Libya War: Constitutional or Not?



You don't look like who you say you are



"Just trust me."

People may accept those words from a spouse or loved one. But when it comes to business, to the parts of our lives that are not experienced under an umbrella of mutual intimacy, people are less trusting. Few would accept those words from someone on the other side of the negotiating table, a used car dealer, a boss or rival at work, or a political leader.

And yet that is what President Obama is asking the US citizenry to do. The President has claimed that he thought very long and hard before committing to intervening in the war against Libya. Well, bully for him. How wonderful that he is a thoughtful, deliberative man.

Problem is as Kucinich and several other political leaders have pointed out, it's not HIS decision to make.

There are three major arguments to make against this war-constitutional, pragmatic and political. I think the constitutional one is the strongest so that is where I will start. I will also briefly address some of the common counterarguments. The one argument that I won't address is that other people did it too. That doesn't work when someone is charged with bank robbery and it shouldn't apply here.

Constitutional

The US Constitution is clear on this. Congress and Congress alone has the power to declare war.

Obama, as a candidate, said this to the Boston Globe.

Q. In what circumstances, if any, would the president have constitutional authority to bomb Iran without seeking a use-of-force authorization from Congress? (Specifically, what about the strategic bombing of suspected nuclear sites -- a situation that does not involve stopping an IMMINENT threat?)

OBAMA: "The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation."

"As Commander-in-Chief, the President does have a duty to protect and defend the United States. In instances of self-defense, the President would be within his constitutional authority to act before advising Congress or seeking its consent."

Of course like many other people, he changed his mind once HE was the person in charge. If we accept this it shows that despite our protestations to the contrary we really don't want a constitutional republic. This is dangerous. A major pillar of this 200 year+ experiment in separation of powers is that war is simply too dangerous and too seductive to be left to just one man.

A cursory glance through history shows us that monarchs, dictators and other autocrats have launched wars for bad reasons. Queen Bigmouth doesn't like it when Duchess Roundheels shows up at the ball in the same dress. Duke Dodohead takes offense when he loses at billiards to King Stinkybottom. Prince Greedygut is personally offended that the Baron Greasythumb is giving refuge to religious heretics that the Prince is repressing. And so wars break out. The people that start these wars are rarely the people doing the fighting or dying. That is a big part of the reason that the Founding Fathers decided that if war was indeed determined to be necessary at the very least the people, via their elected representatives in Congress, should be the ones to say yea or nay.

The President is the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces and does have, in the case of invasion or imminent attack, the ability to defend the nation and do what is necessary to repel the attackers. This is simply not the case with Libya. Libya did not attack the United States nor is it in a state of war with the United States. So for the President of the United States to attack Libya without a Congressional declaration or war or even a fig leaf of a resolution is unconstitutional.

There are two objections to this conclusion (a) the President is acting under UN authority and aegis so that makes it legal and (b) the President still has time to consult with Congress under the War Powers Act so quit your complaining.

The UN argument is unconvincing. Treaties or other international agreements do not replace the US Constitution.

The UNPA (United Nations Participation Act) makes this exceedingly clear

Provided, That nothing herein contained shall be construed as an authorization to tile President by the Congress to make available to the Security Council for such purpose armed forces, facilities, or assistance in addition to the forces, facilities, and assistance provided for in such special agreement or agreements.

 

In short, Congress still must approve US armed forces being used , whether it is an UN operation or not. As several Congressmen and Congresswomen have heatedly noted, the President consulted with just about everyone EXCEPT Congress. That's just not good enough. If US citizens want the President to have the constitutional authorization to commit troops to UN approved wars without the approval of the US Congress, if they want the UN security council to be a higher authority for the US than the US Congress, they are of course free to propose, fight for and pass a constitutional amendment stating just that. Until then I say Obama's actions are unconstitutional. And yes I would say that about any President.

We joined the UN under extremely specific guidelines designed to ensure the primacy of the US Constitution. The UN Security Council can not be used to do an end-run around possible Congressional opposition. Just because we joined does not indicate acceptance of UN supremacy over US law.

The War Powers Act argument doesn't really hold water either as far I can see. To quote another representative:

"The president has violated the War Powers Resolution," said Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose. Lofgren read the 1973 law aloud in a telephone interview from San Jose. It allows three instances when the president can use force: "(1) a declaration of war, (2) specific statutory authorization or (3) a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces."
"Have any of those things happened?" Lofgren asked.

Pragmatic

No one knows how this war will end. It could be over tomorrow. It could drag on.  I do not pretend to be able to see the future or have any information that the blog readers or blog partners don't have. I do know this though. We don't know who the opposition is. We know that many Libyans-especially those in the opposition- are taking this opportunity to rob, harass, assault or do worse to Black immigrants (legal or not) in Libya. Remember that the current hostility we have with Iran dates back to the 1953 coup. The blowback to that is still going on. The same can be said of the really dumb intervention in the Lebanese civil war of the early eighties. We ought to mind our own business.

