What Courage Means

Yesterday, as I was enjoying a rare glimpse of baseball on the MLB's site, I saw these players all sporting numbers they don't normally wear:
Caption: Cincinnati Reds relief pitcher Aroldis Chapman faces Philadelphia Phillies shortstop Jimmy Rollins in the top of the ninth inning in Cincinnati, April 15, 2013.

Image credit: Screenshot of Major League Baseball video by Cujo359

Yesterday was Jackie Robinson Day, when all players in Major League baseball wear Jackie Robinson's number to celebrate his leading role in desegregating baseball.

What did Robinson have to endure to do this? It doesn't take much imagination to realize that he would bear the brunt of taunts from both the fans and his fellow players. Any fan of the game would know there would be lots of physical intimidation from the latter. What most of us might not have imagined was what was probably the hardest part of Robinson's experience:

[Dodgers general manager Branch] Rickey had warned Jack – that’s what his friends and family called him – that the worst kind of race-baiting would come his way, and that he’d have to keep his cool.

Are you looking, Robinson asked Rickey, for a black man “who is afraid to fight back?”

“I need,” Rickey replied, “a player who has the guts not to fight back.”

Jackie Robinson and Remaking of Baseball

Caption: Jackie Robinson in 1954.

Image credit: Bob Sandberg/Look/Wikimedia

That was the deal Rickey and Robinson struck. For the first year, Robinson couldn't retaliate. As that quote implies, this wasn't in Robinson's nature. He was a former football player, and someone used to responding to force with some of his own. Yet in the Major Leagues of 1947, he'd have to endure bean balls, spikings, and more for an entire season, and not retaliate. Rickey knew that if Robinson did retaliate, then they would be blamed, not the bigots and racists who committed the offenses.

Why did Rickey do this? No doubt, part of the answer is that he thought it was the right thing to do, but part was that the Dodgers were always the also-rans in New York City baseball behind the more successful Yankees and Giants, and black ballplayers were an untapped resource of talent. Why did Robinson do it? Reading his Wikipedia bio, it's clear that part of the reason was that he wanted to do something for his fellow African Americans. He was in the March on Washington long after his playing days were over. He remained both an outspoken critic of baseball's racism and a proponent of its reforms. But part of the answer also had to be that he loved playing the game.

Rickey and Robinson had personal and self-serving reasons for doing what they did. That doesn't change the fact that what they both did, particularly Robinson, took a lot of courage and fortitude. We seem to have a paper cutout idea of what courage means - that it only takes courage to do good things, or to do them for someone else's benefit. Nothing could be further from the truth. Courage is knowing it's likely you'll be hurt and suffer abuse, but doing what you need to do anyway. Courage is sometimes not hurting someone else, even when every part of your being screams that you should. Even if what those two men did had only been for their own self-interest, it still made our lives better, and it still would have taken more courage than many of us have had to summon for so long. That's why we honor them.

Jackie Robinson's life had many things to teach us, but in light of recent events, I think the most important lesson it taught us is what courage is, and how powerful a force it can be.

Twitter Conversation Of The Day

Proof that I am spending too much time watching Twitter today:

Twitter Conversation by emptywheel, April 16, 2013

The crap is going to happen anyway, so you might as well laugh about it.

I took a screenshot, because blogger still doesn't have a tool to include Twitter messages inline. If you want to follow the links, go to the link in the byline.

Cowards And Monsters

It seems as though I should write something about the events in Boston yesterday. How could I not have an opinion? Yet I seem to have few strongly held ones this time.

I feel sorry for the injured, for the people who lost someone, and for the people who were nearby and will likely see that scene in their nightmares for years. I feel sad that things like this keep happening.

Beyond that, though, I don't feel much. I'm told that the folks who did this are monsters and cowards, but the people telling me that know nothing about how they did it or why, so why should I believe that? Just because people do things that are awful doesn't make them monsters. Doing things that we don't see until it's too late doesn't make them cowards. Those are complexities that most folks seem to be able to avoid considering, but I can't seem to.

