incorrectly. Again, to paraphrase Orwell, we should be against totalitarianism, and for democratic freedoms, wherever they may exist. Failing to understand how the repressive regimes of Saudi Arabia, and yes, Pakistan, harm our position is precisely the kind of thinking that has gotten us into trouble in the past. During the cold war, we were willing to look the other way at repressive, non-democratic dictators in pursuit of defeating Communism. We even fomented revolution were it suited us. Some of those former allies (Bin Laden) are now enemy number one -- and no wonder they believe America to be hypocritical. Now, we're doing the same in pursuit of Al Qaeda. I'm not advocating invading Saudi Arabia and imposing democracy, but there's a lot we can do to foster democracy, human rights, and freedom, if that's really what we're professing are our beliefs and humanity's fundamental basic rights.

The question is, how do we achieve this in the realities of the current world? As Orwell and every modern political thinker points out, Communism began as a very idealistic attempt to change the way people live, but crashed and burned on the shoals of human nature. How far can we go in spreading freedom and countering totalitarianism? Does human nature doom us to self-destruction? These are questions I hope to return to in future posts.

In the meantime, Peter Beinart leaves us with the true underlying question that people have been avoiding. As I posted earlier, the threat of a massive attack on the United States with a biological, chemical, or nuclear weapon remains a real and frightening threat. The ramifications for the entire globe are huge and hard to grasp. I'm glad that somebody in the mainstream media is confronting this issue because it puts our choices in stark contrast. Again, I'd like to point out the need to formulate national responses to such a threat from a STATELESS organization, both in terms of emergency response and international policy, BEFORE it happens. Maybe we can even come up with some more ways to PREVENT it. As Peter writes:

This February, then-CIA Director George Tenet noted that Al Qaeda documents discussed how to assemble and use a chemical weapon or a dirty bomb. According to the 9/11 Commission, Al Qaeda has been trying to acquire a nuclear device for ten years--with the United States "a prime target." No one knows how close they are. But, in his book Imperial Hubris, Michael Scheuer, former chief of the CIA's bin Laden unit, writes, "No one should be surprised when bin Laden and Al Qaeda detonate a weapon of mass destruction in the United States."

If Scheuer's prediction comes true, the consequences for individual rights will be terrifying. Which is to say this: The fight for national security is the fight for liberal values, not merely in the Muslim world, where fanaticism has already blighted countless lives, but also at home, where threats to American safety almost inevitably spawn threats to American freedom. Totalitarian Islam has already damaged both, and unless defeated, the damage could be exponentially worse.

The question is, how do you defeat totalitarianism? Invade it? Or feed the people....

What TV station are they watching?

2004-12-20T09:40:00.000-08:00

I woke up to a very surreal headline in the LA Times this morning. I'm sure the juxtaposition wasn't lost on them, either. Over sixty people were killed in car bombings yesterday in Iraq. A graphic photo shows the execution of two election workers, dragged from their car on Haifa street, one of Baghdad's main roads, at rush hour. And then, in a "related" story, the Bush administration defends Rumsfeld for his leadership! Talk about a disconnect from reality...

Bush this morning came out with some statements on Rumsfeld:

"Sometimes, perhaps his demeanor is rough and gruff. But below that rough and gruff, no-nonsense demeanor is a good human being who cares deeply about the military and deeply about the grief that war causes," Bush said.

Tell that to the dead Americans and Iraqi's. Just saying something doesn't make it so.

Ownership Society

2004-12-19T14:18:00.000-08:00

A friend sent me an interesting link to an article in the National Journal by Johnathan Rouch, about the "new" idea of an ownership society. Mr. Rouch draws the comparison to England under Thatcher which tried the same idea, only to see the Labour party under Tony Blair sweep into power. More cause for optimism for Democrats, if we can find the right leader.

More on bringing freedom

2004-12-16T16:36:00.000-08:00

Another good article by George Packer, this just a small one in the New Yorker. Again, we're letting the adminstration hide behind rhetoric (the war on terror is about spreading liberty) wihtout holding them up to the facts. Are their policies and actions actually living up to rhetoric? What could we do differently, without giving up the idea that they have stolen from classical liberalism? Read the article... he says it well.

What I'm reading

2004-12-15T08:43:00.000-08:00

I've just ordered a bunch of books recommended by friends who have read the blog. I thought I'd share them and will report back when they've arrived and I'm reading:

"Blood of the Liberals" by George Packer
"Generation Kill: Devil Dogs, Iceman, Captain America, and the New Face of American War"by Evan Wright
"Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" by John Perkins
"America: the Book" by John Stewart
"The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference" by Malcolm Gladwell
"The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini (fiction about Afghanistan)
"The Right Nation: Conservative Power in American" by John Micklethwait, Adrian Wooldridge

Please keep recomending books!

Foreign Policy Continued

2004-12-15T08:38:00.000-08:00

Peter Beinart's article has continued to create fall-out in other publications and on op-ed pages. Even the Republicans are weighing in! Peter was arguing for a strong Democratic Party policy against Islamic Totalitarianism, complaining in part the Democratic Party is only defining itself against Bush's policies, rather than creating its own vision. However, I think Peter is still defining the party in terms of being "against" something, even if it's a foreign threat. I think you have to take the party up a level, by defining more broadly what it is for, and then trying to apply that to both domestic and international situations in some sort of coherent plan, hopefully not undercut by too much real politik. For example, if the party stood for the "liberty, freedom, and progress" of human, one could argue the anti-totalitarian stance, while also getting back to some more populist roots here at home. It would need some snappy catch phrases, but something along this line would be much more inspiring than constant carping. We need something like a new "new deal."

