What were they thinking?
Ever read a historical account of a political compromise and wonder, What were they thinking?
well, here we have a textbook case of embracing a wedge issue for short term political gain, knowing that it is inciting the worst implusles of the mass audience, the racist, hateful, anti-immigrant scapegoating that american politicians embrace eery time they are in trouble. Think anti-chinese riots in the 1880s, see-no-evil ignoring of lynching in the twentieth, and of course the anti-immigration laws of 1924.
Here we go again.

The GOP Walks A Border Tightrope: "The difficulty for Republicans, though, is that their short-term political interests -- winning in November -- are arguably at odds with their long-term viability as a majority party. Their base is demoralized about the party's performance and riled up about immigration. Pushing for tough restrictions and resisting anything that has the whiff of leniency toward those who entered the country illegally may be the best way for Republicans to get their voters to the polls in November. And the recent protests, as unnerving as they are for Rove's dream of a GOP-inclined Hispanic electorate, also have the perverse effect of further enraging those already inflamed about immigration.
'White suburban voters who voted for George Bush are disaffected now,' says Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio. 'Would I rather be talking about immigration reform with these voters or the war? Immigration reform or gasoline prices? Sometimes, in order to avoid or avert the tidal wave, you have to do things that short-term make a little more sense than they do in the long term.'"

Culture vs Social
after months of contemplating the nature of cultural history and social history: what is culture? Where does culture end and society begin? Here is an essay by Orlando Patterson, asserting that social scientists are allergic to cultural explanations of poverty, in this case, poverty in black america.
First of all, we should note his definition of culture: a group's cultural attributes comprise "its distinctive attitudes, values and predispositions, and the resulting behavior of its members." Ok that's succinct.
Patterson accuses academics of willfully ignoring cultural explanations, and instead exhibiting a "relentless preference for relying on structural factors like low incomes, joblessness, poor schools and bad housing."
The problem as he sees it, is that if these structural issues adaquately explained the problem, than they would suggest an effective strategy to deal with it.
Or is the larger political nation instead ignoring the solutions? willfully ignoring anything that might cost money, of the shift of power?
And anyway, it is not just poor blacks, in any large metropolitan area, and in most rural counties, there is also an underclass of whites, honest to goodness non imigrant, home grown white trash to use the technical term. People who seem to see themselves as outside the system or working to get ahead and get a nice house in the suburbs.
Patterson identifies "Three gross misconceptions about culture explain the neglect."
"First is the pervasive idea that cultural explanations inherently blame the victim; that they focus on internal behavioral factors and, as such, hold people responsible for their poverty, rather than putting the onus on their deprived environment. (It hasn't helped that many conservatives do actually put forth this view.)"

"Second, it is often assumed that cultural explanations are wholly deterministic, leaving no room for human agency."

"Third, it is often assumed that cultural patterns cannot change."

"This too is nonsense." says Patterson, "Indeed, cultural patterns are often easier to change than the economic factors favored by policy analysts."

In fact Patterson sees young black men ensnared in a "Dionysian trap": a hip-hop sub-culture that provides powerful incentives and is tightly connected to mainstream pop culture: "Hip-hop, professional basketball and homeboy fashions are as American as cherry pie."



A Poverty of the Mind - New York Times

We can't afford to lose sight of the Abramoff/Delay scandal connections. Here is more:
Former DeLay Aide Enriched By Nonprofit: "A top adviser to former House Whip Tom DeLay received more than a third of all the money collected by the U.S. Family Network, a nonprofit organization the adviser created to promote a pro-family political agenda in Congress, according to the group's accounting records.
DeLay's former chief of staff, Edwin A. Buckham, who helped create the group while still in DeLay's employ, and his wife, Wendy, were the principal beneficiaries of the group's $3.02 million in revenue, collecting payments totaling $1,022,729 during a five-year period ending in 2001, public and private records show."

Fascinating and Important interview with the author of Sorrows of Empire, and Blowback. very long, but as a retired scholar, he can be totally up front, honest, and he is.
Interview with Chalmers Johnson: Cold Warrior in a Strange Land: "Chalmers Johnson:What I don't understand is that the current defense budget and the recent Quadrennial Defense Review (which has no strategy in it at all) are just continuations of everything we did before. Make sure that the couple of hundred military golf courses around the world are well groomed, that the Lear jets are ready to fly the admirals and generals to the Armed Forces ski resort in Garmisch in the Bavarian Alps or the military's two luxury hotels in downtown Seoul and Tokyo.
What I can't explain is what has happened to Congress. Is it just that they're corrupt? That's certainly part of it. I'm sitting here in California's 50th district. This past December, our congressman Randy Cunningham confessed to the largest single bribery case in the history of the U.S. Congress: $2.4 million in trinkets -- a Rolls Royce, some French antiques -- went to him, thanks to his ability as a member of the military subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee to add things secretly to the budget. He was doing this for pals of his running small companies. He was adding things even the Department of Defense said it didn't want. "