But then, I also feel sorry for these folks:

The New York Times this morning deserves credit for publishing one of the most powerful Op-Eds you will ever read. I urge you to read it in its entirety: it's by Samir Naji al Hasan Moqbel, a Yemeni national who has been imprisoned at Guantánamo without charges of any kind for more than 11 years. He's one of the detainees participating in the escalating hunger strike to protest both horrible conditions and, particularly, the supreme injustice of being locked in a cage indefinitely without any evidence of wrongdoing presented or any opportunity to contest the accusations that have been made. The hunger strike escalated over the weekend when guards shot rubber bullets at some of the detainees and forced them into single cells.

...

I've written many times before why this claim, though grounded in some truth, is misleading in the extreme. I won't repeat all of that here; click the links and read the documentation proving its truth. In sum, Obama sought not to close Guantánamo but simply to re-locate it to Illinois, and in doing so, to preserve what makes it such a travesty of justice: its system of indefinite detention. The detainees there are not protesting in desperation because of their geographical location: we want to be in Illinois rather than a Cuban island. They are sacrificing their health and their lives in response to being locked in a cage for more than a decade without charges: a system Obama, independent of what Congress did, intended to preserve.

Obama, Guantánamo, and the enduring national shame

[links from original]

So, I ask you, what kind of cowards keep people imprisoned because they're afraid of the possible political consequences, or maybe the faint chance they'll manage to be involved in some future act of terrorism? What kind of monsters justify, or perform, the act of imprisoning these people and torturing them? Read this Twitter conversation between Glenn Greenwald and people who seem to think that this is perfectly OK, because someone somewhere in the military or the intelligence establishment decided we should do it without having to justify it to anyone. When Greenwald provides proof their objections are nonsense, they instantly grasp onto some other excuse.

What kind of monsters shoot rubber bullets at prisoners on hunger strikes, when those prisoners shouldn't be there in the first place? What sort of cowards order them to, or repeatedly vote for the people giving those orders?

When you can answer those questions intelligently and without contradicting yourself, maybe I'll consider you calling the folks who planted the bombs in Boston cowards and monsters something other than absurd.

Meanwhile, I'll tell you the other thing I'm feeling. Envy. For the dead. Not for the pain and fear they went through, because that must have been terrible. I envy them, though, because they no longer need to see what a dreadful, hopeless place their country is becoming, and don't have to hear the screaming half-wits determined never to learn anything who are making it that way.

I'm almost hoping the next one that happens, I'll be unaware that I'm sitting on top of a big stack of C-4. Yes, I'm now really sick of this.

Afterword: Bruce Schneier sums things up pretty well:

If it's hard for us to keep this in perspective, it will be even harder for our leaders. They'll be afraid that by speaking honestly about the impossibility of attaining absolute security or the inevitability of terrorism -- or that some American ideals are worth maintaining even in the face of adversity -- they will be branded as "soft on terror." And they'll be afraid that Americans might vote them out of office. Perhaps they're right, but where are the leaders who aren't afraid? What has happened to "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself"?

The Boston Marathon Bombing: Keep Calm and Carry On

Those leaders are gone, I'm afraid, along with the tough-minded people who elected them. Now, we're just supposed to be afraid and angry all the time, a duty we're performing remarkably well.

UPDATE: Taylor Marsh has some wise words as well: "Boston Terrorist Attack Now Turns to Wallpaper". When you make things like this the wallpaper of your life, you are in danger of becoming what you behold.

UPDATE 2: While seeking out my favorite music video for times like this, I ran across this quote of mine:

To those who keep declaring that the world changed on 9/11 - no, it didn't. The world was like that already. Vietnam happened, so did Cambodia, Afghanistan, Rwanda, Sarajevo, Tianamen Square, Persian Gulf, and scores of other slaughters that I've simply forgotten about, and that's just since I was born. Some America had a hand in, many we didn't. There were terrorist attacks, too. It's like that because, often as not, it's run by cold-hearted selfish bastards who are perfectly willing to climb to the top of the heap by making a ramp of the bodies they've created.

If you think the world changed, it was because you finally noticed what was going on in the rest of the world, after it finally happened here.

What changed was us. We changed, because we obsessed about what happened when we should have been thinking about so many other things, and because we were afraid. We didn't change for the better. People who obsess about things never do.

Don't tell me to remember. Tell me when you're ready to move on.

Wake Me Up...

So, moving on...

Sunday Photo(s)

For various reasons, this wasn't a good year to photograph the fruit tree blooms. Some of that had to do with the weather, which was generally miserable during the two weeks or so the blooms were out. It also had to do with the fact that on the rare days when it wasn't miserable, I often had things to do.

Nevertheless, I managed to catch a few. Here they are. The first three are from last week.

Image credit: Photos taken and processed by Cujo359

I don't know what kind of trees these are. Three years ago, the blooms were white. Now they're pinkish. Here's a closeup of the blossoms:

These are from the end of March. Some mountain managed to get itself in the background of one of them:

The not-quite world famous Climate Change Cherry tree was in full bloom that day, as were its neighbors:

Click on the pictures to enlarge. Have a good Sunday.

Riverbend Reappears

There was some good news today, whatever else happens. Riverbend, the young Iraqi woman who wrote so many poignant articles about her experiences during and after the Iraq War, has made another entry in her blog after an absence of several years.

As you might imagine, she has a quite a few things to say, among them, asking the question that any American who can still use his mind ought to be asking about now:

What about George Bush, Condi, Wolfowitz, and Powell? Will they ever be held accountable for the devastation and the death they wrought in Iraq? Saddam was held accountable for 300,000 Iraqis... Surely someone should be held accountable for the million or so?

Finally, after all is said and done, we shouldn't forget what this was about - making America safer... And are you safer Americans? If you are, why is it that we hear more and more about attacks on your embassies and diplomats? Why is it that you are constantly warned to not go to this country or that one? Is it better now, ten years down the line? Do you feel safer, with hundreds of thousands of Iraqis out of the way (granted half of them were women and children, but children grow up, right?)?

Ten Years On...

We aren't safer, and there's no reason to think we will be any time soon. That alone should have made Americans hopping mad about the waste of life and money, but it hasn't. Not enough of us to matter, anyway. What we've learned here is that there are two sets of rules. Those in charge can screw up all they like, and there will always be plenty of people ready to make excuses for them. Those of us who aren't in charge don't get to make any mistakes at all, and all those people who are happy to make excuses for the rich and famous are equally glad to blame us for all our problems.

We've learned that the Land Of The Free and The Home Of The Brave is no longer either. Far too many of us lost our minds on September 11, 2001, and the rest of us were along for the ride. Our corrupt and ignorant leaders were glad to lead the crazy on a quest to do something insane.

But at least Riverbend and her family have survived. They seem to have become permanent refugees, more victims of our folly. She tells the story at her blog, and I'll link there so you can read it, too.

Saturday Entertainment: Rocket Sled Vs. Car

One of the more amusing claims I kept reading and hearing about the collapse of the World Trade Center back in 2001 was about how the "physics didn't add up", or some such phrase to indicate that what happened didn't make sense. I thought this was so much twaddle at the time, and said so. Of course, that meant I was a naive dupe of the New World Order, but I digress.

The important thing to remember here is that what we should have learned from 9/11 is that when particular things composed of particular materials come together at speeds and in ways we haven't experienced before, it's anyone's guess what will happen. What "physics" apply in a particular situation are often very different from what we assume will apply.

The show Mythbusters provides lessons in this sort of thing quite often. In it, they test some urban legend, bit of folklore, or seemingly outrageous claim to see if it makes sense. Whether the question is if a Saint Bernard bringing you a shot of cognac when you're trapped in a snowdrift is a good thing, or how plausible an anti-Gorn cannon is, they use science and mechanical abilities to see what might be true. Often, they do this by destroying something in pretty spectacular fashion.

Yes, I really like the show. It's one of the few things I miss about cable television.

This particular segment from Mythbusters features a rocket slide slamming into a car at 500 miles per hour, or thereabouts. The episode's premise was to test a claim that a snowplow had once cut a small imported car in two. The Mythbusters had already tried this out, and found that, sure enough, it wasn't possible. I think enough of us have seen auto accidents to visualize what would happen. We're used to what happens when steel vehicles collide at, say, 20 to 100 miles per hour. But, this being Mythbusters, they wondered if it was possible at any speed.