Political

It is possible, even likely that the US Congress is just making noise for the sake of making noise. Republicans have generally said Obama waited too long to go to war while several Democrats are rushing to Obama's defense. Congress en masse is disgustingly eager to give away the big decisions to the Executive Branch. But there still a few Congressmen/women with fire in their bellies who will not automatically roll over and fetch just because the President tells them to do so. And depending on how long this war takes, Obama's base may be so disheartened that that they stay home in 2012. 2010 may have been a preview of that. If no matter who you vote for, you get more war then something has gone drastically wrong with our system.

Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people. The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manners and of morals engendered by both. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.

-James Madison

So what's your call? Is this war against Libya constitutional?  Are you bothered that he did not even consult with let alone get permission from Congress? Are you satisfied with Obama's explanation or not? Will your opinion change if this is a quick action ("days not weeks") as the President has said? Do you think any blowback will arrive from this? Do you want more interventions overseas?

Book Reviews-Alien Invasions, Black Heroes and Dangerous Women

Infected by Scott Sigler.

The typical alien invasion book features squirmy octopus looking beings that arrive on Earth and start shooting everyone with plasma beams.  There’s also normally a dastardly effete scientist or politician who either wants to learn from these invaders or worse, sell out humanity to the aliens. In the end the good guys win.  They are led to victory by a team that includes a tall square jawed hero, his take-no-nonsense girl Friday, a plucky sidekick and maybe a dog.

Infected, by Scott Sigler is not that book.

The immediate difference is the scale of Sigler’s invasion. What if the alien invasion is not on the macro level but on the micro level? The human body is home to a multitude of viruses, bacteria and parasites. There are over 1000 different sorts of parasites that can live in humans. Some of these are relatively benign but many are quite disgusting and dangerous. Most are invisible to the human eye.  

Infected examines what happens when an alien bioengineered parasite infects humans, turning some of them into lunatic killing machines while making others behave in even more disturbing ways. The parasites have a greater purpose besides just killing other people.  This was a really disturbing book and I mean that as the highest of compliments to the author. I liked it a lot!!! I liked that the author is a Michigan native and sets most of the story in my college town, Ann Arbor and its bedroom communities. 

Most of the story is told thru the POV of one Perry Dawsey-a former U-M linebacker who now works in a dead-end IT job. Formerly known as “Scary Perry” because of his unrestrained brutality on the field, Dawsey blew out his knee and lost any chance at an NFL career.  One day before work he notices a few discolorations on his body. He thinks nothing of it until a few days later he realizes the spots not only aren’t going away but they’re also growing and changing in texture.  These growths are immune to such things as calamine lotion, alcohol, fungicides or skin creams.  A little later Dawsey thinks he’s going crazy because these things seem to be talking to him.  Unknown to him, Perry is also being frantically sought after by both a CIA agent (Dew Phillips) assigned to a new federal agency which officially doesn’t exist and by a CDC epidemiologist  (Margaret Montoya), who has made some discoveries she doesn’t want to accept.  Perry has the sort of nature that will not allow him to lay down to anyone without a fight-no matter the cost. Battle is joined.

This is great biological sci-fi horror.  It captures the anger and fear we have about disease.  This is based in hard science. There is nothing supernatural in the story.  I can’t over emphasize how unnerving this book is. A great deal of it takes place in Dawsey’s apartment.  We get the POV of the parasites. Through the book we learn more about what they want and what they are. Sigler has modeled this on some real-life entities. This is Stephen King’s “I am the Doorway” on steroids.  If you don’t like gleefully detailed descriptions of exactly how the human body and parasites work and to what extremes Scary Perry will go to in an attempt to save himself, let this pass you by. This is first in a trilogy.

Standing at the Scratch Line by Guy Johnson.

This is the debut novel by Guy Johnson, who is the son of Maya Angelou.  This novel shows that the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree when it comes to talent. It’s hard to describe this book because it touches on so many different topics. The short description is that it tells the story of one LeRoi “King” Tremain , a black man with a quick temper and an even quicker mind who leaves early 20^th century Louisiana after disputes with a rival Black-Creole criminally minded family lead Tremain to murder two white deputies.

Fleeing North, Tremain winds up in the segregated Army during WWI in which he finds himself in combat with racist white soldiers as much as he is with the Germans.  He joins the all Black 369^th Battalion. Many of King’s army exploits are based on the very real Henry Lincoln Johnson. 

