Will You Get a Swine Flu Shot?

Analysis…

Are you worried about getting the swine flu?

According to polls: Yes, but you may be even more worried about the safety of the H1N1 vaccine; oddly, polls also show there’s a high demand for the vaccine, as well as an inadequate supply. As the virus continues to spread, claiming the lives of 11 children in the past week and bringing the total number of children’s deaths to 86, health officials are making plans in case the epidemic becomes a reality, and worrying that people’s lack of action might indeed bring that epidemic to fruition.

Daily Kos |  “The main issue is not the hard core opposition (they are always there, fixed in their thinking, and not subject to rational discussion), it’s the reasonable and persuadable public that needs convincing that this vaccine is safe, and they won’t be reached by yelling at the nutters. To put this another way, there are legitimate concerns about wanting to see safety data that should be addressed rather than ignored. For example, whenever something gets studied, it ought to get published asap and made available.”

NPR |  “Fewer than half of Americans say that they are planning to receive the new H1N1 swine flu vaccine, according to recent polls — a trend that is leaving many health professionals at a loss. “I’m genuinely baffled,” says Arthur Kellermann, an emergency medicine physician at the Emory University School of Medicine who has treated swine flu cases. “The public has developed this odd sense of complacency. The only thing that comes to my mind is photos of people standing on the seawall of Galveston hours before the hurricane hit.”"

Salon |  “As the nation prepares for a possible swine flu pandemic this winter, we are learning that the firm determination of both parties to deny medical care to people without papers is actually quite flaccid. Even the most hysterical immigrant-bashers seem content to allow the government to vaccinate immigrants against the H1N1 virus (unless, that is, they happen to be among the right-wing chorus that suspects vaccination itself to be a nefarious socialist plot). Even they seem to realize that viruses don’t discriminate on the basis of citizenship — although they wrongly tried to blame last spring’s first outbreak of swine flu on the Mexicans among us.”

ProPublica |  “Florida health officials are drawing up guidelines that recommend barring patients with incurable cancer, end-stage multiple sclerosis and other conditions from being admitted to hospitals if the state is overwhelmed by flu cases. The plan, which would guide Florida hospitals on how to ration scarce medical care during a severe flu outbreak, also calls for doctors to remove patients with a poor prognosis from ventilators to treat those with better chances of survival. That decision would be made by each hospital.”

The Daily Beast |  “Swine flu may be hogging the headlines, but H1N1 is far from the only disease worrying researchers. The worldwide spread of HIV in the early 1980s marked the dawn of what many scientists believe is the age of pandemics, when diseases emerge from remote areas and strike people everywhere. Blame the destruction of rainforests, the ubiquity of international travel and inadequate public health services in developing countries. Whatever the reason, it’s clear that what happens in the jungle no longer stays in the jungle. “In 1918, it took three years for the flu virus to get around the world,” says Dr. Parviez Hosseini, a senior research fellow with the Wildlife Trust, “but H1N1 traveled through vast parts of the world in just three months.””

News & Analysis …

Are the Maldives Doomed?  |  FP Passport

Dan Drezner howls at the Maldives government’s brilliant stunt of holding an underwater cabinet meeting (more photos here and here) to make the case that “if we can’t save the Maldives today, you can’t save the rest of the world tomorrow,” and wonders if “a rational, cost-benefit analysis of how to allocate climate change resources between mitigation and adaptation” would really redound to the benefit of such small-island countries.

I doubt it — and the world has already pretty much already decided to let these nations drown.

Finland Makes Broadband Access a Legal Right  |  FP Passport

Finnish citizens now have a legal right to broadband access:

“[E]very person in Finland (a little over 5 million people, according to a 2009 estimate) will have the right of access to a 1Mb broadband connection starting in July. And they may ultimately gain the right to a 100Mb broadband connection.”"

Campaign to Make Immigration Reform a Top Issue in 2010  |  New American Media

Last Tuesday, October 13, immigrant families from around the country gathered to join in a vigil and rally in front of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., where Congressman Luis V. Gutierrez and other elected officials launched a new push for comprehensive immigration reform, building to the opening months of 2010. Our banners read “Reform Immigration FOR Families” and “Family Unity Cannot Wait.”

When Black and White Aren’t Black and White  |  Miller-McCune

Quick! What color is sinfulness? What about moral purity?

If you’re like most people, you naturally see sinfulness as tinged in black, while moral purity comes through in soft whites. And if you are the kind of person who really values cleaning products, or, for some reason, you were just thinking about immorality, the mental coloration of these abstract concepts is even stronger. So demonstrates doctoral student Gary D. Sherman and professor Gerald L. Clore, both of the University of Virginia Psychology Department, in a recent article from Psychological Science.

Net Neutrality vs. Healthy Competition

Analysis …

The FCC this week called for rules that would ensure that all Internet traffic is treated equally. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski said in a speech to the Brookings Institution that the proposed rules were not about government regulation of the Internet, but a call for all Internet providers to respect the network’s neutrality by allowing equal access to all content and being transparent about network management. Industry critics said the FCC’s proposals would prevent innovation and investment.

Read Genachowski’s speech here.

Cato-at-Liberty |  “What we’ve actually seen are some scattered and mostly misguided  attempts by certain ISPs to choke off certain kinds of traffic, thus far largely nipped in the bud by a combination of consumer backlash and FCC brandishing of existing powers. To the extent that packet “discrimination” involves digging into the content of user communications, it may well run up against existing privacy regulations that require explicit, affirmative user consent for such monitoring. In any event, I’m prepared to believe the situation could worsen. But pace Genachowski, it’s really pretty mysterious to me why you couldn’t start talking about the wisdom—and precise character—of some further regulatory response if and when it began to look like a free and open Internet were in serious danger.”

Political Animal |  “The usual suspects are already complaining about the dreaded Obama administration wanting “government regulation of the Internet” — that the government helped create the Internet is a point often lost on conservatives — which I find oddly reassuring. Genachowski has already challenged the talking point: “This is not about government regulation of the Internet. It’s about fair rules of the road for companies that control access to the Internet.”"