Intelligence Reforms

2004-12-10T08:54:00.000-08:00

I'm trying not to make the obvious joke about "intelligence" and our government.... but I thought the past week has been interesting and worth commenting on. The Republican majority has no where to hide or run to when things don't get done. Without Democrats somewhere to blame or point fingers at when a major bill or reform needs to get done, guess who gets the blame? Also, the stake are high - if this intelligence reform doesn't get the job done, if the dollar crashes, if the deficit continues to rise, etc. etc --- guess who will get blamed? You can't blame the country's problems on Clinton any more, can you? So, things could turn around faster than most Democrats seem able to contemplate, but it may not be a fun or pretty process getting there...

Of course, some of us felt like 18 things happened during the election that should have led to the turn-around happening before Nov 2nd... why didn't they? i.e. the bungled management of the reconstruction of Iraq, the too-hasty retreat from Afghanistan and rise of heroin trading there again, the rising budget deficit, the torture at Abu Ghraib, the torture and lack of fair trials at Gitmo, the failure to capture Bin Laden, the lack of WMDs in Iraq, the lack of adequate health care, the growing divide between poor and rich partly as a result of regressive tax policies... etc, etc, etc... Hopefully it won't take too much more for the tide to turn in the next set of elections.

Lessons from Nuremburg

2004-12-09T20:04:00.000-08:00

This is a quote from Abby Mann's screenplay of the movie Judgement at Nuremburg. It's a powerful reminder of what's at stake for the U.S. today. It was written in the context of the cold war and the McCarthy hearings, but it is also important to reexamine these questions in the context of the war on terror.

...under the stress of a national crisis, men - even able and extraordinary men - can delude themselves into the commission of crimes and atrocities so vast and heinous as to stagger the imagination. No one who has sat through this trial can ever forget. The sterilization of men because of their political beliefs... The murder of children... How easily that can happen. There are those in our country today, too, who speak of the protection of the country. Of survival. The answer to that is: survival as what? A country isn't a rock. And it isn't an extension of one's self. It's what it stands for, when standing for something is the most difficult. Before the people of the world - let it now be noted in our decision here that this is what we stand for: justice, truth... and the value of a single human being.

Oh Canada

2004-12-09T10:14:00.000-08:00

As the news media is reporting, the Canadian Supreme Court today issued a very interesting opinion on gay marriage. The House of Commons still has to pass legislation legalizing gay marriage across the country, but the SC decision seems like a balanced and impressive and courageous decision. Basically, as one would expect, it says that gay marriage should be allowed according to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but that religious institutions SHOULD NOT be forced to perform such marriages if it goes against their beliefs. That's the correct balance. The issue is, of course, still divisive in Canada, and we'll have to tune into the debate in the Commons to see how it fares, but it's an interesting and well-reasoned step forward for civil liberties and equality.

More on torture

2004-12-08T23:29:00.000-08:00

Recent news reports have renewed (or should have renewed) a national debate on the use of torture in the war on terror. There seems to be some obfuscating about whether the use of torture in interrogations has actually been the policy of some branch of our government. It seems that today's evidence points that it has been.

I'm sure that those responsible are justifying its use on the following grounds: we're only using torture against terrorists. If we can get information that saves American lives and prevents another terrorist attack, it's worth doing. If we're torturing an innocent person by mistake, it's still a cost worth bearing in comparison to the potential of saving thousands of American lives.

The problem goes back to the way in which we entered the Iraq war in the first place, and also to the underlying goal of the war on terror. The war on terror is actually not just about defeating a band of terrorists, just as the war in Iraq was never really about Weapons of Mass Destruction. The only justifiable reason for fighting either of these wars is to protect human liberty, and the freedoms of all people. The problem is that our government has failed to either understand or fully buy into this concept. That's why we failed to convince the rest of the world to help us in Iraq, and why opinion is so divided at home. For example, if we're fighting for certain values, why sell them out? Are we really getting so much great information from torturing prisoners and preventing them from any sort of fair trial? Is it worth the cost to our own, deeply-held values? It's hard to make specific strategic decisions when you misunderstand the broader goal of the war.

Here's a switch

2004-12-08T08:07:00.000-08:00

It's nice to know that the tough questions are still getting asked directly to the "guys in charge." Today, in Kuwait, some disgruntled soldiers asked Donald Rumsfeld the tough questions that Bush side-stepped during the debates with Kerry. Sounds like it threw Rummy for a loop to actually get asked real questions by real heroes.

That fits with a pet theory of mine -- that the next George Orwell is actually an American soldier in Iraq, who went out of idealism and has seen and understood the reality over there in ways we haven't. If anybody's read a really excellent book by a recently returned soldier, let me know - I'd like to read it!

Orwell through the eye of the beholder

2004-12-07T22:48:00.000-08:00

Continuing on the subject of Orwell (and maybe I should start up a whole new blog about Orwell, since we seem to be living in Orwellian times), one of the things that has been noted about this writer over the years is that his writing can be used to justify diametrically opposed points of view. Thus, Christopher Hitchens uses Orwell to justify the recent invasion of Iraq (Orwell was no pacifist, who believed in using force to bring down dictators), while critics of the war point to the shifting rationales behind the war as a form of Orwellian doublethink (where are the WMDs?). Of course, one of the interesting things about Orwell is that he changed his mind on a number of issues as he gained experience and saw the world differently. Thus, you can use Orwell to support a variety of points of view, although I would argue that Orwell post the Spanish Civil War is the Orwell most worth quoting!

However, in a recent web-surfing experience, I had a shock. A Canadian woman posted a bunch of photos of her trip to London in which she visited sites that were important to the writer when he was alive, to gain a fuller sense of his writings. The photos and her comments are great, and I have to admit that I'm planning to take a similar trip (and in fact have done a trip following Orwell's adventures in Spain). Imagine my surprise when I started clicking on the other web pages on her site, and found that she seemed to be advocating that some sort of Jewish conspiracy was running our world, and that this is what Orwell was warning us against in 1984. She particularly points to the character of Goldstein in 1984, who is described in the book as "having a Jewish face," to support her theories. This misses the point - in the book, Goldstein may not exist at all, and is being used by the totalitarian forces behind Big Brother to frighten the populace, channel the base expression of hate, and generally keep people in check. Also, while it is true that in Down and Out in London and Paris, published in 1933, Orwell made some unkind generalizations about Jews that could be seen as anti-Semitic, by 1945 he had seen the danger in this type of thinking. Let me quote an essay he published in the "Contemporary Jewish Record," April 1945:

I have no hard-and-fast theory about the origins of anti-Semitism. The two current explanations that it is due to economic causes, or on the other hand that it is a legacy from the Middle Ages - seem to me unsatisfactory, though I admit that if one combines them they can be made to cover the facts. All I would say with confidence is that anti-Semitism is part of the larger problem of nationalism, which has not yet been seriously examined, and that the Jew is evidently a scapegoat, though for what he is a scapegoat we do not yet know....The point is that something, some psychological vitamin, is lacking in modern civilization, and as a result we are all more or less subject to this lunacy of believing that whole races or nations are mysteriously good or mysteriously evil.

In any case, the take-away point is that Orwell, as an independent thinker, who in part inherited the traditions of British classical liberalism, can be used to support or refute different points of view. It is a question of emphasis on his writing. Hopefully, we can all agree that he is, in his essence a believer of free speech, independent thinking, and individual liberty. He was also a firm supporter of common decency, and that's an interesting and forgotten side to him.

What Would Orwell Think?

2004-12-03T15:06:00.000-08:00

Today, when we think of the term “Orwellian,” we’re most likely to think of a dystopia – of propaganda, a lack of freedom, and a totalitarian future state as described in 1984. Indeed, much anaylsis of the current political climate uses Orwell to look at the inherently dishonest and contradictory aspects of our modern world, the role of the media, and the dangers of the return of totalitariansim. For a fuller analysis of this line of thinking, see for example Timothy Snyder's article in the Prospect magazine.

But are there any positive values that Orwell writes about? I’d argue that there are, although they are less publicized and less talked about today, in part because during the cold war, when Orwell was used to bolster anti-Comminist sentiment, many blithely ignored his strong anti-capitalist language. But there are two key pieces of writing that hint at what "Orwellian" as a positive adjective might be like.

First, a little historical background. In December of 1936, Orwell travelled from England to Barcelona, Spain, and enlisted in the POUM militia in the battle against Franco’s Fascist forces. What he discovered in Barcelona at that time, and continued to observe at the Aragon Front, was a revolutionary period, where anarchist and Marxist ideals were being put into practice:

Homage to Catalonia, Chap 8

I had dropped more or less by chance into the only community of any size in Western Europe where political consciousness and disbelief in capitalism were more normal than their opposites. Up here in Aragon one was among tens of thousands of people, mainly though not entirely of working-class origin, all living at the same level and mingling on terms of equality. In theory it was perfect equality, and even in practice it was not far from it. There is a sense in which it would be true to say that one was experiencing a foretaste of Socialism, by which I mean that the prevailing mental atmosphere was that of Socialism. Many of the normal motives of civilized life--snobbishness, money-grubbing, fear of the boss, etc.--had simply ceased to exist. The ordinary class-division of society had disappeared to an extent that is almost unthinkable in the money-tainted air of England; there was no one there except the peasants and ourselves, and no one owned anyone else as his master. Of course such a state of affairs could not last. It was simply a temporary and local phase in an enormous game that is being played over the whole surface of the earth. But it lasted long enough to have its effect upon anyone who experienced it. However much one cursed at the time, one realized afterwards that one had been in contact with something strange and valuable. One had been in a community where hope was more normal than apathy or cynicism, where the word 'comrade' stood for comradeship and not, as in most countries, for humbug. One had breathed the air of equality. I am well aware that it is now the fashion to deny that Socialism has anything to do with equality. In every country in the world a huge tribe of party-hacks and sleek little professors are busy 'proving' that Socialism means no more than a planned state-capitalism with the grab-motive left intact. But fortunately there also exists a vision of Socialism quite different from this. The thing that attracts ordinary men to Socialism and makes them willing to risk their skins for it, the 'mystique' of Socialism, is the idea of equality; to the vast majority of people Socialism means a classless society, or it means nothing at all. And it was here that those few months in the militia were valuable to me. For the Spanish militias, while they lasted, were a sort of microcosm of a classless society. In that community where no one was on the make, where there was a shortage of everything but no privilege and no boot-licking, one got, perhaps, a crude forecast of what the opening stages of Socialism might be like. And, after all, instead of disillusioning me it deeply attracted me. The effect was to make my desire to see Socialism established much more actual than it had been before.

Reminiscing in 1946 in his essay, "Why I write," Orwell understood how his direct experiences in Spain had changed him as a writer. It is no coincidence that he wrote both Animal Farm and 1984 after these experiences:

The Spanish war and other events in 1936-37 turned the scale and thereafter I knew where I stood. Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it.

He wrote both of these passages after he was betrayed by the Communists in Barcelona and had to run for his life.

