Before the Law

You heard it here first

Someday, sooner rather than later I hope, I will get back to real blog-writing; in the meantime another thought on the run . . . .   I  predict that very soon, Hillary Clinton will start "speaking truth to the American people" -- that is, start telling us something that we already know (because every thoughtful person knows it) but that doesn't get acknowledged publicly very much because of its political sensitivity.  It will probably, although not necessarily, be about gender relations -- "post-feminism" or something like that -- and it might not take the form of a particular speech (that might be too blatant even for her).   It won't be the substance that's important, but the tone -- "I am a real enough person to speak the truth without fear or favor," etc.  You heard it here first.   

The legitimate element of Clinton's campaign has consisted in attempting to draw a contrast between herself and Obama along the lines of:  sure he's eloquent,  but politics takes more than words, it takes monkey-grease, late nights on the job, and know-how.  The dark side has been her attempts, on one hand, to steal the things that have worked for Obama -- the "change" theme, and so on -- while, on the other, to smear him in ways that John McCain would probably not to sink to himself, but which will certainly benefit him handsomely in November if Obama ends up as the Democratic nominee (for a catalog of the more recent slime by Clinton and her proxies, see this Bob Herbert column from the NY Times).   The legitimate campaign theme hasn't worked too well -- after Bush it's certainly true that most Americans demand competence in their preferred candidate, but that's a necessary and not sufficient condition (we'd like a little inspiration, too), and despite her efforts to compare Obama to George Bush, she hasn't convinced anyone that Obama fails on that count.   And so, following Obama's much- and rightly admired speech on race yesterday, I expect that we will see the light go on over Clinton's head -- "ahh, being real, being thoughtful -- not being completely and utterly political! -- is working for him; hell, I can do that, too!"  And so I expect we'll soon be seeing the logical end-point of Clintonism: the greatness bestowed by rising above political calculation imitated in the service of sheer political calculation (along with, no doubt, the attempt to drag that genuine greatness back down into the  mud). 

A new role model for McCain

From today's New York Times:

Addressing a packed ballroom in Columbus, Ohio, Mr. McCain said to cheers that he would urge the nation not to be “deceived by an eloquent but empty call for change that promises no more than a holiday from history” and warned against risking “the confused leadership of an inexperienced candidate.”

"Eloquent but empty"?  "Holiday from history"?  Apparently at least one of McCain's speech writers thinks that channeling the ghost of Spiro Agnew will help him compete with Obama's oratorical flair . . . .

More on Simon Critchley

UPDATE:  The full version of the review is now downloadable from SSRN here.

Having finally finished reading Simon Critchley's Infinitely Demanding, I am in a somewhat better position to opine than in my previous post on this topic, and have put my two bits in the form of a short review (forthcoming in the journal Law, Culture & the Humanities).  Here are the first two paragraphs, which more or less contain my bottom line:

      For the past fifteen years, Simon Critchley has been one of the foremost explicators of contemporary Continental philosophy for the English-speaking audience.  During the same period, he has been developing his own philosophical positions on ethics, politics and art in a series of books and articles that both draw on and re-work these Continental sources.  In his new book, Infinitely Demanding, he condenses this body of work into a succinct programmatic summa of his own ethical-political philosophy, one whose practical-political aim is a defense of a revised concept of political anarchism.
    If, as I will suggest below, his analysis provokes some questions that leave the ultimate success of his project in doubt, that does not diminish the value of this ambitious book, which raises all of the right questions at our current philosophico-historical juncture, questions that Anglo-American moral and political philosophy has for the most part swept under the rug.  Above all, Critchley should be applauded for recognizing that the problem of political motivation – the impetus to act politically as opposed to other motives for and forms of action – is not simply an empirical question of individual or group interest, but also a philosophical problem, perhaps the most pressing political-philosophical problem of our time.  The disenchanting powers of modernity have provided fodder for philosophical reflection at least since the Romantic era.  If these powers have now undermined our most basic sense of ourselves as zoon politikon – and there is plenty of evidence that they have, from voter-turnout statistics to the denatured, scientistic “policy analysis” that today substitutes for political reflection and deliberation – then it is high time for political philosophy to address the possibility of a cure as well as diagnosing the disease.  Critchley recognizes this situation and calls it by name, and his book deserves attention and response for this reason alone.