So, they hired a place with a rocket sled track to set up an experiment. Here it is:

The reason this episode reminded me of 9/11 is the speed with which the sled hit the car, and how this was outside the experience of all the testers. Both they and I made guesses about what would happen. Mine was that the engine would be either crushed or splintered, and the rest of the car more or less cut in two. Watch the video to see the Mythbusters' guesses. I'm an engineer with some experience with cars and aircraft. The people in the episode were experienced at destroying, working with, and building quite a few mechanical devices. None of us, though, is a materials scientist or an expert in the technologies and metals involved in car manufacturing. None of us was right, really. Those points are related.

So, just like we'd never seen anything like an airliner loaded with fuel hitting a skyscraper with a steel external structure at more than 350 miles per hour, this experiment had a result few laymen, if any, would have guessed correctly. As NASA demonstrated during the Columbia accident investigation, even the experts can be wrong sometimes. They didn't think the foam that covered the main tank could damage the Shuttle if it broke off in a launch, but it turns out that's exactly what happened. That's why talking about how the physics don't add up in a new situation like this is nonsense.

Enjoy the explosions.

Mt. Rainier In The Sunshine

Haven't felt much like writing lately, as you might have guessed. By way of apology, here's a photo of Mt. Rainier on one of those extremely rare clear spring days:
Image credit: Cujo359

It's been a crappy day, both in the news and otherwise. I'm sure there are plenty of folks who want to tell you about that, but today I'm not one of them.

Click on the picture to enlarge. Have a good weekend.

Quote Of The Day

Paul Rosenberg, discussing how both political parties are failing in America, cuts to the heart of Barack Obama's "pragmatism" by contrasting him with Franklin Roosevelt (FDR):

It is not that FDR was an ideologue - quite the opposite. FDR was a profound pragmatist, whereas Obama is a centrist, neoliberal ideologue, whose thinking is so rigid that he won't even consider empowering his own more leftish supporters, even to strategically counterbalance hard right Republicans, who still do not regard his presidency as legitimate.

Regardless of your own ideology - conscious or unconscious - you just have to wonder why Obama clings so doggedly to both substantive policies and political strategies that repeatedly fail so profoundly. No doubt there are multiple factors involved, but the most compelling answer, I have come to believe, comes down to a lack of vision: Obama quite simply cannot see any alternative. His politics are drastically confined by the crabbed nature of his neoliberal imagination, formed in the shadows of Reagan and Thatcher.

...

There was a time when virtually every Democratic officeholder, from dogcatcher on up, realised that their party's fate was inextricably linked to the welfare of its core constituencies. FDR Democrats knew that in the marrow of their bones. But Obama is a neoliberal Reagan Democrat, who knows nothing of the sort.

Double trouble: In US both political parties are failing - and in denial

I disagree with his assertion that the Democrats focused solely on diversity as a political goal; it's just something that the rich don't oppose enough to punish them for, so it's an easy goal. It's pretty clear that's all they have left at this point. Nonetheless, Rosenberg's conclusion that we're all going to end up equal in the poorhouse is all too true. Nor do I disagree with him at all about his conclusion about the state of the two parties:

The Republicans were once the Party of Lincoln, but they are that no longer. They are much, much closer to being the Party of Jefferson Davis, with their government hatred, animosity towards minorities and their knee-jerk fealty to the idea of states' rights.

Meanwhile, Democrats, under Barack Obama, are no longer the Party of FDR. They are much, much closer to being the Party of Herbert Hoover, following Obama's initial protection of the bankers and neglect of foreclosed and imperiled homeowners, and his persistent obsession placing budget-balancing over job-creation and caring for the most urgent needs of tens of millions, victimised by the bad behaviour, bad judgment and bad ideas of their so-called "betters".

Double trouble: In US both political parties are failing - and in denial

At least, other than to nit-pick that at least Hoover was willing to consider strong regulation of the banks after that collapse. Neither of our current political parties, nor our President, appear to care about that goal at all.

