Friday, December 23, 2005

RJ Eskow: The Stranger and the Fox: A Christmas Fable. "So some Palestinian walks into town - beard, sandals, looks like a terrorist, right? Says that God can be directly experienced by everyone, without rich, powerful clergymen or their politician buddies. And when folks want to borrow money to celebrate the holiday - their God-given right - he calls it an abomination. He's part of the war on Passover! What can you do with a guy like that but string him up, right? I'm Bill O'Reilly and this is the No-Spin Zone." _______________ Imagine that Jesus is what they said He was: the Son of God who was born in poverty, an outsider born to an outsider people. The Israel of his time was a desolate outpost in the Roman Empire. No doubt some Centurions saw the Jews as "camel jockeys" - those oppressed citizens of a sand-strewn Imperial ghetto. Jesus was an outcast among outcasts because of the questions of his parentage and His birth to a teenaged mother. He would eventually die a criminal, a political and spiritual revolutionary, a troublemaker. Now imagine that He chooses to return again - not as the conquering White Horse Rider from Revelations, an image designed to appeal to Romans (who traditionally paraded conquering generals through Rome on a white horse), but the way He came before: as an outcast with a message about the immediacy and universality of God's love. Ask yourself the question: How would Fox News cover His life? Remember: He's coming back the way He came before, in secret. So He might be a Jew again, or He might pick an even more disliked minority religion - Muslim, maybe. Or Unitarian. He might be a woman this time. Would He be born to a teenaged mother again - maybe in Detroit this time, or in Watts? He might come back as one of the "burakamin" in Japan, or as a Tibetan in China, a Pakistani in London, a Chicano in LA, a !Kung in Botswana. As a woman in Saudi Arabia, or a gay man in Idaho. Or an Arab in any American city. Maybe his family's last name would be the same as one of the villains from "24" or "Sleeper Cell." He would say what He said before, when He turned the water into wine: Everything is sacramental if you're open to the divine, whether it's been blessed by the authorities or not. He would fight the Sanhedrin of his time - the Falwells and Robertsons, the television preachers in their shining megachurches (sorry, we'll be closed this Christmas!), those who would close off the doors to God and pretend to speak in His name. And He would reject the politicians, too, and the wealthy. He or She ... this irritating, rebellious, subversive preacher from the ghetto or the souk. "Happy Holidays," He would say. Why? Because for him all are welcome to the Kingdom of God, not just a few. He embraced the Samaritan last time he was here - that representative of an outcast religion. This time He would surely reach out to the Hindu, the Buddhist, the Muslim, the Jain, the Jew - and the atheist. He would welcome the stranger at the door. "Happy holidays," He would say. "But aren't you the One this holiday is named for?" His followers would ask. "Yes," he would answer, "but the rejecters and haters aren't acting in My name, because they're not listening to my words." Since He had returned in a new human life, he would have a new name anyway. It would be the spirit, not the name, that mattered. "This lunatic," O'Reilly and Gibson would say, "is an enemy of Christmas. And a terrorist who destroys moneychanger's property." With Falwell and Robertson nodding approvingly, they would call for extreme measures. "Time," they would say, "for an execution." (And, just in case there's any doubt, let me be clear: Yes, I am saying that Bill O'Reilly would crucify the living Jesus if he ever had the opportunity. And that John Gibson would pat him on the back while he did it, with Falwell and Robertson's approval. Don't like it, guys? Too bad.) And when that execution finally took place (because, remember, we have a government that's pro-death penalty and "tough on crime" - except the white-collar kind)? It would be carried live ... on Fox. _________________________________ Luke 8:58: And Jesus said unto him, Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head. A Night Light [The Huffington Post | Full Blog Feed] 9:55:23 PM    comment []

Cenk Uygur: The New York Times Has Held Stories for Political Reasons Before. James Risen, the same New York Times reporter who broke the NSA story, also broke a story on where Osama bin Laden is hiding about a year ago. He wrote the story on Osama's sanctuary -- northern Pakistan, in case you were wondering -- for the December 13, 2004 issue of the Times. When we interviewed him a couple of weeks later on The Young Turks, he told us that he had held the potentially explosive story until after the election. Risen told us, "I wanted to do it after the election. I didn't want to get caught up in the politics of it." That story could have been politically damaging to the Bush administration before the November election because it contained government sources saying we had made a conscious decision not to pursue Osama bin Laden more actively (for some understandable though debatable reasons, you can listen to the whole interview here). After the election, the story was nearly ignored, perhaps ironically because people thought it made no difference after an election that confirmed we were going to continue with the same strategy as before. Now, one has to wonder if Jim Risen and the New York Times made a similar decision about the NSA story. As you read Risen's quote about the earlier story, consider if the same thoughts might have run through his head on the spying piece as well: "I thought that since we wrote this after the election, that it wouldn't be so politicized, that people might look at it more objectively. And that's why I was hoping -- that's one reason I wanted to do it after the election. I didn't want to get caught up in the politics of it." If the New York Times is holding stories until after elections on a regular basis, we have to question if that's a wise policy. It's imperative that citizens who are about to vote have all the information at their disposal. If a media organization is purposely holding back critical information that can help voters decide who they want to be their leader, one has to wonder if they are neglecting their duty to their readers and fellow citizens. Not running a story is just as important, and just as political, as running a story. It puts the newspaper in the role of kingmaker, deciding what the people should and should not hear. I was under the impression that their role was to deliver all the news that's fit to print. If they have a story that is well sourced and that they believe in, and they hold it because they don't want to run a politically damaging story, they are making a decision that is inherently political. That decision is driven not by the merit of the story, but by politics. It makes no difference if the NYT was concerned that they would be accused of being political -- the decision was still guided by political considerations, rather than news considerations. This seems to me to be dangerous. I think we should have an honest debate about whether the New York Times has become too political, perhaps ironically in an effort to be less political. [The Huffington Post | Full Blog Feed] 3:10:33 PM    comment []

