Pope Francis on abortion, gays, and contraception (toon).

I have to disagree with Mr. Anatol Lieven on one crucial point.

He says:

I hear you.

What I can say in response to your temporary feeling of hopelessness (which I sometimes share) is that every Republic in the history of the planet has been an oligarchy. As a liberal, I am a supporter of both oligarchy and capitalism, but what I want is a sane, well-regulated capitalism that shares its benefits broadly across all segments of our society. Oligarchy is not necessarily evil. We have to convince our oligarchs to share the wealth (because, as we know, it's in their own best interests to do so).

Just in case you wanted to do some light reading:

The Roman Republic
The Republic of Venice (the longest-lasting republic in the planet's history)
The Republic of Ragusa (a very cool little republic that lasted for over 500 years and was an early ally of the fledgling United States)

These are all oligarchies. Take a look at this picture and tell me we're not looking at a good number of our nation's early oligarchs:



We may not like oligarchy, in principle, but we may be fooling ourselves if we believe that the U.S. hasn't always been one. And every oligarchy, it seems, wants an empire.



-Laelth

NSA Chief General Kieth Alexander and "The Secret War"

This is just a hot link to a thread posted by unhappycamper in DU's Veterans forum where an important essay appears to have gotten very little attention. I think this Wired article is quite significant, and I invite you all to consider it and its implications carefully.

Here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/11794015

The original Wired article can be found here: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/06/general-keith-alexander-cyberwar/

-Laelth

Why the Snowden Leak Is Such a Big Deal

First off, the Constitution is important. Even the President said he "welcomed" this discussion, though one wonders how seriously the President meant it. The smears against Snowden have already begun, and the DOJ has already launched a criminal probe targeting Snowden. Ultimately, I think this is a great discussion to have, and it is well-timed to minimize the damage that it might do to either Obama or the Democratic Party (after Obama's re-election, after his expected honeymoon period, and yet 17 months before the mid-term elections). I think Snowden and Greenwald timed this release very carefully and prudently. That said, the 4th Amendment matters to many, many Americans, and it's good to have this discussion.

Second, and more importantly, I don't think we have grasped, yet, the implications of the information Snowden released. So far, most of the discussion I have seen centers on whether the NSA's data-collection activities violate the rights of Americans. But what about the rights of the rest of the people in the world? What's most embarrassing, here, is that Snowden and Greenwald have just announced, to the entire world, that the U.S. has the capability (and assumes it has the right) to capture and record not only meta-data from phone calls but all digital information (from any source) that passes through internet servers in the United States. What's more, 4th Amendment protections do not apply to non-citizens, so the world now knows that we are recording all data that comes into the country (via phone or internet) and we reserve the right to look at any or all of it, for any reason, at any time, without any real oversight. Even if there is some kind of judicial or Congressional oversight, certainly foreign governments have no oversight capability in regards to this data.

This, I think, is enormous. I suspect our allies already knew about the program. We probably told them, but just because allied governments were advised, that does not mean that their citizens knew anything about it. Now they do. I have no idea what will happen as a result, but I think this is a very, very delicate time for the United States and for the world.

Just food for thought.



-Laelth

Justice Department questions nix July elections (Bibb County, Georgia)

A rare victory for Georgia Democrats!

You may recall that, a few weeks ago, I posted a letter I had written to the Justice Department asking for review of changes to local election laws pursuant to the Voting Rights Act of 1965. That thread can be found here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022802077

The Justice Department responded to our complaints by denying pre-clearance for non-partisan, July elections (that favor Republicans) here in Bibb County, Georgia. Needless to say, I wasn't the only one complaining. Many Democrats wrote letters and made phone calls. Thanks to all DU members who responded to our plea for assistance!

An article on the subject appeared in today's Telegraph (our local paper), as follows:

What in the world happened today?

I've been procrastinating on a brief that I really do not want to write, so I have been reading DU off and on, and I feel like I've landed in Bizarroworld.

1) The Pope said atheists can get into heaven,

2) The President delivered an excellent speech in which, heaven forbid, he sounded like a liberal (so much so that I actually believed it),

3) On a 97-0 vote, the Senate confirmed Sri Srinivasan to the D.C. Court of Appeals,

and

4) The House self-fellated by voting to approve the KXL Pipeline for the 8th time.

The only one of those events that even marginally gives me a sense that I am living in the real world is #4. Otherwise, it's like I've died and gone to heaven.

Was there an instantaneous, global revolution that I missed? What gives?



-Laelth

There is no distinct 2nd person plural pronoun in Modern English.

As such, y'all was created. While it is not mainstream, it is very efficient and serves a useful linguistic function.

Let's look at our pronouns:

I (first person singular)
you (second person singular)
he, she, it (third person singular)
we (first person plural)
you (second person plural)
they (third person plural)

One can easily see that we use the same pronoun (you) for second person singular and second person plural. "Y'all" is a colloquialism that creates a distinct, second person plural pronoun, and it eliminates confusion by clearly indicating that it is plural.

There are many things that cause me to be ashamed of my home in the Southern United States, but the word "y'all" is not one of them. It is precise, and it is more efficient than "you all" or "youz guys" as I have heard spoken by some of my Northern friends. "Y'all," in fact, is one of the South's great linguistic achievements. I use it, and I celebrate it (though I admit that I avoid it in all but my most familiar conversations because it is, still, a regional colloquialism).

-Laelth

Edit:Laelth--sloppy proofreading.

I have to disagree, politely.

It occurs to me that the United States of America is one of the least racist nations on Earth. I don't know how much foreign travel you have done, but, from my own experience, I have observed that the U.S. is less racist than Japan, the U.K., France, Switzerland, and Italy.

There are many things that cause me to be ashamed of the United States, but on this one issue, I think we are ahead of the rest of the world. We are the most multi-cultural society on Earth, and, I think, we are the least racist. We are still racist, to be sure, but we have made tremendous advances on this issue. We had a war in the middle of the nineteenth century on this issue, and the side of justice won. We have laws on the books from the 1960s that address these issues (unlike most countries). On the issue of race, we, in the United States, are quite advanced, and I am very proud of that fact. Certainly, racism still exists, but we are talking about it, addressing it, and have laws designed to regulate it, unlike most developed nations in the world.

I do not disparage you for continuing to fight against racism when you see it, but I wanted to note that we, in the United States, have done more to combat this injustice than any other nation on Earth.

Credit where it is due ... and we deserve credit here.

-Laelth

The Democratic Party of Bibb County needs YOUR help!

The short version is this:

Bibb County, Georgia, is majority African-American and solidly Democratic. We're under attack from a Republican state legislature that voted to make our elections non-partisan (a Republican can not win a county-wide election here) and to have our elections occur in July (hurts Democrats who are more likely to vote in November elections). The Department of Justice is currently reviewing this case pursuant to the Voting Rights Act of 1965. We feel that the State of Georgia should be denied the power to change our elections in this way because the legislature's acts constitute de facto discrimination and were intended to be discriminatory against a historically-opressed people in violation of the Voting Rights Act.

The long version (my own letter to the Justice Department) is this: