On HU
For our Featured Archive post, Richard Cook provides a gallery of comic book santas.
Richard Cook on Tron Legacy and our beneficent economic overlords.
Me on Grant Morrison’s Batmen and the endless iteration of our pop crap souls.
Me on Wonder Woman #25 and Habibi.
Eddie Campbell (from comments) on Persepolis and Habibi.
A download of music from women singers around the world.
Tom Crippen with a gallery of work by cartoonist and illustrator Robert Binks.
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Utilitarians Everywhere
On Splice Today I review a rereleased album by the Nigerian Lijadu Sisters.
Also on Splice, I argue that Ron Paul’s racism doesn’t necessarily lose him my vote since his opponents are either actual or wannabe war criminals and torturers.
Other Links
Monika Bartyzel on the sexualization of Lisbeth in Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.
Dan Kois on Broadcast News.
Ethan Heitner with a comic interview with a Palestinian artist and activist.
Laura Hudson with a great review of Carla Speed McNeil’s Finder.
Man, Andrew Sullivan is a real dipstick. 30 years of racist, xenophobic, conspiratorial writing under the name of Ron Paul wasn’t enough in 2008 or even now to convince Sullivan that this guy with ultra-nationalist, fascist-leaning friends (including a Christian Reconstructionist as a right-hand man) wasn’t fit to hold any sort of office. No, instead, it’s the fact that Paul hasn’t properly addressed what was said under his name. This was all resolved back in 2008 to anybody with the least bit of rational thinking skills by James Kirchick’s “Angry White Man”:
Look at his connections, for fuck’s sake. What he says or won’t say now is completely beside the point.
As for supporting this racist, lying toad based on his foreign policy: It’s a matter of xenophobia. I agreed with some of Pat Buchannan’s stance on Israel back in 2000, but it’s sheer lunacy to trust world peace to an isolationist fear of others. Occasionally being right for the most egregiously wrong reasons is not a sensible basis for support.
Noah–
You might enjoy Glenn Greenwald’s latest, which is about the respective candidacies of Obama and Paul. I especially liked this paragraph, which describes the intellectually honest reasons for supporting Obama between the two:
Yes, I’m willing to continue to have Muslim children slaughtered by covert drones and cluster bombs, and America’s minorities imprisoned by the hundreds of thousands for no good reason, and the CIA able to run rampant with no checks or transparency, and privacy eroded further by the unchecked Surveillance State, and American citizens targeted by the President for assassination with no due process, and whistleblowers threatened with life imprisonment for “espionage,” and the Fed able to dole out trillions to bankers in secret, and a substantially higher risk of war with Iran (fought by the U.S. or by Israel with U.S. support) in exchange for less severe cuts to Social Security, Medicare and other entitlement programs, the preservation of the Education and Energy Departments, more stringent environmental regulations, broader health care coverage, defense of reproductive rights for women, stronger enforcement of civil rights for America’s minorities, a President with no associations with racist views in a newsletter, and a more progressive Supreme Court.
Click here for the whole article.
Charles, I’ve just been reading Ha-Joon Chang’s “Bad Samaritans,” for example, which explains in painful detail why the internationalist regime is basically a conspiracy of bullying. Isolationism and anti-imperialism have long historic roots, and Ron Paul’s arguments against intervention are often explicitly anti-imperialist. Moreover, I don’t actually give much of a shit why politicians are for the policies they are for. They’re all lying bastards anyway. The point is, are we going to continue to remotely slaughter Pakistani children or not? I don’t really care if the answer to that is “No, we’re not going to slaughter Pakistani children because we don’t care about Pakistan,” or if the answer is, “No, we’re not going to slaughter Pakistani children because it’s evil,” as long as the answer is “no.”
I think you’re actually raising a really interesting point, though, which is that non-interventionist, essentially nationalist policies are often associated with racism and xenophobia. I think that trying to find a way to disconnect those two — to have a non-interventionist policy that is also anti-racist, for example — is hugely important. I think Ron Paul, in disavowing those newsletters, and in trying to form a coalition that reaches out to liberals rather than Lew Rockwell, is an imperfect, really problematic step, but nonetheless a step, in the right direction. I understand that reasonable people can disagree about that.
