The Nation
What Rouhani Said
Iranian president Hassan Rouhani speaks at his inauguration. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
President Hassan Rouhani’s just-completed visit to New York, which he capped with a phone conversation with President Obama—the first-ever discussion between leaders of the two countries since January 1979—was a triumphant one.
Without a single misstep, during several days in which Rouhani held meeting after meeting with world leaders, diplomats, foreign policy experts and Middle East specialists, and reporters, the new president of Iran showed himself to be ready for prime time. The Nation attended three of Rouhani’s gatherings, and watching him up close, it’s clear that he succeeded in what came to be called a “charm offensive”—one churlish commentator on CNN called it a “charm assault”—designed to persuade not just President Obama but the American people, too, that Iran is ready to deal.
More important, Rouhani convincingly stated that he has the authority to make a deal. Repeatedly, he and his aides, including the Iranian ambassador to the United Nations, said that Rouhani’s overwhelming election in June—when he defeated a passel of ultraconservative and hardline candidates—means that he has a “mandate” to implement the agenda he campaigned on. That’s important, because Iran has real politics. Contrary to the assertions of many Iran-watchers in Israel and among hawks and neoconservatives in the United States, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the so-called supreme leader, is not a dictator. Instead, he rules by consensus, often reflecting competing and conflicting currents within Iran’s various power centers, from the military and the Revolutionary Guard to the clerics, themselves often split into several factions, the parliament and the various, complex institutions of the Iranian state. Rouhani’s strong victory in June, which surprised some, sent a message to Khamenei that Rouhani is not to be trifled with. Not only that, but Rouhani himself—who, after all, served for many years as one of two representatives of Khamenei on Iran’s national security council—has kept himself in the good graces of Khamenei while corraling an important domestic political coalition. That coalition includes Iran’s reformists, the Green Movement, important elements of the business community who often rally around former President Hashemi Rafsanjani, and a disparate group of Iranian realists, think-tank dwellers and current and former national security experts.
In a press conference that lasted more than a hour on Friday, during which Rouhani dealt with rapid-fire questions from US and international media without notes or aides whispering in his ear—and sometimes speaking a few words of English, a language in which he is fluent—Rouhani made it clear that he has the clout to strike a deal. “My government has the full, necessary authority when it comes to the nuclear negotiations,” he said, noting that he’s designated his foreign minister, the sophisticated Mohammad Javad Zarif, as the person who’ll handle the talks. Rouhani emphasized that he has “full backing of all three centers of Iran.” Challenged by a skeptical reporter, Rouhani said he can carry out the talks to completion because his electoral campaign raised all these issues, against candidates who were strongly opposed to his moderate views, and the others lost. “There was a drastic difference [in] those debates, among those candidates,” said Rouhani. It was the people [of Iran] who chose moderation, through the ballot box. It was the people who voted for our program.” As time goes on, according to Rouhani, the opposition to his view will diminish in Iran and the support for moderate views will increase.
The previous evening, speaking to several hundred establishment American foreign policy experts and Middle East analysts at a gathering at the Hilton Hotel, Rouhani put it this way: “I ran on the platform of moderation and won the election by a large margin.” He compared Iran’s stability, and its election, to the sectarianism, instability and terrorism that prevails in many countries in the region, adding that he will bring a “voice of moderation” to the region.
And he said: “My government is prepared to leave no stone unturned in the search for a solution with the P5+1.”
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The anti-Iran lobby in the United States, which nearly coincides with the Israel lobby, is apoplectic about Rouhani’s success in New York, as would be expected, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on Tuesday will deliver what promises to be a scathing rebuttal of Rouhani’s ideas. But their arguments are falling flat, and their demands of Iran—that Tehran halt all enrichment of uranium, shut its facilities, close its light-water reactor and export its stockpiles of low- and medium-enriched uranium—are laughable nonstarters. That’s because the deal that will be discussed in October in Geneva between Iran and the P5+1 involves international approval of Iran’s continued right to enrich (to levels not exceeding 3.5 to 5 percent), along with stricter international supervision of Iran’s nuclear work. That’s the only deal possible, and it’s what been on the table, or near the table, since 2009 at least. Any idea that Iran will give up its right to a civilian nuclear program that includes enrichment is a fantasy.
As Rouhani said, “We will never forgo our…intrinsic right to a peaceful nuclear program, including uranium enrichment.” No amount of pressure, arm-twisting, threats and sanctions will cause Iran to abandon this right, he said.
Rouhani said that what he’s heard from world leaders in New York has led to believe that the conditions are ripe for a deal. “I have arrived at the conclusion that the atmosphere is different than in the past,” he said. “Even in America, it is much better than in the past.” He and Zarif have suggested that it might be possible to reach a final agreement in six months to a year.
Trudy Lieberman reports on the growing waiting lists for food aid in the United States.
Interns’ Favorite Articles of the Week, 9/30/13
A wind turbine complex in southern Wyoming (Reuters/Ed Stoddard)
—Aaron Cantú focuses on the War on Drugs and mass incarceration, social inequality and post-capitalist institutional design.
Follow @aaronmiguel_
“How to Be More than a Mindful Consumer,” by Annie Leonard. Yes! August 22, 2013.
Annie Leonard presses us to transcend “conscientious-consumer” activism and start basing our social self-conceptions in citizenship rather than consumerism. She’s probably more optimistic than most about our collective ability to do this, but she does recognize that any lasting social revolution must first begin with the inception of many individual ones.
—Owen Davis focuses on public education, media and the effects of social inequality.
Follow @opffer
“Wind power now competitive with conventional sources,” by Erin Ailworth. The Boston Globe, September 23, 2013.
Consumers will appreciate the fact that the largest-ever state purchase of renewable energy undercuts carbon-based power by 20–30 percent. Moreover, it has the added perks of being infinite in supply and not boiling the planet. It’ll be fascinating to see how the oil and gas industry responds when this grows widespread.
—Omar Ghabra focuses on Syria and Middle Eastern politics.
“The Shadow Commander,” by Dexter Filkins. The New Yorker, September 30, 2013.
This riveting, in-depth profile of the head of Iran’s Quds Force sheds light on the extent of the Iranian government’s investment in the Syrian conflict. As a window for negotiations with the West appears to be opening, this piece contributes to the understanding of what role the Iranians would be willing to play, if any, toward achieving a diplomatic Syrian solution.
—Hannah Gold focuses on gender politics, pop culture and art.
Follow @togglecoat
“Give Yourself 5 Stars? Online, It Might Cost You,” by David Streitfeld. The New York Times, September 23, 2013.
The New York Attorney General’s office has conducted a yearlong study of phony reviews online, and now a crackdown on vindictive Yelp users is in motion. The study began with investigators going deep undercover as the owners of a Brooklyn yogurt store that was receiving unduly harsh reviews. After adequate finger-pointing, the Times reports the investigation’s findings with this treacherous tongue twister: “faking reviews often begins with faked reviews of the company faking the reviews.” In other news of flagrant online identity heist, the two formerly anonymous operators of the Horse_ebooks Twitter account were unmasked and one of them turned out to be a writer for Buzzfeed, rather than a spambot as previously assumed. Oh the humanity.
—Allegra Kirkland focuses on immigration, urban issues and US–Latin American relations.
Follow @allegrakirkland
“The village warriors of Guerrero,” by Judith Matloff. Al Jazeera America, September 22, 2013.
Though Mexico’s drug trafficking wars have largely faded from the headlines here, gruesome murders, frequent kidnappings and unreported incidents of rape and extortion continue unabated in many Mexican states. In Guerrero, a mostly rural area in the country’s south, local laborers and farmers have taken matters into their own hands, forming a civilian militia that monitors roadside checkpoints, patrols the streets at night and tracks down suspected narcotraficantes. According to Wired, nearly half of Mexico’s 31 states now have some form of citizen militias. Though the potential for unchecked vigilante justice is unsettling—and most of the cases brought to trial by these militias have been thrown out—the formation of local action groups underscores the abiding lack of faith among Mexican citizens in the ability of regional authorities, military officials or the justice system to prosecute crimes and protect them from bodily harm.
—Abbie Nehring focuses on muck reads, transparency and investigative reporting.
“Revealed: Qatar’s World Cup ‘slaves,’” by Pete Pattisson. The Guardian, September 25, 2013.
Still in the planning stages of your trip to Qatar for the 2022 World Cup? Don’t act too soon. The Guardian published an investigation this week into the conditions faced by Nepalese laborers hired to help build World Cup infrastructure. “This summer, Nepalese laborers died at a rate of almost one a day in Qatar,” Pete Pattisson writes. Key findings include evidence of forced labor, salaries being withheld, passports confiscated and laborers denied free drinking water in the desert heat. This investigation proves that there’s more than fun and games to the global sports event held every four years.
—Nicolas Niarchos focuses on international and European relations and national security.
Follow @PerneInAGyre
“Sikhs Protest PM’s Address to UN.” Sikh News Network, September 25, 2013.
When I asked a Sikh man about the Khalistan (Sikh nation) movement here in the US early this week, he excitedly explained that he was going to Washington Friday to protest the death-row sentence of Davinderpal Singh Bhullar. Bhullar is a Sikh professor who has been convicted in complicated circumstances of a 1993 bombing in Delhi. He went on to tell me that many Sikhs moved here after violence engulfed their community after Indira Gandhi was assassinated (triggered by her attack on the Golden Temple in Amritsar). It turns out the Indian government is worried about the Sikh nation movement’s growing power in the corridors of Washington and an officer who led the 1984 Amritsar attack was targeted by sympathizers in London. In the SNN story above, the protesters demanded Indian PM Singh (a Sikh himself) sack Kamal Nath, the country’s minister for urban development for his alleged role in violence against Sikhs after Mrs. Gandhi’s death.