It's a sad place we've gotten ourselves to, that's for sure. It's worth reading Rosenberg's essay, if for no other reason than for a quick itemization of where our politics are these days.

UPDATE: Altered the second paragraph to say what I meant about Democrats and diversity.

Bill Maher Smacks Down Libertarianism

Bill Maher lays a well-deserved smackdown on what may be the silliest of modern political philosophies:

"Somewhere along the way [libertarianism] morphed into some creepy philosophy based on a novel by Ayn Rand"

I don't know that libertarianism ever made much sense really, but the idea that the government that governs best governs least has been a guiding principle that Americans have applied to their political philosophies for a long time. Even we liberals tend to think that there are times, as in the case of making marijuana illegal, where too much government activism isn't a good thing.

Unfortunately, applying that idea as some form of absolute, and particularly saying that the government has no business regulating a magical fairyland called "the free market" is complete nonsense. When the marketplace can't take care of something vital in our lives like health care, then using the government to fix it is not only OK, it's quite often essential. Markets don't fix themselves. That's particularly true of markets where there are economies of scale, because it is quite often the most ruthless people who end up running them.

"Libertarians also hate Medicare and Social Security, and there are problems with those programs, but .. it beats stepping over lepers and watching human skeletons shit in the river, and I also like not seeing those things. I'm selfish that way."

As far as I'm concerned, liberalism (or socialism, if it goes a little further) makes sense from a selfish perspective as well as from a humane one, as Maher alludes in that quote. When the world around us is full of safe, healthy, and secure people it's a better place than when it isn't. I sometimes wonder if most Americans will ever grapple with that notion, let alone embrace it.

For that, and many other reasons, libertarianism justly deserves this smackdown. It really is the province of people who have never had reason to find out how arbitrary and capricious life can be. In other words, it's for people who have yet to grow up, in at least some sense of that phrase.

Progressive Idiocy: Who Could Have Predicted?

Image credit: Twitter image via Matt Stoller

Over the next few days, there will be an opportunity to discover which progressive political commentators have been paying attention and which ones haven't. That opportunity is described by Jon Walker at FireDogLake:

If it wasn’t already abundantly clear there is now more proof President Obama really really really wants to cut Social Security benefits for current retirees. Obama will include the chained-CPI, which is a yearly and continuously growing cut to your Social Security benefits, in his budget.

Obama Is the Driving Force Behind Cutting Your Social Security

He quotes this Politico piece:

The budget proposal sets Obama up for major fights on his right and left. Republicans will not accept any new tax revenues and liberal Democrats have already signaled they will resist any cuts to Social Security and other entitlement programs that Obama is proposing.

The White House says the budget proposal would reduce the deficit by $1.8 trillion over 10 years, but it assumes the elimination of the sequester, which would otherwise account for $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction.

Already, Obama’s budget proposal goes farther than many in his own party and base said they would bear by including “chained CPI,” the adjustment that would over time reduce cost-of-living increases to Social Security and other federal benefit programs — effectively, a cut to Social Security benefits by tying them to inflation.

Boehner rejects Obama cuts-revenue proposal

The only good news there is that, once again, the Republicans are playing hard to get.

Still, Walker is one of the people who have been paying attention. It's not hard to figure out that President Obama has had a fetish for cutting Social Security since the Democratic presidential primary back in 2008. In his interview with George Will, he said quite clearly that something needed to be done about Social Security to "save" it. Why someone feels the need to "save" a program that's been funded for the next few decades is beyond me, other than as an excuse to cut it. Since then, he's hired Wall Street pirates as economic advisers, and set up a commission to resolve the "budget crisis" that was stacked with folks well known for their desire to cut entitlement programs.

So, if you're surprised that Obama would be cutting Social Security now that he doesn't have to worry about being re-elected, you weren't paying attention.

And who hasn't been paying attention? Let's start with Paul Krugman. After offering a good explanation for why cutting the CPI is a bad idea (worth reading, if you're not familiar with the concept), he then writes:

So what’s this about? The answer, I fear, is that Obama is still trying to win over the Serious People, by showing that he’s willing to do what they consider Serious — which just about always means sticking it to the poor and the middle class. The idea is that they will finally drop the false equivalence, and admit that he’s reasonable while the GOP is mean-spirited and crazy.