comment from Kos writer about the 3 day wonder boy journalist, if you can call him that.
Daily Kos: State of the Nation: "Ben Domenech did not get his position at the Washington Post based on merit. He got his position because of connections. He was home-schooled in part because his family--unlike most American families--could maintain a comfortable living with only one parent working outside the home. He got in to William and Mary, but he did not come close to graduating. (And given his penchant for plagiarism, one would have to wonder if intellectual thievery prompted a forced departure from William and Mary.) Nevertheless, despite no degree or significant life accomplishments, he got some patronage jobs in the Bush administration, no doubt because his father is an upper level GOP apparatchik. He has gotten bylines over at that bastion of heartless blue bloods, the National Review Online. He was a founder of Redstate.com. (And can you believe those clowns have shut down comments from new members, banned anyone who criticizes Domenech, and are actively defending this thief?) And he parlayed all those connections in to getting the Washington Post gig while still in his mid-20's.
Would anyone recognize a similar career trajectory of some schmoe from a working class community outside the DC/NYC/Boston/LA/Bay Area metro areas, who went to a state university, got great grades, but whose blue collar parents didn't have the connections of a Ben Domenech? Especially within the context of the current GOP, somebody with that background (and whose family wasn't tightly connected with politically powerful religious leaders) might as well be a feral child. Even with a college degree, intelligence, industry, drive and maybe some experience, somebody without the connections of a Ben Domenech almost certainly would not get the opportunity to work in a presidential administration, write for a major opinion magazine, and be awarded an opinion gig at one of "

Well this is the latest hot story,
the red state blogger at the post, quits after discovery of plagerism,
but the blogoshere is aquiver with outrage at why the post hired him in the first place- see more from Daily Kos

Post.com Blogger Quits Amid Furor: "A 24-year-old conservative blogger hired by The Washington Post Co.'s Web site resigned yesterday, three days after his debut, amid a flurry of allegations of plagiarism.
Ben Domenech, an editor with Regnery Publishing, relinquished the part-time position hours after a liberal Web site posted evidence that he had plagiarized part of a movie review he wrote for National Review Online. Previous allegations of plagiarism in Domenech's writing for the College of William & Mary student newspaper surfaced Wednesday, but the 2001 review was the first instance found since he attended the college"

Family Squabbles
I think this is an important opinion piece, which looks at the far left, and its eat your family attitude- frequenly turning on those who support the environnment and safeguard civil liberties, as Connelly says, for not being radical enough. I have seen similar scenarios play out as individuals are judged not perfect enough to run for office as a democrat. as If all those republican high school drop-outs are perfect.
Cantwell's vilification by left is bizarre: "With President Bush sinking in the polls, and chances of an independent Congress on the rise, the left fringe in Seattle politics is noisily sniping at Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell.
It's bizarre, but not all that unusual: Our 'Hey Hey, Ho Ho' crew is notorious for giving conservatives a free pass.
Instead, the loudest leather-lunged protests get reserved for those in public life who -- awkwardly, sometimes imperfectly -- try to preserve the environment, protect the consumer and safeguard civil liberties."

San Francisco shows that it is possible to build housing for low income and homeless families- putting to rest what seems to be the conventional wisdom these days that nothing can be done.
so, where is the rest of the country- get with it. and check out the photos, nice building, not your parents projects.

SAN FRANCISCO / A new oasis in Tenderloin / Curran House is home for families with lower incomes: "Fidel and Sylvia Cazares have moved five times in 10 years, but from the looks of their new apartment in the heart of San Francisco's gritty Tenderloin neighborhood, they are finally home.
The spacious three-bedroom unit is filled with polished furniture, paintings on the wall and floral arrangements in vases. Compared to the one-bedroom the couple -- and their four young children -- previously lived in, it's a major upgrade. "

ok- i guess I am in official blog mode again,
but this appealed to me, not just your ordinary - things could be worse, or we should appreciate freedom, but the essential fact that people just want to live their lives, raise and educate their kids- what is it that keeps getting in the way?
and where does Bush's vaunted "freedom" kick into this?

Washington Stories: "It's an odd place, Washington. This is a city rife with real outrages: corrupt congressmen, incompetent officials, dangerous or stupid ideas. As a result, it's also a city of quarrels and arguments, a place where people endlessly discuss 'our broken health-care system' and 'our disastrous foreign policy.' Here, the phrase 'this town' -- as in 'I've had it with this town's hypocrisy' or 'I'm sick of this town's attitude' -- refers not to streets and buildings but to this metaphorical Washington, with its bitter politics and its angry debates.
And yet Washington is also a very real home, both permanent and temporary, to many people whose sole desire is to live an ordinary life -- to study, to work, to talk about what they please -- but who cannot do so, whether in Mali, in Russia, in Iran or somewhere else. Every once in a while, and for no particular reason, I try to remember how lucky I am to have been born here, where the possibility of living such an ordinary life is so easily taken for granted."

