Good advice for Dems from Bernie Sanders

Blueprint for Dems

In my view, the Democrats--including the president--have absurdly continued to stumble along the path of "bipartisanship" at exactly the same time the Republicans have waged the most vigorous partisan and obstructionist strategy in recent history. . . .
§ Perhaps most important, let Obama be Obama. Bring back one of the great inspirational leaders of our time, who is more than capable of taking on the powerful special interests and rallying the American people toward a progressive agenda and a more just society. . . .
§ Pass the strongest healthcare reform legislation as soon as feasible - making it clear that it will be significantly improved in the near future. . . .
§ Pass a major bill that creates millions of new jobs rebuilding our infrastructure and moving our energy system in a different and sustainable direction. . . .
§ Pass legislation allowing workers to have the right to join unions without unfair and illegal opposition from their employers. . . .
§ Boldly address the economic and financial crisis, which has left 17 percent of our workforce unemployed or underemployed. . . .

Should there be a state of emergency in Jos?

allAfrica.com: Nigeria: Jos - Senate Rejects Motion for State of Emergency

When Senate President David Mark put the question majority of senators voted against it. The Senate however resolved that the Plateau State Government and other relevant security agencies should "Fish out the perpetrators and sponsors of this latest act of violence and bring them to book to serve as deterrent to others with similar tendencies."

Good background on the riots from Al Jazeera English

Al Jazeera English - Africa - Clashes near Nigerian city of Jos

Charles Dokubo, from the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, told Al Jazeera: "There is more than the religious aspect of it. There are two communities - one that call themselves settlers and one that call themselves indigenous communities.

"The crisis in the north started with the creation a local government."

Dokubo said that Muslim settlers were to manage the government, which was unacceptable to the indigenous Christian community who consider them non-citizens.

"The main cause of the crisis is about administration and the place where people belong."

The only correction I would add is that the indigenes don't consider them non-citizens, rather they consider them strangers or guests (same concept in Africa) and they believe they should have the rights of guests, not of indigenous people, or "sons of the soil" in African terms.

Great post from Juan Cole

Critics of Obama often charge him with failing to end the Iraq War. But there is no longer an Iraq War. There are US bases in a country where indigenous forces are still fighting a set of low-intensity struggles, with little US involvement. Obama is having his troops leave exactly as quickly as the Iraqi parliament asked him to.

Why is there no left in the United States?

That's the question.

There is no Socialist, Communist or Labor Party in the United States. Those parties are what pass for left in other countries, and every country that allows them has them. Except the United States. In the US, liberal Democrats are the left. In the UK, or Germany, they are the center. In Japan they are the right, although their policies are little different from those of American liberal Democrats. Even Canada has Liberals in the center, Conservatives on the right, and the Socialist International member New Democratic Party on the left. That's what is meant when it is said that the United States is a Center-Right country. Not that the American left can't take power, but that the American left is anyone else's center.

"Here's the latest book about it.

I. DEFINITION

The first thing we need to do is define "Socialist" in this context. Just to be fair, even to the crazy wingnuts who insist that liberalism = Socialism = Communism = Naziism, we will take a very broad, multi-definition approach.

1. Any member party of the Socialist International qualifies as Socialist. Any member of such a Party would qualify as a Socialist. That makes everyone from Nelson Mandela to Tony Blair a Socialist. Of course, in the context of the British Labor Party a "Socialist" is something more, but I don't speak British, and you probably don't either. D-Kos certainly isn't written in British.

2. If that's not broad enough for you, let's include anyone who self-identifies as Socialist. That includes Hugo Chavez's Bolivarian Socialism, even though he and his party aren't in the Socialist International. Just to make the wingnuts happy we can even include Hitler here, despite the fact that the German Social Democrats, the real German Socialist Party, was the one and only political party that actually voted against Hitler taking power in Germany. That even includes the Communists, who commonly denounced the Socialists as "Social Fascists" or worse. It's only in the United States that "Socialist" is an epithet instead of a description, and where "Red States" are on the right, not the left.

II. THE REAL AMERICAN SOCIALISTS

Once upon a time, there was a real Socialist Party in the United States. In 1912 they got 6% of the vote for President, elected two Congressional Representatives, and had dozens of mayors from Reading, Pennsylvania to Berkeley, California. This story has to be about what happened to them. They began declining, either in 1912 (when they purged their left wing), or in 1917 (when two Communist Parties split off) or in the 1930s (they had a brief resurgence in the Depression and got 2.2% of the presidential vote in 1932), but by the 1950s, instead of fusing with the Democrats as the Populists had, the Socialists had dwindled into insignificance, and no longer bothered with their presidential campaign. The Party suffered a three way split over the Vietnam War, but remained insignificant and relatively unknown to today. The graveyard of third parties in Jon Stewart's America: A Guide to Democracy Inaction ignores them, though it includes the Anti-Masons, and even the Communists, who never reached anywhere near the size of the Socialists.