In the army he makes connections and allies that will serve him for the rest of his life.  Upon his return to the states King embarks upon several adventures which add to his reputation as that crazy Bad N**** that doesn’t take any stuff off of anyone and especially not racist whites. This includes run-ins with the Klan, various political leaders and the Mob in Chicago and New York.  King is often a brutal character and is something of an antihero. But he is always an engaging one and has what might be considered a fairly strict code of honor. He has a very strong appreciation for his own self-interest but he doesn’t lie or cheat. Deal with him honestly and he will do the same. Do otherwise and run the risk of coming up missing.  It’s said in his home bayous that supposedly every 30-40 years the Tremain family produces a child that will terrorize those around him; King is that man.

This entire story is not quite as anachronistic as one might think. Amoral and occasionally criminally minded though he may be, King represents a paragon of Black resistance to white racism that was always there in American life, though it was obviously not celebrated. Whether it be the mythical Stagolee , the very real African Blood Brotherhood  or David Walker  people like King existed and still exist. In the book’s afterword, Johnson says that some of the story is based on things he heard about his own grandfather as well as the fact that there were black people who had no choice but to defend themselves with violence or otherwise own nothing within the Deep South. Johnson says that a strong Black male character like King may be an anomaly within fiction but not in real life. 

I also want to make two things clear. 1) King is not a superman. He pays a price for some of the wrong he does. Occasionally he is overmatched. 2) This is most definitely not “thug lit”. In both skill and style I would compare this to Dickens. There are far too many characters to describe here but they are all well drawn and have complex motivations. The women in King's life have interests of their own.

The title of the book refers to the practice common in bare knuckle fights.  Before a fight began, a line was drawn in the dirt between the two fighters. The fight would begin and the line would be crossed. If a man was knocked down, his opponent had to return to his side of the scratch line. The other man had to get up and walk to the line if he wanted to continue. Otherwise the man standing at the line was the winner. By hook or by crook, King is the one standing at the scratch line more often than not.

Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie.
I loved Abercrombie's First Law Trilogy (FLT). It was a corrective to the more insipid high fantasy which infests bookstores.  Abercrombie writes in an unabashedly adult and quite profane style. So I had high expectations for his novel Best Served Cold (BSC).

BSC is quite similar to FLT. It’s set in the same world. Many minor characters from FLT show up in BSC. BSC shares themes with FLT; what does revenge really profit someone, how can you be good in an evil world, are men and women really all that different, and does what anyone does in life really matter in the long term. After all good or bad, we all end up "back in the mud" as one warrior reasons.

It is a stand-alone book. You can read it and enjoy it without having read FLT. Reading BSC will not spoil FLT.
The story opens with the mercenary leader Monza Murcatto and her brother Benna being invited to an honorary event by her employer, the Grand Duke Orso. It is no spoiler to reveal that Orso has decided that he can't trust either of the Murcattos any longer and has them both murdered. Or so he thinks. Monza, who is also known as “The Butcher of Caprile” and “The Snake of Tallins” for her brutal style of warfare, improbably survives and swears to kill Orso, Orso's sons and everyone else who was in the room when her brother was murdered and she was scarred for life.

We have a revenge obsessed woman, her motley crew of quirky psychopaths and money hungry killers who will either assist her or betray her, old lovers or would-be lovers showing up and of course an ice cold murderer who is dispatched to eliminate her. In short, although the ride is exciting, it's not exactly a new story. There are more than a few shout outs to "Kill Bill" and "The Princess Bride".

Abercrombie gets a little lazier about national stereotypes. Styria, where all of the action takes place, is so much of a stand-in for Renaissance Italy that one wonders why Abercrombie didn't just set his tale in 15th century Italy. It would have read exactly the same. Murcatto is somewhat based on the real life terror Caterina Sforza. Many of the names Abercrombie uses are either real life Italian names or sound as if they could have been- Vinari, Nicomo Cosmo, Grand Duke Orso, etc.

Women have several key roles in the book, besides the lead. This is not done in any sort of self-consciously feminist style but realistically. Abercrombie's female characters are just as self-centered, morally vacuous, flawed and dangerous as his male ones. Abercrombie maintains a sharp ear for dialogue.  No one stops in the middle of a fight to say something snarky.  Survival is not guaranteed.  People actually get tired and make mistakes. Lovers quarrel and cheat, etc. Murcatto's quest for revenge leads her to some places she'd rather not visit.
I would like to see what Abercrombie could do with characters who are not 100% selfish, twisted, sadistic and cynical. Cynicism is his defining motif.
There is not much of a positive character arc for anyone.  Those who are openly evil remain so. Some people that appear to be decent are revealed to be evil. And even those few people that try to be good eventually decide that being good doesn't work and become as evil as anyone. As one person says repeatedly "Mercy and cowardice are the same thing". Just to make this point crystal clear the author opens chapters with quotes from Machiavelli and various Borgias.
There is one depressed, socially maladroit, and verbose poisoner-very reminiscent of the Tom Hanks' role in The Ladykillers who was in some respects the closest thing the book had to a voice of reason. The book is otherwise EXTREMELY nihilistic. Consider it "fantasy noir".

Don't get me wrong. I did enjoy it -just not as much as FLT. FLT actually did have a few people try (and usually fail) to do the heroic thing. FLT had better misdirection and slower reveals. There is a twist at the end of BSC which was pretty good. There are more than a few moments of humor in this book-mostly centered around the aforementioned gabby poisoner.

Mouth Meet Foot: WNBA/Former Rutgers Player Cappie Pondexter Disses Japan

You might recall the Don Imus controversy some years back where your boy Imus lost his natural mind and said that the Rutgers women's basketball squad were some "nappy headed ho's."  There was a national outcry.  Imus lost his job for a few weeks.  Sharpton marched.  The Rutgers coach co-signed.  And, not to be left out, Cappie Pondexter had this to say:

"I am confident that Coach Stringer and the Rutgers Women's Basketball team will handle this situation with class as always. Coach Stringer does a fantastic job in adverse situations. I know that the state of New Jersey, the university, family and friends will refuse to let this ignorance soil their achievements. These young women played their hearts out during the NCAA tournament and I thought they represented Rutgers University with the utmost class!
"Imus' racial comments are unacceptable and inappropriate. The fact that this is not the first time that improper comments were made concerning Black athletes shows where Imus stands. Not only were the comments racist, they were also misogynistic. Therefore, I do not feel that an apology or the two week suspension is ample punishment. It is my understanding that his show is supposed to be comedic. Who does this humor?
Nonetheless, I believe that MSNBC/CBS will make the right decision." 

Just so we're clear, those kind of comments are "unnacceptable," and any apology or two week suspension for those kind of comments is not "ample punishment."  Got it.  Just wanted to be clear on that point.   And for the record, I agree with that general sentiment that was expressed here against Imus.  Of course, we didn't need all the glamor, glitz, fan fair and other oportunistic side effects that tend to come along with a public denouncement of this calliber, but nevertheless the underlying point made here at the end of the day against Imus was a legitimate one.  If only this story stopped here...but unfortunatley it doesn't.

Cappie Pondexter.  Open Mouth.  Insure Foot.  Close Mouth.

A New York Liberty guard and former Rutgers star, Pondexter, 28, saw the images and was inspired to send a text message on Twitter: “What if God was tired of the way they treated their own people in there own country! Idk guys he makes no mistakes.”

For good measure — and perhaps egged on by her Twitter followers — she also texted: “u just never knw! They did pearl harbor so u can’t expect anything less.”

On Monday, apparently after being told that she had offended a nation and embarrassed herself, her league and her team, Pondexter issued the obligatory apology.

She said she was sorry.

“I wanna apologize to anyone I may hurt or offended during this tragic time,” the Twitter message said. “I didn’t realize that my words could be interpreted in the manner which they were.

“The least thing I wanted was to hurt or offend anyone so again I truly apologize. If you’ve lost respect for me that’s totally fine but please don’t let me or my words lose the respect of u the WNBA and what it stands for.” 

- NY Times, March 15, 2011

I just have one question for Pondexter:   What the HECK was you thinking???

Not only did you disrespect an entire nation of people who are going through one helluva crisis right now, but you also managed to discredit yourself, Coach Stringer, Al Sharpton and anybody else who co-signed to the comments you made regarding Don Imus.  There are certain people who spend their entire existence looking for any modicum of illegitimacy in anybody who dares to stand up and tell them that they can't be as racist as they want to be in public, and by adding yourself onto the list of racially insensitive people you have now successfully given them ammunition to discredit anybody else who stands up for the cause in the future.  Congratulations.  And the icing on the cake:  it wasn't even necessary for you to comment on Japan in the first place!  All of a sudden you're the Secretary of State now?  Again, what the HECK was you thinking???

And to add insult to injury, Cappie Pondexter did NOT recieve any suspension whatsoever, let alone the two weeks suspension that she said was not enough for Don Imus.

Here's a tip: the next time a country gets hit by multiple natural disasters, nuclear meltdowns and loses over 4,000 human lives and you get the urge to comment on it, do us all a favor:  don't.



Questions:
What the heck was Cappie Pondexter thinking?
Is there a racial double standard here?
What should happen to public figures who make offensive comments?
Does Cappie Pondexter have any credibility to ever call out another "Don Imus"-type event?

Alexandra Wallace's Anti-Asian Rant

I am like SO not racist...

If you hadn't heard, recently a UCLA poli-sci student and part-time model named Alexandra Wallace posted a video of herself mocking students of apparent Asian descent, their supposed propensity for rude behavior in libraries and other cultural differences. As people tend to do she also felt it necessary to mock the sound of East Asian languages, which are often either tonal or pitch accented and have quite a contrast in timbre to English.

