Today

Is Pride Day in Chicago -- the day of the Parade. That means that the North Side, from about Armitage to Wilson and east of Damen, is going to be a wee bit crowded. (Well, with a million visitors crammed into that space, what do you expect?)

And of course, as always, it's clear and bright because it never rains on our parade.

A few shots of Prides past:

It's all about color and motion and celebration -- it's a happy thing. And it's a family event -- people bring their kids to watch the dancers and the balloons and the streamers and the excitement.

I started attending the Parade, if not right at the beginning, very soon thereafter. The route was somewhat shorter, the Parade was much smaller, and the crowds were nowhere near what they are today. I've marched -- at first, it was spontaneous: the last float went by, I looked at my friends, they looked at me, and we just joined the Parade -- I've ridden floats, and I've watched from the sidelines.

These days, the idea of watching the Parade with a million of my closest friends is a bit more than I can deal with -- I'm not good with crowds. So I will most likely find a bus that will leave me somewhere in the park and watch the kids wearing rainbows when the Parade is over. That's something that makes me happy: the kids get very involved. That's a good thing.

About Diversity

The sort of fun thing (well, I think it's fun) that we may soon lose: I just got a notice from Medicare for a claim that was submitted last year. The fun part is that they include a notice about calling for information if you have questions. The notice is printed in (alphabetical order): Arabic, Armenian, Farsi, French, German, Haitian Creole, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Tagalog, and Vietnamese.

Oh, yeah -- and English.

Where but America?

In Trump's America

Things like this happen:

According to a police report Knoble — who described herself to police as a ‘soccer mom’ — confronted Adly Ohalley and his wife, Worood Abumayaleh, as they sat in their car in Brooklyn Park waiting for their son.

“Suddenly a lady came with a rifle,” Abumayaleh said in an interview. “Knocking very very hard. And she said, ‘Open the window or I’ll kill you. Open the window.’ And I was scared, I couldn’t even call 911 or do anything. I just froze, my brain froze. I just said, ‘Maybe she’s going to kill us now.'”

“She asked us, ‘What are you doing here?’ I told her that we are picking up our son from this house. She said, ‘What house?’ I said, ‘This house,'” Ohalley recalled, before adding, ” “So she came around with her rifle, pointed it at me, and said, ‘Get out of the car, and move in front of me to the house to prove that your son’s in there. So she put the gun on my back.”

As you might guess from their names, Mr. Ohalley and Ms. Abumayaleh are Muslim.

But, we've not quite arrived at the trumpbagger paradise yet: Knoble was arrested, tried and convicted of "felony terroristic threats."

But give it time.

Diversity in TV

That's something that's been at the back of my mind since I got a TV and a subscription to Netflix, brought to the fore by this post at Towleroad: they've been running a series on "gay icons," highlighting all the usual suspects, but this one's a little different: Shonda Rhimes, whose visibility is not anywhere near the level of a Madonna or Lady Gaga, but whose influence is probably greater:

But what about an ally that’s leaving her mark on pop culture behind the scenes?

Enter Shonda Rhimes, a TV master so powerful that ABC handed her an entire night of their primetime schedule. Her shows have become some of the most talked about series of the last decade, blending steamy sex scenes, ripped-from-the-headlines commentary and so much soapy melodrama. But through it all, she’s also been committed to diversifying the kinds of stories we see on television. Her casting process for breakout hit Grey’s Anatomy made headlines for the “colorblind” role descriptions that yielded one of the most richly diverse ensembles on television.

Part of that inclusive approach includes telling stories of LGBT characters.

Eureka Cast

Their emphasis, of course, is on increasing visibility of gay and lesbian characters on hit TV series. What I've been noticing, watching older series (or the older seasons of current series -- I'm a binge-watcher who hates having to wait a week for the next installment) is that the overwhelming majority of series I've been watching are much more diverse than what I remember from the past: women in major roles, including leads, who are not window-dressing, but strong, independent characters in their own right (Audrey Parker (played by Emily Rose) in Haven, Rosalie Calvert (Bree Turner) in Grimm, just to name the two that come immediately to mind); and a marked racial diversity, including mixed couples, on just about every series that I've been watching (which include Haven, Grimm, Firefly, Arrow, and Eureka -- and which reminds me, I have to catch up on The Flash).

Nathan Wuornos' Dream

I have to say, though, that most of them do not include gay characters, with the exception of Torchwood, but then again, these are all older episodes, and limited pretty much to what's available on Netflix. I have noticed a tendency, however, for a lot of male skin -- major male characters in Haven and Firefly have nude or nearly-nude scenes, and both Oliver Queen (Steven Amell) and Roy Harper (Colton Haynes) spend a lot of time shirtless in Arrow. Another thought: there is some very interesting chemistry between Nathan Wuornos (Lucas Bryant) and Duke Crocker (Eric Balfour) in Haven.

What I do find interesting is that both DC and Marvel have incorporated gay characters into their comics (Marvel with rather more success than DC), but neither has made the jump to incorporating them into their films or TV series.

Eventually. Can we hope for a Young Avengers or Teen Titans movie?

They Might As Well Give Up

I spend way too much time surfing the Internet these days, when I should be doing things like cleaning house, but I do see some interesting trends.

If you follow this blog, you know I've spent a fair amount of time covering the marriage fight, but that's only part of the picture -- a high-profile part, to be sure, but only part. That's where the major campaign has been waged in the past few years, that's the one getting all the press, and that's the one leading to much wailing and rending of garments on the part of the guardians of "traditional values." (Who, as far as I'm concerned, have as much understanding of values as they do of morality, which is to say, rudimentary, at best.)

Yes, marriage is a fundamental and very important institution, but there's another one that's equally important and, if I may hazard an opinion, equally foundational: marketing.

OK, he's lost it, you're thinking. But consider: we are basically a capitalist society. Not purely capitalist, because that inevitably leads to disaster, but in all essentials, we have private producers and purveyors who offer goods and services to the public. It's a consumer driven economy, and a society that is ultimately very materialistic. And of course, marketing is the means by which the producers and purveyors try to convince the consumers to buy their particular brand.

And look what's been happening lately:

From Banana Republic:

That's Nate Berkus and his fiance, Jeremiah Brent, in a campaign highlighting "real relationships."

And from Tiffany:

The couple, who are a real gay couple, remain anonymous at this point, but the caption is a winner:

"Will you promise to never stop completing my sentences or singing off-key, which I'm afraid you do often? And will you let today be the first sentence of one long story that never, ever ends? Will you?"

And to cap it off, this spot for the ACA:

(Via Joe.My.God.)

This is also a real-life couple.

The intent in these ads is plain: they want to appeal to younger people, those who are growing up with the ideas of diversity and inclusiveness (which, after all, are real American values: without those in the mix, this country would not have survived) as a firm part of their world view, and they want to appeal to the great middle, that majority of Americans who are not bothered by the idea of equal rights, including marriage, for gay people. They're aiming for the mainstream, which the Tony Perkinses and Bryan Fischers and Brian Browns are not. Americans are, on the whole, a tolerant people, no matter what you hear from the fringes. (And it's only the fringes that seem to get any coverage these days, I guess because they're loud and obnoxious and that somehow translates into ratings.) We as a people are pretty much live and let live, and we're rapidly approaching the point, if we're not already there, that for most people, something like that ad caption above generates an "Aww" and not a heart attack.

These are only the latest in a series of similar ads and TV spots going way back that have been cropping up more and more frequently, and which show no sign of disappearing.

I'm not the first to register on this: here's a story from Adweek from 2011 on "The 50 Gayest Ads Ever" that also demonstrates that the phenomenon is, and has been, global. In fact, other countries are way ahead of us. Remember this McDonald's ad, from France?

And this one, which led to one of those phenomenally successful (just ask them) boycotts from Anti-Gay, Inc.:

I think it was the tag line -- "This is wholesome" -- that caused heads to explode. Poor things. At any rate, you get the idea. It's a phenomenon that's been pretty much out of the spotlight, but it's been happening gradually, quietly (usually), and all over the world. It's called "normalization," and we're there.

Superheroes in the Movies

Marvel has announced its development schedule for the next few years,and everyone's very excited:

May 6, 2016 — “Captain America: Civil War”
Nov. 4, 2016 — “Doctor Strange”
May 5, 2017 — “Guardians of the Galaxy 2″
July 28, 2017 — “Thor: Ragnarok”
Nov. 3, 2017 — “Black Panther”
May 4, 2018 — “Avengers: Infinity War Part I”
July 6, 2018 — “Captain Marvel”
Nov. 2, 2018 — “Inhumans”
May 3, 2019 — “Avengers: Infinity War Part II”

Part of the excitement, at least in certain quarters, is the fact that Marvel will be headlining two superheroes who are, as this article at HuffPo puts it, not white males.