So, what do we get out of this? He’s for personal liberty, and for democracy. But he’s also for equality. What would a positive Orwellian Utopia look like? I wish he’d written such a work, but whatever it would be, I’m sure it would take into account what Orwell accurately described as the weaknesses of human nature – how power can corrupt the individual, and then institutions as a result. An Orwellian utopia would have some sort of safeguards in it against totalitarianism– it would be like Barcelona at the start of the Spanish Civil War, but without the Communists waiting in the wings to take it over. Could such a state exist and thrive? Orwell didn’t give up after his crushing betrayl in the Spanish Civil War. He started a family, kept writing (in fact wrote his two most famous books after his experiences there) so we have to think that he believed that true equality and liberty could someday be achieved. The question is, what will it take to get there? The answer used to be revolution. Revolutions seem to lead to totalitarianism. Today we look for more incremental and subtle steps towards a more equal society and world. My hope is we can get there without some external violent cataclysm that will force us there.

Optimism

2004-12-02T22:03:00.000-08:00

A strong call to arms from Arianna Huffington.

And a good summation of the work ahead from my friends, Sarah & Jen, who forwarded me this article:

We need to create a new kind of democratic party message, one of "compassionate libertarianism" - that focuses on fiscal restraint (in stark contrast to the current Republican trend of huge deficits from borrowing on our children/grandchildren's dime), social tolerance and limited government-enforced morality (in stark contrast to the Ashcroft/Rove/Bush bedsharing with the religious right), turn the tables on the successful and persistent image of "tax and spend" liberals! come up with a similarly catchy phrase to nail the republicans to their own ironies...
With this approach we can tip those purple states that went red this election - nevada, arizona, new mexico, colorado...

We don't need to become more republican, nor totally lefty. We need to reinvent the democratic party and still be true to its core values.

Foreign Policy and Totalitarianism

2004-12-02T14:54:00.000-08:00

There's a very interesting article in the latest issue of the New Republic by Peter Beinart, in which he proposes returning to liberalism's stated aim of bringing freedom to the most people across the world, and basing a strong opposition to terrorism on this. He makes some really good points, and also in a very socratic method, points out the main weakness of his argument -- the analogy between totalitarian Islam and totalitarian Communism isn't that clean. I'm actually not sure what he's referring to by "totalitarian Islam." Is that purely Al Qaeda like groups or would he include the government of Iran, or Saudi Arabia for that matter? Also, Islam is a religion. Communism is a political movement. That's a huge difference, and one that needs a bit more analysis! That's the crux of the problem for liberals right now -- how does one talk about a calling to fight "totalitarian Islam" without sounding like some new crusade? I could get behind fighting totalitarianism, in general, but would want to place Al Qaeda in some broader perspective across the globe.

foreign policy pt 2

2004-12-02T09:59:00.000-08:00

Over in Slate magazine is a very interesting dialog about the Iraq war. They've assembled a group of "liberal hawks" to discuss whether the Iraq war was worth it. There's some great arguments here, and ultimately, we see why Kerry ended up looking so wishy-washy on the war. It's a really difficult issue for liberals, partly because one can't help but point out the Bush adminstration's failings, while trying to justify the use of force to help liberal democracy. One comes across sounding self-contradictory. I guess the question is now, how to win the peace.

Ignoring History

2004-11-18T19:35:00.000-08:00

I was browsing the net, and happened upon some links to my favorite painting, Guernica, by Picasso. In it, he depicts one of the first ever massive aerial bombing raids on a civilian population. Fittingly enough, the bombers were Hitler's Condor legion, testing out their new weapons during the Spanish Civil war in a rehearsel for World War II.

The link that caught my eye , however, was an article stating that someone had covered over a mural of this painting at the UN when Colin Powell gave his speech outlining the case for war. It was claimed that the complex background wasn't good for the cameras, but in my mind, there's a lot of symbolism to this. They were trying to ignore and cover up a painting depicting the horrors of war and of mechanized assualts on populations specifically. Talk about ignoring history!

Also, talking of lessons from history, in this month's Washington Monthly magazine, there's a great article on America's official attitude towards Islam, and the historical and philosophical world view that may have led us into a quagmire in Iraq. Very insightful and though provoking reading.

A lot to do with language

2004-11-15T09:29:00.000-08:00

Still dissecting the past election. A major observation, which I'm sure is not news to anybody -- Democrats need to work on both the message and the messenger. Everybody's talking about finding the right candidate who can connect with the "average" voter. But we also have to provide said messenger with the right message. Another editorial in the NYT looks at this issue via an interview with George Lakoff, of the Rockridge Institute.

Also, by coincidence, I'm currently reading an old Carl Sagan book from the 70's, THE DRAGONS OF EDEN. It's a fascinating and still germane look at the rise of human intelligence. He goes over the discovery of the hemispherical specialization of the human brain (left hemisphere controls language, and the opposite side of the body, and the right hemisphere controls spatial organization and the left side of the body). He posits that the fact that the language part of the brain controls the right hand explains why we have a built-in bias towards "right" and against the "left" or "sinister" (from the Latin for left) side. If he's correct, the liberal left in America is facing an uphill battle. Dr. Sagan also gave us a funny little anecdote about framing political ideas. He recounts how when Lenin's party was still a very small splinter group in Russia, he came up with the party name "Bolshevik" which in Russian means "majority." The opposition stupidly fell into his trap, and called themselves "Mensheviks" which means "minority." Sure enough, in a decade and a half, they were.

Voting Fraud

2004-11-12T10:44:00.000-08:00

It's always interesting when the mainstream media picks up a story from cyberspace - and today the New York Times has an article about bloggers discussions of possible voting fraud in our recent election.

The big picture is that our system of voting needs reforming. There wouldn't be so many rumors floating around the internet if people were more confident in how we vote. As I saw in PA, the system is easily overwhelmed, and much more ad hoc than most people assume.