—Andrés Pertierra focuses on Latin America with an emphasis on Cuba.
“Cuba bids to lure foreign investment with new port and trade zone,” by Marc Frank. Reuters, September 23, 2013.
The Cuban government announced special regulations for the new port facilities at the port of Mariel, in a call to foreign investment. Despite many incentives and special reprieves from taxes, some companies still have qualms over state controls and policy. The port project is the best known in a public works campaign that simultaneously feeds off the recent economic growth in the legalized private sector, and aims to foment future economic growth.
—Dylan Tokar focuses on Latin America, politics and literature.
Follow @dgtokar
“Freedom’s Ill Fortunes,” by Katherine Rowland interviews George Packer. Guernica, September 16, 2013.
Katherine Rowland talks to New Yorker staff writer George Packer about his new book, The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America. The book traces social and economic decline in America over the past three decades through a series of personal histories, augmented with critical essays on some influential figures, including Colin Powell, Jay-Z and Oprah Winfrey.
—Elaine Yu focuses on feminism, health and East and Southeast Asia.
“American gun use is out of control. Shouldn’t the world intervene?” by Henry Porter. The Guardian, September 21, 2013.
This article brings a curious twist to the question of the international community’s responsibility to intervene in times of crisis and violence—which so often smacks of (a US-led) imperialism—by turning the gaze inwards and examining American gun use.
Who Is the Walter White of the Sports World? The Answer Is Obvious
World famous Tour de France champion and cancer survivor Lance Armstrong, now infamous for prolonged steroid use, during a December 2007 USO tour in Iraq. (Wikimedia Commons)
I have spent the last several days in a Breaking Bad fever dream, asking myself, “Who is the Walter White/Heisenberg of the sports world?” I am very aware that I couldn’t come up with a hackier First Take–style question unless I was asking what sports commissioner is most like Miley Cyrus. Yet when a piece of popular art speaks to our age of collective dread as perceptively as Breaking Bad, it is worth maxing out its usage as a lens before the next shiny pop culture bauble draws our attention.
Before I posit who I believe the Walter White of the sports world to be, I should be upfront about what I think to be his defining characteristics.
Walter White is someone:
1) Who has undeniable, outlier-level abilities.
2) Whose skills are exceeded only by his self-regard.
3) Who falls and falls down hard, in a manner best described as “squalid.”
4) Who justifies his actions under a cloak of nauseating self-righteousness.
5) Who has a legitimate beef with the twenty-first-century America that has shaped his range of choices.
Using these criteria, the mind immediately floats toward athletes the public loves to hate: the sorts of iconic figures who could credibly re-enact this scene from Scarface.
First, the obvious anabolic antiheroes spring to mind: Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez: people who hit the heights and then had a great fall. But how far did they really fall? Walter White’s story is ending as badly as anyone not named Prometheus. Bonds and Clemens have boundless fortunes and even in some circles, their reputations. Barry Bonds is still beloved in San Francisco and recognized, even by the most militant anti-steroid furies, as one of the best all-round players in history. Roger Clemens beat prison and was even an honored guest in Houston this past weekend for Andy Pettitte’s last game.
A-Rod, despite his wealth, does not look like he will emerge with any kind of fan base. But Walter White could be incredibly cunning. A-Rod has shown none of the cleverness, self-righteousness, or defiance of Breaking Bad’s protagonist, his face an expressionless mask. As a pulsing, malevolent presence, A-Rod has been more Hannah Montana than Tony Montana.
Lastly, PEDs and PEDs alone are in my humble view not enough to make you a Walter White. To take them is a decision athletes make with themselves, not something they are pushing upon others. The individual steroid user, in my mind, just doesn’t cut it.
What about a real criminal, someone like O.J. Simpson? OJ is closer to our Heisenberg: two people undone by ego, with Walter White’s “accidental” display of Leaves of Grass the equivalent of O.J.’s If I Did It book. The difference, of course, is that OJ was not trying to reach some kind of distorted American Dream that night in Brentwood. There was no pot of gold, no justifications that he was doing it for family. O.J. has been left with only his infamy and claims of innocence. Say what you will about Walter White’s aria of self-delusion, he never said to Hank, “But if I was going to cook up blue-meth, here is how I’d do it.”
There can be only one Walter White of the sports world, and it has to be Lance Armstrong. Most obviously, you have “the big C” cancer, as a handy narrative starting point and fail-safe justification for the slew of poor decisions that followed. Armstrong was no run-of-the-mill steroid user either. There is considerable evidence that Armstrong was not just someone who used PEDs in a sport swimming in them. He managed a team of cyclists and, according to testimony taken under oath, he insisted they partake, bullying, manipulating or just threatening anyone who didn’t. This is pure Walter White, corrupting those closest to him whether willingly (Skylar) or unwillingly (paying for Hank’s rehab with meth money). In those good times, before the ship was sinking, both also had comical mouthpieces, with ESPN’s Rick Reilly in the role of Saul Goodman.