On Tuesday, you likely saw Twitter freak out when Marvel announced its upcoming development schedule. “What are all of these nerds so excited about?” you maybe asked. “Who is this Carol everyone is tweeting about?" Well, here's the answer: the next five years of our lives will include not one but two non-white-male superheroes, Black Panther and Captain Marvel (aka Carol Danvers). The solidified plans are an impressive contrast to DC's speculative releases, and because it’s about time a genre about otherness started representing superheroes who aren't straight white males.

The discussion surrounding minority superheroes usually boils down to a variation on this: "Who cares about diversity? Everyone will go see these movies anyway." That's why this locked-down Marvel schedule is such awesome news. Sure, DC made its stab at expanding the comic-book universe, but it's not the same. The studio set “Wonder Woman” for release some time in 2017, but didn't provide any specifics; it also cast Ray Fisher as Cyborg, who will make his debut during the face-off of "Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice" before coming to a theater near you on his own ... in 2020. (It's a release date so far in the future, Cyborg might actually exist at the point.) Also, does anyone actually give a crap about Cyborg? While we'll have to wait for a solid Apollo and Midnighter film, Tuesday's announcement is a step in the right direction.

There's a good point here -- gods know it's time we started seeing women and minorities in superhero films in other than supporting roles. (And a side note: it's interesting that the second G.I. Joe movie, Retaliation, starred Dwayne Johnson, who took over after they killed off Channing Tatum. Granted, the Joes are not, strictly speaking, superheroes -- their "abilities" come largely from technology -- but lumping them all together into the category "action/adventure with special abilities," it works for me. And that film is not the only one in that super-genre to star a black actor, by a long shot.)

I think, though, the article, and a lot of the reactions, miss a point: There's something to be said for the literal representation of minorities as heroes, but there's a larger message, especially in the Marvel Universe, which came out most obviously in the X-Men movies, was alluded to in The Avengers, and forms a subtext in most of Marvel's superhero films (so far). It was brought home to me in a wonderful scene in Jim Heinberg's Young Avengers comics, in which Billy Kaplan (Wiccan) comes out to his parents as a superhero -- or tries to. Teddy (Hulkling) is there, and Billy's mother jumps to the conclusion that he's finally confessing to being gay, passing out hugs all around while Billy's father welcomes Teddy to the family. The obvious point is that it's OK to be gay, but being a superhero (read "mutant")? Not so much. Or, short answer: these are stories about outsiders.

(By the way, why isn't someone doing a Young Avengers movie? Would beat the hell out of the Twilight spin-offs that have been cluttering up movie screens.)

I suppose, though, that for the movie-going public, some things have to be really, really obvious. And sometimes Hollywood needs a kick in the butt: it seems they can make a movie about minorities, but absorbing them into "mainstream" fare is still a bit of a reach.

Connections

From Mahablog, this reflection on Thanksgiving, a bit of Zen wisdom:

First, reflect on all the work that went into putting the meal on the table. This goes beyond just the cooking. There are grocers and truckers and farmers and suppliers of farmers. And all of those people are sustained by food provided by other cooks and grocers and truckers and farmers and suppliers. And don’t forget the non-human creatures represented on the table, from the turkey to the dairy cows and even the bees who make pollination possible. If you think about it, you realize the food in front of you represents a huge web of relationships that spreads across the globe.

Second, reflect on whether you are contributing to the greater good with your own life, and if the work you do is sustaining other people as much as their work sustains you.

Third, reflect on not being greedy.

Fourth, reflect on what food is really about — keeping us alive and healthy.

Fifth, reflect on “attaining the Way,” or realizing enlightenment. . . .

One of the things I like about the Reflections is that it reminds us we are not just passive recipients of God’s Blessings, but that we have received what we need to stay alive through the work of countless people. Further, we have a moral duty to contribute to others in return. In other words, it’s a reflection on how interconnected we all are and that we all depend on each other.

It's not too different from the basic Pagan mindset: we are all connected, we all derive benefit from each other, and thus, we all have a responsibility toward each other. I seem to remember something like that in Christianity, from my childhood Sunday School -- I think it starts off, in one version, "Do unto others. . . ."

There are some who don't feel that way:

The president could speak about Wall Street handing out record bonuses this year -- an estimated $144 billion to a relative handful of people, many of whom get richer by destroying wealth, including assets of state and local government pension funds whose losses we have to make up for with more taxes.