Robert — yeah, I like Glenn Greenwald a lot, and I agree with that article wholeheartedly. Demilitarization abroad and the end of the drug war at home are really *the* most important issues for me. I can forgive a lot to a candidate who is right on those issues, in no small part because every other candidate is so enthusiastically wrong about them.
It’s a bit odd that you cite an anti-free trade book in defense of an absolutist about free trade. What ever evils are detailed therein definitely won’t be fixed by a guy who has no problem dealing with any nation, regardless of how much the workers are treated like mulch, so long as they don’t attack us. That’s a highly immoral view. At least Buchanan was an economic isolationist, too.
And supporting Paul just because a few of his positions happen to align with the absent left position won’t further the latter, only help legitimize the far right, thereby shifting the country even more rightwards. An unregulated capitalist order will only expand. Contrary to your own take, I believe a particular position obtains much of its meaning (its direction) within a worldview.
And, really, does anyone believe that Paul wouldn’t be willing to kill a lot of innocents if he felt the US’ economic survival was at stake? He’s already proven that he doesn’t give a shit about how workers are treated anywhere in the world. It all comes down to what he considers an “attack” on us.
Ah, but you’re assuming that free trade means free trade. Actually, it means shoving trade deals down other country’s throats and generally behaving as economic imperialists. Paul wants us to mind our own business. That would fix a lot of the problems that Chang is talking about. As would Paul destroying our domestic economy, for that matter. Hard to throw your weight around when you’re experiencing economic apocalypse. I have to say, I am tempted to vote for Paul just because I hate America.
In any case, jumping up and down and shouting about morality re: Paul looks pretty silly when the other people you can vote for either advocate torture or are already war criminals. Obama claims to care about the rest of the world, but that doesn’t stop him from bombing the shit our of anybody who looks at him cross-eyed. Worldviews are important, but pretending that politicians’ rhetoric has anything to do with how they actually behave is just going to leave you either perpetually disappointed or ignorant.
Paul is not an ideal candidate for many, many reasons. But he’s not going to legitimize the drug war the way Obama has done, and he’s not going to legitimize war crimes the way Obama has done. The only way those positions can ever be de-legitimized is if we have candidates who are willing to argue against them. As long as there’s a right-left consensus, there’s no debate, and no possibility of change. For that reason, I’m willing to accept arguments against them even when they’re uttered by people who I disagree with in many other ways. Like I said, those issues are really important to me; much more important than whether or not we trade with countries with unpleasant regimes; much more important than whether a candidate has associated with extremely shady characters; much more important, even, than abortion rights. Imperialism and the drug war are the central evils of American politics at the moment, in my view. I think that they make other progressive goals difficult to impossible, and are responsible for a whole host of other subsidiary evils (like the militarization of schools, for example, or our crazed relationship with Israel.) If you disagree, you disagree, but it would be helpful for you to say so rather than pretending that your support for some other candidate is unproblematic, or has no unpleasant moral implications.
Googled around a bit; Ron Paul seems pretty firmly opposed to the IMF, the WTO, NAFTA, and other international agencies that abrogate trade sovereignty. So, yeah, I think he and Ha-Joon Chang would have a lot to agree on. For instance, this:
To which I say, fuck yes.
Hey Noah, I admire your willingness to consider a candidate whose election would so directly work against your own self-interest. That said, I’m not sure that a US president who would, inter alia, deregulate the financial market, gut the EPA, and withdraw the US from the International Criminal Court, would be an unalloyed force for good in the broader global community.
Anyway, quasi-factual question: what difference can the president actually make to drug-enforcement? I can think of two ways — (1) pass new legislation that would weaken the “war on drugs”; or (2) direct federal agencies, chiefly the FBI and DEA, to knock it off with the narcotics investigations. (1) seems unlikely, whoever’s in control of either legislative house, and (2) only lasts 8 years, maximum. But, shit, what do I know about the US political system — I learned most of it from a Cantonese-dubbed VHS of Mr Smith Goes to Washington — so lay some knowledge on me.
Hey Jones! Congrats on being the first commenter of the new year!