Also, I'm a natural-born skeptic. I'm the last one to jump on conspiracy theories. After all, if there were a wide-reaching conspiracy, all it would take is one person to screw up and let something slip, and the whole edifice could come down. I believe that this fear of getting caught probably stops most conspiracies from every happening, unless they can be isolated to a very few individuals. Of course, statements like those by Diebold CEO Walden O'Dell even make me pause and wonder:

Diebold CEO Walden O'Dell boasted in a fundraising letter that he would help Ohio deliver its electoral votes for Bush, raising fear that the company might rig its machines.

"He had been politically active in the past and, naively, never envisioned that anyone would think his personal beliefs would influence his business decisions," says Diebold spokesman David Bear. The company now bars executives from political involvement.

Hmm... what was I saying about all it takes is one person to slip up?

Seriously folks, the easiest way to put all these theories and rumors to rest is to create a more transparent system of voting. We need better training and more uniform methods of voting. And whatever system we use, needs to have every check and balance in it. People want to feel confident about voting. This would seem to be to the benefit of both major political parties. I wish we could get it done.

Throwing the baby out with the bathwater

2004-11-11T23:52:00.000-08:00

One of the goals of voting Bush out of office was actually achieved this week -- getting John Ashcroft out of office! Unfortunately, my euphoria was short lived. His replacement, Alberto Gonzales, while not as much a hero to the religious right (he hasn't covered over any naked statues that we know of) also has a troubling past in relation to civil liberties.

This is one of the most Orwellian aspects of the Bush administration. As they keep reminding us, we're fighting a global war against terror. "Freedom is on the march." And yet, Gonzales and Ashcroft have justified ignoring the Geneva Convention, and all wartime military conventions in the pursuit of suspected terrorists. Here's the problem: you can't abandon the very rights and freedoms which we are fighting for, or else the terrorists will have won. What's wrong with the basic institutions of American justice if we can't use them on terrorists? Is the Bush administration telling us they're not fair? What about the Constitution, that document that Bush claims to hold sacrosanct? Fortunately, it looks like the courts will intervene on the extreme edge of these cases, but in the meantime America looks hypocritical as it justifies the shedding of blood to support ideals which we seem to be ignoring.

Bush and Gonzales would do well to look at the lessons of the Nuremburg trials. Horrible and violent things happen during wars, but for a democracy to re-emerge strong and free on the other side, the underlying principals for which one is fighting must be expressed in prosecutions of the enemy. Otherwise, what are we fighting for?

For all the info you'd ever want on the Nuremburg trials, check out the Yale Law School Avalon Projcet.

A little patience

2004-11-08T13:09:00.000-08:00

This courtesy of ARG...

"A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over,
their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight,
restore their government to it's true principles. It is true that in
the meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the
horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public debt......If
the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have patience till
luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the
principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at
stake."

--Thomas Jefferson, 1798, after the passage of the Sedition Act

Getting our minds around it

2004-11-08T08:38:00.000-08:00

Remember just a few weeks ago, on October 19th, our VP, Dick Cheney, while campaigning in Ohio, scared the living daylights out of us all? Here's what he said:

"The biggest threat we face now as a nation is the possibility of terrorists ending up in the middle of one of our cities with deadlier weapons than have ever before been used against us — biological agents or a nuclear weapon or a chemical weapon of some kind to be able to threaten the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans. You have to get your mind around that concept."

So, here's my question, Mr. VP -- what IS our government doing to PREVENT such a devastating attack? And the answer had better not be invading Iraq or building a missile defense shield. Because neither of those are actually going to help the specific problem you mentioned. I would like a list of specific steps you're planning on taking to safeguard our cities and prevent nuclear materials from falling into the hands of terrorists.

Furthermore, we should have a rational discussion of what our country's response would be if, God forbid, such an attack were to happen. This isn't the cold war anymore, there's no more "mutually assured destruction." What if the terrorists who perpetrated such an attack were stateless? What if we couldn't figure out with any certainty who was responsible? There'd be a huge desire to strike out and revenge ourselves on somebody, but who would we bomb? What if we got the wrong people? I think we should talk about this now, don't you, before it happens?

Fortunately, smarter people than I have already been thinking about this problem. For example, the Council on Foreign Relations has a very informative FAQ page on what a nuclear attack on a US city might be like. And their top advice for avoiding such an attack?

The best protection would be to evacuate before the explosion occurred.

Really? I wish I'd thought of that myself. Because I know the terrorists will be sure to give us all lots of warning... maybe the Council's suggesting we should all head to Canada or Australia?

Seriously, their site is actually worth looking at. Specifically the part where they say:

What has the federal government done to improve its preparedness since September 11?

The United States has taken important preventive steps, including increasing funding for nonproliferation programs designed to keep nuclear materials out of terrorists’ hands in the first place. Equally important, the CIA, the FBI and other intelligence agencies have worked to coordinate their efforts to detect and stop nuclear threats before they turn into nuclear attacks. The proposed Department of Homeland Security also includes a division to address threats from weapons of mass destruction. But nuclear experts say much remains to be done.

It's the last sentence that I want details on, Mr. VP. Since you've got your mind around this problem, I want solutions, not fear-mongering.

A little moment of Zen

2004-11-06T08:34:00.000-08:00

I had to do a little digging for some positive declarations of values. But here are a handful:

Transcript of Barak Obama's speech to Democratic Convention.

And the transcript of Howard Dean's speech to the California State Democratic Convention, March 15, 2003.

And finally, Al Gore found his voice, just two years too late. You think John Kerry will actually get passionate by 2006 too?