III. WHY THE DEMOCRATS ARE NOT THE SOCIALISTS (a brief aside):

It should be obvious that the Democrats are not the Socialists by now, if you hadn't figured that out from being a Democrat yourself. However, here's further proof if your wingnut friends and relatives don't get it.

When the Socialists split three ways over the Vietnam War, two of the successor groups, the Social Democrats U.S.A. (SDUSA) and the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee (DSOC, which later merged with the New American Movement to form the Democratic Socialists of America, DSA) thought the Democratic Party should become the Socialist Party in the United States. They were both attracting some support back in the '80s. Congressman Ron Dellums ("Berkeley's Red Congressman" to the Republicans) joined DSA, while Senator Moynihan of New York would address SDUSA meetings and talk about how we had to take back the word "Socialism" from the Communists. But he never actually joined SDUSA.

Moderate Democrats, led by the then unknown governor of the obscure state of Arkansas, William Jefferson Clinton, were alarmed. They formed an organization you're all familiar with, the Democratic Leadership Council, (DLC) to counter the Socialist argument that the Democrats should move left and declare themselves the Socialist Party in the United States. Clinton rode his DLC and its opposition to Socialism all the way to the White House. The Democratic Socialists are today totally marginalized, and there's a good possibility that the Social Democrats don't even exist. Of course it didn't stop a certain Lush Windbag from calling Clinton a Socialist, but that just shows how marginal the real Socialists are from the American political conversation. I think everyone here knows the DLC, but their former nemeses are largely forgotten. Dems are blue, not red. (Thanks to John Yossarian for reminding us that the DSA still exists. I think most people even here were unaware of them.)

Independent Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont did say, in response to Amy Goodman's direct question on DemocracyNow, that he considered himself a Democratic Socialist, but he runs as an independent, just like Joe Lieberman. The Dems don't run anyone against him because otherwise the Republicans might take his seat. He caucuses with the Democrats, again like Joe Lieberman does, because, hey, who's he gonna caucus with? Himself? But he's not really a Democrat. Just ask him. Or ask the Democrats. Especially the DLC.

V. SO WHAT WAS THIS SOCIALIST PARTY, ANYWAY?

Populists who wouldn’t “fuse”?

A. Yes and no. Some Populists who wouldn't fuse with the Democrats did wind up in the Socialist Party, but others left politics altogether. If it had been the anti-fusion wing of the Populists it would have been stronger in North Carolina, where the Populists were cooperating with the Republicans rather than the Democrats. Although the Socialist Party did have strength among tenant farmers it was more of a working people's party than the Populists, who were basically an agrarian movement.

“Debs for president” movement?

A. Again, yes and no. Debs was a charismatic speaker who attracted strong personal support. Many people say he created and dominated the party the way George Wallace did the American Independent Party or H. Ross Perot the Reform Party. Then without Debs the Socialists collapsed. But there was always more to the Socialist Party than Debs. They didn't even nominate him in 1916 (and went down in the presidential polls). He had to fight with the other tendencies in the party for his own ideas. And Norman Thomas was a famous national figure running as the Socialist Party's presidential candidate for many decades afterwards.

A branch of the German Social Democratic Party?

A. Again, yes and no. The Wisconsin Party, centered in Milwaukee, could well be characterized that way, and the Party had so many German immigrant members that they were vilified as agents of the Kaiser for refusing to support American entry into World War I. But there were many such immigrant language federations in the Socialist Party, not just Germans, and there were significant groups of native-born Americans in it. The Party got its highest percentage of votes for president in 1912 in Oklahoma and Nevada, neither then known for its German immigrant population.

Extreme of Progressive movement?

A. Again, yes and no. The moderate wing of the SP, the so-called "slowcialists", rubbed up against the left wing of the progressive movement. But there were real philosophical differences between them. Walter Lippmann worked on a Socialist campaign in 1912, and wrote a famous letter asking what was the difference between Socialists and Democrats if the party abandoned its ultimate goal of transforming the economy. He never got an answer and switched to the Democrats.

“Wild west” near anarchist miners?

A. Again, yes and no. The left wing of the Socialist Party was the IWW, centered in the west and with a core of hard-rock miners. The IWW itself was split between Socialists and Anarchists so badly they passed a resolution telling political and anti-political activists to shut up during union meetings. The right wing of the Socialist Party decided this was an anarchist takeover of the IWW and used it as an excuse to purge the "Wobblies" from the Party. But the western, nearly anarchist wing of Socialism was still very strong.

different parties in every state?

A. Yeah, I have to go along with that one. It's often said that the United States doesn't have two national parties, only two coalitions of fifty different state parties that get together once every four years to fight. The Socialists were no different. The Oklahoma sodbuster tenant farmers were very different from the brewery workers in Milwaukee. The New York Jewish Socialists were very different from miners in Goldfield Nevada. Once every four years they got together to nominate someone for president, who was usually Gene Debs. But not always.