Those bonuses, by the way, are about 2.4 times expected Wall Street profits.

How about a presidential lecture on entitlements focused on Lloyd Blankfein, whose firm's bad bets taxpayers paid off at 100 cents on the dollar? The Goldman Sachs boss whines about making only $9 million last year because of his "sacrifice" and plans an extra-big payday this December to make up for last year.

The president could change the terms of our economic debate by talking about how much the vast majority props up many of those at the very top, starting with Blankfein. He could tell people about the trillion dollars a year of tax favors for corporations and the rich, as documented by the Shelf Project.

There's a basic concept here that apparently has eluded the Masters of the Universe: "enough." I mean, who needs $9 million a year? Who really needs that much money? And what does it say about anyone who expects that kind of "reward" after screwing over millions of people?

And in another vein, the same thing: just note anything that comes from Maggie Gallagher, Tony Perkins, Peter LaBarbera, Matt Barber, Mat Staver, or any of the other voices for the self-anointed "Christian" right: it's not about recognizing our interdependence -- and certainly not about "Do unto others."

And just remember, it's you, your brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, your kids, your neighbors, your coworkers that they're talking about.

Reviews in Brief

are on hiatus with everything else. Writing reviews right now is worse than pulling teeth, and I just don't see putting myself through that right now if I don't have to, and the nice thing about having your own blog is that you don't have to.

However, I'm getting new goodies, so this particular hiatus probably won't last all that long.

This Sort of Says It All

The President's family:

Doug Mills/The New York Times
Three generations of Barack Obama’s family celebrate.

And this says more:



“Our family is new in terms of the White House, but I don’t think it’s new in terms of the country,” Maya Soetoro-Ng, the president’s younger half-sister, said last week. “I don’t think the White House has always reflected the textures and flavors of this country.”

A Hero

And it's pretty revealing when you can quite honestly sit there and call an American who is standing up for justice and tolerance "a hero."

A straight Republican legislator in Wyoming, Dan Zwonitzer, who may very well have killed an anti-gay marriage bill. From Petrelis Files:

Thank you Mr. Speaker and Members of the Committee.

I am not going to speak of specifics regarding this bill, but rather talk about history and philosophy in regards to this issue.

It is an exciting time to be in the legislature while this issue is being debated. I believe this is the Civil Rights struggle of my generation.

Being a student of history, as many of you are, and going back through history, most of history has been driven by the struggle of man against government to endow him with more rights, privileges and liberties to be bestowed upon him.

In all of my high school courses, we only made it through history to World War 2. It wasn’t until college that I really learned of the civil rights movement in the 60’s. My American History professor was black, and we spent a week discussing civil rights. I watched video after video where people stood on the sidelines and yelled and threw things at black students walking into schools, I’ve read editorials and reports by both sides of the issue, and I would think, how could society feel this way, only 40 years ago.

Under a democracy the civil rights struggle continues today, where we have one segment of our society trying to restrict rights and privelges from another segment of our society. My parents raised me to know that this is wrong.

It is wrong for one segment of society to restrict rights and freedoms from another segment of society. I believe many of you have had this conversation with your children.

And children have listened, my generation, the twenty-somethings, and those younger than I understand this message of tolerance. And in 20 years, when they take the reigns of this government and all governments, society will see this issue overturned, and people will wonder why it took so long.

My kids and grandkids will ask me, why did it take so long? And I can say, hey, I was there, I discussed these issues, and I stood up for basic rights for all people.

I echo Representative Childers concerns, that testifying against this bill may cost me my seat. I have two of my precinct committee persons behind me today who are in favor of this bill, as I stand here opposed, and I understand that I may very well lose my election. It cost 4 moderate Republican Senators in Kansas their election last year for standing up on this same issue. But I tell myself that there are some issues that are greater than me, and I believe this is one of them. And if standing up for equal rights costs me my seat so be it. I will let history be my judge, and I can go back to my constituents and say I stood up for basic rights. I will tell my children that when this debate went on, I stood up for basic rights for people.

I can debate the specifics of this bill back and forth as everyone in this room can, but I won’t because the overall theme is fairness, and you know it. I hope you will all let history be your judge with this vote. You all know in your hearts where this issue is going, that it will come to pass in the next 30 years. For that, I ask you to vote no today on the bill. Thank you.