Some web-links

2004-11-05T16:21:00.000-08:00

Some interesting articles on other website relating to my mission. Suggest other links, please!

The New Yorker endorsement of John Kerry for president

George Packer in the New Yorker on the word liberalism as an insult

New York Times editorial on the next president Bush

New York Times editorial on fairness in the election process

Link to the rock ridge institute, who examine progressive values

Link to interesting thoughts on "liberal" values

The Democrats need a spiritual left

Observations from Election 2004 – on the ground in Washington, PA.

2004-11-05T15:53:00.000-08:00

Since I became a grad student at USC’s film school ten years ago, I have worn a full beard. The beard began as a joke. My class was shown a documentary about 70’s film-makers, and the narrator read – “they were all young and wore a beard.” I thought it was time for some more film-makers like that. So it was a surprise to a lot of my friends last week when I shaved off my beard. I did it because I was heading off to South-Western Pennsylvania to volunteer on the Kerry-Edwards campaign for election day. You see, I live in Los Angeles, and I make horror films. I guess that makes me part of that Hollywood “elite” you heard them complaining about at the Republican convention (which I found strange considering that Arnold Schwarznegger is about as representative of the Hollywood “elite” as anyone I’ve ever met, and so was Ronald Reagan). But with my “film director” beard, I was afraid that people would see a “liberal” coming at them from fifty feet and flee in the other direction. You see, I was hoping to convince some of the so-called undecided voters in a swing state to vote for Kerry, by going door to door and talking with them. That was my plan, anyway.

The whole thing was a departure for me. I’ve never been very political. I originally registered to vote as an independent. I’ve always considered myself as a “classical liberal” who believed in equality and liberty for all men and women, period. But over the last four years, I’ve found myself both pulled and pushed towards the Democratic party. I don’t like the fact that the Iraq War was begun almost unilaterally, and I don’t like how it has been managed (or mismanaged). I’m for the separation of Church and state. I’m pro-choice. I’m for some more spending on education and a more equal health care system. And I don’t think that tax cuts during wartime make much sense – that’s how you get a huge deficit. And as the election came nearer, I felt myself growing frustrated with watching from the sidelines. The upcoming election just seemed too important and too much was at stake – the above issues, plus what I saw as a fomenting of a cultural war at home by the President as well as the future direction of the Supreme Court were enough to drive me to passionate activism. So, along with another friend from California, we called the DNC and offered to go to whatever battleground state we were most needed as volunteers. The answer came back – Florida, Ohio or Pennsylvania. We decided against Florida, since we felt that the 2000 election would bring a lot of outside focus there. Then, we talked to the volunteer organizer in Pennsylvania and felt like this was the place for us.

Now, my friend is a lawyer and I am not. He received an e-mail about volunteering for the legal team for Kerry-Edwards and signed up for Pennsylvania. But, since we were traveling together, I was found myself pulled into the Kerry-Edwards Democratic Legal Protection Team as a matter of practicality (we only had one car between us). In the interest of full disclosure, I first have to admit that my wife is a lawyer, so I might be positively biased towards them. The media characterized the Kerry-Edwards lawyers as a “storm of locusts,” but as a non-lawyer helping organize them, I can tell you it was a very loose and ad-hoc group of dedicated volunteers, whose overall mantra was to try to get every vote to count. Their tactics were defensive and protective. I was impressed by their dedication and idealism as they got ready for election day. And they weren’t doing anything really all that controversial – it was all logistics and grunt work and preparation in case there was a problem.

So, I spent a lot of time in an office, making phone calls to tell the lawyers in PA where they should go on election day. The general Democratic volunteer organization in PA had assigned me to Washington county (south of Pittsburgh) for election day, and I traveled down there on Friday to help prepare and get oriented. My lawyer friend came with me. We arrived at lunchtime, and we walked into a local diner off main street which advertised that it had fed Washington since 1952. That sounded good to me! I walked in, and all conversation stopped and every head at every table turned to stare. I’m not kidding. I tried to smile, and people nodded and went back to eating. The waitress showed us to our table and we ordered our burgers. The tab came to seven dollars for two people! Not bad, for someone coming from L.A. After lunch, we wandered down the Kerry-Edwards headquarters, where we ended up making up the packets for the various election-day volunteers – basic office work like printing up the maps to the polling places in each precinct. It wasn’t glamorous work, but at each step I met great people from all walks of life. From a business school professor, to the local volunteers in Washington county, to a passionate and motivated college student. It was a pretty eclectic mix, but everybody was very enthusiastic and supportive.

On Saturday, I even found time to get out and go door to door. I wasn’t canvassing, but just doing what they call a literature drop -- leaving pro-Kerry information at doors. It was an old neighborhood with brick lined streets and an amazing view across the river to Pittsburgh. At the top of the ridges, there were beautifully constructed new houses, but between the ridges were many burnt-out shells of repossessed or abandoned houses. I didn’t meet too many people out on Saturday, except for a drug dealer who drove by in a low-rider asking me if I wanted to get high (I declined) and one nice lady who took my pamphlet, but told me she’d probably vote for Bush anyway. It’s hard to imagine what George Bush is going to do to help people who live in depressed urban neighborhoods like this – he didn’t seem to accomplish much for this neighborhood in the last four years.

Finally, election day was coming. I was assigned to be a “flusher” in Washington county. Basically, I was supposed to go to the doors of targeted Democratic voters who the campaign team in Washington County had identified as likely Democratic voters and try to encourage them to get out and vote. Sounded like looking for needles in a haystack (I figured most people would be at work), but if I could get out even a handful of voters, that could end up making a difference if the state were really close. And I figured that if there were many volunteers doing the same thing all over, then we’d win the state. Since we were already familiar with Washington, my lawyer friend was assigned to help organize its legal protection team -- sending out lawyers to problem areas at the polls as needed (and we really all hoped they wouldn’t be needed).