They were all of the above - and probably more!



V. SO WHAT HAPPENED TO THIS SOCIALIST PARTY, ANYWAY?

1. America's two party system?

Maybe the fact that the presidential system and one seat constituencies forces the American political landscape into two parties caused the Socialists to go the way of every other third party since the Civil War? Canada has a Socialist Party (the New Democrats) but they have a three party system. So do most European countries, with a liberal party, a conservative party and a socialist or labor party.

But why not a two party system with Socialists and Liberals, like Japan had with its 1955 system ? Some people argue that the real question is not the weakness of the American left, but the strength of the right. Without an established church or feudal privilege to defend the US right is unburdened by any of the baggage that helped the left grow in other countries.

The relatively high US standard of living?

Yeah, right, like that's still true. < / sarcasm> Sure, it was once, but that was then. This is now. Besides, the relative gap between classes is greater in the US than in any other developed country. So I can't believe this explanation. I really wonder if I can take it seriously.

Social divisions within the working class?

Americans are divided by religion, race, ethnicity, region, etc. etc. etc. The working class could never unite on a socialist platform because they were more interested in ethnic and other forms of identification, and the ethnic vote is still more important than any class consciousness.

Sure, in relation to European countries and Japan, but what about Australia (where the division between Irish and English settlers over the Republic question is still important) or Brazil, which is even more ethnically diverse than the US is? I don't think this explanation holds water either.

A narrow and weak base in the labor unions?

In most countries with Socialist parties there is a strong relationship between the Socialist party and the labor unions. In Britain the unions set up the Labor Party. In Germany the Social Democratic Party set up the labor unions. In the US there have been many Socialists in the labor movement, but other labor leaders have been downright hostile to Socialism. The first union boss who ever became president of the United States was Ronald Reagan, who got his political start in the Screen Actors' Guild, a union with strong right and left wings.

But what's cause here and what's effect? Is Socialism so weak in the US because unions don't support it, or are so many unions hostile to Socialism because Socialism is so weak in the US, and they don't want to be associated with it?

Foreigners are stupid!

Don't laugh! This is actually proposed as a serious explanation. European workers were illiterate, and had to ask leftist intellectuals to write down their demands for them. The intellectuals added something at the end about socialization of the means of production, and Socialism was born out of this marriage of convenience between illiterate workers and leftist intellectuals. In the US universal primary education was traditional, workers could write their own demands, and demands for socialization of the means of production never occurred to anyone and never entered the workers' demands.

This explanation is so stupid I'm not even going to bother to refute it. But believe it or not, there is another equally stupid explanation that gets around.

Americans are stupid!

I'm not even going to mess with this one. Help yourself in the comments.

VI. CONCLUSION

The brief answer is I don't know either. I do feel strongly that the explanation should not be sought in something about American national character. After all, there was a Socialist Party in the US. It was very American (pragmatic, organized as a coalition of State Parties, and not really some foreign excrescence on the body politic). Maybe they shot themselves in the foot with the purge of the left in 1912, maybe they couldn't overcome corporate power and funding, maybe it's just a coincidence, and why do humans have to find deep meaning in everything?

You tell me. Then we'll write it up and make a fortune.

Obama's Afghan War decision and lesser evilism

Let's face it, no matter what you think of the president's speech, and the war strategy it defends, the man did not have any good options. There are no ideal solutions to the mess W created in Afghanistan by pursuing the wrong strategy and all but leaving to go after one of Usama bin Ladin's greatest enemies in the Arab world, Saddam Hussein, for reasons still not very clear. The US has to get out of Afghanistan, sooner or later (hopefully sooner) but it also has to prevent al-Qa'ida making more attacks on the US and US embassies and citizens around the world. Let's just hope we can do both. As the president said in his speech:

I am convinced that our security is at stake in Afghanistan and Pakistan. This is the epicenter of violent extremism practiced by al Qaeda. It is from here that we were attacked on 9/11, and it is from here that new attacks are being plotted as I speak. This is no idle danger; no hypothetical threat. In the last few months alone, we have apprehended extremists within our borders who were sent here from the border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan to commit new acts of terror. And this danger will only grow if the region slides backwards, and al Qaeda can operate with impunity. We must keep the pressure on al Qaeda, and to do that, we must increase the stability and capacity of our partners in the region.

Let's see what chance President Obama's new strategy has of meeting American goals in the area.

The president is sending 30,000 more troops for 18 months. Limiting their tours, and by implication the US effort in Afghanistan, may be a mistake if it lets al-Qa'ida wait us out.

The 30,000 additional troops that I'm announcing tonight will deploy in the first part of 2010 -- the fastest possible pace -- so that they can target the insurgency and secure key population centers. They'll increase our ability to train competent Afghan security forces, and to partner with them so that more Afghans can get into the fight.