Truthdig |  “Genachowski’s use of the word lawful leaves the door open for ISPs to crack down on file sharers who eat up a lot of bandwidth trading copies of movies and software. Banning illegal activity isn’t an outrageous idea, but it does wade into murky water where the Internet is concerned. Do you let ISPs block access to a site about marijuana because marijuana possession is illegal? What about child pornography? Who would make these decisions and who would hold companies and individuals accountable?”

Obsidian Wings |  “To be grossly general, just imagine roads.  The world today would be much different if the Ford Motor Company owned the interstate highways and could block Hondas from using it.  In short, you could imagine a “closed” interstate highway system.  But that’s not how the interstates work.  They’re “open.”  Anyone can use them.  Any “device” with wheels will work on them. The Internet could have very easily evolved into a “closed” network, but it didn’t.  Instead, the Internet is open because we adopted policies in the 1960s and 70s that required it to be open (namely, we prevented AT&T from strangling it).  The FCC today is merely protecting what has always been.”

OpenLeft |  “Without action by the FCC, large corporations would become the gatekeepers of internet access at the disadvantage of individual users and small businesses. The FCC’s new rules– which I have called for since I first ran for office– prevent a two-tiered system that favors large, established businesses over individuals and small businesses. The rules also prevent large providers– such as Comcast and Verizon– from abusing their market dominance, putting profits over the principle that the internet should be an open market place of ideas.”

News …

• Faith groups join with activists on immigration reform (Read more).
• How the YouTube hit “Stand by Me” went global (Read more).
• Study shows female lawyers with masculine-sounding names are more likely to become judges (Read more).
• Why is there still global hunger when farms produce more than enough for the world to eat? (Read more).

Immigration and Health Care Reform

Analysis …

The Tides Foundation recently convened Momentum 2009, a forum bringing together the world’s most creative thinkers and dedicated activists to discuss progressive ideas aimed at community change. Fora.tv has posted dozens of discussions from Momentum 2009 that tackle issues from health care reform to global economic change. Over the several few weeks, I’ll occasionally spotlight some of these talks and pair them with related news and information focusing on the Momentum topic. The videos range from 20 minutes to a bit over an hour, but they’re informative and inspiring, and encourage watchers to continue the dialogue on their own.

In this first video, Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, one of the country’s preeminent pro-immigrant advocacy organizations, talks about how the U.S. must enact fair and just immigration reform before it can live up to its principles as an inclusive society. Immigration has popped up as one of the issues in the debate over health care reform, with reform opponents fearful that undocumented persons will receive health care benefits, and promises by reform proponents that the undocumented will not receive benefits under a new system. Is this economically smart? And is it just?

Slate |  “Why do American tech firms need so many immigrant employees? Because there aren’t enough native workers to fill the jobs tech companies need. According to the National Science Foundation, about 60 percent of doctorate degrees in engineering at American universities are awarded to foreign students who are in the country on temporary visas (PDF). And foreign workers are responsible for some of the tech world’s signature innovations.”

Newsweek |  “Of course, insuring undocumented workers is ethically murky and politically impossible. Some people argue that if we’re hiring illegals to, say, shingle our roofs, we have a moral obligation to care for them if they fall off. But more people, it seems, simply want them out of the country. Given that illegal immigrants have, by definition, broken our laws, it makes sense that large numbers of upstanding citizens oppose any measure that would encourage more foreigners to sneak into America or make their lives easier once they’re here. The only problem? From a purely economic standpoint, insuring illegal immigrants makes a lot of sense—and not just for them, but for everyone.”

New American Media |  “It is unacceptable that health care reform is being used to make immigration policy. It is outrageous that an insulting outburst receives public condemnation but is a hidden victory that wrongs immigrants by taking away the little that they already have. The Democratic leadership should separate immigration policy from the health care debate. The Republicans should not be able to turn every new law into another restriction against immigrants and the undocumented. Health care reform is too important for all Americans to be allowed to fall into this trap.”

Truthout |  “As a practical matter, undocumented workers shy away from government programs that could expose their illegal status. A law passed in 2005 requires applicants to Medicaid, which insures poor people, to prove their citizenship. Two years later, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform studied Medicaid enrollments in five states (Kansas, Colorado, Minnesota, Washington and Wisconsin). It found only eight illegal immigrants on the rolls.”

The New Republic |  “The president included the line about illegal immigrants because he thought, probably correctly, that for many voters, it would be a deal-breaker if they learned that his health proposals would help those who broke the law to come to this country. Yet it should bother us a lot more than it does that alleged plans to kill off seniors and promote abortion are spoken of in almost the same breath as the matter of delivering health care to fellow human beings, however they arrived on our shores.”

News …

• In eight states, health insurers list domestic violence is listed as a ‘pre-existing condition’ (Read more).
• Intercity bus service is increasing in the U.S., but half the country still needs to get on board (Read more).
• Is a biopic about Charles Darwin too controversial for U.S. moviegoers? (Read more).
• Despite increasing numbers, veiled women in Egypt report growing  discrimination (Read more).

Don’t Cry for Me, Alaska

I had resolved not to put up a slew of links to commentary about Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s pending resignation, but there’s just too many bloggers, pundits, personalities  and people standing around watercoolers talking about it that I couldn’t resist. Additionally, while I actually can grasp the logic behind how resigning office isn’t actually quitting, at least as far as Palin’s explanation goes, I’m still trying to figure out how her resignation is actually helpful to the state of Alaska, as far as her logic goes. Someone jump in here and explain it to me …

Anyway, three compelling blog posts about Palin’s resignation and discussion about it come from Ta-Nehisi Coates @The Atlantic, Steve Benen @Political Animal and Amanda Marcotte @Pandagon. Specifically, they take issue with the meme that Palin’s supporters and opposers are divided, not just by ideology, but by class and even race when, in fact, it’s those that are pointing to the divisions are the ones doing the dividing:

Ta-Nehisi Coates |  “In the last ten months, we’ve seen the son of a single mother, son of an immigrant, roots in Kansas, roots in the quintessentially American South Side of Chicago, standing for the “traditional values” of family, and the lesson we take from this is is that American meritocracy is broken.

“Conservative condescension toward working class America, works in tandem with racial blindness. I have tried, through a few re-readings, to avoid seeing that in Ross’s column. But it’s very difficult to process the notion that Sarah Palin is a better model of the all-American meritocratic ideal than Barack Obama, without believing that that judgment hinges on race.”

• Related link: What the Right Means When They Say ‘America’  |  Jack & Jill Politics

Political Animal |  “The problem was her insistence that Palin supporters are “real Americans.” If you find Palin offensive, Brzezinski argued, you probably live in a place with “liberal elite populations,” which aren’t “representative of America.” The message that Brzezinski delivered, which we’ve heard from many for years, is that those who live in big cities and/or are liberal on social issues may be Americans, and may even be in the majority, but we’re not real Americans.

“It’s this culturally divisive arrogance that’s insulting.”

Pandagon |  “I was born into the tribe that he’s exalting, but for some reason I don’t belong.  Funny tribe that is that you can be born into it, still carry a lot of its cultural markers, and not be in it, even though you have the cultural markers that supposedly mean you’re a member. … The best part of being in the liberal elite is that contrary to the claims of concern troll pundits like Douthat, I’m not mistreated for wearing cowboy boots, saying “y’all”, or otherwise hanging onto innocuous cultural elements of Texana.  In general, the sh-! I get comes all from one direction, and it’s not the liberal elite tribe giving it.”

Truthdig also offered up a pair of columns from the Washington Post discussing the charges of elitism and sexism surrounding Palin’s celebrity. Marie Cocco doesn’t let the media off the hook for continuing to hold a double standard for female candidates than for males. Sexist comments have followed Palin since the moment she burst upon the national scene, she wrote:

Palin early on was called “Stepford Barbie” and “Caribou Barbie”—terms used even by highbrow commentators who found it acceptable to liken Palin to the impossibly proportioned fashion doll. The Barbie epithet marked Palin as an object of sexualized fashion fascination well before it came to light that the vice presidential nominee had used Republican Party funds to buy an expensive campaign wardrobe.

When did such a savage strain of sexism become acceptable public discourse?

Why does the same combination of bemused condescension and uninhibited vitriol that the media of a century ago showed toward the suffragists persist today?

Meanwhile, Eugene Robinson turns that discussion around, saying the very fear of being labeled an elitist or a sexist has kept media scrutiny off her:

There are basically two reasons why the political class and the commentariat continue to speak and write about Palin as if she were a substantial figure whose presence on the national stage is anything but a cruel, unfunny joke. The first is fear—not of Palin and her know-nothing legions, but of being painted as elitist and sexist.

From the beginning, Palin has been a master at maneuvering her critics into this trap. Like most Americans, she didn’t go to an Ivy League school; like most women, she deals every day with the challenges of juggling work and family. She highlighted these aspects of her biography, then used them to portray herself as a victim whenever anyone had the temerity to criticize anything she said or did. The most recent illustration is what she posted on her Facebook page last weekend on the reaction to her announced resignation:

“How sad that Washington and the media will never understand; it’s about country. And though it’s honorable for countless others to leave their positions for a higher calling and without finishing a term, of course we know by now, for some reason a different standard applies for the decisions I make.”

What is she talking about? Who are these “countless others” who supposedly have made the same decision to abandon governorships for no credible reason? The names don’t come rushing to mind. Why is any criticism of Poor Little Sarah the result of the “different standard” that mean old “Washington and the media” always apply? Because blaming her favorite alleged persecutors allows her to ignore the bewildered reaction from her constituents in Alaska who are stunned and mystified at her decision to skip out.

I’m inclined to agree more with Cocco, that the media discourse about women in politics tends to lean sexist. That said, Robinson’s analysis, though harsh, holds water. Palin certainly seems to know how to manage the media’s sexist tendencies.

Continental Drift  |  The American Prospect

The American Prospect talks with David R. Cameron, a Yale professor and director of its European Union Studies program about the continent’s leftward tilt. Cameron says that economic crisises and social shifts have prompted the switch:

It is perplexing because there was reason to think the left might do well because of what’s happening to the European economy. It’s in a terrible state. Right now there are at least 16 countries in the EU that are in recession. Next year the most optimistic estimate is that they’ll be at least a dozen countries where unemployment is over 10 percent. We’ve never had synchronized, continent-wide recession before of the kind we have now. You would think, all else being equal, that might help the social democratic and labor parties on the center left. But some of the parties in power have their own problems and complications — scandal, corruption, and so forth. Still, I have to say I’m surprised by the outcome.

While Cameron says it’s hard to generalize what’s happening, he targets apathy and a loss of purpose in European political leadership and among voters themselves.

What Happened in 1990?  |  Andrew Sullivan @The Atlantic

Andrew Sullivan discusses his theory about how public opinion on homosexuality changed from marginalizing to accepting. He says that the effect of AIDS on both gay and straight communities changed the public discourse on the LGBT community:

Remember: most of these deaths were of young men. If you think that the Vietnam war took around 60,000 young American lives randomly over a decade or more, then imagine the psychic and social impact of 300,000 young Americans dying in a few years. Imagine a Vietnam Memorial five times the size. The victims were from every state and city and town and village. They were part of millions and millions of families. Suddenly, gay men were visible in ways we had never been before. And our humanity – revealed by the awful, terrifying, gruesome deaths of those in the first years of the plague – ripped off the veneer of stereotype and demonization and made us seem as human as we are. More, actually: part of our families.

I think that horrifying period made the difference. It also galvanized gay men and lesbians into fighting more passionately than ever – because our very lives were at stake.

Conservatives’ Selective Perception on Social Bias  |  Tapped

Adam Serwer explains how conservatives see social bias such as racism and sexism through the words of Futurama’s Bender: “This is the worst kind of discrimination: The kind against ME!”

Bender’s remarks accurately describe conservatives’ approach to social bias of any kind. Rush Limbaugh compares Republicans to black folks during segregation. Several Republican lawmakers have compared their party’s minority status to the circumstance of protesters in Iran. Matthew Yglesias has been blogging for months about how conservatives seem only to be interested in “reverse racism,” or what they see as entrenched institutional bias against white men. This clearly has something to do with the fact that the party is made up mostly of white men. But when a conservative figure who is not a white man runs into difficulty–say Clarence Thomas or Sarah Palin — conservatives suddenly become deeply concerned about racism and sexism. For conservatives, social bias is a partisan matter.

Women Immigrants: Stewards of the 21st Century Family  |  New American Media

Migration, New American Media says, has primarily been a discussion about men. But the reality is that in the latter part of the 20th century and into the 21st, half or more of all migrants have been women. In a poll of documented and undocumented women migrants, New American Media examines their reasons for migrating and their lives after the moves.

Today’s migration, we know, increasingly occurs between city and city. The story that has not been told is the story of the woman immigrant in that stream. This poll is an effort to capture her narrative, and what becomes clear in the responses – many to questions that seemed on their face to have nothing to do with family per se – is that the gold thread giving meaning to her life is family stewardship. As the poll demonstrates, it’s a goal at which she has been remarkably successful. Some 90 percent of women immigrants interviewed (30 percent of whom are undocumented) report their family units are intact – their husbands live with them, and their children were either born here or have joined them in this country.

…

In meeting these challenges as they settle into America, many of these women are also radically altering their roles in their private lives. While few may have fit the image of submissive women in their home countries to begin with, almost one-third report having assumed head-of-household responsibilities now that they are here, and share equally with their husbands in making decisions from household finances to more intimate concerns like family planning. Almost all reported success in increasing their income levels (some dramatically more than others, reflecting differences in education levels), which suggests skillful navigation of the public life/labor market in America.

News for July 1

The Long Goodbye

Iraqis began celebrating Tuesday as U.S. troops withdrew from towns and cities, and handed over responsibilities for municipal security to local forces. U.S. troops, however, will not be quit of the country for another two years. What does that mean for the future of Iraq? Links include:

MoJo Blogs |  “The general consensus seems to be that this is a big deal.  And in one sense it unquestionably is: in a lot of ways, the “surge” was less about the number of new troops sent to Iraq than it was about the way they were deployed.  Gen. David Petraeus insisted from the beginning that they establish a direct presence in neighborhoods throughout Baghdad and other cities, and that presence — along with several other factors — played a substantial role in reducing violence.  Now that presence is gone.”

The Economist |  “Nothing is so clear cut in Iraq. For a start, despite the official claims, many Americans will remain within cities. American trainers will stay embedded with Iraqi units, and those trainers themselves will be protected by other American troops. (The American forces still worry about attacks from within the ranks of the Iraqi army). All told, at least 10,000 trainers, and possibly thousands more, will remain in Iraq’s urban areas.”

Informed Comment |  “I was talking to a US military officer who had been in Baghdad in December, and he told me that he thought that Iraqi troops were now capable of patrolling independently, something he would not have said a year or two earlier. If they get into trouble, he said, they stand and fight. They still have poor logistical support. If the firefight lasts 5 hours rather than one hour, they might be in trouble because no one is bringing them ammunition and water. Az-Zaman writes in Arabic that the governor of Najaf remarked Sunday that US troops would still provide logistical support to Iraqi ones, despite the end of routine American patrols.”

The Brookings Institution |  “As U.S. troops withdraw back to their bases in Iraq, questions remain about Iraq’s ability to maintain security and stability in the country. Iraq’s leadership, military, and police force face a number of challenges ahead as they assume control, but as Senior Fellow Kenneth Pollack explains, Iraqis are eager to end the so-called U.S. occupation and establish their sovereignty.”

Truthdig |  “Despite the presence of 131,000 U.S. troops who will remain in Iraq, there is no political support at home for anything that would look like an open-ended reassertion of American military control. Besides, the removal of troops from urban areas is mostly cosmetic, as American forces have merely been redeployed to less visible areas on the outskirts of central cities, according to Joost Hiltermann, deputy program director for the Middle East at the nonpartisan International Crisis Group. “In any case, they are available if called upon or invited by the Iraqi security forces. That’s the main thing,” he said in a phone interview from Amman, Jordan. “It is a formal handover and the Iraqis are allowed to claim victory. But a whole lot doesn’t change.””

The Cost of the Hashtag Revolution  |  The American Prospect

Twitter is becoming a genuinely important political tool — collectively, we seem to be making it into something essential. It’s probably worth asking whether this is a good idea.

Twitter is far from the only online tool being used for political ends, but it’s one of the few that is both a medium and a company. Yahoo.com might handle your e-mail, but if it went down, the e-mail system would still work. Google search is important, but its disappearance wouldn’t make the sites it indexes stop working, and there are plenty of search engines that would be glad to take its place.

Twitter is not like that. If it went away, that would be that. Your tweets and your contacts would vanish. And this is largely by necessity. Most Internet technologies are decentralized. Twitter is just the opposite: Its hub-and-spoke architecture enables the network effects that make it worthwhile.

The Mullah’s Secret Battle  |  The Daily Beast

Either way, it now appears likely that the fate of Iran depends on which way the clerical establishment falls. If they can be convinced that the rise of the Revolutionary Guard is a threat to their stewardship of the Islamic republic, then they will side with the reformers aligned with Rafsanjani and Mousavi, if for no other reason than to remain significant. In that case, Iran may begin to resemble China, a country ruled by an oligarchy but with greater freedoms for its people and open to the international community.

If, however, the clerics side with Khamenei, who every day looks more like an aged patsy of the Revolutionary Guard, then Iran could conceivably become a military state akin to North Korea or Myanmar.

The Truth Alone Will Not Set You Free  |  Chris Hedges @Truthdig

American culture—or cultures, for we once had distinct regional cultures—was systematically destroyed in the 20th century by corporations. These corporations used mass communication, as well as an understanding of the human subconscious, to turn consumption into an inner compulsion. Old values of thrift, regional identity that had its own iconography, aesthetic expression and history, diverse immigrant traditions, self-sufficiency, a press that was decentralized to provide citizens with a voice in their communities were all destroyed to create mass, corporate culture. New desires and habits were implanted by corporate advertisers to replace the old. Individual frustrations and discontents could be solved, corporate culture assured us, through the wonders of consumerism and cultural homogenization. American culture, or cultures, was replaced with junk culture and junk politics. And now, standing on the ash heap, we survey the ruins. The very slogans of advertising and mass culture have become the idiom of common expression, robbing us of the language to make sense of the destruction. We confuse the manufactured commodity culture with American culture.

Time for Immigration Reform is Now  |  New American Media

Our nation needs comprehensive immigration policies that will replace a broken system of raids and roundups with one that protects all workers from exploitation, improves America’s security and builds strong communities. It’s time to end the division between workers, which has allowed big business to exploit both sides. Clearly, working-class citizens and immigrant workers have much in common – dreams of better homes, education for their families and quality healthcare. There is more that brings us together, than separates us. United we can be a strong force for change, changes that that bring more workforce safety and humane conditions.

Related link: A Hora para a Reforma Imigratoría é Agora  |  New American Media

News for June 25

Washington and the Iran Protests: Would They Be Allowed in the U.S.?  |  Informed Comment

The fact is that despite the bluster of the American Right that Something Must be Done, the United States is not a neutral or benevolent player in Iran. Washington overthrew the elected government of Iran in 1953 over oil nationalization, and installed the megalomaniac and oppressive Mohammad Reza Pahlevi, who gradually so alienated all social classes in Iran that he was overthrown in a popular revolution in 1978-1979. The shah had a national system of domestic surveillance and tossed people in jail for the slightest dissidence, and was supported to the hilt by the United States government. So past American intervention has not been on the side of let us say human rights.

More recently, the US backed the creepy and cult-like Mojahedin-e Khalq (People’s Holy Warriors or MEK), which originated in a mixture of communist Stalinism and fundamentalist Islam. The MEK is a terrorist organization and has blown things up inside Iran, so the Pentagon’s ties with them are wrong in so many ways. The MEK, by the way, has a very substantial lobby in Washington DC and has some congressmen in its back pocket, and is supported by the less savory elements of the Israel lobbies such as Daniel Pipes and Patrick Clawson. I am not saying they should be investigated for material support of terrorism, since I am appalled by the unconstitutional breadth of that current DOJ tactic, but I am signalling that the US imperialist Right has been up to very sinister things in Iran for decades. A person who worked in the Pentagon once alleged to me that then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was privately pushing for using tactical nuclear weapons against Iran. And Dick Cheney is so attached to launching war on Iran that he characterized attempts to deflect such plans as a “conspiracy.” Given what the US did to Fallujah, it strikes me as unlikely that a military invasion of Iran would be good for that country’s civic life. And there are rather disadvantages to being nuked, even by the kindliest of WASP gentlemen of Mr. Rumsfeld’s ilk.

Must Brown People Be Martyred for Americans to Be Motivated  |  What Tami Said

I understand these readers’ sentiments, but why? Why must we see an Iranian woman die on a city street in order to understand the gravity of the country’s political upheaval? Why must we see brown bodies bloated and floating to give a damn about the tsunami in Myanmar or the hurricane in New Orleans? Why did we have to see Oscar Grant killed in cold blood by police on a BART platform to talk about racism and the justice system? Why did it take the mangled body of 14-year-old Emmitt Till to give America an inkling of the tyranny and danger that black folks faced in the South every day?

I think Americans are fetishizing video of Neda Soltani’s death in a way they would not if she were a young, blonde, American college student shot down on an American street. We do not need to see the lifeless bodies of those women in order to care for them. But people like Neda owe access to their deaths so Americans can access their own humanity.

Isn’t there something wrong with this?

• Related link: Neda: Cautionary Tale or Inspiration?  |  The Daily Beast
• Related link: ‘Neda Is My Daughter, I Have One Just Like Her’  |  Jezebel

The Social Cost of the Decline of Newspapers  |  The Becker-Posner Blog

A free press has been a foundation of democracies because the press spreads information about political and other developments. This is why one of the first moves totalitarian and other non-democratic governments make is to suppress the press. For example, the Iranian government has closed virtually all newspapers that are openly critical of the government. Nevertheless, I do not believe that the decline in the number of dailies, even if it rapidly accelerates, poses a major threat either to the viability of democracies, or to the spread of political and other information.

• Related link: The Future of Newspapers  |  The Becker-Posner Blog

An Interview with Atul Gawande  |  Ezra Klein @The Washington Post

Atul Gawande’s New Yorker article comparing the medical systems of El Paso and McAllen, Tex., has been a definitional piece in the health reform conversation. President Obama has repeatedly invoked it. Senators have talked about it. The media have embraced it. I spoke to Gawande this afternoon about the fallout from his article, the problem of revenue-driven medicine, and whether a public plan would make a difference. He called from Jordan, where he’s helping the World Health Organization implement better surgical protocols to reduce post-operation deaths. That made me feel very lazy in comparison. A lightly edited transcript of our discussion follows.

• Related link: News for May 29  |  The Xenia Institute News & Analysis

Why is Immigration Coverage Often So Negative  |  Miller-McCune

The images of immigration Americans get from newspapers and television generally tend to skew negative. A 2008 Brookings Institution report, for example, described coverage as a “narrative that conditions the public to associate immigration with illegality, crisis, controversy and government failure.” The report blamed such coverage for the political stalemate that has snarled any legislative progress.

But are all media outlets equal offenders in promoting a negative view of immigration? Or are some worse than others? And if so, why?

News for June 12

When Opting Out Isn’t an Option  |  The American Prospect

For too long, the narrative about working women has centered on professionals with children. It’s time we focus on the majority of women workers.

To hear the media tell the tale, the central problem facing working women today is the question of whether they should leave their professional careers to raise children.

For much of the past decade, the “opt out” debate has been a staple of style sections and op-ed pages. It’s easy to see why. The story of how highly educated, professional-track women choose to construct their personal lives lies at the nexus of personal, political, and economic issues. It is a good fit for business columns, for parenting magazines, for feminist blogs. From Lisa Belkin’s coinage of the term “opt-out revolution” in The New York Times Magazine in 2003, to Caitlin Flanagan’s excoriation of feminists with nannies in The Atlantic in 2004, to Linda Hirshman’s 2005 admonition that educated women Get to Work, upper-class women have never tired of discussing–and dissing–each other’s choices. Even though professional, highly educated women who can afford to “opt out” account for only about 10 percent of working women aged 25 to 44, this debate has dominated the conversation about women and work.

Examining the lives of privileged women and their work-life choices is certainly much sexier and more controversial than telling the stories of the majority of working women in this country. After all, most women must balance work with caregiving. They don’t have the option of opting out. Where’s the debate in that?

Read more …

During Recession, Reimagining the American Male  |  Tapped @The American Prospect

The idea that this recession represents a feminist watershed is, sadly, bunk. While it’s true that 49 percent of the work force is female and that men are getting laid off at a faster rate than women, occupational segregation means that women are still more likely to be employed in jobs with irregular hours, no benefits, and without union representation. Sixty percent of children living in poverty are supported by single moms, often young women who have very few options for stable employment with middle-class wages.

All that said, there is some truth to the ubiquitous commentary about the recession shifting assumptions on gender, work, and domesticity — at least among the college educated. Consider this: Between 1995 and 2005, the number of self-employed Americans increased by 27 percent, to 9 million. As Emily Bazelon writes in Sunday’s Times Magazine, many of those workers were creative class freelancers, drawn to the Fast Company mantra, as articulated in that dot-com bible in 1997: “The main chance is becoming a free agent in an economy of free agents. … You create a message and a strategy to promote the brand called You.”

Unsurprisingly, this lifestyle — which embraced risk, instability, and even narcissism — was more appealing (and more accessible) to men than to women. Only about a third of all self-employed workers in America are female. And because the recession is hitting freelancers especially hard, some couples are finding that dad — once proudly self-employed and free-spirited — is now contributing less than mom to the family’s coffers, and is thus due for some serious diaper-changing or floor-scrubbing duty.

Read more …

• Related link: Why is There So Much Shame in Being a Stay-at-Home Dad?  |  Good Magazine

Most Americans Want an Immigration Overhaul  |  AlterNet

Despite anti-immigrant groups repeated attempts to sway public opinion by scapegoating immigrants for the recession, new polling data suggests that the majority of likely voters actually support an overhaul of our broken immigration system–an overhaul that includes a path to citizenship for the roughly 12 million undocumented immigrants living in America.

A recent survey by Benson Strategy Group–a group who conducts polling for President Obama and Fortune 100 Companies–found that 71% of likely voters think undocumented immigrants should take steps to become legal taxpayers. Similarly, Celinda Lake of Lake Research Partners said recent polling data suggests that voters want undocumented immigrants out of the shadows and on the books.

Read more …

Sherman Alexie Clarifies “Elitist” Charges  |  Edward Champion’s Reluctant Habits

As noted by Kassia Kroszer and others, Sherman Alexie recently expressed some controversial remarks in relation to the eReader. At a BookExpo panel, Alexie called the Amazon Kindle “elitist” and said that he wanted to hit a woman sitting on a plane who was using a Kindle on her flight to New York.

Now since I’m a man known to make extraordinary statements myself, I recognized Alexie’s pugilistic promise as the conversational theater he intended. Nevertheless, I was baffled by Alexie’s position. So I took it upon myself to contact Alexie to figure out where the guy was coming from. I didn’t believe the boilerplate message on his website was enough. Alexie was very gracious to respond to my questions.

Why do you consider the Kindle “elitist?”

I consider the Kindle elitist because it’s too expensive. I also consider it elitist because, right now, one company is making all the rules. I am also worried about Jeff Bezos’ comments about wanting to change the way we read books. That’s rather imperial. Having grown up poor, I’m also highly aware that there’s always a massive technology gap between rich and poor kids. I haven’t yet heard what Amazon plans to do about this potential technology gap. And that’s a vital question considering that Bezos wants to change the way we read books. How does he plan to change the way that poor kids read books?

Read more …

The Myth of Humble Origins  |  The Daily Beast

The contest over Sonia Sotomayor’s fitness to serve on the Supreme Court seems to be shaping up as an argument over affirmative action. But what is really at stake—and what President Obama has shrewdly put at stake—is the myth of humble origins. It seems that the election of the nation’s first black president, a man whose rise has been breathtaking, has done nothing to resolve our perplexity over just what the mechanics of social ascent should be.

The argument over what Judge Sotomayor thinks about the social roles of character, luck, and the helping hand promises to change the way we think about American government, American chances, and the ideal moral qualities of the American journey.

Read more …

News for May 29

The High Costs of Health Care

Atul Gawande has a riveting piece in this month’s New Yorker examining why health care is so expensive in, of all places, McAllen, Texas. Gawande, a physician himself, looks at hospital practices, doctor referals, the general health of the population and insurance availability, and his conclusion lays the responsibility at the feet of capitalism and the reckless entrepreneurism to which medicine is turning. Gawande writes:

Providing health care is like building a house. The task requires experts, expensive equipment and materials, and a huge amount of coördination. Imagine that, instead of paying a contractor to pull a team together and keep them on track, you paid an electrician for every outlet he recommends, a plumber for every faucet, and a carpenter for every cabinet. Would you be surprised if you got a house with a thousand outlets, faucets, and cabinets, at three times the cost you expected, and the whole thing fell apart a couple of years later? Getting the country’s best electrician on the job (he trained at Harvard, somebody tells you) isn’t going to solve this problem. Nor will changing the person who writes him the check.

This last point is vital. Activists and policymakers spend an inordinate amount of time arguing about whether the solution to high medical costs is to have government or private insurance companies write the checks. Here’s how this whole debate goes. Advocates of a public option say government financing would save the most money by having leaner administrative costs and forcing doctors and hospitals to take lower payments than they get from private insurance. Opponents say doctors would skimp, quit, or game the system, and make us wait in line for our care; they maintain that private insurers are better at policing doctors. No, the skeptics say: all insurance companies do is reject applicants who need health care and stall on paying their bills. Then we have the economists who say that the people who should pay the doctors are the ones who use them. Have consumers pay with their own dollars, make sure that they have some “skin in the game,” and then they’ll get the care they deserve. These arguments miss the main issue. When it comes to making care better and cheaper, changing who pays the doctor will make no more difference than changing who pays the electrician. The lesson of the high-quality, low-cost communities is that someone has to be accountable for the totality of care. Otherwise, you get a system that has no brakes. You get McAllen.

It’s a grand narrative that’s generating links and discussion across the blogosphere over what the government and the public can do about the rising costs.

xpostfactoid links to the article and writes:

Creating the right incentives — or unwinding the wrong ones — is complicated. Some institutions have done so by creating systems in which doctors essentially oversee each other and the institution holds itself collectively responsible for outcomes. Some, like the Mayo clinic, produce excellent outcomes at low cost. But how to replicate their successful cultures is not yet clear.

Matthew Yglesias @ThinkProgress offers two comments about the issue of entrepreneurship and health care. In the first, where he joins Ezra Klein @The Washington Post in cheerleading readers to go read Gawande’s article for themselves (and I third their encouragement), Yglesias looks to further the conversation:

I suspect the kind of reforms currently being contemplated by congress are really only going to be the first steps in a substantially longer journey that we’ll have to take as a country. In addition to things being totally screwed up in terms of who gets health insurance and how and from whom, the actual delivery of health care happens in a very screwed-up way. But the common view is that it actually isn’t screwed up, and so short-term politics dictates spending a lot of time reassuring people that no terrible change for the worse is on the way in terms of delivery. Which is fine as far as it goes, since the insurance mess really does need to be cleaned up. But then there’s this other problem, where the actual practice of medicine in America, though perceived to be good, is actually extremely hit-or-miss and in some respects getting worse.

Later, Yglesias muses that in fact, universal health care would boost entrepreneurship:

I’m the sort of person who’s prone to saying that we could have a more entrepreneurial economy in the United States if we had a universal health care system. The thinking is that our current system unduly punishes risk-taking. There are a lot of different aspects of this, but basically the American health care system both produces labor market rigidities (”job lock”) and makes jobs at small firms relatively unattractive.

Finally, Andrew Sullivan @The Atlantic offers a one-line comment on the piece:

I understand the problems of McAllen. I also shudder at the phrase “totality of care.”

Global Crisis Hits Human Rights  |  BBC News

BBC News and Truthout both highlight Amnesty International’s annual report, which says that the global economic downturn has distracted the world’s attention from human rights abuses and is causing newer ones. According to the BBC:

The world’s poorest people were bearing the brunt of the economic downturn, Amnesty said, and millions of people were facing insecurity and indignity.
Migrant workers in China, indigenous groups in Latin America and those who struggled to meet basic needs in Africa had all been hit hard, it said.

Where people had tried to protest, their actions had in many cases been met with repression and violence.

The group warned that rising poverty could lead to instability and mass violence.

“The underlying global economic crisis is an explosive human rights crisis: a combination of social, economic and political problems has created a time-bomb of human rights abuses,” said Amnesty’s Secretary General, Irene Khan.

The Irony of Social Networking Technology  |  Atlantic Correspondents

Lane Wallace blogs about how social networking technology both helps and hurts our societies.  On the one hand, social networking technology like Facebook and cell phones have expanded our range of community networks. On the bad side, the abbreviated means of expression that social networking systems like Twitter have stunted how we express ourselves. Wallace calls for balance:

It’s not a new problem. Technology often creates new problems, even as it solves old ones. The advent of computerized flight management systems in airline cockpits, for example, was supposed to relieve the workload and improve safety. While the new technology achieved that goal overall, having to program the systems created a new problem of pilots being “heads down and locked” — or, concentrating on programming the computer to the detriment of overall safety awareness. (see: American Airlines’ 1995 crash in Cali, Columbia). As a result, new training and procedures had to be developed to counter the safety problems the new technology had unintentionally spawned.

Unfortunately, it’s harder to train humans how to use cell phones and internet-based social networks for all the advantages they offer without letting the technology get in the way of the very thing it was supposed to assist. Balanced use is a challenge with any new technology, and we don’t always do such a terrific job of achieving it.

Historically, America Both Legalized and Deported Immigrants — Since 1996 it Only Deports Them  |  AlterNet

Why should undocumented migrants in the U.S. be offered amnesty? Perhaps a better question might be, why shouldn’t they, since the U.S. has done it before, repeatedly. AlterNet offers a history of U.S. immigration policy, which shows that the U.S. has switched between legalizing the statuses of migrants and deporting them, depending on its needs. Policies also vary depending on which country the migrant is from.

A Starry Night. A Warm Gun  |  alias Bruce

How a bill allowing citizens to bring guns into U.S. national parks became a law:

Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn (R) buried the gun bill in the credit-card legislation as an amendment, a trick often used by both parties for pet causes that need propping up. Dems knew the credit card package was a must-pass. But rather than use their majority to revolt against this perversion of process, some Dems ducked their heads and went along. Others, including Majority Leader Harry Reid, (D-Nevada) and many Dems from Southern and Midwestern states, actively bought into this Dodge City bill on the basis, as Reid claims, that it reflects the Second Amendment (that sloppily-written, impossible-to-decode provision that needs to be coherently refashioned to reflect civilization in the 21st century). As for Repubs, the vote was a mixture of guns-are-good gospel and let’s-get-the-liberal-bastards politicking. The law is due to go into effect on February 22, 2010.

News for May 14

Fightin’ Words

Anti-abortion rights activists  are set to descend upon the campus of the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind., to protest the school’s commencement Sunday, which will feature President Barack Obama as a speaker. The school also plans to give Obama an honorary law degree. Obama’s visit has been criticized by 74 Catholic bishops because of the president’s support for embryonic stem cell research and abortion rights. While some students are planning to boycott the ceremony, others are taking issue with the protesters tactics. The issue reveals not only the complexity of the issue, but the complexity of American Catholicism as well. Links include:

The Kitchen Table |  “I would like to think that this debate would foster healthy protest, about abortion or stem-cell research, or even the death penalty. But that healthy debate cannot happen if only one side truly believes that they, and they alone, care about “life” and “family.” One member of the Notre Dame community, in protest of Obama’s visit, said that she was disappointed in President Obama’s pro-life policies and his failure to defend the “dignity of human life.” I imagine that the family whose unemployment benefits have been extended, thus allowing them to feed, clothe, and shelter their children, know that the “dignity of human” life extends long beyond conception.”

GetReligion.org |  “I know that mainstream reporters have to cover the politicos who are making the most noise and I know that they have a limited amount of space to work with. But this Post story was way, way too simplistic. The American Catholic reality is much more complex.”