Election day. After a fitful night of anticipatory sleep, my alarm went off at 5:30am. My lawyer friend drove us down from Pittsburgh to Washington, PA. It’s nice country – the autumn leaves were still on the trees and we were witness to a beautiful and seemingly auspicious sunrise. We arrived at Kerry-Edwards headquarters in Washington, PA just before the polls opened at 7am. The first call came in for one of the lawyers – a report came in that a polling place down the street had a car papered with Bush posters parked eight feet from the front door. State law says that all signs and electioneering have to be ten feet away. Thinking that arguing over ten feet versus eight feet seemed a little much, I tagged along with a local lawyer to go see for myself. We had a pleasant walk down Main Street. I hadn’t really seen the town on the previous day when I had been stuck in the office. It was obviously struggling to compete with the strip malls just outside town, but there was a pride in the old buildings and a civic feel to all the churches of different denominations built so close together. There’s even a beautiful college campus in town. But no sign of the Bush-mobile!

Returning to the office, I discovered that calls were coming in frantically (it was around 7:30). We already had reports that some voters had been turned away from a polling place because their names were not on the rolls, even though they had registered well before the Oct 4^th deadline. Even worse, others with valid registration cards issued by the county were being forced to fill out provisional ballots because their names were missing from the rolls. The Washington county election office had set up a 1-800 number for election day, for people to call with questions (such as where is my polling place or where am I registered to vote). But the 1-800 line wasn’t working and word came back that the phone system in the elections office was down. A decision was quickly made by the Kerry volunteer lawyers to send over somebody with a cell phone so that we could communicate with the elections office and help the people coming the Democratic HQ with questions. One of the local lawyers volunteered to go, but I suggested that answering the phone and writing down names and addresses did not really require someone to have passed the bar exam. I volunteered in his place.

The Washington county elections office was only a few blocks away, in a modern small office building next to the courthouse. John Smith, another local lawyer, brought me inside and introduced me to the Supervisor of the board of elections, Larry Spahr, and told him what I was planning to do. I was well received, asked to sit in the public waiting area, and told to pass off the names, addressed, birth dates and method of registration to the volunteers from the league of women voters who were supposed to be working the dead phone lines, and then they and the paid staff would look up the names and report back to me. I then would call back to the voters or volunteers on my cell. John Smith wished me luck and ran off to a polling place where two Republican supporters with a barking dog were supposedly scaring voters – an actual Republican attack dog!

Even as I sat down and the first calls came in on my cell, the IT manager of the county was fixing the phones. After about twenty minutes and about five calls on my cell phone, the 1-800 phone lines began to ring and the volunteers jumped to work answering them. I figured my job was just about over. Then, a weird thing started to happen. It was about 8:00 am or so, and the calls started to pour in from all over the county. You see, even after they were fixed, there were only four lines on the 1-800 number. It took the volunteers at least five to seven minutes to complete a request, longer if it was a complicated case (people moving from out of state or people who had registered at the last minute before the deadline but who had not been entered in the computer yet). Pretty soon, the phones were busy all the time, and I was getting a torrent of calls on my cell again, more than I could handle. I called into the Kerry-Edwards office for back-up and was told two more people were coming with their own cell phones.

Then an amazing and frightening thing started to happen. I started to get calls from the judges of election at the different precincts around the county. They couldn’t get through to the board of elections either. They had a direct dial number as well as the 800 number, but both numbers were busy all the time. It was like trying to call in to win one of those radio contests when hundreds of people all try to dial the same number at once. So, when the election judges heard from some of the Democrats that they could reach me inside the elections office, the judges asked for my number and began calling me. To their credit, they asked me who I was and what my party allegiance was (and from what part of the country was area code 213). I tried my best to have the board of elections call them back directly, but I was soon the only reliable way many of the judges could get messages into the office. They were also trying to check on where certain voters were registered – same as we were.

I know what you conspiracy theory fans are thinking. Maybe the Republicans were flooding the lines with fake calls? Was it mischief that made the phones go down in the first place? I can tell you all with some certainty, having spent the day there, that it was purely a case of just too much demand and not enough resources. They had scaled up their operation from the previous election, but not enough. Plus the new provisional ballot rules were leading to confusion at the actual polling places. Somebody should have allocated more resources to the elections office before election day and whoever didn’t should be held accountable for not planning better, but given what they had to work with, the volunteers and workers in the elections office were heroes. Despite the pressure, despite the continued presence and arguments of both Republican lawyers and Democratic lawyers in their office all day, I never saw them lose their cool. They kept working as hard as they could all day. Call after call. Angry citizen after angry citizen. They were trying to do the best they could. But there just weren’t enough phones or computers to handle the load.

Pretty soon, I started getting a new round of calls from the judges of election at each precinct. When they couldn’t get through to the 1-800 line or to me (my cell phone only allows one call waiting at a time, if I get a third call while I’m holding two it goes straight to Voicemail) they had the voters cast provisional ballots. And guess what? Most of the polling places had only been allotted 15 provisional ballots. This decision was made by extrapolating how many people had needed them in the primaries, but without considering first-time voter turn-out in this election and without foreseeing the problem with the 1-800 number. Within an hour, many of the polling places had gone through half of the allotted provisional ballots. The busier the phone lines, the more provisional ballots got cast, but the harder it was to get the message into the office that a polling place was running out. I passed the messages along but there was soon another problem. State law said that a deputy had to carry the provisional ballots to the polling places. But there weren’t enough deputies on duty to handle the demand. So they started deputizing some of the state workers just so that they could carry the ballots. At first the Republicans started to complain when they thought a worker who was a known Democrat was being deputized, but then they realized “Republican-leaning” precincts were running out of provisional ballots too, and that this job just needed to get done.