I just love a good allusion

Here's one from two of my favorite social commentators, Paul Krugman and Talking Heads:  Same Old Party.  It's some kind of index of some kind of generational change when T. Heads can be referenced in an NYT op-ed piece without the need for citation.  Or something.  In any event, there is, in fact, water at the bottom of the ocean . . . .

On Simon Critchley, opining without reading, political motivation, etc.

There's a great comment stream at Long Sunday right now, following a post by Jodi Dean on Simon Critchley's new book, Infinitely Demanding: Ethics of Commitment, Politics of Resistance.  I'm finding it thoroughly enjoyable in part because it's turned into a discussion of Levinas's positioning vis a vis the ethical and the political (a topic I can't stay away from), but mostly because it's such a pristine example of one of my very favorite pastimes, shooting from the hip with definitive opinions about books that I haven't actually read.   Jodi begins by admitting that she's only skimmed the book before skewering it in her post, and the discussion that follows is full of admissions of not having read it, but . . ., haven't read the book but have seen him lecture recently and . . ., and so on.  You gotta love (and recognize and, in my case at least, identify with) it . . . .

Anyway, having put in my two bits on the Levinas issues in the comments there, I will join the fray of uninformed opiners over here.  Jodi begins by noting that Critchley's argument begins with the question of political motivation ("The basic argument builds from Critchley's particular version of Levinasian ethics as a motivation for a political response to the present"), but then leaves that aside (she says she'll have more to say about it later, which I look forward to) in favor of a critique of Critchley's (substantive) anarchist political stance.  I can't argue with Jodi's critique -- since I haven't read that far in Critchley's book yet -- but, having gotten as far as the introduction (really -- I even finished it!), I want to defend Critchley insofar as he begins with the question of political motivation.  In particular, I agree with him that "modernity itself has had the effect of generating a motivational deficit in morality that undermines the possibility of ethical secularism," that "[w]hat is required . . . is a conception of ethics that begins by accepting the motivational deficit in the institutions of liberal democracy, but without embracing either [what Critchley calls] passive or active nihilism," and that "[w]hat is lacking at the present time of massive political disappointment is a motivating, empowering conception of ethics that can face and face down the drift of the present."  Regardless of whether you agree or disagree with the substantive political stance that he grows from this beginning, I applaud him for framing the fundamental problem in terms of motivation. 

What does "motivation" mean in this context?  Well, I don't know what Critchley means exactly, since, uh, I haven't actually read the book (he does say the fundamental question is "How does a self bind itself to whatever it determines as its good?" in the introduction, at least).  But that won't stop me from speculating that he means something like the "ethical injunction" that Derrida posits in Adieu to Levinas which enjoins a political decision without, however, in any way determining the content of that political decision.  "Political motivation" would thus be the quasi-transcendental, ethical condition not only of possibility but of necessity for the political decision.  I would also read into this notion of "political motivation" Derrida's discussion of the ethical relation to alterity as the moment of disjunction that rends the present and demands, in every moment, (inevitably violent, from the perspective of ethics) political action as redemption of past violence (in Specters of Marx, the section about Heidegger's "Anaximander Fragment").  In that sense, the notion of "political motivation" that I have in mind (and who knows, maybe Critchley does, too!) is also the transcendental condition of possibility/necessity of temporality and history as well.  I'm sorely tempted to continue speculating in this vein -- I have some ideas about where, why and how Critchley goes wrong, if he goes wrong, in the substantive political stance draws from all this -- but perhaps I'll read a few more pages first . . . .

Bush to New York: drop dead! No really, I mean it -- drop dead!