The Department of Justice Memo, Debunked. The Department of Justice has released a memo defending President Bush’s warrantless domestic spying argument. There are two main arguments: 1) Any limitations FISA places on the President’s authority to issue warrantless domestic searches are unconstitutional, and 2) Congress gave the President authority to issue warrantless domestic searches It doesn’t seem like the DOJ has their heart in the first argument. They devote just two paragraphs out of a five page memo to this point. Most of that space is filled by caselaw decided before FISA even became law, making it largely irrelevant since FISA speaks directly to warrantless spying on Americans and declares it illegal. Like other defenders of the President’s program, they place considerable emphasis on a 2002 decision by the FISA Court of Appeals. There are two important things to remember about that case: - The FISA appeals court explicitly says it’s not addressing the issue (”It was incumbent upon the [Truong] court, therefore, to determine the boundaries of that constitutional authority [to conduct warrantless searches]…The question before us is the reverse…”) - The FISA appeals court acknowledges the cases it mentions were decided before FISA and didn’t consider the statute (”We reiterate that Truong dealt with a pre-FISA surveillance…it had no occasion to consider the application of the statute…”) In other words, there is a reason that the DOJ is giving short shrift to this argument. There is little evidence to substantiate it. The rest of the memo is devoted to arguing that the 9/18/01 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) against al-Qaeda authorized the President’s actions. This argument doesn’t hold water either: 1. The administration tried to get language inserted into the AUMF that would have authorized them to take actions “in the United States.” They failed. [Tom Daschle, 12/23/05] 2. Federal law says that “exclusive means” to conduct electronic surveillance is FISA and Title III (which governs the use of wiretaps by law enforcement). Relying on the AUMF, the administration concedes that neither of those two statutes were used. Federal law says that any surveillance that is not conducted under those two statues is illegal. [18 U.S.C. 2551(2)(f); 50 U.S.C. 1809(a)] 3. FISA has a limited exception that allows warrantless domestic wiretaps after a war is declared, but it only lasts 15 days. The Bush administration program has been going on for more than four years. [50 U.S.C. 1811] The Justice Department advances two theories about why Bush’s warrantless domestic surveillance program was legal and both of them fail. The truth is simple: the program was illegal because it violated federal criminal law. [Think Progress] 3:09:50 PM    comment []

Contradiction, Confusion, and Irony From the Right-Wing on Warrantless Searches. On September 17, 2001, President Bush visited the Islamic Center of Washington, D.C., to declare that Muslims “share the same values of respect and dignity and human worth. … They love America just as much as I do.” But the actions Bush took in the days shortly after 9/11 sent a clear signal that his administration viewed those who stood with him in the Islamic Center as national security threats, not as individuals who shared American values. U.S. News revealed that in the days after 9/11 Bush ordered that “over a hundred Muslim sites in the Washington, D.C., area, including mosques” (perhaps even the mosque Bush spoke from) be secretly monitored for radiation levels without warrants or court orders. Reacting to the story, the right-wing blog Real Clear Politics posted the following misguided commentary: This is insane. Can we not settle the legality of these types of programs in private? … As with the NSA case, the leakers should be rounded up and prosecuted to the full extent of the law. In fact, federal officials involved with the program did try to settle the issue of the program’s legality in private, but the Bush administration (as it typically does) resorted to fear and intimidation to stifle dissent. Here’s what U.S. News reported: Two individuals, who declined to be named because the program is highly classified, spoke to U.S. News because of their concerns about the legality of the program. … “A lot of us thought it was questionable, but people who complained nearly lost their jobs. We were told it was perfectly legal.” The right-wing anger here is misdirected and ironic. Misdirected because it is the Bush administration that took actions contrary to the law and has thus made this an issue. (In fact, the whistleblowers and U.S. News were careful to omit “sensitive methods” that would compromise the procedural operations of the program). And, it is ironic that Real Clear Politics now wants to employ the power of the law to round up and prosecute leakers — unless of course the leaker is the deputy White House chief of staff and the substance of the leak involves an undercover CIA agent’s identity. [Think Progress] 3:08:15 PM    comment []

© Copyright 2006 Patricia Thurston.