This is the surge strategy that seems to have worked so well in Iraq, but it overlooks some crucial differences between Iraq and Afghanistan, and it doesn't understand why Sunni insurgents switched sides in Iraq.

Iraq has a long secular tradition, and under its Ba'athist government was actively trying to de-emphasize, if not undermine, religious and sectarian differences. True, this was done in the name of a fanatical, arguably fascist form of Arab ultra-nationalism that committed atrocities, if not genocide, against the non-Arab Kurdish minority. But it did have the effect of dampening the enthusiasm for religious fanaticism, by which Iraq is almost surrounded, on the Wahhabi Saudi side and the Khomeiniac Iranian side. Many Sunnis sided with al-Qa'ida in Iraq (as the homegrown extremists renamed themselves after our invasion) only out of expedience, not because they were convinced the fanatics' analysis and theology was correct. When the insurgency proved itself to be a greater evil than the invaders, they (or many of them) gladly switched sides.

This doctrine of lesser evilism is important, for it is a cardinal principle of Islamic law, and must be understood in relation to our war in Afghanistan, as well as the war in Iraq. When confronted with two evils (as anyone often is), it is the moral duty of a good Muslim to choose the lesser evil. This is, of course, a slippery slope, but a reality that Barack Obama has also been faced with. In this case he must choose the lesser evil, just as the people of Afghanistan must. Just as we all must.

Afghanistan does not have the same secular tradition as Iraq. It is not as modern, and it does not have the same history of exposure to western ideas through colonialism. It's people may not decide that the Americans are a lesser evil than al-Qa'ida. Indeed, with their exposure so far to American patrols and to Arabic speaking al-Qa'ida preacher-militants in their villages, they may be far more inclined than Iraqis to convert to the al-Qa'ida doctrine of permanent aggressive jihad against the far enemy (AKA the Crusader-Zionist alliance). So Obama's surge strategy may not work out so well.

These are the three core elements of our strategy: a military effort to create the conditions for a transition; a civilian surge that reinforces positive action; and an effective partnership with Pakistan.

This may or may not work, although there are serious problems with it. The aid strategy, the second core element, is likely to be met with suspicion if not outright hostility, and in any event would require more than 18 months for the US to implement. As for Pakistan, can we really be sure that they will not still target India with any military aid we give them? The government has moved against militants on the border, but the government itself has become unpopular, and one way or another may fall, probably to a coup d'etat. More and more Pakistanis are convinced that the suicide bombings in their country could not be carried out by Muslims, but instead of deciding that the suicide bombers are bad Muslims they decide that the bombings are really being carried out by Blackwater (now Xe) as black propaganda to discredit Muslims. If those whom the gods would destroy they first make mad, God must have decided to destroy Pakistan.

So there you have it. A dangerous and difficult gamble. I would have argued for more attention to bin Ladin and al-Qa'ida and less to the Taliban. You don't want to feed the apocalyptic fantasies of mountain peasants cut off from the world's mass media if you can help it. And you have to remember why we are in Afghanistan.

I'm sceptical, I'm doubtful, but I'm willing to go along with it.

Not that I have much choice.

I hope it works, but I fear it won't.

I hope the president has a good Plan B up his sleeve, just in case.

Just as I always suspected, Bush let bin Ladin get away

Here's the news story:

Osama bin Laden was unquestionably within reach of U.S. troops in the mountains of Tora Bora when American military leaders made the crucial and costly decision not to pursue the terrorist leader with massive force, a Senate report says.

Here's the report:

It seemed only a matter of time before U.S. troops and their Afghan allies overran the remnants of Al Qaeda hunkered down in the thin, cold air at 14,000 feet.
Bin Laden expected to die. His last will and testament, written on December 14, reflected his fatalism. ‘‘Allah commended to us
that when death approaches any of us that we make a bequest to parents and next of kin and to Muslims as a whole,’’ he wrote, according to a copy of the will that surfaced later and is regarded as authentic. ‘‘Allah bears witness that the love of jihad and death in the cause of Allah has dominated my life and the verses of the sword permeated every cell in my heart, ‘and fight the pagans all together as they fight you all together.’ How many times did I wake up to find myself reciting this holy verse!’’ He instructed his wives not to remarry and apologized to his children for devoting himself to jihad.
But the Al Qaeda leader would live to fight another day.

Those whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.

So in New York we are destroying our environment to get hydrocarbons to release into the environment for global warming.

Meanwhile, just across the Atlantic:

Can we get any crazier than this? Homo sapiens' suicide!

So did somebody disable me on YouTube? or what?

Comments I mad about the video below just won't come up. WTF? I commented on the guy's other video and that worked OK.

If he'd "just had a little more time"? "You did not die in vain"?

What really happened

"a complex, smart, sensitive, eloquent, and questing figure far different than the stereotypical hardass football jock"

From Pat's brother

From Wikipedia

The video I was trying to comment on:



But then there's good old Red State Update:

Hateful and ignorant? That's it? We get called hateful and ignorant about a hundred times on every video we put up. They might as well send a bunch of YouTube commenters over to give a speech in Egypt.

a must read article on Afghanistan

By Christopher Booker
Published: 6:47PM GMT 14 Nov 2009

What we are hardly ever told about Afghanistan is that it has been for 300 years the scene of a bitter civil war, between two tribal groups of Pashtuns (formerly known as Pathans). On one side are the Durranis – most of the settled population, farmers, traders, the professional middle class. On the other are the Ghilzai, traditionally nomadic, fiercely fundamentalist in religion, whose tribal homelands stretch across into Pakistan as far as Kashmir.

It may already be the best we can do, to just cut a deal with the Taliban: hand over bin Ladin and his co-conspirators, promise not to attack us, and we'll stop attacking you.

It may already be too late for that. Al-Qa'ida's doctrine of aggressive jihad may have completely won the local hearts and minds away from the more traditional doctrine of defensive jihad. In which case we are stuck, having already taken the tar-baby option.

Obama in Japan, mulling Afghanistan

This just in from the AP news service:

TOKYO – President Barack Obama aims Friday to shore up relations with a new Japanese government vowing to be more assertive with its U.S. ally, even as he grapples with sending more U.S. troops to Afghanistan.

The good news is that he could be trying to get input from the Japanese, who are important allies of the United States.

The bad news is that the Japanese will not know much. Power behind the throne (very Japanese way of doing things) Ozawa recently said, according to the Japan Times:

Christianity "is an exclusive, self-righteous religion. Western society, whose background is Christianity, has been stuck in a dead end,"

As you can probably imagine, Mr. Ozawa knows even less about Islam than he does about Christianity.

This blog doesn't object to the impolitic nature of his remarks, but it does reject their incorrectness. Bigotry is bigotry, whether directed against Islam, Judaism, Buddhism or Christianity. The really sad part is that bigoted remarks about other peoples are not considered a problem in Japan. When is Japan going to take its international responsibilities seriously enough to learn something about the outside world besides technology and economics?

Japan and the public option

I'm really tired of hearing all the alarmist nonsense in the US about the public option and the way it will kill American insurance companies and lead to a national takeover of insurance.

Japan has a public option. They also have private plans, union plans, company plans. There are even special plans for foreigners who don't like the Japanese public option but still want insurance. I'm not going to analyze the Japanese system in depth, except to point out that it is a lucrative insurance market that American companies have asked the US government to insist that the Japanese government open to them. Like a lot of other markets in Japan it's protected. This is admittedly out of date, but still significant:

The potential to make money is huge. Shukan Kinyobi once reported that the U.S. government is pressuring Japan to change public health insurance regulations. As it stands, if any part of a patient's treatment involves procedures or medication not covered by public insurance, the entire treatment cannot be covered by public insurance. The U.S. wants to isolate types of treatment so that American insurance companies can sell private insurance to cover treatments not covered by public insurance.

Admittedly, the system in Japan is complex and can be confusing for people who are just getting into it. Such a public option system can be unnerving for people who might move to it. Therefore, US insurance companies, presumably including the same companies begging the US government to get them into the Japanese system, are scaring Americans that the big bad public option is going to take over health insurance.

BULL!

The public option in Japan is what you have to put up with when you can't get insurance through your company or your union. It is the minimum plan to get insurance to people the insurance companies don't want or won't cover. As soon as I could get off it, because I had a regular job, I got off it. You would too. But it is necessary for two reasons:

1. The insurance companies can't, won't, or don't want to cover everyone. They don't now in the US. There has to be an option for people who can't otherwise get insurance. It doesn't have to be compulsory, but it has to be there. It's compulsory in Japan, but it hasn't been enforced, so people who don't want insurance (yes, there are such people) or who don't know about it (and there are too many of those in the foreign community in Japan) won't be on it. But there has to be a public option for even the possibility of universal coverage.

2. Competition with the public option will keep the private companies honest. It won't put them out of business. It just means that if they don't give good value for their money there is an option people can go to. They still make out like bandits.

Personally, I would put up with single payer, but I would prefer the public option.

All right, I'm back!

I'm going to make this a discipline. And it doesn't matter what I write about. It's just my opinion. I'll do it.

"Does it even matter whether bin Laden is found?"

from CNN:

Yes, it does. First, there is the matter of justice for the almost 3,000 people who died in the September 11 attacks and for the thousands of other victims of al Qaeda's attacks around the world.

Second, every day that bin Laden remains at liberty is a propaganda victory for al Qaeda.

Third, although bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri aren't managing al Qaeda's operations on a daily basis they guide the overall direction of the jihadist movement around the world, even while they are in hiding.