More from the Bush Administration in the category of, you couldn't make it up.  The NY Times headline is City Has Itself to Blame for Terror Cuts, U.S. Says, which is the Times's polite translation of the old Daily News headline from the Gerald Ford/Abe Beame era.  This time, however, considering the potential consequences, "drop dead!" seems a lot more literal . . . .

The meat of the story is that, in the most recent round of Department of Homeland Security anti-terrorism grants, New York City's allocation was slashed 40% from last year, while places like  Omaha, Louisville and Charlotte, North Carolina jumped 40%.  If that seems slightly irrational to you, then you may also be surprised to learn that Washington, DC was also cut 40% as well.  DHS's explanation is that New York's application was very poorly done, very poorly done indeed.  And it was faxed, if you can believe that, instead of being filed electronically, as the bureaucracy had specifically requested.  Oh, yeah, and one more thing -- New York has no national monuments or icons according to Homeland Security's risk analysis.  (Apparently someone at DHS later acknowledged that they might have forgotten about the Statue of Liberty.)  So you see, it is New York's own fault . . . .  All this after DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff announced in January that “[t]he department is investing federal funding into our communities facing the greatest risk and demonstrating the greatest need in order to receive the highest return in our nation’s security.”  More here and here as well.   

Well, at least they're consistent

As we know, terrorists, would-be terrorists, could-be terrorists, and couldn't-possibly-be terrorists are even more likely to use the internet for their nefarious (and their innocent) schemes than they are to use the phone lines.  Hence the Bush Administration's latest plan to track them all down, each and every one, the guilty and the innocent, to their terrorist and non-terrorist lairs, in this new medium as well: 

The Justice Department is asking Internet companies to keep records on the Web-surfing activities of their customers to aid law enforcement, and may propose legislation to force them to do so.

The director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Robert S. Mueller III, and Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales held a meeting in Washington last Friday where they offered a general proposal on record-keeping to a group of senior executives from Internet companies, said Brian Roehrkasse, a spokesman for the department. The meeting included representatives from America Online, Microsoft, Google, Verizon and Comcast.  (NYT 6/2/06)

A DOJ spokesperson says that "[t]he Justice Department is not asking the Internet companies to give it data about users, but rather to retain information that could be subpoenaed through existing laws and procedures."  Somehow, given the Administration's recent record and stated position regarding its obligation to follow "existing laws and procedures" when it comes to invading Americans' right to privacy --  e.g., its claim to a constitutional right to conduct facially illegal wiretapping by the NSA -- I'm less than reassured.  Once these databanks are compiled, is there any doubt that the government (if not the DOJ then the NSA) will immediately begin to make use of them? 

"It is still, we said, not given to us not to kill"

This post continues a conversation that most recentlyhas been carried on at I cite under the post titled "Kill!  Kill!"  The topic is solidarity; Jodi takes issue, via two quotes from Zizek, with my attempt to formulate a notion of solidarity in Derridian/Levinasian terms (earlier posts here and here).  Leaving the Zizek quotes aside for the moment (I'll return to them below), here is Jodi's account of the difference between her Zizekian notion of solidarity and mine:

One of the first major differences concerns the Levinasian injunction 'thou shalt not kill,' an injunction at the 'level of ethical debt to the Other' (Adam's words). Zizek's position is strictly opposed to this; in fact, he inverts the prohibition entirely: 'it is not permitted to us not to kill.' For Adam, the Levinasian injunction is one of accountability to a Third, an accountability that prevents one from treating killing perversely, that is, by making excuses for killing. In Zizek's version, the Levinasian injunction does not escape obscenity of the superego, however, precisely because of the inability to satisfy or even grasp the injunction under which we come under. To this extent, far from escaping the murderous dimension of Stalinism, the injunction not to kill devolves into kill, kill!