I don’t think I ever said anything about Paul being an unalloyed good? There would definitely be much downside, anyway you look at it.
In terms of what Paul could do with the drug war…yes, there are limits, but that’s true of any American president with pretty much any policy. For example, Paul’s ability to wreck the American economy would also be limited by Congress (for better or worse.)
But he would have the ability to ratchet down enforcement, which I think would be as good for as long as it lasted. He’d also be able to veto new drug war initiatives, which would be a good thing. And he’d be the first American president actively making the case for less drug war nonsense, which would make that a mainstream position rather than a pitiful cry in the wilderness. I think all of that would be great and very helpful, albeit certainly in no way a millenium of peace and prosperity.
I think practically a Paul presidency would make it very feasible that the Federal government would recognize medical marijuana laws, for example, possibly even by statute. That’s a relatively small step towards what I’d like to see with the drug war, but it wouldn’t be nothing.
Oh..and in terms of imperial foreign policy, Paul would definitely have a major impact. Our chances of fighting a war (or a proxy war) with Iran would drop significantly if Paul were president. That’s really worth something to me.
Disgusted as I am with Obama…
http://images2.dailykos.com/i/user/310373/831.png
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Glenn Greenwald has a nice observation in The Guardian that’s worth noticing. His key point — Obama is so far to the right, especially on national security, that no GOP candidate can get to his right and look credible…
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Much more at http://www.americablog.com/2011/12/gop-problemthey-cant-get-to-right-of.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Americablog+%28AMERICAblog%29
…I’d still vote for him, holding my nose. Because anything from the Republicans would overall be much worse; that’s how ultra-far-right and insane the GOP has become.
Noah, d’you really think that a President Paul could unilaterally end the War on Drugs, American interventionism? And you’re willing to put up with the disastrous policies he would pass, being popular with his party, if he could simply limit the more egregious aspects of the War on Drugs? (First formally declared by another Republican, Nixon…)
And, sheesh; you get more exercised over the cartoon stereotype racism of fictional characters like Ebony White and in “Tintin in the Congo,” than about the actual racism, defense of David Duke (former Neo-Nazi, Grand Wizard of the KKK) in Ron Paul’s newsletters?
As posted elsewhere, see “A Collection of Ron Paul’s Most Incendiary Newsletters” at http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/98883/ron-paul-incendiary-newsletters-exclusive …
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People looking for an idealistic hero famously latch onto Paul with a messianic fervor, choosing to look past his opposition to the 1964 Civil Rights Act (which outlawed racial segregation and employment discrimination), his absolutist stance against abortion in any and all circumstances, his links to the John Birch Society, the reams of racist newsletters put out in his name, and his links to the Christian Reconstructionist ideology that aims to bring civil law in line with the law of the Hebrew Bible, where adulterers and gay men are stoned in the public square…
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Much more, at http://www.alternet.org/teaparty/153511/How_Ron_Paul_Could_Win_Iowa_Caucuses_–_and_Screw_Up_Everything_/?page=1
And he’s a homophobe, too:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/29/ron-paul-twitter_n_1173600.html
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Eric Dondero, an aide to Ron Paul from 1987 to 2003
…insists Congressman Paul is not anti-?gay, but details two shocking anti-?gay incidents, including Dr. Paul’s refusal to use a restroom owned by a gay man, and even refusing to shake hands with a top gay campaign donor.
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Details at http://my.firedoglake.com/teddysanfran/2011/12/27/is-ron-paul-also-homophobic/
Presidents have a pretty free hand with things like invading foreign countries and killing foreigners with drone strikes. Paul could make a really big difference with that, at least for the time he was in office.
Paul’s personal prejudice against gays has little to do with his policies, which are easily the most gay-friendly of any of the republican candidates. He’s strongly against DOMA, which is more than Obama can say.
Ebony White is really a disgraceful racial stereotype. The stuff in Ron Paul’s newsletters is also disgraceful. If Will Eisner were running for President, disavowed Ebony White, and pledged to end imperialism and the drug war, I’d be considering voting for him the same way I’m considering voting for Paul. By the same token, if someone suggested that Ron Paul’s newsletters were some of the greatest prose ever committed to paper, I would point out that they’re disgraceful racist nonsense, and that that should matter in any assessment of their aesthetic worth.