Here's another post from Petrelis discussing the situation in Wyoming and echoing my complaints about HRC. My bottom line on the national gay rights groups is that they've become too devoted to not rocking the boat. If you don't rock the boat, nothing happens.

On Sincerity

Atrios has an interesting post on a question that I touch here regularly: the religious motivation of values. I've mocked certain leaders of the religious right because I doubt there sincerity. Atrios has this to say about that, responding in different post to this statement by Ed Kilgore:

Here's how the regression from mockery of politics to mockery of religion to mockery of religious sincerity tends to work: Some people hold abhorrent political positions that they justify with religious principles you happen to consider a bunch of atavistic Hooey. You attack the positions on their dubious merits. You then go over the brink and attack the underyling Hooey. But since you think it's Hooey, you go on to suggest that the Hooey, being Hooey, is just a mask for very different motives (e.g., misogyny) that can be deplored without discussion of religion. Not being a regular consumer of Amanda Marcotte's blogging at Pandagon, I can't say for sure this is her pattern, but it is common in criticisms of religious-based opposition to equal rights for women and/or gays and lesbians.

Atrios responds:

I do agree that questioning the sincerity of peoples' faith does anger them. On the other hand, appealing to the sincerity of their beliefs is a way of privileging them, to put them in the realm of privileged discourse, as well as removing the person's responsibility. I don't really care if the desire to discriminate against gay people, or turn the uterus into state property, is motivated by sincere religious conviction. I don't think religious conviction, sincere or otherwise, makes your beliefs somehow special. If you think your misogyny or homophobia is sanctioned by God, it doesn't make you not a misogynist or homophobe.

Now, as one who has questioned the sincerity of belief in people such as James Dobson and Donald Wildmon, I should probably take a bit to explain that, if not justify it (the justification should, if I do it right, take care of itself). Another thing that's been cooking here is Jack Balkin's comments on the beliefs of the Christian right in the Ted Haggard matter -- Haggard and his fellows, according to Balkin, simply reject the idea of same-sex orientation as something innate and see it as temptation from the moral dictates of their god.

The thing that makes this an issue is the attempt to enforce these beliefs in the political realm, and it's there that I have trouble giving any credit to the Dobson Gang for sincerity.

It all revolves around the question of morality, which, in spite of what you may have heard from such luminaries as William F. Buckley, Jr. (One of the great howlers of the twentieth century: "Morality is an absolute.") or anyone else, is fluid and, if I may say so, tailored to the needs of a particular society at a particular time. What it boils down to is that morality is, in most instances, something that grows out of belief, and, as Atrios says, "people believe different stuff." (Yes, adherence to rationality and skepticism is as much a matter of belief as adherence to the idea that trinkets made of bone and hair have spiritual power.)

(Atrios has a series of posts on this, particularly one linking to this wonderful post by Mithras. Digby also weighs in.

At any rate, back to doubting the sincerity of the Christianists.

I have trouble believing that anyone can repeatedly espouse positions that fly in the face of all available evidence, particularly when those doing so reap great financial and political rewards for doing it. Take James Dobson, for example. He consistently misrepresents evidence concerning gays and child sexual abuse, child rearing, he's quoted quite cheerily Paul Cameron's gross distortions of other people's research, he has distorted others' research himself, has refused to acknowledge corrections he has received from many sources and, in the most recent case concerning his distortions of research in an OpEd for Time, engaged in specious arguments that "the data supported his conclusions" when in fact they didn't. And yet I'm supposed to believe that he is sincere.

I believe there is a commandment that says something like "thou shall no bear false witness." This is in the Bible, which Christians of Dobson's stripe insist is the inerrant word of God. Am I mistaken here?

Either the man is a cynical politician or he's delusional. (I'm sure there's a third possibility, but since Dobson lives in a black/white world, we'll play along for now.)

In other words, I'm basing my doubts about his sincerity on evidence, which is what one does when one is a post-Enlightenment American with training in science. The rhetoric heats up whenever there's an election, and now that the Republican party, through some vestigial instinct for self preservation, has started to move away from the Dobson Gang, there are calls of "payback time."

And, as Atrios quite rightly points out in the paragraph I quoted above, why give people like Dobson a free pass because their prejudices spring, at least ostensibly, from religious belief? If you're a bigot because of your religious beliefs, your still a bigot. As Atrios puts it:

I've had this conversation with anti-choice progressives, who think it's important for me to understand that their anti-choice views come from a sincere religious belief. The thing is, I just don't care. The fact that your political beliefs are motivated by your religion doesn't make them special to me.