Additional differences appear, I think, when we consider the way that Adam's Levinasian position oscillates primarily between All and One: my accountability to all, becomes, ultimately, MY accountability. What is missing--the mediation of a collective, of a militant, solidarity group. Thus, Adam's examples involve the individual having to deal with getting up in the morning, contributing to charity, deciding whether or not to strike. These are already political, in Adam's view. To my mind, these are personal and ethical matters. They can be politicized. In fact, I don't think that the acts on their own are even ethical; they are meaningless until mediated, interpreted, made part of a collective political practice, or, until interpreted, reflected upon.

Thus, Adam wants to eliminate the partisan divide from his notion of solidarity; to my mind, this takes the notion away from class struggle, from the fundamental antagonism constitutive of the social. The only struggle discernible in Adam's account is that of the individual toward all (or, toward all humans, because division is unavoidable, Adam encounters the opposite of the human and the impulse toward dehumanization). There simply isn't the conceptual space for a partisan, solidary association of those engaged in political struggle. In fact, the Levinasian framework seems to foreclose the very possibility of such a politics insofar as it limits the political field in advance, precluding the possibility that these limitations have been and remain matters of political struggle and determination.

(There's also a very interesting exchange between Jodi and Alain, who holds down the Levinasian end of the discussion, in the comments as well. )

Jodi's objections and her reliance on Zizek (and on his characteristically inflammatory interpretation of the first commandment as, in effect if not intention, "Kill!  Kill!") would be a great stepping off point for a discussion of the relationship between the Lacanian-psychoanalytic account of the relation to the Other and the Levinasian-ethical one, but I don't feel up to that at the moment (in large part because my knowledge of Lacan is so schematic that I'm not the person to attempt it).  But, leaving that general question aside, what interests me is that it's pretty clear to me that Jodi and I don't actually disagree on much.  Thus, Jodi seems to have misunderstood me, or, perhaps -- although for obvious reasons I hesitate to suggest this -- misunderstood Zizek on this point.

The key moment of this misunderstanding is encapsulated in Jodi's citation of the quote from Brecht's "Die Massnahme" that Zizek relies on in articulating his understanding of "thou shalt not kill":  "It is still, we said, not given to us not to kill."  To be clear (I hope):  I agree with this sentiment entirely, precisely as stated.  Which is to say, I agree that it is not, in fact, given to us not to kill, at least not yet ("still"), and that the infinitely long wait for that still-undelivered gift is a matter of melancholic regret (a tonality that (I think) is palpable even in this English rendition of Brecht's original German). 

The full passage from which Zizek (and then Jodi) draws this quotation is as follows, and it seems to me to confirm this reading:

"It is a terrible thing to kill.
But not only others would we kill, but ourselves too if need be
Since only force can alter this
Murderous world, as
Every living creature knows.
It is still, we said
Not given to us not to kill."

It is in fact a terrible thing to kill -- that is all that "thou shalt not kill" means and can mean -- but it's nevertheless, sometimes, a necessary thing.  There is  no inconsistency in those two positions if one accepts that "thou shalt not kill" is an ethical injunction rather than a principle of truth in the philosophical (read: ontological) sense.  Politics, in the essentially Derridian reading of Levinas that I've been defending, is a matter of actuality, the art of the possible, the (always contingent) formation of alliances that are ultimately strategic (in the Schmittian friend-enemy sense) no matter how based they may be in deep-seated structural interests.  And politics is essential, "since only force can alter this murderous world," as Brecht so beautifully puts it.  As such, politics is (as Jodi insists) distinct from ethical responsibility, which however rooted in the singularity of the face-to-face is by that very token owed to all, as well as being subject to the (again, ethical) edict to do no violence to the Other.  Derrida's point, however, is that ethical responsibility itself demands that we strategize, calculate, engage in politics -- in a word, that we kill -- just to the extent that the Other is not an abstraction but an actuality, a singular being that exists in fact in "this murderous world" of ours.  (And the flip side of this demand is that politics cannot be avoided -- the point of my examples of getting up in the morning, deciding to contribute to Oxfam or to let those children starve, to cross the picket line or not, and so on, is that not that they are ethical (they may or may not be), but that they are necessarily political just insofar as they all involve, directly or indirectly, an act of killing.  To put it another way, that this world is "murderous" is not a politically contingent fact but itself an existential-ontological condition.) 