“Ah, but you’re assuming that free trade means free trade.”
No, I’m assuming that Ron Paul opposes free trade agreements for different reasons than leftists. He doesn’t want any infringement on American sovereignty, our ability to do business without a concern for any workers in the world who might be affected in the process. The WTO or the UN are world organization’s which ostensibly provide some regulation on our own behavior. That’s what he doesn’t like. Leftists on the other hand oppose the way the US has used those organizations as a tool to spread their own brand of corporatism (delusional “free trade”) globally. Consider a grounding concern for someone like Chomsky regarding globalization and free trade:
Paul’s solution is radical deregulation (while also emphasizing the need to wall up our borders against illegal immigrants — and as Zizek has noted, ‘immigrants’ has largely replaced the term ‘workers’ in modern times — so what entities would this deregulation serve? Those of capital, of course). He’s a radical Reaganite. An agenda that’s even further to the right of what we had in the 80s, that’s what you’ll be voting for.
Except Reagan was an unabashed imperialist. Which was the worst part of his agenda, as far as I’m concerned (along with the ongoing use of the police state against the underclass.) Reagan without Iran/Contra or SDI is a Reagan I can live with, if my alternatives are ongoing drone strikes, de facto amnesty for war criminals, and a possible war with Iran.
Just to check — you’re good with secret drone strikes? De facto amnesty for war criminals? Possible war with Iran? I’ve repeatedly acknowledged problems with Paul, and pointed out that they’re reasons I might not vote for him. Your position would look a lot more intellectually honest if you’d fess up to problems with Obama — unless you don’t think there are any? I mean, what is the balance you’re working with? Racist newsletters and deregulation are worse than torture and war? It’s not an indefensible position, but it’s somewhat different than “racist newletters and deregulation are bad”, yes?
Re, nationalism. Yes, Paul believes very strongly in national sovereignty, which is why he’s opposed to the WTO, etc. But I’m good with that. Especially after reading this book by Chang…national sovereignty, and national interest, is a major way that successful economies have developed themselves. Internationalism (like the WTO, the IMF, etc.) tend to be mostly about enforcing the rule of the powerful under cover of claims of justice. Chomsky’s borderless world is not necessarily a better, or a more just vision, than a vision of a world of individual sovereign nations who don’t gratuitously fuck with each other. At least as far as I can tell, nations in Paul’s ideal world would be able to adopt tariffs if they wanted to; there wouldn’t be organizations to stop them, right? That would be a huge boon for development across the globe, as far as I can see.
There are lots and lots of things about Paul I don’t like, but his opposition to the WTO and the IMF are major plusses in my book. And his reasons for opposing them don’t seem either insane or evil, though they’re not exactly my reasons.
I have to say, so far the main effect of this discussion has been to make me more fully cognizant of the extent to which Paul is against the IMF, WTO, etc., which has not exactly turned me against him.
“I don’t think I ever said anything about Paul being an unalloyed good”
Oh, of course. But I was understating; the point is not just that a Paul presidency would have downsides for the international community. It’s that those downsides could well outweigh whatever positives might come from not choosing new places to drop bombs on and dropping out of the UN…particularly since the downsides need not be produced only by decisions in what we’d normally think of as “foreign policy”. I’m thinking particularly of his staunch opposition to regulation, which would almost certainly make things so much worse in the domains of, among other things, environment and finance.
I’m not exactly sure how much worse things could get in finance, really. But there’d be a limit to what he could deregulate in any case; as with everything, you’ve got to go through congress.
And it’s worth pointing out that I think a war with Iran would be really, really, really bad.
But for me this would be an instance where the campaign would really matter. I’d have to see what Paul and Obama said for themselves before I figured out who to vote for. But I do think having one candidate making the case for an end to imperialism would be a good thing.