This ties in with a couple of recent posts by Tristero over at Hullabaloo, here and here. He's coming from a slightly different angle, but I think plugging him in here is valid. Tristero's point is that you don't get any bonus points because your beliefs are based in your religion. (And at this juncture, the term "beliefs" is getting entirely too slippery -- for this post, it's been limited to the area of those beliefs centering on morality (and I mean as a real thing, not a checklist), social justice, and doing what society is basically supposed to do, which is take care of its members. All of them.)

So, the bottom line at this point is complete agreement with Atrios and Tristero: OK, your beliefs are sincere because they come from your religion. So what?

(PS -- this is the post I mentioned in the last post or two, and no, Jim Wallis isn't in it. I think I was probably going to write something on his piece and wound up junking it. Chalk it up to a shift in mode from verbal to visual. This hasn't been easy, you know.)

Cultural Exchange

Chris in Paris at AmericaBlog asks an interesting question:

Also, is this just another rich foreigner (or foreign government or NGO) who wants to do it their way instead of working with the local community to build a solution that is more integrated with local communities?

Oh, me. The lessons of history, etcetera etcetera. Oprah's approach, in the final analysis, smacks very much of a slightly more subtle brand of the cultural imperialism of the nineteenth century (and earlier, in the case of the Spanish in America), which was really nothing more than the deliberate destruction of native cultures. While I have some sympathy for the idea that in certain areas, some cultures could benefit by changes, to be really hard-nosed about it, what gives us the right to demand or instigate those changes? Our superior morality? Excuse me?

That seems to be the quandary of the PC left, except that area of the political spectrum is not marked by particularly rigorous thought so I doubt they ever notice that little problem.

It's obvious from the results of past "interventions" in native cultures that the problems will eventually pass far beyond those peoples into the larger world, and it's not always the results of deliberate cultural destruction. Look at the use in the tropics of farming methods developed in Europe and North America: total disaster. Look at the repeated attempts to impose "democracy" on nations with no traditions that feed into that particular concept, or feed into it in a way that doesn't fit our model. Sure, the Euro-American model works fine in Europe and America, and even places like India, Japan, and most of South America (finally). But other places, with stronger cultural traditions of their own, are prey to perversions of the model that cause us to recoil in horror -- such as Iraq before the invasion.

To be really dispassionate about it, we should just let cultures develop on their own, but that's a) impossible in this world, and b) we probably don't want to have to deal with the results in some cases.

So, I think in most cases my vote comes down on the side of working with native cultures to develop solutions to problems that fit their traditions and will lead to a more stable result, mostly because it you just butt in and start making changes to fit your world view without having a clear idea of what you're replacing, you're just making a mess. That said, Oprah's school seems like a good compromise, if you want to take responsibility for mucking around with someone else's culture.

Footnote: this post by poputonian at Digby's Hullbaloo gives a native take on European encroachment in North America. I should point out that cultural disruptions do not belong purely to Europeans and Americans, nor the the recipients of this bounty always non-White. There is ample demonstration in the history of the world that it's a bedrock phenomenon, whether the means is conquest, gradual "infiltration" due to migration or other causes, or trade, and happens no matter the color or ethnicity of the perpetrators. One can see a reflection of it in the development of languages -- think about things like loan words, or even the development of a language such as English, with its Germanic roots and Romance overlays, and even the deliberate piracy of the modern version. (In this light, it's no mistake that the Jesuit missionaries who ran the mission schools on North American Indian reservations forbade children to use their native tongues.)

The "Other"

Well, the end result of Republican policies and rhetoric:

A federal jury has ordered American Airlines to pay $400,000 to a computer consultant who was pulled from a flight at Logan International Airport because of security concerns, then denied reboarding even after he had been cleared by State Police.

"I felt like I was being treated like a terrorist and there was no way I could prove I didn't do anything or say anything at all," said John Cerqueira , 39, who grew up in Fall River and now lives in Miami. "I'm grateful to the jury for sending the message to American Airlines that just the use of the word security isn't an excuse for unlawful behavior."

Cerqueira, who was born in Portugal and is a US citizen, was returning to Florida after spending Christmas with his family when he boarded a non stop flight to Fort Lauderdale on Dec. 28, 2003. But before takeoff, Cerqueira said, the flight crew called police because of concerns about two Middle Eastern passengers who were seated beside him .

Cerqueira said he didn't know the men, who were Israelis, but believes he was taken into custody with the men because he looked like them.