Thus, while it may be true that I want to "eliminate the partisan divide from [my] notion of solidarity" -- and in fact I do, because I think that's the only way to preserve the sense of  solidarity as event per my earlier post -- I certainly do not want to "eliminate the partisan divide" itself; in fact, the point of the Derridian-Levinasian position is that one has to take sides, decide which side that you're on, precisely by virtue of one's ethical  responsibility.  But I do think that it matters that the source of this partisan side-taking is ethical (in the Levinasian sense) rather than something else.  I'm not at all sure that Jodi agrees with this, however (in fact some of the things she says in the comments strongly suggest  otherwise), and it's here that I think she may misinterpret Zizek, at least on this narrow point (Jodi, please correct me on this if, as I expect, you disagree). 

I say this because Zizek himself articulates quite beautifully the significance of the ethical to  the political in the very essay from which Jodi takes that wonderful Brecht quote (a signficance that, as I've tried to suggest, is already nascent in the melancholic tone of the quote itself).  (The essay, on the director Heinrich Mueller, is available on-line here.)  In this passage, which concludes the essay, Zizek distinguishes between the "must" -- the sphere of the Real of "this murderous world," where killing is a political necessity -- and the "ought," the level of the Symbolic order and the obscene splitting of the moral injunction by the superego (which, by the way, operates at a different level of subject-constitution than Levinasian ethical responsibility, something that I think isn't clear in Jodi's post).  He draws from this distinction the need for a politics that  abides by a principle of "Justice with Love," that is, of "killing with pieta," "killing without dehumanizing the enemy," or as I would put it, a politics ("killing") suffused with ethical responsibility:

"Must" and "Ought" thus relate as the Real and the Symbolic: the Real of a drive whose injunction cannot be avoided (which is why Lacan says that the status of a drive is ethical); the Ought as a symbolic ideal caught in the dialectic of desire (if you ought not do something, this very prohibition generates the desire to do it). When you "must" do something, it means you have no choice but to do it, even if is terrible: in Wagner's Die Walkuere, Wotan is cornered by Fricka and he "must" ("cannot but") allow the murder of Siegmund, although his heart bleeds for him; he "must" ("cannot but") punish Brunhilde, his dearest child, the embodiment of his own innermost striving. And, incidentally, the same goes for Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, the Bayreuth staging of which was Mueller's last great theatrical achievement: they MUST, they CANNOT BUT, indulge in their passion, even if this goes against their Sollen, their social obligations.

In Wotan's forced exercise of punishment, Wagner encounters here the paradox of the "killing with pieta" at work from the Talmud (which calls us to dispense Justice with Love) to Brecht's two key Lehrstuecke, Der Jasager and Die Massnahme, in which the young comrade is killed by his companions with loving tenderness. And although Mueller disagreed with Die Massnahme, proposing, in his Mauser, a critique of its political logic, his critique is strictly internal: his reproach to Brecht is precisely that he did not draw all the consequences from the stance of "killing with pieta," of killing without dehumanizing the enemy. And this is what today, in our time in which the abstract humanitarian rejection of violence is accompanied by its obscene double, the anonymous killing WITHOUT pieta, we need more than ever.

Beautifully put, and entirely consistent, I think, with the Derridian-Levinasian take on the ethical status of the political.  Nothing could be more foreign to the singularity of Levinasian ethics than an "abstract humanitarian rejection of violence"; and nothing, sorrowfully, more consistent with Derrida's political interpretation of Levinas than a (Talmudic) notion of killing "with loving tenderness."  "It is still, we said, not given to us not to kill."  Yes, exactly, alas. 

 

On solidarity (I) -- phenomenology of the picket line

(This discussion has already been updated/elaborated somewhat via an exchange of comments at Jodi's most recent I cite solidarity post.  And here.)