I shall return

Honest. But in the meantime I couldn't resist the oxymoron of "liberal communists."

<i>Dead Aid</i>: The Wrong Prescription for Africa

All foreign aid is in the perceived interest of the donor country. Otherwise it wouldn't be given. Think about Lend-Lease and the Marshall Plan. The US didn't give $billions to the USSR because we thought Joe Stalin was a nice guy who was doing wonderful things for his people. We did it to defeat Hitler. We didn't give $billions to rebuild western Europe after the war because we're nice people. We did it because if we didn't, Joe Stalin was going to march in with tanks and take over.



Why does the west give foreign aid to Africa? During the Cold War we did it to prop up friendly dictators, just like we gave Lend-Lease to Stalin. The USSR did the same thing to their friendly dictators. That's life. It's the lucky African country where the people themselves actually see any results from foreign aid.



Foreign aid is never going to develop Africa. If the west wanted Africa to develop they would open their markets to African manufactures. If Africa wants to develop and the EU, US, and Japan won't open their markets, Africans will have to make their market big enough, by combining into a United States of Africa. It really has little to do with foreign aid one way or the other. That issue is basically a distraction.
About Africa
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Where to go from here?

I admit I've been away too long. I can't figure out where to take this blog. It started out as a desperate scream in the second term of Bush fils. I was just panicked and angry.

Now where should I take it in the Obama administration? Should I take myself public? Does anyone care? Maybe I should just fold the whole blog and walk away from it. Maybe I'd do better to concentrate on something else. I no longer feel the desperate urgency to scream about the insanity of the government. But there's plenty of other insanity.

I'll think about this, and I hope I won't be too much longer.

Watch this space!

And let me know!

So Obama knows the oath better than the Chief Justice

Here's the oath, from the Constitution:

Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

Note that the Chief Justice added "So help me God." with a question in his tone, and Obama added it in an affirmation. He could have added "YES WE CAN!" instead if he wanted, but he could have said anything, and I think he wants God's help. I'm sure he can use it. They say God helps those who help themselves.

Maybe Obama should have been Chief Justice. It would be nice if he could appoint the next Chief Justice, but only time will tell.

Here's to the first Professor President since Woodrow Wilson! I'm glad he knows the Constitution as well as he does.

Here's to the next four years of America in the world! Here's to President Barack Hussein Obama and his inauguration.

While the world's been watching Mumbai (Nigeria report)

Crossposted (without the pictures) at Daily Kos.

It looks like even more people have died in clashes in Jos, Nigeria than died in Mumbai. But those people weren't wealthy and weren't western. Most of those killed by terrorists in Mumbai were either wealthy or western. Many were both. So the western media paid more attention to them. Let's look at what's going on in Jos. But first a little background.

Jos is the Capital of Plateau State. It's a colonial town, started around tin mines during the colonial period. It's on a high plateau (as the name of the state implies). Plateau State calls itself "The Home of Peace and Tourism" in Nigeria, and it is unique in Nigeria for many reasons. As an online travel guide says:

Jos is one of the nicest places to visit in Nigeria. It's the capital of the Plateau State and is located at an elevation of 1300 metres above sea level, which means that it is cooler here than anywhere else in the country most of the time.

The main attraction of the town is the Jos Museum Complex, which consists of four separate museums and a zoo. Skip the Railroad and the Tin Mining Museum and head for the Jos National Museum and the Traditional Nigerian Architecture Museum.

If you are spending a few days here you might consider paying a visit to the Rock Brewery. They have guided tours with an all you can drink buffet for reasonable prices.

Jos is surrounded by beautiful hills, the most welknown being the Shere Hills (1800m). Also the Jarawa hills, the Vom Hills and the Gana Wuri. Many tourists choose Jos for trekking and hiking.

Jos is an unusual city in many ways in Nigeria, not just for being a colonial city, when most of Nigeria's cities, except those established as capitals (e.g. Kaduna and Abuja) were already in existence before colonial times. It is perhaps the only predominately Christian city in the heavily Muslim north of Nigeria. The inhabitants of the plateau were largely minority groups chased into the hills by the expansion of first the Bornu Caliphate, then the Hausa states and the Sokoto Caliphate.

All these factors combined to make Jos a city not dominated by any particular ethnic group or religion (despite the preponderance of Christians, they themselves are more divided than Muslims in Nigeria) and people living there tended to adopt a "live and let live" attitude. It was also a very working class city, and one where most people had ties to rural areas elsewhere.

Only very recently has Jos begun having the clashes that other cities in Nigeria, especially in the north of the country, have had in recent years. Jos used to be a place where Nigerians from surrounding states came to take refuge from the violence. No longer is that the case.


Let's see what happened this time:

It's not easy to get accurate reports, and even much of the Nigerian press is either inflammatory or too politically correct to really say what's been going on in this situation. Let's start with the reports that are not much use. Scroll down to the Nigerian press section if you're pressed for time.