With my Banker hat on, things in finance could get a great deal worse. But there are plenty of ways it could get worse without Paul (Bye bye E.U…), and a few ways it might improve despite him. For instance, if Paul managed to stand by the ‘no bailout’ policy alongside the ‘no regulation’, then you may see the internal regulation of the industry step up considerably. Of course you might also see a big Bank go bust and send the world economy into recession, but the point is it would be a radical change in the rules of the game, and it’s really difficult to predict exactly how the Banks, Hedgies etc would react (particularly the international ones). Likewise, the whole ‘internally competing currencies’ idea, while probably crazy, does have some interesting theory behind it.
I’m with you here though Noah, I just like that these ideas are even being discussed by a serious candidate. Even the really crazy ones make the whole debate a little more honest.
I’ve kind of been ignoring the ‘war with Iran’ strand mostly because I can’t comprehend it actually happening. What could the U.S actually do beyond lobbing missiles and the odd special forces at them (or getting Israel to do the same)? It just seems such a fools errand that I cant imagine any candidate actually going through with it. Thats probably my mistake, and maybe because I’m not in the U.S, but how realistic do you actually think a full scale invasion would be under any candidate?
Hey Ben. Where are you, by the way? I know Jones is in Australia, but I just realized I don’t know where you’re located.
RE: Iran. I wish I knew what the fuck our government was or was not likely to do. Invading Iran seems clearly insane, but we’ve done clearly insane things in recent memory. I’d say air strikes are much more likely than a ground invasion. Hopefully it wouldn’t escalate, but the Israeli government seems completely nuts, and our domestic politics have us stapled to them for reasons which are equally loopy.
This is why talking about Paul’s crankiness or craziness just seems utterly beside the point. One party is currently committed to torture as a core tenet and the other party is equally committed to looking the other way. That seems plenty unhinged to me.
Well, you can de facto deregulate by sabotaging regulatory agencies in lots of different ways…for instance, I’ve been reading that Republicans in Congress have been doing this lately by blocking nominated candidates for key positions in various agencies. Or you can appoint super-business-friendly people who’ll basically hobble the agency. You can defund it. You can put pressure on them to not pursue certain prosecutions, or to impose inadequate punishment settlements which amount to essentially turning a blind eye to regulatory violations (paging Matt Taibbi…).
And, on top of all this, you’ve got one party which is delighted to deregulate when it benefits their constituency. Add a tax cut for the rich to a deregulation bill, and you’ve a job-creating bill that no Republican could turn down, and Democrats, well…
Yeah, Iraq was fairly insane, and so was Afghanistan, but it seems like the opposition to the Iran situation is more solid and entrenched than in either of those cases? Probably because opposition to war with Iran can be couched in terms of ‘it’d be really really hard’ as well as the moral/political argument. Again, that (mis)perception might be because I’m not hearing the debate in the U.S properly, and I can certainly see the situation where Israel starts it and the U.S escalates. Oh well.
It seems a failure of the U.S system that Paul is a member of the GOP. He’s so ideologically seperate from any other candidate, yet he’s compelled to try for the Rep nomination in order to have any realistic chance of getting anywhere.
Home for now is Kuala Lumpur by the way. I get moved around quite regularly.
Yeah. Republicans have been blocking pretty much everything is my understanding.
The main way Paul would try to deregulate, though, is through defunding everything. He want a massive contraction of the government, and I think has threatened to veto any budget that isn’t balanced, which would have pretty extreme consequences. On the one hand, lots of domestic programs would be hurt or eliminated…on the other, there’d be massive cuts in defense. Again, it’s scary…but the status quo is fairly frightening as well.
Wait…are you a journalist now, Ben?
I think it would be unlikely that we’d go from 0 to air campaign in Iran tomorrow. However, the situation seems fairly volatile, and I could see, say, Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz, there being some sort of incident around that, and then planes being sent. Or even some sort of terorrist attack which is or is claimed to be linked to Iran…you just don’t know. This is why saber-rattling is frightening; it’s hard to contain once it gets started.
Nothing so exciting. I’m doing some Islamic Finance analysis for one of the mega huge evil banks. Hence I have a temporary Banker hat, however poorly it fits.
RE: Iran, yeah, I can see that situation too. I’d be skeptical of Paul’s ability to restrain a reaction if the Straits were closed, but I agree that he seems as if he’d try a whole lot harder than anyone else.