I want to try to systematize my thoughts about the recent solidarity thread (or should I say, "meme"?  -- I don't want to, I'm an old-word person like Benjamin rather than a new-word person like Derrida . . . ) wending its way around my blogospheric neighborhood, but this post probably won't be it, so I'm giving it a Roman numeral "(I)" as a commitment of sorts to return . . . .  What I'll try to do here instead, which will end up addressing "solidarity" anyway, is respond to some excellent questions put to me in comments to an earlier post on Agamben and Derrida by Jodi Dean and squibb.  This post is thus really an extended comment-response elevated into post-dom.

Jodi asks: 

Would your Derridean solidarity then be something like the infusion of the Other into a political calculation? If it is, I don't see how that is solidarity in any political sense; it seems to come after, to supplement, the calculation; and, it is hard to tell apart from a general ethical regard. Solidarity should be something stronger, no?

That's the right question, and I'm not entirely sure how to answer it.  This is also the issue that opens up into the more systematic thinking about solidarity that I'd like to come back to later.    Nevertheless . . .  I wrote a paper a couple of years ago that, among other things, attempts to sketch in a very preliminary way something like this Derridean/Levinasian solidarity through a merger of sorts of Levinas with Kantian social-contractarian political theory (abstract and cite here).  The notion that I was trying to articulate was something like (these are not terms I used in the paper but they're accurate enough) Derridean/Levinasian political solidarity as an aufhebung of the (very "strong") solidarity of the classical polis and the extremely abstract, denatured and "weak" solidarity of the modern, Kantian political subject with its fellow rational beings.  In any event, I'll leave that level of response for later (if ever).  For now I just want to think about Jodi's notion of "strong" solidarity on one hand -- behind which seems to be some kind of substantive, shared commitment, whether it's common class interest or some other characteristic or life-situation shared by the party members -- and "weak" solidarity on the other, based (Jodi suggests) on some (abstract, denatured, etc.) "general ethical regard" for the Otherness of the Other in general.  Should solidarity be something stronger than this?

Yes and no, I think.  Yes, "solidarity" does seem to imply, at first blush at least, some kind of substantive bond that ties party or group members together, something more concrete than their shared status as rational willing beings entitled to respect, or what have you.  But it seems to me that the situation is more complex when you look at it more closely.  Think about a union picket line.  Which of these is the more genuine exemplar of "solidarity" in the sense that (I think) we really mean it when we use it in everyday speech:  (1) the bond between the union members walking the line; or (2) the decision by a non-union member, confronted by a picket line on her way to work, not to cross the line?  It seems to me that the second situation exemplifies solidarity in its highest best sense, and more importantly, in the sense that ultimately underlies all the other senses in which we use it -- including, that is, the solidarity among the union picketers themselves.  That is, it seems to me that true solidarity takes place (and one of the points I'd stress is that it ought to be a "taking place" and not a characteristic of certain groups) when the I encounters another who, prior to the event of solidarity, did not share substantive commitments of the subject, and who (ideally) need not have shared any characteristics or elements of her life-situation, either.  That is, solidarity takes place when the I encounters an Other and is drawn into her stance to the point of being willing to substitute herself for that Other (here, by literally or figuratively joining the union members on the picket-line and on strike, by honoring the line and refusing to work).  Even if the Levinasian terminology is a little strained I trust the point is clear enough.  Solidarity as event in this sense seems closer to Levinas to me than to any analysis in terms of underlying or pre-existing political interest or commitment. 

And in answer to Jodi I guess I would say that the ethical moment does "suffuse" the political calculation (or better, decision, which as Derrida tells us (correctly in my view) is never finally calculable at all); not as an after-the-fact "supplement," however, but as (prior) quasi-transcendental motivation and pre-condition of possibility.  And as I've already suggested, I would also want to argue (but won't here) that "solidarity as event" in this (Levinasian) sense is the presupposition of the more immediately intuitive sense of solidarity as non-event or "thing," as particular shared commitment among members of a party or group. 