There is a more heartbreaking parallel as well. Both were idolized by people with physical challenges who were devastated by the truth. Even in our cynical times, Lance Armstrong truly hurt the cancer survivors who believed his years of denials, including those in my family who have worn the yellow bracelet. That is personified in Walter’s son Flynn, born with cerebral palsy, who went from revering to hating this father in the time it took to slash a knife through the air.
But the most critical parallel is that Lance Armstrong like Walter White had every reason to look at this country and find justifications for getting his piece of the American Dream by any means necessary. The hardscrabble Texas son of a single mom who worked as a cashier at Kroger’s was going to fight his way out, Old West-style, in the face of impossible odds. The chemistry teacher with a baby on the way, cancer in his body and no means to leave his family anything but hospital bills looked out at his own pitiless Western landscape and grabbed the only bootstrap available.
As much as we demonize Walter White or Lance Armstrong, their crimes are both at end a function of the far more destructive, lethal and lucrative war on drugs. From the private prison profiteers, to the firearms manufacturers, to the pharmaceutical lobbyists and USADA government agents spending millions in tax dollars investigating retired athletes, there are far more important people to focus upon than the Walter Whites and Lance Armstrongs of the world. In a sane universe, their own moral failings would matter far less than he structures that produce them. We find them compelling precisely because it is so much easier to focus on the man who knocks than on why the door itself can feel so very paper-thin.
Tea Party Lawmaker Letter on Med Device Tax Repeal Authored by Lobby Group
Rep. John Boehner. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Today, House Republicans pushed one more step towards a government shut down by coalescing around a continuing resolution that delays the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) by one year, while permanently repealing one of the primary funding mechanisms for the law, a 2.3 percent excise tax on medical device companies.
While its clear that Democrats will reject any delay of health reform, the move to revoke the medical device tax can be seen as a coup by industry lobbyists. The medical device industry, led by AdvaMed, a trade association that spends $29 million a year, has pushed aggressively to ensure that medical device companies contribute nothing to the financing of the ACA.
After the Tea Party catapulted House Republicans into the majority, seventy-five right-wing lawmakers wrote a letter to Speaker Boehner demanding that a vote to repeal the device tax occur “as soon as possible.” The metadata of the letter shows that it was authored by Ryan Strandlund, a member of AdvaMed’s government affairs team: 
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While repeal proponents claim the tax will hurt innovation and devastate American devicemakers, the reality is, medical device companies already pay very little in taxes and Obamacare will make up for the tax with an increase in demand. An analysis by Citizens for Tax Justice finds most major medical device companies pay a very low effective tax rate, with firms like Abbot Laboratories making use of some 32 tax havens. Moreover, despite the claims of industry lobbyists, the tax will not hamper American companies because it applies to imported devices as well.
The industry has pushed in every way possible to secure a repeal. In the last election, the AdvaMed PAC contributed spent over $300,000, mostly in support for Republican candidates. Individual companies, including Boston Scientific, Medtronic and CareFusion, have sponsored fundraisers and contributed significant amounts to the campaigns of lawmakers leading the tax repeal effort.
Beyond traditional lobbying and campaign contributions, the industry has used a variety of tactics to influence opinions in Congress. A website called no2point3.com was set up by the industry to encourage medical device companies to collect petitions to Congress to repeal the tax. Earlier this month, AdvaMed began purchasing ads in Politico.
Until he left for another lobbying job in June, Speaker Boehner’s deputy chief of staff was Brett Loper, who had worked as AdvaMed’s chief lobbyist and had orchestrated the initial fight against the device tax.
In fact, medical device lobbyists have been close to Congress all week leading up to the vote today. On Monday through Wednesday, over two thousand medical device executives and industry reps converged on Washington, DC, to discuss their government affairs agenda and meet with lawmakers. On the top of the agenda? Repealing the tax on their industry.
Greg Mitchell thinks the way the media has been covering the shutdown is a “disgrace.”
This Week in ‘Nation’ History: Government Shutdown as Coup d’État
The US Capitol. (Wikipedia / Ingfbruno)
It’s beginning to look a lot like 1995, with Congress again bringing the country perilously close to a government shutdown. Despite the House Republicans’ quixotic attempt to tie the funding of basic services to the repeal of Obamacare, Karl Rove himself calling such a tactic “ill-conceived,” and, finally, last week’s pointless exhibition of endurance by Ted Cruz’s bladder, it appears the Republican Party is about to crown itself with the highly dubious distinction of having once again dragged the US government to a new low of impotence, paralysis and dysfunction.
That is not an accidental consequence of “divided government…unable to settle its differences,” as one reporter suggested, noting the 1995 parallel. Rather, dramatizing the supposed precariousness of public services by forcing their arbitrary cessation makes it easier for conservatives to argue that the market alone should determine the proper distribution of wealth, goods, and services in American society. There is no smaller government than none at all. As the radical political philosopher Sheldon Wolin argued in a remarkable 1996 essay in The Nation, “Democracy and the Counterrevolution,” the effort “to stop or reconstitute government in order to extract sweeping policy concessions amounts to an attempted coup d’état.” Wolin’s brilliant essay reminds us how shutdowns and austerity economics fit within the broader Republican philosophy of governance—or lack thereof—and how that philosophy is antithetical to the defining principle of democracy: rule by the people.
* * *
Last winter’s government shutdown, contrary to media reports, was not about innocent bystanders—government workers, recipients of benefits or tourists—however genuine their hardships. It was about the broad scheme of power in the nation. Under what was dismissed as posturing, serious political changes were being tested. If we ask, “What kind of authority could justify disrupting and holding an allegedly democratic system hostage in the name of ‘a balanced budget in seven years’ and then attempt to dictate the precise kind and amount of government services that are to be permitted to resume?” the answer is not: “The authority of officials elected to run the government.” Deliberately paralyzing an elected government is far different from the ordinary partisanship that attends appropriations.
The shutdown was, instead, a direct challenge to the principle that in a democracy the government belongs to the people. It is theirs either to reconstitute by prescribed means, such as the amending process, or to halt by resistance or disobedience if it governs tyrannically. For the President or Congress to undertake to stop or reconstitute government in order to extract sweeping policy concessions amounts to an attempted coup d’état by what The Federalist (normally the political bible of Gingrich and other self-styled conservatives) would have condemned as a “temporary majority.”
Media observers suggested hopefully that the confrontation between Democratic President and Republican Congress might usefully be carried forward to November when “the people” could decide whether they wanted an interventionist or a greatly reduced government. That very formulation implied yet another potentially dangerous conception: that national elections should not be primarily about choosing leaders or expressing party preferences but should serve to focus a Great Issue and force a crucial turning point. The correct name for that conception is “plebiscitary democracy,” and it represents an outlook that is profoundly anti-democratic. Consider what social and economic forces would frame the terms of the plebiscite, or the level of debate that would take place, or the inflated mandate that the victors would claim or the implications of such an event for reinforcing the idea of the citizen as a spectator ready to salivate at the mention of tax cuts. Unfortunately, plebiscitary democracy is not a farfetched notion but a short, highly cost-effective step from the “democracy” quadrennially produced by those who organize, finance and orchestrate elections. Given what elections have become, the effect of national plebiscites on the fundamental shape of government should give pause to anyone who cares about the prospects of democracy.
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A vote on the role of government appears in an ominous light if we recall that when the Congressional Republicans announced their determination to “shut down Washington” and democracy’s government was nearly paralyzed, there was no mass protest, no million-citizen march on Washington, no demand to reclaim what is guaranteed by the Constitution. At a meeting of freshman Republican Representatives, someone reportedly asked, “Anybody got problems back home with the fact that the government’s shut down?” Not a hand was raised.
The lack of response testifies to the truly terrifying pace at which depoliticization is being promoted and the depths of the alienation separating citizens from their government. Each national election serves to deepen the contempt of voters for a system that they know is corrupt, and they doubt it can be remedied by requiring lobbyists to register. Despair is rooted in powerlessness, and powerlessness is not an unintended but a calculated consequence of the system, of which cash bribes to encourage poor African-Americans of New Jersey not to vote—a Republican campaign strategy in 1993 boasted about by Christine Todd Whitman’s campaign manager, Ed Rollins—supplied a crude instance. “Balancing the budget” is not simply about forcing government to live within its means “like the rest of us.” The projected cuts in education, social services and health care strike at the political power of ordinary Americans as well as their standard of living.
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The complete text of Wolin’s 1996 essay can be found here. Subscribers to The Nation can access our fully searchable digital archive, which contains thousands of historic articles, essays and reviews, letters to the editor and editorials dating back to July 6, 1865.
Marriage Equality Fight Confirms (Again) That Chris Christie is No Moderate
Chris Christie is a committed social conservative whose reputation as a “moderate” is a manufactured political fantasy that the governor of New Jersey will abandon as soon as he begins bidding for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.
But to make that 2016 run, Christie must be re-elected this November as governor of the socially liberal state of New Jersey. Only then can he pivot right and pitch himself as a sufficiently conservative candidate for Republican caucus participants in Iowa and primary voters in South Carolina.
So Christie must maintain the fantasy until November 5.
And that task just got a little harder.
On Friday, a New Jersey judge ordered state officials to begin allowing same-sex couples to marry starting October 21.
Concluding that the state’s existing civil union system wrongly deprives lesbian and gay couples of federal benefits that are available to married couples, Mercer County Superior Court Judge Mary Jacobson wrote, “Same-sex couples must be allowed to marry in order to obtain equal protection of the law under the New Jersey constitution.”