Huh…that sounds pretty interesting. When you say islamic finance, do you mean banks that don’t charge interest (I can’t remember the name now…) I read a little about that here and there….
Ummm, well it’d be more accurate to say ‘Banks who operate under Shariah principles’ seeing as there are a whole host of differences, but the prohibition of riba (interest/usury) is definitely one of the big ones.
It’s interesting in so far as the whole phenomenon started as an attempt to provide an equitable and ethical alternative to capitalism, it’s interesting in how it’s become tied up in cultural identities and ethnic politics, and it’s very interesting if you want to invest in developing countries, but it’s also a bit depressing how rapidly the mind-set has changed from ‘let’s make banking/economics more moral’ to ‘how can we do immoral banking/economics despite these pesky restrictions?’. However the committees of Shariah scholars (which each bank is required to have) tend to keep things vaguely honourable, and it’s perhaps poignant that most of the new regulations being suggested for conventional finance are ones which, for all its ideological failures, the Islamic model has been holding to for years.
So…yeah…comics eh?
“it’s also a bit depressing how rapidly the mind-set has changed from ‘let’s make banking/economics more moral’ to ‘how can we do immoral banking/economics despite these pesky restrictions?’”
Ah, well, that’s just the way humans work….
If you ever want to do a post for HU on islamic banking, that would make me happy. Screw comics.
“Just to check — you’re good with secret drone strikes? De facto amnesty for war criminals? Possible war with Iran? I’ve repeatedly acknowledged problems with Paul, and pointed out that they’re reasons I might not vote for him.”
I’ve looked around for evidence that Ron Paul wouldn’t continue with the de facto amnesty of war criminals. All I could find was this clip from C-Span, where he supported the investigation, which could’ve led to impeachment. He was undecided until further evidence, which is, I guess, still forthcoming. I predict that the “amnesty” would continue under his presidency.
What should be done about those who actively try to kill Americans? According to Paul, “Nobody will ever dare attack us[.] They’re not about to invade this country any time soon.” That’s factually wrong, so pretty easy to dismiss. Granting that Al Qaeda is quite willing to attack us (as has already been proven in reality), what should be done? Paul is silent on this as far as I can tell. I suppose he would just let our problems with the organization sort themselves out, once we’ve withdrawn from the world stage. Since we’re choosing our favorite right-wing nutjobs, Pat Buchanan actually has a pretty good, reasoned analysis of assassinating Anwar al-Alwaki. This isn’t an easy issue. However, I’d say justice would’ve been served had someone put a bullet in, for example, General Pinochet’s head, rather than the misguided attempts to bring him to trial. Similarly, Alwaki deserved to die. And so did bin Laden. Any trial would’ve simply been a technicality for a foregone conclusion. Paul (in the link) brings up the case of Eichmann — there was no way that guy was getting off. And his capture involved a covert “invasion” into another country. Isn’t that one of those internal matters — i.e., letting whoever wants to live in a country live there — that Paul is so determined to respect? I’m not so sure that simply killing Eichmann on the spot would’ve made much of a difference. Legal entanglements often lead to quite immoral results (cf. any dictator who gets to live out his days in peace). Eichmann deserved to die (as Paul concedes), regardless of the fact that his living had nothing to do with Israel’s national security. But doesn’t this style of reasoning open us to our own possible war criminals being dismissed in a similar fashion? Sure, morally, some country (say, Chile) might invade the US, capture Kissinger and bring him to trial. I’d have a hard time saying they shouldn’t. So, no, I’m not completely opposed to killing enemies with drones. But I’m also no fan of Obama’s, either. I’ll probably throw away my vote on some minor candidate for another party who has no chance of winning.
Paul’s arguments, as I’ve understood them, is that terrorists wouldn’t be coming after us if we got the hell out of the middle east. Which I think is right, personally.
I agree that nobody is probably going to pursue war criminals at this point. But…Paul’s response actually sounds legally right. The president shouldn’t prejudge the case; it’s up to the justice department to investigate. The obama administration appears to have actively interfered in the justice department investigation (from Glenn Greenwald’s latest book, at least.)