Manliness- it was only a matter of time before the inevitable fusion of the new academic fascination with masculinity and the pop zeitgeist turned up as manliness- so here is a book, and few comments on it by Ruth Marcus in the WP:

Manliness, he writes, "seeks and welcomes drama and prefers times of war, conflict, and risk." It entails assertiveness, even stubbornness, and craves power and action. It explains why men, naturally inclined to assert that "our policy, our party, our regime is superior," dominate in the political sphere.

Though manliness is "the quality mostly of one sex," Mansfield allows that women can be manly, too, though the sole example he can seem to come up with, and deploys time and again, is Margaret Thatcher. "Is it possible to teach women manliness and thus to become more assertive?" he wonders, but not really. "Or is that like teaching a cat to bark?" Me-ow!
so whats wrong with this picture-
besides the obvious? let us count the ways, dear friends.

Man Overboard: "'Manliness' is the unapologetic title of a new book by Harvey C. Mansfield, a conservative professor of government at Harvard University, which makes him a species as rare as a dissenting voice in the Bush White House. Mansfield's thesis is that manliness, which he sums up as 'confidence in the face of risk,' is a misunderstood and unappreciated attribute."

BOOKS
on the subject of mixed race experience- a side interest of mine-

'A Million Nightingales,' by Susan Straight - The New York Times Book Review - New York Times: "'A Million Nightingales' joins a growing literature on the mixed-race experience in America, from Danzy Senna's picaresque 'Caucasia' to Zadie Smith's 'On Beauty.' Straight has given this body of work a historical foundation, a point of reference in the past. But her novel is, besides, a powerful and moving story, written in language so beautiful you can almost believe the words themselves are capable of salving history's wounds. "

Well, I have been neglecting the BLOG but antoher fraud story... I wrote a bit on Cendant for the Encyclopedia of white collar crime, so here is an update:
Prosecutors plan to try former Cendant Corp. chairman Walter Forbes for a third time on charges he participated in a massive fraud that cost the company and investors more than $3 billion.
Forbes' first two trials ended in mistrials when jurors could not reach a verdict. His second trial ended in February after a U.S. District Court jury in Hartford deliberated for 27 days

Another trial planned in Cendant fraud case - Boston.com: "Jurors last year convicted Forbes' co-defendant, former Cendant Vice Chairman E. Kirk Shelton, of conspiracy, mail fraud, wire fraud, securities fraud and making false statements to the SEC.
Shelton was sentenced to 10 years in prison and ordered to pay $3.27 billion restitution to Cendant, including a balloon payment of $15 million and monthly installments of $2,000 after he is released from prison.
Prosecutors said Shelton inflated revenue by $500 million at Cendant's predecessor, CUC International, to drive up the stock price. The fraud was reported in 1998, causing Cendant's market value to drop by $14 billion in one day.
CUC, which ran a membership marketing operation, merged with HFS Inc., a travel and real-estate services company, to form Cendant. Cendant's brands include Ramada, Howard Johnson, Avis, Coldwell Banker and Century 21."

Corruption- interenational
Is Wolfowitz capable of a counter offensive against corrupiton at the IMF? That was the claim a few weeks ago, although it seems unlikely on the face of it.
Patrick Bond: Wolfowitz's Anti-Corruption Hoax at the World Bank: "With these diverse examples, what can we conclude about the dire state of international financial governance? Wolfowitz cannot be trusted, and although his minor anti-corruption sweep is causing staff anxiety, there is no indication that deeper-rooted problems at the Bank will surface, through, for example, whistleblower protection that is now being widely called for by watchdog groups.
As Charles Abugre of Christian Aid wrote in Pambazuka recently, 'To monitor compliance often requires even greater involvement and power of donors in domestic governance. It is like saying that new forms of colonisation are acceptable on human rights grounds. This is dangerous. Yet, there are cases where human rights abuses, dictatorship and corruption are at such a level that the impact of debt relief and aid will be to strengthen repression and enrich a few than promote development.'"
Dennis Brutus from Jubilee South Africa is in town to launch his fantastic new book, Poetry and Protest (Haymarket Books and UKZN Press). As I talk this dilemma over with him, he offers a very simple proposition: 'It seems to me that both the IMF and Bank are inherently corrupt institutions, because they systematically transfer the wealth of poor countries to the North. While they are asking their clients--dictators and other ruling elites--to clean up their act, our job is still is to demand the abolition of this much more broadly corrupt system.'

Expectation of Corruption
OK- this is from Opednews.com: they did a poll in penna. but it is their interpretation that is very interesting:

"If you add up the percentage of Republicans who say that Republicans are corrupt and both parties are corrupt you get a total of 77% of Republicans saying that Republicans are corrupt, compared to 15% of Democrats saying Democrats are corrupt. What does this mean? Republicans assume their representatives are corrupt because they think everyone is corrupt. That's the mindset of a culture of corruption. They see they world as corrupt and they accept it."
Trickle Down Republican Corruption; Poll Results show right wing corruption exists at all levels