The ruling is historic. In June, the US Supreme Court invalidated the federal Defense of Marriage Act, in a decision that cleared the way for same-sex couples to receive the same federal benefits that are available to heterosexual couples. If it is upheld, Judge Jacobson’s ruling will make New Jersey the first state to establish marriage equality in response to the US Supreme Court’s ruling and its aftermath.
But Chris Christie has decided to stand athwart history, yelling “Stop.”
Immediately after Judge Jacobson’s ruling was made public, the governor’s office announced plans to appeal it to the state Supreme Court. If Christie’s lawyers appeal prior to October 21, the courts could issue a stay that would at least temporarily maintain the barrier to same-sex marriages in New Jersey.
That’s fine by Christie. He has already vetoed marriage equality legislation passed by the New Jersey legislature.
Typically, Christie has tried to have it both ways. Though he has gone out of his way to block same-sex marriages from taking place in New Jersey, he says he would abide by a referendum vote in favor of marriage equality. But there is nothing “moderate” about arguing that basic rights should be submitted to the whims of the electorate.
A referendum vote would very probably support same-sex marriage—polling suggests New Jerseyans favor marriage equality by a 60-31 margin. So why doesn’t Christie just accept the court’s ruling? Because he does not want those social conservatives in Iowa to think he cleared the way for fair treatment of lesbians and gays.
Christie’s challenger, Democrat Barbara Buono, is playing no such game.
She hailed the judge’s ruling as an affirmation “that all New Jerseyans, no matter who they love, deserve the right to marry.”
“It is also a stark reminder that Governor Christie stands on the wrong side of history,” added Buono. “At every turn, he has prevented our gay brothers and sisters from enjoying the same rights as other New Jerseyans. He must now make a decision whether to continue to be an obstacle or to be part of the solution.
Christie’s big-money re-election campaign, which highlights that carefully constructed “moderate” image, has kept the governor well ahead in the polls. And there is no question that Buono’s run remains an uphill one. But with the election barely a month away, she’s been handed an opportunity to confirm Christie’s conservatism—a conservatism that polls say puts him distinctly at odds with the vast majority of New Jerseyans.
As that distinction becomes clear, Buono argues, Christie’s cynicism might yet be his undoing.
“People have not been focused on the election,” Buono told radio host Michelangelo Signorile this week. “But when people get informed, and they learn that there is only one person standing between them and gay marriage and it’s Chris Christie then I think the polls will grow closer.”
Bill de Blasio Hurls the ‘NY Post’ Into a Time Warp
(Screengrab from nypost.com)
Since Sunday, when The New York Times published a cover story about Bill de Blasio’s 1988 trip to Nicaragua to help distribute food and medicine, and noted his admiration for the Sandinistas, the right-wing press has been salivating: in the Democratic candidate for New York City mayor they think they finally have the “socialist” that they could only pretend Obama was.
And there’s a bonus: They can also get Bill de Blasio to play the Bill Ayers role. As a New York Post headline put it, “Obama to meet Sandinista-supporting de Blasio.”
Although the Times piece dug up details on de Blasio’s youthful non-indiscretions, none of it is truly “news” (as the Times’s Michael Powell later not>ed; nor was it hidden (de Blasio spoke publicly about his time in Nicaraguan just last December). But the Postis excitedly fishing with every bit of red-bait they can muster, no matter how much it may embarrass them.
The virulently anti-union tabloid has even had to make like they support unions. In “de Blasio’s beloved Nicaragua,” the Post writes (going on to quote the human-rights watchdog group Freedom House), “Employees have reportedly been dismissed for union activities, and citizens have no effective recourse when labor laws are violated by those in power.” Those may sound like the tactics of the right’s beloved governors Scott Walker (Wisconsin) and John Kasich (Ohio), but the chance to spark suspicion trumps principle every time.
Recounting the radical acts the young de Blasio was capable of, the Post says, “He also castigated the operators of the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor—three years after the accident—for being ‘ignorant.’”
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The implication is not only that the operators didn’t deserve such harsh words, but that de Blasio failed to deliver them in a timely manner—something the Post, without a hint of irony, is reporting on three decades after the offense.
But by far the most embarrassing thing the Post has published (maybe ever) is a time-warped attempt to cast the college-age de Blasio as a druggy hippie and part of the “activist set.”
Far out, man—I might be your mayor soon.
City Hall hopeful Bill de Blasio was a much scruffier dude back in his college days, with a hairdo almost as distinctive as son Dante’s Afro, a beard to match and a far-away gaze.
This NYU yearbook photo…indicates that ties were not in style among the school’s activist set.
De Blasio was quite the whippersnapper, let me tell you.
But luckily, his Republican rival, Joe Lhota, provides a glimpse of his yearbook photo in this ad, and the Post should have nothing to complain about.