This, sadly, is not an isolated incident, and even more sadly, underscores American's incipient racism. What's amazing is the arrogance of American Airlines' reaction:

A spokesman for American Airlines, Tim Wagner , said the company would not discuss the case, but released a statement saying, "While we respect the jury system, we disagree with this verdict. This decision is simply not supported by the facts or the law. We will evaluate our legal options."

Obviously, the decision is supported by the facts and by the law. Poor, pissed-on AA.

On the "racism" issue, I want to point out one thing: people are, I think, inherently "racist" in a sense, to the extent that I suspect it's hard-wired. Among social mammals one finds a deep sense of "us" and "other." It's particularly blatant among wolves and our own close relatives. The disturbing thing here is that our ideals say we shouldn't behave on those impulses, that it is not OK to cater to that innate distrust of the other -- if someone is to be denied the benefits of membership in our society, there must be a solid, rational reason, not one that takes its genesis from our "baser" instincts, but those who would cater to those instincts are developing not only a strong following (not a surprise, really -- in any group, there are those who have nothing but baser instincts) but seeking to justify their agendas in the law.

Which makes politicians such as Sam Brownback, Tom Tancredo, James Dobson and Donald Wildmon about the lowest scum you can find.

Of interest in this light is the series "Eliminationism in America" at Orcinus. A chilling portrait of the worst we can offer. Here's a link to the latest, which will give you links to the earlier installments.

Neiwert (I believe it's Neiwert, since it's uncredited and it's his site) notes one thing that struck a chord in me:

I also would sometimes hear black leaders and community members in Seattle talk about the somewhat hidden, institutionalized nature of racism in places like the Pacific Northwest, where people can be nice to your face and not so nice in action. And they would sometimes phrase it in stark terms, usually something along these lines:

"I would rather deal with Southerners, where the racism is up front and in your face, than people in places like this, where it's all nice and hidden."

I've run into the same thing with anti-gay prejudice, which, I suppose, is one reason I take social liberals with a grain of salt. I think they truly do believe what they're saying as long as it's an abstract concept, but when it comes closer to home, they're still closet bigots.

Liberals

Just a note -- more of a ramble, really -- on the continuing vilification of "liberals" by the right. I'm not even talking "classical" liberalism, necessarily -- today's liberalism in its essential characteristics is little different than the liberalism that informed the Founders when they put this country together.

A summary: liberalism is characterized by an emphasis on personal freedom balanced by the common good. It's as prone to nannyism as conservatism, but I think the motivations are more wholesome. (If you don't believe conservatism is prone to nannyism, you haven't been paying attention.) The problem with liberalism in this regard is that it wants everyone to conform voluntarily, and if they won't, liberals will pass laws to insure that they do. Conservatives won't bother with the voluntary part. This is the sort of thing conservatives come up with.

Liberals are skeptical, particularly about strong leaders. By way of contrast, Josh Marshall, in his follow-up to the post I linked to yesterday, points out a significant characteristic of the right:

President Bush [is] an epochal figure, a man of destiny in a grand historical struggle who has powers to answer to grander than Congress or the constitution.

I remember Clarence Thomas, I believe it was, in his Senate confirmation hearings, stating that he believed in a "higher law," which, if I had been in that chamber, would have diqualified him in my eyes immediately. For a Supreme Court justice, there can be no "higher law" than the Constitution. Liberals are willing to let the Constitution be the "sacred document" that forms the foundation of our society. Conservatives seem to need a god of some sort. Perhaps it's just that they can't bring themselves to trust humanity to that great an extent, whereas liberals are all about trusting people to do the right thing.

If you think Marshall's making this up, note this comment reported by Glenn Greenwald:

Boston Herald columnist Jules Crittenden assures us that salvation is imminent, in a post solemnly entitled "On Reflection":

George Bush will address us tonight, and show us the way forward.

We need merely place our Faith in the Strong and Great Leader and everything will good:

Tonight, our president is expected, once again, to defy the logic of polls and popularity, and dole out the bitter medicine. What must be done. What should have been done a long time ago. I remain confident in our future and the future of Iraq, because for now, we have a president who will do this.