Meanwhile, there was a steady stream of people coming to the office in person, people who lived nearby but couldn’t get through on the phone. There was the guy asking for an emergency ballot for his sister who was in the hospital. He told me about his time on the professional rodeo circuit. I don’t know who he was voting for, but he sure had some good stories. Wish I’d had more time to talk to him. There were students and mothers and construction workers. Some were angry, most were patient and understanding. And the elections board workers kept trying to look up their names and addresses, but there just weren’t enough computers. I don’t know how many voters gave up at the polling places in frustration or how many cast provisional ballots because they just couldn’t get through. It was very frustrating for me.

Then, my frustration turned to anger. Republican lawyers said that they were going to get a court order to have me and the two Democratic lawyers who had joined me with their own cell phones, banned from the elections office because we had “an unfair pipeline” into the elections commission. There was a Republican operative in from Miami Florida who seemed to be pulling the behind-the-scene strings, but come on! I didn’t have time to ask anybody I spoke to what party they were supporting, and the only party affiliation I was told all day was for a Republican voter, whose name and location I handed over to one of the Republican lawyers when I couldn’t get through to the elections judge on the number she had given me.

To their credit, the local lawyers, both Democrat and Republicans, were able to settle the whole issue without any court orders, although they did appear in front of a judge. The Republicans also argued that a Democratic commissioner had started to help the phone bank volunteers, but then so had a Republican commissioner. They just needed help in there and any state employee was useful. The only effect this had on me was that I was slowed down when I had to explain to the lawyers everything I had seen during the day. And so I was told I could continue. It was refreshing to see how the locals worked together. I saw the local Republicans and Democrats cordially greeting each other and cooperated. Unlike in Los Angeles, it seemed like most of the people in the office knew everybody else (and therefore which party they supported). They would all have to get along tomorrow when the outsiders (like myself) had gone home. So I tried my best to be respectful and was glad the two Democratic lawyers who came to help me were locals. Because they knew the local Republicans, who knew them, and at the end of the day, it really felt like there was a mutual feeling of working together through a problem that needed to be solved.

Eventually, more provisional ballots went out across the county and the head of elections decided that if they ran out again and couldn’t get through, the polling places could create their own provisional ballots by converting regular ballots. As a result, the phone calls stopped coming into my cell phone and the phone bank calmed down to the point where people could actually get through. By 8pm, when the polls closed, things seemed under control. There was a record long line at one of the Republican-leaning polling places, but everybody who was in line at 8pm would get to vote.

I had time to look over my notes from the day. Many of the people who called in were on the registries. Even if they ended up casting a provisional ballot because they couldn’t get through in time, their vote will count in the end. But there were also many voters who had registered with canvassers before the deadline, but whose registration were never sent in. These people are out of luck. My advice to anybody who’s registering to vote for the first time is to mail in your registration yourself. Or at least write down the name of the person taking your registration and what group they claim to be with. I don’t know how organizations like Get Out the Vote protect against dishonest people claiming to be with their organization, but I hope they have some solutions for the next election. In Washington county, were these disenfranchised voters’ forms purposefully destroyed or was it just disorganization by unofficial canvassers? I don’t know, but I spoke to many students at the local colleges who had signed up near the campuses, but whose forms were never submitted. Of the requests I personally took over the phone, 64 voters were actually registered in the county (who were either at the wrong polling place or had registered before the deadline but too late to make the printed rolls), and forty people who said they had registered before the deadline were not found in the system at all. I have no idea of the party affiliation break-down of either of these groups.

I finally left the elections commission at 8:30pm, pretty excited for the night to come, having seen votes get cast and people just figuring out a way to get it done. As I left, the first boxes of ballots were coming in to get counted. I also heard that exit polls in Florida and Ohio were looking very good for John Kerry. I was happy all around – I’d seen people getting to vote, and I’d seen people solving problems in front of me during the day. I was impressed by the dedication and effort, and knew that the elections team in Washington county wanted to see people get to vote. I hope that the underlying logistical problems of not enough phone lines and computers will be solved by the next election. What they need is one phone number for election judges, and another for the general public, and lots more volunteers and computers.

Of course, the rest is history. But I do know this - my experience was life-changing. I only have an inkling of where it will take me. But I feel like I’ve seen hope in Washington, PA. People from both parties who were trying to do the right thing and help their fellow citizens, even when they’d been dealt a pretty bad deck of cards. They didn’t give up. And neither should we, no matter what happens in the next four years. What should we do? On a bipartisan national level, we need to look carefully at how votes are cast. Each state is different, and as I saw, even each county and polling place is operating under different rules and interpretations of the rules.

And the Democratic party? We can start by defining clearly what values our party stands for. The right wing of the Republican party cannot be allowed to claim that they are the only ones who know what mainstream America stands for. Because what I saw in Washington PA were middle of the road people afraid for the future and not sure where to turn. They’re looking for a positive, affirming answer, and someone has to step up and provide it.

And my beard? I’m going to keep shaving. I don’t think shaving my beard helped me convince anybody to change their mind, but I started to watch and listen with a different mind set. I guess for me, taking off the beard was a bit like lowering my guard.

A link to the report about the Washington County election in the local paper, the Observer-Reporter. I’m one of the “observers” mentioned in the article:

http://www.observer-reporter.com/281836470783692.bsp