As might be expected, the video was not well received by many people. There was quite vicious and violent language posted in response to the video-including alleged death threats.

"Wallace contacted university police early Sunday evening after receiving numerous death threats via e-mail and phone, said UCPD spokeswoman Nancy Greenstein. Police advised her to take a number of precautions and are currently working to ensure her safety, Greenstein said."
Phil Gussin, Wallace’s political science professor, said Wallace contacted him with concern about how she would take her finals. Gussin said Wallace told him that police advised her to reschedule her final exams in light of the death threats and information posted online that listed her class schedule and exam locations.
Greenstein said police are working with Wallace to determine when she will take her finals.
Gussin said he is concerned for Wallace’s safety and is frustrated at the violent response some people have expressed. “What Wallace did was hurtful and inexcusable, but the response has been far more egregious,” Gussin said. “She made a big mistake, and she knows it, but … they responded with greater levels of intolerance.”

The chancellor said he was "appalled" at the video. Wallace removed the video and apologized.

“Clearly the original video posted by me was inappropriate. I cannot explain what possessed me to approach the subject as I did, and if I could undo it, I would. I’d like to offer my apology to the entire UCLA campus. For those who cannot find it within them to accept my apology, I understand.” 

Robert Naples, (associate vice chancellor and dean of students)  called the video “beyond distasteful,” saying that her comments in no way represent the views of the UCLA as a community.

Naples said he personally received more than 100 e-mails of complaint from individuals all over the country, primarily from people affiliated with UCLA. The university has yet to get in contact with Wallace, but hopes to meet with her as soon as possible to determine the appropriate response, Naples said.

“We’ll be taking a look at the language that she uses in the video to see if it violates any codes under the student code, perhaps regarding harassment,” Naples said. However, the student code in no way usurps the authority of the First Amendment, Naples said.

Watch the entire short video below.

When I saw the news about the video I thought it would be worse than what it was. Of course I've been out of college for quite some time. I'm not too surprised anymore about what people can say when they get too comfortable. Colleges tend to burn hotter about such things. That said, besides poor execution, what makes this any different than similar riffs by comediennes Sarah Silverman or Lisa Lampanelli? If someone is trying to be funny do we give them a pass as opposed to someone who is trying to be serious (or FAILING to be funny)? And really to me the problematic part of the video wasn't the initial presumption that only Asians have bad manners or that Asians are not from here. The really bad part was the comment about "hordes of Asians" at "our" colleges. That hints at some Yellow Peril fears. The fact that people of Asian descent make up a disproportionate number of college students in California has not gone unnoticed.

So what do you think? Is this just a tempest in a teapot? Do people need to lighten up and move on now that an apology has been made? Should the University take any official action? Or is the best remedy for speech you don't like to ignore it or use your own speech to confront it? If the Westboro Baptist Church can insult people at funerals why should we be concerned about Wallace? Should Wallace be expelled?

The Battle of Wisconsin

Well, that's that. The Wisconsin Senate Republicans used a possibly illegal parliamentary maneuver to break the gridlock over the issue of public workers rights and passed a bill which restricts the collective bargaining rights of  public sector workers. Scott Walker looks like he may have a win. For now. I am positive that if this change becomes law that Wisconsin will become a virtual new Eden of economic development as businesses fall over themselves to move to a state with weakened public sector unions who gave up money and rights to lure these companies there. I mean low wages and weak unions are the stepping stones to prosperity, right?

In an 18-to-1 vote, the Senate Republicans approved the restrictions on collective bargaining.

Republican Sen. Dale Schultz, the lone no vote, warned his GOP colleagues: "This issue is not going away."

"In 30 minutes, 18 state senators un-did 50 years of civil rights in Wisconsin. Their disrespect for the people of Wisconsin and their rights is an outrage that will never be forgotten," Senate Minority Leader Mark Miller said. Miller and other Senate members said they would now be coming back to the state and continuing the fight.

The Senate bill severely restricts collective bargaining for tends of thousands of the state's public worker unions and increases their health care and pension contributions.

The measure has prompted massive demonstrations in the state capital by the bill's opponents and triggered a wave of recall campaigns targeting both the governor's supporters and opponents in the legislature.

On Wednesday night in the Capitol, the ground floor and first floor appeared nearly as full as they were during the first days of the demonstrations more than three weeks ago, and protesters stayed in the Capitol overnight, defiantly chanting "recall" and "Whose house? Our house!"

Outside the Assembly chamber, Barca allowed protesters to fill out forms listing themselves as witnesses to a violation of the state's open meetings laws, stemming from the Republicans' earlier conference committee meeting. 