Jodi's other question is about the other side of my initial post, Agamben's linguistified ontology and its relation to politics ("it isn't clear to me how he can have a properly destitute subject and still have politics"), as are squibb's questions (e.g., "What is the nature of the relationship between ‘sayability,’ posited by Agamben, and politics? . . . . .  [I]s he saying ‘sayability’ accounts for the possibility of politics? Or for the possibility of a certain kind of politics?").  Given how long this has already turned out and how late it's gotten here, I'll leave that for another time. 

The NSA scandal -- what to do now

Everyone -- or rather, every American -- who cares about their rights and wants to take responsibility for their own government ought to read this post by Glenn Greenwald.  I agree with all of it, in principle and as a matter of strategy, but would underline the following in particular:

There are scores of prominent conservatives and conservative organizations vigorously opposed to the Administration’s actions, and every public event and campaign should include them in order to prevent this scandal from being (falsely) depicted as the by-product of liberal softness on terrorism or personal hostility towards the President. There are multiple ways to achieve this and several reasons why doing so is vitally important.  . . . .

. . . .  Opposition to the Administration’s law-breaking among conservatives is substantial and it is growing. And it is easy to understand why this is so – the Administration’s theories of presidential power are repugnant to many core principles of true conservatism, from the supremacy of the rule of law to the importance of restraining the powers of the Federal Government (as the Founders intended), particularly when it comes to those powers which can be wielded by the Government against American citizens.

Greenwald is also absolutely right that this is not just a marriage of convenience:

Importantly, this is not a case where liberals and conservatives arrive coincidentally at the same place despite beginning from radically different premises -- the way, say, Pat Buchanan’s isolationist theories just coincidentally lead him to the same anti-war views as certain pacifists on the Left. Here, the basis for opposition to the Administration’s action among liberals, conservatives and everyone in between comes from exactly the same set of principles and beliefs -- namely, that what is at stake in this scandal is whether America will continue to live under the principles of law and the system of government on which our country was founded and which has kept us both strong and free.

The current administration is not only advancing but acting on positions that are as close to fascism -- in the technical and not the rhetorical sense of that word -- as we have come in this country's history.  There ought to be, and there can be, a popular front of people of good will from across the political spectrum to oppose it.  That means we need to hold hands -- in good faith and without holding our noses -- with people with whom we otherwise vehemently disagree.  It's the only hope, at least in the near term, to stop the political back-slide in which we find ourselves. 

State of the Union

My favorite line:  "With so much in the balance, those of us in public office have a duty to speak with candor."  Really.  For example, when explaining to the American public the need to go to war with Iraq, I suppose.  My second favorite line:  "Tonight I ask you to pass legislation to prohibit the most egregious abuses of medical research –  . . .   creating human-animal hybrids . . . ."   Cogent commentary on this long-ignored national scourge, and the President's courage in finally issuing a call to action, here and here.  (Full text of the speech at ThinkProgress.) 

A depressing speech to close out a depressing day, with the death of Coretta Scott King and the swearing-in of Samuel Alito.  And now, as I write this, Governor Tim Kaine of Virginia is giving the Democratic response -- reassuring us all that there is "another way," that is, the way of "competence,"  "efficient" delivery of services, and "fiscal responsibility."  Is this really what people want to hear?  Is this the best the Democrats can do? 

 

Some consolation

. . . after the Alito votes, from Robert Kennedy via the excellent Digby.  Speaking as a lawyer and law professor, though, I fear the worst. 

Post-9/11: big fear or big thrill?