The Voice of America says

Gilbert da Costa has been monitoring developments from Abuja and filed this report for VOA.

Translation? "We don't know what's going on ourselves, but we do have someone in a nearby state (actually in the Federal Capital Territory) who's trying to sort out the rumors." It's like covering riots in Baltimore or Philadelphia from DC.

Agence France Press filed from even further away in Lagos, the financial capital of Nigeria. These people do try to get eyewitness accounts, but without actually going there it is difficult to know what's going on. Heck, even with actually going there it is difficult to know what's going on. Without going there it remains impossible. Al Jazeerah doesn't even provide a dateline.

Sheikh Khalid Abubakar, the imam at the mosque, claimed that more than 400 dead bodies were brought to the mosque.

It is also likely that the bodies of Christians killed in the riots were taken elsewhere, making the total number of dead uncertain.

But then neither does the BBC. At least they have good background and links to previous stories, something no other news source does. They even have a video, though without sound, that has scenes of the carnage.

Bloomberg's reporter covering the story is in Paris. :-(

Reports from Jos itself:

Reuters, the AP, and The NYT all have reports datelined Jos itself. Let's take those reports in order.

Reuters carried a report by a Muslim, with death toll figures from the mosque:

Hundreds of bodies were brought to the town's main mosque in preparation for a mass burial.

"I counted 218 dead bodies at Masalaci Jummaa. There are many other bodies in the streets," said a Red Cross official who asked not to be named.

That death toll did not include hospital figures, victims already buried, or those taken to other places of worship, meaning the final count could be much higher, officials said.

The reporter also spoke to the state government, the Nigerian Army, and "one resident" in compiling the report.

The AP also had a report from a Muslim. (I don't want to imply that these sources are necessarily biased, BTW. After all, in Nigeria almost any source that can write or speak English is either Muslim or Christian. This is just FYI, and in acknowledgment of the fact that we all, [you, me them] have biases.)

Sheikh Khalid Abubakar, the imam at the city's main mosque, said more than 300 dead bodies were brought there on Saturday alone and 183 could be seen laying near the building waiting to be interred.

Those killed in the Christian community would not likely be taken to the city mosque, raising the possibility that the total death toll could be much higher. The city morgue wasn't immediately accessible Saturday.

This reporter also spoke with a police spokesman and gave much important background. The story contained some material (background?) from another reporter in Abuja, the capital.

The New York Times is datelined Jos, but is wire service feed from Reuters, but says "from the Associated Press". Go figure. At least it is a different story from the other two. It seems the international news media is floundering.

What about the Nigeria press?!?!?

OK, OK, I'm getting to that.

The Nigerian press has traditionally been the freest in Africa. During periods of relative repression in Nigeria they have competition for that title, but even then they remain one of the freest presses on the continent of Africa.

But remember that free press only means market regulated press. You didn't find any Nigerian newspapers defending South Africa during the apartheid era, because such newspapers wouldn't have sold. What does sell in Nigeria? Sensationalism, scandal, sports, wild charges (sometimes one wonders if they even have libel laws in Nigeria.) The Nigerian press is generally the kind of press that gives yellow journalism a bad name. William Randolph Hearst could have taken lessons. As a matter of fact, Nigeria had its own W. R. Hearst in the person of Chief M.K.O. Abiola, the Pillar of Sports in Africa and last holder of the cursed title, Are Ona Kakonfa. You may know him as the winner of the June 12 presidential elections in Nigeria, who was placed under house arrest for declaring himself president.

But I digress. Just a little background before delving into the Nigerian press.

This Day actually admits its that reports are unconfirmed. They have two reporters, one in Jos and the other in Abuja. Their names are not clearly Christian or Muslim.

Eyewitnesses said supporters of the All Nigerian People’s Party (ANPP) allegedly became violent following speculations that their candidate, whom they said was leading the PDP candidate, was about to be “declared the loser.”
The ANPP protesters said they were not fighting people but fighting government “because of their action.” The results of the elections were still being collated when the crisis broke out.

The ANPP (in Jos at least) is the party of the Muslim Hausa, mostly from farther north, while the PDP is the party of the mostly Christian minority groups. Finally we find out what the clashes are actually about.

The Punch, a popular Lagos paper, has more information also from Jos:

Our correspondent gathered that trouble started when an agent of one of the political parties was killed at Kabong, where all the results for Jos North were being collated. The supporters of the All Nigeria Peoples Party candidate for Jos North Local Government, Mr. Aminu Baba, said they suspected that the election was about to be rigged in favour of the Peoples Democratic Party candidate, Mr. Timothy Buba.

According to the ANPP supporters, their candidate was said to be leading by about 57, 000 votes and the PDP was only expecting 10, 000 votes from the remaining areas where the votes had not been counted. As early as 5.30a.m. the ANPP supporters had allegedly poured into the streets, chanting war songs. In the ensuing confusion, churches were burnt around Sarkin Mangu, close to the old Jos North Local Government secretariat.