Let's be honest about this and drop the niceties for one moment. I know that there are reasonable people on both sides of the spectrum. I know and work with a great many honorable and decent Republican leaning people. I don't think they strangle puppies and foreclose on widows before breakfast-at least not all of them.

But make no mistake, the modern Republican Party has one overarching purpose that unites it and that is a war against working people. They want cheap labor with no restrictions on business, the wealthy and the powerful. That's it.

The other goals which are popular among some subgroups among the Republicans-immigration restrictionism, creationism, libertarian fundamentalism, anti-abortion activism, neo-con war mongering, scaring white people about all the fertile non-whites, increasing the police and warfare state powers, telling Christians that gays are out there being gay, while getting their opponents hot and bothered are simply not as important to the Republican leadership as ensuring that the rich and connected can do what they want, when they want and how they want while getting richer and more connected. This is why Republicans mount ongoing attacks on any institution which does not serve or is not dominated by the wealthy. Unions are front and center. Republicans have to struggle to say anything nice about unions because fundamentally Republicans and their corporate bosses simply do not believe that unions have the right to exist.



Unions are bad for you. Trust me on this.

The ultimate goal for many conservatives is to reverse the entire past century of union struggle and government spending and protections directed at middle class/lower class people. No matter what the issue is - food safety, oil drilling regulations, discrimination, manufacturing, workplace safety regulations, the ability to sue for damages, protection from police abuse, cash and food subsidies for the poor and /or disabled, the ability for non-property owners to vote, social security and yes the ability of workers to organize and agitate for better working conditions and pay- it's a pretty safe bet that conservatives will be found arguing that the market knows best, anyone harmed should just get over it,  there should be no restriction on the ability of the corporation or employer to act as it pleases and government shouldn't protect people.

There's no shame in their game. They created a crisis and moved to exploit it. This time though they may have bitten off more than they can chew. It's up to the people of Wisconsin to make sure that Walker and his friends are recalled or pay the price at the polls. It's up to the rest of us to look in our own states and decide what we can live with. Governor Walker is hardly an outlier-though he may be an out and out liar.

If you work for someone else for a living, if you have a net worth of less than $1 million, if you know people whose salary is calculated in a two digit hourly rate, if you know what the minimum wage is, if an unexpected car repair messes up your budget for the next 3-6 months, if you financially could not afford to take a few years off from your position, the Republicans are not on your side. It's that simple.

The only question left is which side are you on?

Questions: Is this the beginning of the end for public sector unions? Will this energize the middle class and working class to throw out the Republicans in 2012? Why did the people of Wisconsin vote Walker into office if NOT to do this? Do you think that restricting or eliminating public sector unions is a good idea?  Will everyone have forgotten about this in a year or so?

Book Reviews-Smoking and Savages

Everybody Smokes in Hell by John Ridley.

John Ridley is among other things, a screenwriter. He was the screenwriter for the movies U-Turn (which was based on his book Stray Dogs) and Undercover Brother. This book has a very visual element to it. I’ve read that it was originally a movie script. Ridley does not appear to be overly fond of LA or the people in the entertainment industry. As he writes in the opening “Any similarities between the miscreants in this story and the actual insipid degenerates who populate the city I hate more than cancer are purely coincidental. “

The action is set in Los Angeles and Las Vegas.  Paris Scott is a black thirty something loser who works the night shift at an LA mini-mart. His girlfriend just dumped him. She accurately described him as too old to be a slacker and too young to be a bum.  Paris is working one night when a severely depressed and barely functional rock star named Ian Jermaine (A thinly disguised Kurt Cobain) enters the store near closing time. Feeling sorry for him Paris takes the depressed musician back to Jermaine’s hotel room. Once they arrive Jermaine commits suicide. Paris winds up with a CD of Jermaine's unreleased final recording. He returns home and hides this in his sofa.

Meanwhile Paris' roommate has just completed a rip-off of the meanest heroin dealer on the West Coast, one Daymond Evans. The roommate flees back to the apartment where he also hides the heroin in the sofa.

Of course neither roommate tells the other what he did. Each of them proceeds to negotiate a reselling of the "stolen" material to the record company and the drug dealer.  As both men are thoroughly inept at this the record company executive and Evans each independently decide that they would just rather kill them and retrieve their merchandise. When Paris’ roommate comes down with a sudden case of death both the record company and the drug dealer send their teams after Paris. Something approaching hilarity ensues as Ridley does an accurate satire of the common predatory tactics to be found in Hollywood and the underworld. Ridley has said that this book was his version of a Preston Sturges screwball mix-up. 

Ultimately the book is sort of thin. It's quite "Tarantinoesqe" for anyone who is a fan of that style. None of the characters are at all sympathetic or the kind of person you could ever root for to succeed. If this is what Hollywood is really like then no wonder Ridley seems to hate the place. The most vibrant character is not Paris (who spends most of the book whining, wishing he had money for strippers, begging for money from relatives, boasting to himself about his big plans, getting beat up or shot at), but Brice, a hyper violent Caucasian hit woman with the psychology of Luca Brasi, the looks of Scarlett Johannson and a taste for Bachmann-Turner Overdrive.