Scientific Consensus Won’t Change the Politics of Climate Change
A lake formed from melt water from the Pastoruri glacier, as seen from atop the glacier in Huaraz, September 19, 2013. The nearby Pastoruri glacier is one of the fastest-receding glaciers in the Cordillera Blanca mountain range, according to a 2012 paper by the University of Texas and the Huascaran National Park. (Reuters/Mariana Bazo)
One of the most comprehensive scientific reviews ever assembled confirms what most people already acknowledge about climate change: it is happening, human activity is causing it, and we have a rapidly closing window of time to prevent unprecedented, potentially catastrophic climatic shifts.
What the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change report summary released this morning in Stockholm adds is near-certainty that warming is man-made, and stronger language to describe the changes underway.
Global warming is “unequivocal,” and its effects “unprecedented over decades to millennia,” states the IPCC, which considered the research of some 600 scientists from thirty-two countries, and concluded that there are more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere now than at any point in at least 800,000 years. “It is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century,” states the report. Fossil fuel emissions and to a lesser extent land-use changes account for a 40 percent increase in carbon dioxide concentrations since pre-industrial times.
According to the IPCC, the atmosphere can absorb no more than 1 trillion tons of carbon dioxide without warming exceeding 2 degrees Celsius, the threshold scientists have agreed is crucial to stay below in order to prevent the most catastrophic effects of climate change. More than half of that carbon dioxide has already been emitted, and the world is on track to pump out the rest within 40 years, The New York Times reports. (Other models suggest we have even less time.)
Climate change is not only unprecedented but also “irreversible on a multi-century to millennial time scale.” Even if no new greenhouse gasses were added to the atmosphere, temperatures will stay high for centuries. And don’t count on geoengineering to save the planet. Proposed solutions like sucking carbon out of the atmosphere or spraying sulfur into the air to block sunlight face “biogeochemical and technological limitations,” and, in the case of solar radiation management, would “modify the global water cycle, and would not reduce ocean acidification.”
The report is the strongest show yet of the scientific consensus on the occurrence and implications of anthropogenic climate change, but it is unlikely to stir up any political action in proportion to the science. “This is science, these are facts, and action is our only option,” Secretary of State John Kerry said in a statement in response to the report. The report’s near-certainty in linking human activity to climate change is striking in light of the fact that the 1990 report did not quantify the human contribution at all, and the 1995 report pointed only to a “discernable human influence on climate.”
But the right has not been waiting for better science in order to make up its mind about climate change. Conservatives long ago decided that “science” was a liberal scheme, in order to disregard its policy implications. Efforts to implement reproductive health restrictions around the country that directly contradict medical knowledge testify to this end. The media’s obsession with “balance” also dulls the influence of scientific consensus, by granting unsubstantiated denials the same weight as evidence-backed experts.
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“The IPCC glossed over the ongoing fifteen-year pause in temperature increases and did nothing to suggest that their predictions might be wrong,” said Oklahoma Senator Jim Inhofe, a Republican member of the Environment and Public Works Committee. In fact, the report’s authors went to some length to consider the perceived slowdown in temperature rise, concluding that the oceans have absorbed more heat than normal in recent years, and that short-term patterns “do not in general reflect long-term climate trends.” Variance in the levels of certainty for specific projections are made clear throughout the report. The true uncertainty in climate science is how a global shift will play out locally and regionally. It’s difficult to model, particularly since the changes are “unprecedented,” and that is precisely what makes it so dangerous to carry on business as usual.
At this point even the things we can predict, like the number of years we have until we cross the emissions threshold, are of limited use. Knowing how much carbon the world can emit helps governments set reduction targets, but these targets don’t mean much if we can’t design and implement policies to help us meet them. That means not only “saying no” to projects that perpetuate dependency on fossil fuels, like Keystone XL, but incubating creative alternatives in both the technological and political realm.
For conservatives, as David Roberts explains, accepting climate science means acknowledging the gravity and urgency of global warming, which would force into public the choice between sweeping new federal policies or massive human suffering. That climate denial is in effect choosing the latter is what needs to be made clear to the public.
Republican lawmakers like Lamar Smith have already discredited the report for being “more political than scientific,” and though he’s wrong about the rigor of the IPCC’s review, it will be more productive for progressives to challenge the climate deniers’ politics, rather than their science. It is the same politics of greed and cruelty displayed in the vote to cut food stamps, in the opposition to healthcare reform, and in the disregard for the wellbeing of workers and immigrants. Of course congressional Republicans aren’t the only stumbling block to climate progress, just as they aren’t the sole cause of economic inequality. But if predatory capitalism is the enemy, not just emissions, the coalition of allies is much, much larger.
Omar Ghabra on the loss of his homeland, Syria.
The Vast, Unregulated Online Gun Market
Listings for semi-automatic rifles on the popular online gun website Armslist.com, September 27, 2013.