Truthdig |  “Largely lost in the Notre Dame furor is the extent to which the ferocity on the Catholic right has emboldened moderate and liberal Catholics to fight back.
The current issue of America magazine, published by the Jesuits, includes a sharply worded editorial criticizing the “divisive effects of the new American sectarians” which “have not escaped the notice of the Vatican.” “Their highly partisan political edge has become a matter of concern,” the editors write. “That they never demonstrate the same high dudgeon at the compromises, unfulfilled promises and policy disagreements with Republican politicians as with Democratic ones is plain for all to see. It is time to call this one-sided denunciation by its proper name: political partisanship.”

RNS Blog |  “Only 28 percent of American Catholics say Notre Dame was wrong to invite President Obama to give the university’s commencement address this month, according to a new study by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. Half say the Fighting Irish was kosher in inviting Obama, and two out of three say he’s doing a good job in the Oval Office, despite the loud protestations of a couple dozen Catholic bishops.”

The American Prospect |  “We agree that President Barack Obama shouldn’t speak at Notre Dame — but abortion has nothing to do with it. Notre Dame practices pervasive discrimination in its admissions policies. Every year the school reserves 25 percent of the seats in its entering class for children of alumni. These “legacy preferences” result in applicants being granted or denied admission based not on their merit but on their ancestry.”

The Hidden Hand of Dick Cheney  |  Salon

Don’t dismiss Dick Cheney as a fading punch line, or as tragedy reprised as comedy. While the Obama administration has adopted large numbers of policies that directly contradict Cheney’s positions, it would be a mistake to overlook Cheney’s continued influence on the executive branch through the precedents set by the Bush administration. Among the former vice-president’s most important legacies is increased government secrecy.

Are Economic Rights Fundamental Human Rights?  |  Miller-McCune

Human rights scholars recognize five broad categories of rights — civil, political, social, economic and cultural — outlined in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights but rarely embraced in their totality in practice. The West, and the U.S. in particular, has long focused on the first two categories, on abuses of the right to free speech or to due process. But for many human rights advocates and legal scholars, the recession lays bare that those kinds of rights do the world’s poorest little good without basic needs such as food, shelter and literacy.

‘I Don’t Believe I’ve Ever Met A Homosexual’  |  Obsidian Wings

Justice Powell was, as I said, the swing vote in a case that upheld criminalizing consensual gay sex carried out in the privacy of one’s own home. It seems pretty clear that he had no conception of what it was like to be gay, and was therefore in no position to decide on the importance of the rights that he was deciding on. That is not a good way to interpret the law when, as in this case, the importance of a right is central to the question whether or not it is protected. Consider how different things might have been had there been an openly gay man or woman on the Supreme Court, one who might have explained his or her take on this to Justice Powell.

The Immigration Fallacy  |  Will Wilkinson @The Week

The United States, this fabled land of immigrants, has fallen dismally far behind countries like Australia and Canada in openness to immigration. The Statue of Liberty may as well be moved to Vancouver’s English Bay where the “huddled masses yearning to breathe free” are now rather more welcome than in New York Harbor. Many Americans, convinced by arguments like Samuel Huntington’s, have come to believe that the institutions we so rightly cherish are too dependent on a feeble, endangered cultural inheritance to survive the bustling presence of strange languages, exotic gods, and pungent foods. That cultural fragility argument is false, and it deserves to die.

News for May 4

The Revenge of Geography  |  Foreign Policy

People and ideas influence events, but geography largely determines them, now more than ever. To understand the coming struggles, it’s time to dust off the Victorian thinkers who knew the physical world best. A journalist who has covered the ends of the Earth offers a guide to the relief map—and a primer on the next phase of conflict.

Warmer Weather Makes People More Sure about Global Warming  |  The Monkey Cage

“For each three degrees that local temperature rises above normal, Americans become one percentage point more likely to agree that there is “solid evidence” that the earth is getting warmer.”

The paper is by Patrick Egan and Megan Mullin, and their money graph is above. They linked Pew survey data to the local temperatures in each respondent’s zip code in the week before the survey. Of course, the weather isn’t the most important factor; party identification and ideology have a much larger effect on attitudes. But the effect of the weather is still noteworthy. Egan and Mullin argue that its effects are particularly noteworthy among those who pay less attention to politics. Find the paper here.

Why Does the Supreme Court Hate White Men?  |  Ezra Klein @The American Prospect

“Let’s put all this in perspective,” writes Adam Serwer. “There have been 110 Justices on the Supreme Court. Of those, two have been women, and two have been black. The other 106 have been white men. That means that around 96% of Supreme Court Justices have been white men.” The “this” that Serwer is perspectivizin’ is Mark Halperin’s unfortunate decision to respond to Souter’s retirement by pasting a giant ‘WHITE MEN NEED NOT APPLY” headline across his blog. Classy work, Mark.

• Related link: Mark Halperin and the White Man’s Burden  |  DailyKos

The World’s New Numbers  |  Wilson Quarterly

Something dramatic has happened to the world’s birthrates. Defying predictions of demographic decline, northern Europeans have started having more babies. Britain and France are now projecting steady population growth through the middle of the century. In North America, the trends are similar. In 2050, according to United Nations projections, it is possible that nearly as many babies will be born in the United States as in China. Indeed, the population of the world’s current demographic colossus will be shrinking. And China is but one particularly sharp example of a widespread fall in birthrates that is occurring across most of the developing world, including much of Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. The one glaring exception to this trend is sub-Saharan Africa, which by the end of this century may be home to one- third of the human race.

America’s Necessary Dark Night of the Soul  |  Salon

Now, ready or not, America faces the summing-up. The clamor for a truth commission to look into the lies, excesses and illegal acts committed during the Bush years has forced the country to decide not just whether it wants to investigate and possibly prosecute former officials, but whether it wants to look into the mirror — whether it wants to investigate itself. For the painful truth is that for a long time, a majority of Americans implicitly or explicitly supported most of Bush’s policies and actions. As Garrison Keillor noted in these pages, “I think the American electorate knew whom they reelected in 2004. Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney did not run on a human-rights platform. They ran as rough men who would guard our sleep. So go talk to the voters of Ohio about war crimes.”

Next Page »