Savages by Don Winslow.
 He is also the author of The Death and Life of Frankie Z and The Winter of Frankie Machine.

This book takes place after the events of Winslow’s masterpiece book, The Power of the Dog.  Winslow makes oblique mention of occurrences in that story. However this book takes a different and much smaller focus. It’s set in California. The three protagonists are two twenty-something former childhood best friends, Ben and Chon and the rich girlfriend that they both share, Ophelia (better known as “O”).  The laid back, liberal and guilt laden Jewish Zen Buddhist Ben and the energetic, right-wing, wired and somewhat sociopathic Anglo/Irish Chon (he's an Iraq and Afghanistan SEAL veteran) have become Southern California's largest and most successful independent marijuana  growers, dealers and wholesalers. They have, at Ben's insistence, done this mostly non-violently, though there are times when Ben looks the other way while Chon handles business. The Baja Cartel has decided that it needs to expand into retail marijuana sales. To this end it sends the two men a video showing the severed heads of men who DIDN'T listen to wise and generous merger offers.

When this fails to achieve the desired effect the Cartel kidnaps O to convince the duo to submit to a hostile takeover. But Chon doesn't take kindly to threats and even non-violent latte sipping Ben has some buttons you don't want to push. But how can two Americans outfight the Cartel?

This book got very good reviews in the NYT and from fellow writers Stephen King, Janet Evanovich, James Ellroy and Christopher Reich. Oliver Stone has signed on to make a movie based on this book.  But it didn’t impress me as much.

It wasn't BAD writing but in this book Winslow uses Ellroy's short direct punchy prose. There are lots of deliberate fragments, two sentence paragraphs, single verb sentences and so on. If you like this style you may enjoy the writing.  If not then it may give you a headache.

His father taught him a lesson about trust.

Don’t.

Ever.

Anyone.

Although Winslow teases with a Sam DeStefano like Cartel enforcer as a foil for the heroes, ultimately a lot of the story relies on the Cartel leaders and members being slightly less vicious and certainly much dumber than they are in real life. This was a big problem for me. IRL organized crime cartel thugs kill people they think MIGHT be threats. They even kill people they know aren’t threats just to intimidate other folks or stay in practice.

Such folks certainly don't wait around to find proof-especially if they don't even like the person under suspicion. It didn’t make sense that the Cartel wouldn’t have crushed Ben and Chon at the first sign of any problems. That issue or the somewhat strange and graphically described triad relationship among O, Ben and Chon aside this was a so-so book. At some points it falls into the “Great White Hero” sort of storytelling which plagues a lot of American fiction and film. A century or so ago this book would have been written with Apache, Comanche or Cheyenne bad guys. It's amazing and rather bothersome that such tropes are so persistent and powerful in our culture.  It has very deliberate and obvious allusions to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.  I didn't think this book was as good as his other books-especially The Power of The Dog.

The Oscars, Black Movies and Exclusion

Let’s discuss the 2010 paucity of black actors in lead roles in mainstream Hollywood movies or the lack of quality black oriented films. A recent NYT article did that.

Crammed into this year’s field of 10 best picture Oscar nominees are British aristocrats, Volvo-driving Los Angeles lesbians, a flock of swans, a gaggle of Harvard computer geeks, clans of Massachusetts fighters and Missouri meth dealers, as well as 19th-century bounty hunters, dream detectives and animated toys. It’s a fairly diverse selection in terms of genre, topic, sensibility, style and ambition. But it’s also more racially homogenous — more white — than the 10 films that were up for best picture in 1940, when Hattie McDaniel became the first black American to win an Oscar for her role as Mammy in “Gone With the Wind.” In view of recent history the whiteness of the 2011 Academy Awards is a little blinding.

This retreat from race by the big studios partly explains the emergence of a newly separate black cinema with its own stars (Morris Chestnut, Vivica A. Fox), auteurs (Ice Cube, Tyler Perry) and genres (including tales of buppie courtship like “Two Can Play That Game” and of neighborhood striving like the “Barbershop” franchise). Emerging from outside the mainstream and indie world, the prolific Mr. Perry has become one of the most successful directors and producers of any color.

Mr. Lee has been among Mr. Perry’s critics. “We’ve got a black president, and we’re going back,” Mr. Lee said in 2009. “The image is troubling, and it harkens back to Amos ’n’ Andy.” The philosopher Cornel West has been more charitable (“Brother Tyler can mature”) and last year he put a larger frame around the issue of race and the movies in America, noting that with “all the richness in black life right now,” that “the only thing Hollywood gives us is black pathology. Look at the Oscars. Even ‘Precious,’ with my dear sister Mo’Nique, what is it? Rape, violation, the marginalized. Or else you get white missionary attitudes toward black folk. ‘The Blind Side?’ Oh my God! In 2010? I respect Sandra Bullock’s work, but that is not art.”