Last October, while most of the country was obsessed with the presidential election only a week away, Radcliffe Haughton walked into a Wisconsin spa with an entirely different obsession. Earlier in the month, Zina Daniel, his estranged wife, obtained a restraining order against him after a long history of domestic abuse and stalking. She worked at the spa, and he had visited before—seventeen days prior, he slashed her car’s tires in the parking lot outside.
But now he came with more than a knife: Haughton had a .40 caliber semi-automatic Glock handgun with him. Immediately upon entering the store, he shot Zina dead—and then murdered one of her co-workers, and then another. He continued shooting, and four other people were wounded before he finally turned the gun on himself.
The judge’s restraining order specifically forbade Haughton from buying a gun, and had he gone to any licensed firearms dealer, he presumably would have been denied. Instead, Haugton went to the increasingly popular Armslist.com, where tens of thousands of guns are up for sale, and where the vast majority of the sellers are private citizens. Within days he had the Glock.
Armslist.com is only a part of the online gun marketplace, but it is a big part—there were almost 100,000 listings on the site in August. The site, and many others like it, went from being virtually unknown to hugely popular in a matter of months, as other mainstream online retail markets, like Craigslist, cracked down on gun listings:
Courtesy Mayors Against Illegal Guns
A new study by Mayors Against Illegal Guns has revealed that every thirtieth gun sold on Armslist.com was sold to someone who would have failed a background check. Of 607 would-be buyers in the sample, which stretched from February to May of this year, 3.3 percent were sold to someone who committed a crime that prohibited firearm possession under federal law.
That ratio is many magnitudes higher than the one for licensed gun dealers—based on the rate of background check denials, only 0.87 percent of would-be buyers at licensed dealers are prohibited purchasers. The report gives a troubling analogy for the Armslist.com marketplace: if one in every thirty passengers on a Boeing 747 were on the federal terror watch list, there would be twenty-two suspected terrorists on board.
And in fact, the ratio is likely much higher. Mayors Against Illegal Guns had a relatively simple methodology—the group examined 13,000 “want-to-buy” ads where the buyer entered a name and contact information, and then compared that information to publicly available criminal records.
So the one-in-thirty result is almost definitely an undercount, because it doesn’t include people who are precluded from gun ownership for other reasons: serious mental illness, immigration status, a history of drug abuse or other non-criminal criteria.
But more notably, only 5 percent of the people who place “want-to-buy” ads on Armslist.com disclose their name and contact information. So one could fairly assume that among the people who choose anonymity, the ratio of prohibited buyers is higher. The analysis also doesn’t, and couldn’t, take into account the people who simply respond to the sellers’ ads directly—another likely approach if someone knows they can’t buy a gun legally.
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And again, Armslist.com is only one part of the huge online gun marketplace; Mayors Against Illegal Guns is just scratching the surface here. But other investigations have borne similar results. In 2011, investigators working for New York City called 125 sellers in fourteen states advertising on ten different websites, including Armslist.com. The investigators plainly said they were unlikely to pass a background check—and 62 percent of the sellers agreed to transfer a weapon anyway. On Armslist.com the rate was 54 percent.
These are exactly the kinds of sales the Manchin-Toomey gun legislation that failed in the Senate earlier this year was designed to stop. Under that bill—which 90 percent of the public supported—a background check would be applied almost universally, including, crucially, for online sales.
“Loopholes in our federal gun laws have taken a devastating toll on communities and neighborhoods across America. Yet in April, a minority of US senators blocked the common-sense legislation that would have closed these deadly loopholes,” said Boston Mayor Thomas Menino when the study was released. (He is a co-chair of Mayors Against Illegal Guns.) “It’s time for our leaders in Washington to put public safety first and pass sensible gun laws that will help save lives.”
The common refrain from pro-gun activists is that criminals will avoid background checks anyway—which, as this study shows, is true. But maybe we shouldn’t make it so easy for them.
Marie Myung-Ok Lee on breaking the cycle of anger.
‘The Guardian’ Posts Shocking Video on H-Bomb That Nearly Exploded in North Carolina
US nuclear weapons test, October 31, 1952. (Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/National Nuclear Security Administration)
A few days back I covered the new book on nuclear weapons accidents and near-accidents in the US by Eric Schlosser, Command and Control. This was quickly followed by the release of a document, via The Guardian, proving how close we really came—i.e., very—to a detonation in North Carolina in 1961 that could have killed millions on the East Coast.
A fallout map tracing the likely path of the radiation was even published.
Now The Guardian, also via Schlosser, posted today an “official” video from the Sandia labs (see below) that documents the accident, along with this story. The video also mentions other accidents.
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Of course, the near-miss was kept hidden from Americans for years—and how close we came until this day. Sclosser tells The Guardian that the significance of the video was that it “conclusively establishes that the Sandia weapons lab itself was concerned about the risk of accidental detonation. Their own experts said that disaster was prevented by a single switch that they knew to be defective.” And see my book and ebook Atomic Cover-up.
Read Greg Mitchell’s article on the anniversary of the “Atomic Plague” cover-up.
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