Two different contrarian takes on where we are post-9/11, one arguing that we're in a state of politically-induced (as opposed to reality-based) fear --  Glenn Greenwald -- and the other, not necessarily inconsistently, that we're like "a country watching a horror movie, which is not the same thing at all [as fear]," like "people who are hooked on a stimulating drug," "on the 'war on terrorism' thrill ride" (Digby).   The first seems inarguable to me; the second more helpful in understanding the effectiveness of this particular political ploy.  If I knew more about the political turns on psychoanalysis I might have more to say about this -- someone must have analyzed the "war on terror" from a psychoanalytic perspective.  Zizek, maybe?  Let me know . . .

How pathetic has the Democratic Party become?

To be honest, I'm not entirely sure.  My initial reaction is: quite.  For the most recent evidence, see  this story at the NYT on the embarrassed reaction of some Democrats in high places to Kerry and Kennedy's call for a filibuster of Alito.  I do not understand why Democrats would not try to fight this good fight regardless of its likely failure.  First, hey, ya never know, as the New York  State lottery ads used to say.  More important, even if politics is always going to be the art of the possible, when possibility becomes an end in itself there's no longer any point to it.  One of Bill Clinton's most pernicious legacies to the Democratic Party seems to be the fear of losing on an issue of principle.  So what if the filibuster numbers don't add up (although, perhaps because I'm relatively uninformed, I have yet to see a head count that definitively puts the Republicans at 60 votes)?  So what if red state Democrats might not be able to stick their necks out on this issue?  The filibuster decision doesn't need to be a matter of party diktat, only individual conscience.   And those individual consciences -- at least the  ones belonging to Democrats who won't very clearly risk their seats by voting to filibuster -- ought to dictate a by-any-means necessary approach to stopping a candidate who, by general consensus among informed liberal-mainstream commentators, will be a disaster on individual rights and executive power-grabs. 

On the other hand, others who pay more attention than I do to the political landscape take a somewhat more nuanced view.   Armando at Daily Kos, while acknowledging the dark side, sees some reason to hope  in the fact that at least some Senate Democrats, and the Democratic leadership, tried to do the right thing.  Digby agrees that Democrats have to learn to lose well, but warns against "knee jerk cynicism on the part of Democrats who have fallen in love with their assessment that they are superior to their elected leaders."  Perhaps, but what both these comments presuppose is that the Democratic Party remains the only (or at least the most) viable vehicle for progressive change.  That's precisely the belief that the Alito confirmation, assuming it occurs without a broad-based filibuster fight, is going to erode even further. 

The Administration's latest rationale for illegal wiretaps bites the dust . . . .

The virtually-always-worth-reading Glenn Greenwald at Unclaimed Territory seems to have broken this story.  Be sure to read his post, but the executive summary goes something like:  Yesterday the Administration trotted out Michael Hayden, the former head of the NSA, to explain that the probable cause requirement for obtaining FISA warrants impaired the security of the U.S. (hence necessitating the creation of the NSA program, which allowed wiretaps on the basis of the lower standard of reasonable suspicion).  Yet (Greenwald has now revealed), in 2002 the same Administration opposed an amendment offered by Senator Mike DeWine that would have lowered the required showing for FISA warrants from probable cause to reasonable suspicion, on grounds that the proposed change was both unnecessary to the national defense and probably unconstitutional to boot.  And the Administration took this position on the amendment several months after initiating the NSA program, which needless to say, was a far more radical and legally questionable change in the FISA procedures than the DeWine amendment insofar as it completely eliminated any judicial oversight of the reasonable suspicion requirement.  But read the whole story, it's pretty convincing: Unclaimed Territory - by Glenn Greenwald: The Administration's new FISA defense is factually false.

Update:  By the way, those looking for a short, convincing statement listing the arguments against the legality of the NSA surveillance program (signed by 14 prominent law professors) can find it here, among many other places.  Relatedly, on the same blog, one of the signers of the letter (U. of Chicago Law Professor Geoffrey Stone) has an excellent post (and a useful one, because bile- and cant-free -- some people don't seem to like bile and cant with their political arguments) on why Judge Alito should not be confirmed by the Senate, here.

Update #2:  And for those who just can't get enough political irony, see this post at Balkinization as well --