This summoned forth exasperation and frustration from various people of differing ideologies who were tired of hearing presumably liberal whites or Blacks complain about this. Not all of these people were conservative though many of them were white. The writer Mitch Albom, who tends liberal on social issues, proclaimed on his radio show “Aren’t we over this?”  Evidently we are not.
Recently Anthony Mackie added more fuel to the fire when he said in an interview that Blacks in Hollywood were being lazy.

"To be honest I think the barriers have been broken. I think right now [blacks] are being kinda lazy on our game," Mackie said. "There are enough brothers with distribution deals and production deals where we should be making our own movies."

Mackie, who starred as Tupac Shakur in 2009's Notorious, said there is no shortage of black directors, writers or stars.

"Oprah got her own network," Mackie said. "Michael Jordan own a franchise. We got black money. So there's no reason why we shouldn't be able to tell the stories that we want to tell and portray ourselves the way we want to be portrayed."

I like Mr. Mackie and I really enjoyed his work in Night Catches Us
I’m glad to hear that he will be taking a prominent role in a film adaptation of a book I’m reading now, Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith.
 

But I’m not sure he’s correct here.  As the NYT article mentioned there are some black people who are making “their own movies”. There are also various other black and biracial actors, producers, writers, and directors who have pointed out that contrary to Mackie’s statement, the barriers in Hollywood are still very much there. Spike Lee is of course the most vocal about this. But that’s really just bickering about one side of the equation-the supply side.


What’s just as important is the demand side. Although many artists in Hollywood are indeed liberal (at least publicly-right Charlie Sheen??) art can’t exist without commerce. You can make the most thoughtful film ever but if it flops, you may lose a chance to make a second one-at least with someone else’s cash. And Oprah aside, most black individuals don’t have a spare $20-100 million available to risk on a big budget film. Oprah has done that, to her credit but the financial results were mixed. Beloved lost money. The Great Debaters did ok but not great. Precious did quite well. Danny Glover has been trying to get an epic film made about the Haitian Revolution for some time. It’s difficult for him to line up financing because the movie obviously would not have any white heroes in lead roles.


The white British writer Neil Gaiman refused for a long time to have a film made of his story Anansi’s Boys, because the industry wanted to change the heroes (children of an African god) from black to white. The fantasy writer Ursula K. LeGuin did not have editorial control when a television adaptation was made of her Earthsea trilogy and MUCH to her dismay, most of her lead characters, who were people of African, Pacific Islander, or Native American appearance in her book, were changed to Caucasian appearance for the television version. So definitely something funny is going on. Someone ought to be raising an eyebrow.

And there it is. There are many stories which can be told with predominantly Black casts. But if the film only appeals to roughly 14% of the population in the US and less than that in overseas markets, all things equal it will be more difficult to convince anyone –racist or not- to put their money behind it. How do we get white or non-Black audiences to see their reflected humanity in predominantly black movies, the way that blacks have done for white movies? People talk about Chinese cinema or Bollywood but forget that those producers have a built in market of hundreds of millions of people. Black American artists don’t have that.
Like him or not Tyler Perry is the most successful black producer, director and studio head. But he still has to go through a “mainstream” distributor to get his films shown. It’s not quite as easy as just saying do your own thing. It takes time, connections and resources. And if Mackie is going to call out other people for being “lazy”, one must ask how much of his own hard won and well-deserved wealth is he using to create, produce and distribute black movies? I’m sure he must be doing that since he’s not a lazy man.

So going back to this year’s Oscars, with the possible exception of Night Catches Us I can’t really think of any films that featured Black actors or actresses in roles I thought were difficult, complex, multifaceted and were Oscar worthy.  So this year’s so-called exclusion really wasn’t. But the deeper challenges remain-both for black producers, directors, distributors and actors AND for the black audience. If the black audience doesn’t support black films those films won’t get made.
Of course some “colorblind” people will grouse why does any of this even matter and aren’t we injecting race where it doesn’t belong. To them I can only quote the late Dwayne McDuffie, the black comic book writer and media group owner who did indeed create his own company.

“You don’t feel as real if you don’t see yourself reflected in the media,” he told The Chicago Sun-Times in 1993. “There’s something very powerful about seeing yourself represented.”

What are your thoughts on the lack of Blacks in the recent Oscars? Were there any Black actors or films you thought were overlooked? Does Mackie have a point or is he not seeing the bigger picture? Do you care if you see yourself in movies or do you have more important things to worry about? Do movie images impact reality?