Conservatism, particularly the messianic, evangelically tinged conservatism of today's far right, is prone to authoritarianism and hero-worship -- and frankly, they don't have a very good record in picking heroes. Remember, in 1776, it was the conservatives who wanted to be ruled by a king. Liberals find this sort of adulation suspicious, at best, and are much more prone to be looking at reality -- i.e., what has he/she actually done? (OK -- on the reality issues, the right wing has George W. Bush, the left wing has PETA. That just supports my ongoing contention that the extremes tend to meet in an area that has nothing to do with right or left.)

I'm not sure that the Republican party has been "hijacked" by the Christianists. I think that the Republicans always had that potential because they are, in effect, the party of received wisdom. They prefer a strong executive, while liberals prefer the brawling mess that is Congress. The Republicans move in lockstep, while the Democrats can't come up with a coherent agenda. (Sidebar and explication: A fault in contemporary discourse: the idea that the forms override the substance. In this example, to have an agenda doesn't say anything. The value of having an agenda depends entirely on content. Bush has an agenda. It's repellent to anyone who believes in what this country has always stood for, but he has one.)

What I find remarkable, Andrew Sullivan and other apologists notwithstanding, is conservatism's poverty of ideas. Liberalism can deal with rational argument based on empirical evidence. That's the basic mode. It's not mistake that this country is a product of the Enlightenment -- if it weren't for classical liberalism, there would be no USA as we know it. Conservatism, with its basis in received wisdom and tradition, is ill-equipped to deal with the rapidly changing circumstances of life in general, not to mention life in the contemporary world. It falls back on "realism" and "pragmatism" because the world doesn't behave the way it should to a conservative's way of thinking, so the theory goes out the window.

Liberalism is the basis of America. It always has been -- it's that basic thrust toward rule by the governed and the inclusion of everyone in that system that goes back to Andrew Jackson, if not before. It's been an incremental progress, but the basic idea has always been the same. Conseratives, by their very nature, are suspicious of the American system of government. (Granted, both the left and right have trouble with basic concepts such as minding their own business, but I don't think that's a matter of political philsophy, just that we are, biologically, social animals, even though theortetically we may admire the rugged individualist as he has become an American archetype -- Daniel Boone, for example, who I think would have been appalled at today's conservatives. The Puritans would be delighted.)

OK -- so it turned out to be more about conservatives than liberals.

Bias Is Not Right-Handed

This story, which came to me via e-mail, for some reason disturbed me a lot. I'm not sure why -- it's of a piece with so many stories recently about rabidly right-wing parents assaulting schools who try to deal with reality. (See this story, from the Brisbane Courier-Mail, and this one, from 365gay.com).

Maybe because in the St. Andrew's case, the discrimination is coming from the left, from a school that prides itself on openness and diversity, run by a denomination that is, at least, grappling honestly with the issue of gays.

One thing that struck me is that at no point, apprently, did the school administration address the issues openly with the students and parents. This was all behind closed doors stuff. What is the message there? "It's OK to be different if you keep it hidden"? Or is it simply "Don't worry, we know what's best"?

From the comments published, it seems that to the overwhelming majority of students and parents, the real issue was the rumors and the administration's reaction, not the teacher's acting roles. The students and most of the parents seem to feel this man is an exceptional teacher and the administration should have fought to keep him.

The headmaster's statement to parents, which is on the school's website, comes well after the fact and strikes me as essentially self-serving. He stresses that Mr. Giombetti "chose" to leave, while dismissing the thinly veiled threats from Giombetti's supervisor reported by Giombetti. (Considering what the context must have been, it's clear Giombetti didn't feel he had much of a choice.) This, I think, in light of the outcry from students and parents, is pretty much a CYA vehicle. "Working with" in this instance, based on the news reports and Giombetti's statements, seems to mean "do it our way or else." What's to work? As far as I'm concerned, a schoolteacher is entitled to a life, and not all of it needs to be under the school administration's supervision. I realize it's sort of foreign to the monotheistic world view, but the best solution is just to treat people like thinking, independent beings and level with them. (Apparently, one reason the students loved the teacher is that he did just that.)

And this is coming from the Left, to all intents and purposes. Maybe I'm getting too cynical, but I think I have reason: I remember too many instances from my own young manhood in which "liberal" friends and acquaintances couldn't quite keep the condescending tone hidden when my relationships came up. The worst part is, I think these people had convinced themselves that they were truly accepting of my life. I don't really think that attitude has changed much -- we're still not real people to most of the country, no matter how many of us are out.

I know -- it takes time, and continued contact, and a lot of challenging people on their basic assumptions and their habit of accepting without question whatever they hear from someone with an agenda.

It still pisses me off.