Desperately Seeking “Serious” Approval

Of course, this is absurd. President Obama is one of the "Serious People". He always has been. He has never said otherwise, near as I can recall. Yes, he promised not to cut Social Security once back in 2008, but he clearly misspoke. He was going to "save" Social Security and Medicare, even if he had to destroy them.

Over at Talking Points Memo, Brian Beutler seems similarly confused. He starts out well enough, explaining that Obama has always had a hankering to mess with Social Security, then goes off the rails:

First, policy. Obama has been clear about his willingness to reduce cost of living increases to Social Security for years — but only if Republicans agree to higher taxes on rich people simultaneously The not-so-secret truth is that some people in the Obama administration simply think it’s a good idea, which is why you occasionally hear them slip and call it “correcting the CPI” or some other euphemism.

But for some reason this has never been good enough for Republicans and media elites many of whom continue to act as if Obama’s never given an inch to Republicans on entitlement spending. So now it’s officially official. And the good news is we’ll soon have some closure on this frustrating chapter in U.S. politics. If throwing a benefit cut into his budget was the Kabuki concession Republicans needed to cut a deal, we’ll know soon. If they remain adamant that rich people’s taxes aren’t going up anymore under their watch, then this charade can come to an end and everyone can move on. That would leave sequestration in place, and thus many more months of weak job growth in the months ahead. But, the Obama administration hopes, at least opinion makers would have to stop playing the false equivalence game and tell the country who’s really at fault.

Bad News Friday

Yes, to some extent this is Beutler explicitly passing on conventional wisdom from the Obama Administration, but does anyone really believe that things are going to in some different direction if the press, which in DC is largely owned by conservatives, gives up on portraying this as "both sides" being unreasonable? There's not a chance of that happening.

As an aside, Robert Reich posted a video, explaining what the CPI is. He seems to have figured out the politics, too:

Why are Democrats even suggesting the inflation adjustment be reduced? Republicans aren’t asking for it. Not even Paul Ryan’s draconian budget includes it.

What’s The “Chained CPI,” Why It's Bad For Social Security, And Why The White House Shouldn't Be Touting It

So, for the moment at least, Reich appears to get it. He describes this budget proposal as clearly Democratic in origin, that the GOP had nothing to do with it beyond being intransigent supporters of the rich. These days, though, it's getting really hard for anyone with any sense of perspective to think they're the only major party who are on board with that platform.

Speaking of having no sense of perspective, several outlets, including NPR, have quoted MoveOn.org as saying:

From the liberal group MoveOn.org's Executive Director Anna Galland:

"Millions of MoveOn members did not work night and day to put President Obama into office so that he could propose policies that would hurt some of our most vulnerable people. Just as we fought and defeated President Bush's plan to privatize Social Security, we will mobilize and stop this attempt to diminish the vital guarantee of Social Security."

Obama Riles His Own Party With Social Security Offer

Image credit: Parody by Cujo359 (See NOTE)

Now, let me just pause for a moment, Dear Reader, and explain to you why MoveOn.org are idiots. When a political candidate tells you over and over and over again that he is going to cut Social Security when he gets into office, and you work for him anyway, you put him in office so he could do that. There were alternatives, including not supporting any candidate because they all suck too much, should MoveOn's membership have felt that way, yet they supported this con artist. This is obvious to the point of absurdity, yet MoveOn still seems unable to grasp this basic fact.

That's why they're idiots.

Oh, and another bit about perspective - note NPR's lovely headline. If NPR ever got over its urge to punch hippies I swear I'd never be able to stand up again, the vertigo would be so bad.

So, there you have it, a small sampling of the genius that makes progressivism the powerful force in politics that it is today. Ever onward, ever downward. As soon as the Progressive Caucus folds, we can get on with the process of lowering our expectations.

UPDATE: The often-entertaining Class War Kitteh gets the last word, at least for now:

Image credit: Class War Kitteh

Check the image credit link for commentary, and you can "like" it there, or some such.