Reprisal attacks from the supporters of other political parties then spread to other areas. It first started in Gada Biu, a predominantly Christian settlement.

No sooner than this happened that the riot assumed a sectarian dimension as churches and mosques were being torched all over the city. Indeed, no fewer than five churches and five mosques were burnt in the ensuing melee, according to the police. Sporadic shots rented the air as street urchins, a.k.a almajiri, took over major streets.

Almajiri (singular, the plural is almajirai) are street youths who beg for a living. Technically they are supposed to be studying in Qur'anic schools, but the system has been much abused in recent decades, and many of them are only being exploited by their teachers, who live off the proceeds of their begging. The situation of these almajirai became really desperate under the Abacha government, but became much approved since democratic government has returned.

The Guardian, one of Nigeria's more respectable newspapers, also has two reporters contributing, one in Jos and another in Abuja. Like other Nigerian papers it is careful to point out that its sources remain questionable. It even quotes the international wire service reports above. But its more important information may be the actual words of the state governor imposing curfew:

Meanwhile, the Governor of Plateau State, Jonah Jang, while imposing the curfew in his broadcast, said:

"A few hours after close of election, a group of thugs took the law into their hands by attacking residences and destroying houses and property in some parts of Jos.

"The state security council met this morning and directed the police to respond accordingly.

"Unfortunately, reports got to me early this morning regarding the eruption of violence emanating from Ali Kazaure Street of Jos. I want all to note that this problem is restricted to Jos City only.
"I immediately summoned a Security Council meeting again this morning to appraise the situation. Preliminary reports indicated that the crisis was pre-planned, particularly as election results have not been announced."

He added: "Government, therefore, wishes to warn that any further disruption of the peace will be met with drastic action. The security details are under instruction to return fire- for-fire from any person/group disrupting the peace. Government will not allow a repeat of the disruption of peace witnessed in the state some years back.

"All law abiding citizens are assured that government is on top of the situation and should go about their normal lives.

"Government is, therefore, imposing a curfew in Jos, Bukuru and environs from 6 pm to 6 am. Government wishes to advise against any further attempt to test its will to maintain peace on the Plateau."

The Vanguard, another important Nigerian newspaper, has a four page story with comments below.

Two serving army generals, Maj. Gen. U. J. Uwuigbe and Nick Agbogun escaped death by the whiskers as they were shot by hoodlums while returning from Chief of Army Staff conference in Bauchi.

They were injured along with the driver of the Bauchi State Government vehicle detailed to take them to the Jos Airport and were rushed to the Jos University Teaching Hospital for treatment.

The Saturday Tribune carries a story from a reporter in Jos with an obviously Christian name (Nigerian names are often ambiguous.)

THE crisis over the local government election in Plateau state has assumed a religious dimension with several places of worship burnt down by protesters, including personal houses and vehicles while over thirty people were allegedly killed, including one policeman and a soldier.
Meanwhile, the state government has appealed for calm and imposed a curfew in Jos, Bukuru and environs from 6am to 6pm.

The unfortunate crisis started in the early hour of Friday when information filtered out that a particular political party had won in Jos North local government contrary to the expectation of supporters of opposing party.

It was learnt that as early as 5: 30 AM on Friday the inhabitants of the local government mobilised and trooped to the streets to protest the election accusing the state government and the State Independent Electoral Commission of rigging the election in favour of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

The protest suddenly turned violent at about 7:30 when the protesters armed with dangerous weapons started smashing vehicles, setting houses ablaze.

At about 9.30am, the crisis had engulfed the whole city of Jos and assumed religious dimension with reprisal attacks in various parts of the city. As at the last count, no fewer than 10 places of worship had been razed in various parts of Jos.

More details are in the article.

Let me know what else you can find out. I have friends in Jos and I am following this story in part because I am worried about them.

The next wacky Republican charge against Obama

The real reason Barack Hussein Obama wants to get into the White is because he's an Islamic suicide bomber who intends to get into the White House so that, after he is inaugurated, he can blow himself up, thus ASSASSINATING THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

Well, it's no nuttier than any of the other stuff they come up with.

Socialist? Hey, the Labour Party in the UK is Socialist. Remember them, the best friend of Bush when he invaded Iraq to look for WMDs? When the financial crisis hit they just nationalized the banks. Unlike the Republicans who just wanted to hand hundreds of billions of $$$ (borrowed from China) to their Wall Street buddies.

The other charges? He's a Muslim. He's a radical Marxist. He's a black nationalist. He's a liberation theology Christian. He's . . .

PEOPLE! MAKE UP YOUR &%$#! MINDS!!! If you don't keep to one smear, NO ONE is going to believe you.

I sure don't.