Citizen, Ink.

James Loewen: Five myths about why the South seceded

Great article by sociologist James W. Loewen, author of Lies My Teacher Told Me and co-editor, with Edward Sebesta, of The Confederate and Neo-Confederate Reader, a book that is rich with information from primary source documents to back it up.

One hundred and fifty years after the Civil War began, we're still fighting it -- or at least fighting over its history. I've polled thousands of high school history teachers and spoken about the war to audiences across the country, and there is little agreement even on why the South seceded. Was it over slavery? States' rights? Tariffs and taxes?

via www.washingtonpost.com

I'm with E.J. Dionne Jr. - New GOP House can't govern with rhetoric alone

It was snowing here in the holler yesterday, but for a few brief moments I had some very warm thoughts toward John Boehner after he took the gavel from Nancy Pelosi. I imagined (or intuited?) his enjoyment and celebration of winning his new position as the 61st Speaker of the House of Representatives, and the pride his family would experience with his achievement.

I don't cleave to conservative ideologies, and I never would have voted for this guy even if I lived in Ohio. I can remember times when I was disappointed that a GOP candidate beat out the person I voted for, but that fact didn't threaten to drop me into a pit of dread. That has not been the case lately. George W's administration marked the end of that, though I must say that I occasionally can wrap my heart around him as well. I think I must have a lot of mirror neurons firing together in my brain's federal government.

As I listened to the Congressional shift yesterday, especially to Boehner, it occured to me that it didn't matter if I'm not from Ohio. When somebody gets to be speaker of the House, they become one of MY Reps, whether I voted for them or even like their politics.

In his remarks, Boehner spoke -- as many on both sides of the aisle have lately -- to the mandate of "the American people" via the last election. Frankly, this phrase uttered by any politician lately induces kind of a primitive growl because a good bit of the time they are claiming  to speak for me -- one of these "American people" -- in a way that sparks zero-resonance with how I really think or feel.

Boehner's rhetoric sounded at least a little inviting, open, friendly to views different than his, and a willingness to work on real solutions to the multiple crises that we face as a nation. But on that point, I'm from Missouri. I need him to show me.

That's why E.J. Dionne's opinion piece in the Washington Post yesterday -- New GOP House can't govern with rhetoric alone -- spoke to me in a way that Boehner and many of his Republican and Tea Party colleagues have not:

There is nothing wrong with reading our Constitution as part of the new Congress's debut. It's a good Constitution. But note that conservatives would much prefer to pronounce various liberal initiatives "unconstitutional" - again, in the abstract - than to say whether they are for or against minimum-wage and environmental laws, Medicaid and a slew of other initiatives that never crossed the minds of those who wrote our foundational document. The Founders couldn't conceive of Facebook, either.

A couple of weeks ago I was listening to some of the rhetoric such as Dionne describes, and decided to take a few minutes to think about this phenomenon -- the empty speech more rooted in the realms of what we imagine to be real. I catch myself in it many times a day. We all do it...it's a human being thing. As a species, we are driven by unconscious beliefs and agendas for which we have virtually no awareness -- unless, of course, we have dedicated ourselves to exploring the depths of our humanity to become aware of these forces and learn to transform them.

I ended this contemplative session on two equally scary thoughts: that what's beneath this rhetoric is...nothing, and no one has a clue about how we can get out of the many messes we're in; or, that there is an agenda -- conscious or unconscious -- that no one will disclose. And maybe it's both? Or neither?

Whatever the case, I believe that every citizen will be challenged in the next two years to ferret out the truth and not succumb to fear or escape into conspiracy theory in doing so. I intend to test Mr. Boehner and the House by writing to him when the occasion seems to demand it, and tell him -- as the new Speaker of "our House" and as one who professes to have heard "the American people" -- how this American person sees things.

Boehner -- and all of our Senators and Representatives -- have a core Self, just like I do, just like you do. They get the messages that we, the people, send them at that level of being, even though the response from the smaller self may be to barf back more empty speech. Of course, that also puts it back on us, the American people, to be very clear, conscious, and conscientious about the messages we send.

 

New link for access to US government publications

On December 20, 2010, FDsys became GPO’s official system of record for online Government information. GPO Access will continue to be updated in parallel with FDsys, until mid-2011, when the old GPO Access will be officially retired.

I have updated the link in the Engaged Citizen Resources typelist in the sidebar.

Abbas Milani: The Shah's Atomic Dreams | Foreign Policy

I appreciated Abbas Milani's article about nuclear politics between the United States and Iran for several reasons. It's a good historical summary, and it's an analysis that is forthright. Issues like this that have dragged on for years usually are complex. Over time those who were old enough to follow it may have forgotten some of the details, and younger people coming of age in engaged citizenry may never have gotten them in the first place. And sometimes -- too often, really -- the details we needed as citizens were never available. Articles like Milani's may help prevent knee-jerk judgments every time Iran's nuclear interests make the news. Milani speaks to a great need to understand the history of negotiations in the article:

In fact, Washington was involved in a long-standing and frequently behind-the-scenes diplomatic tussle with the shah over the purpose of his nuclear program. Recently declassified documents from the Carter and Ford presidential libraries; the departments of defense, energy, and state; and the National Security Council (NSC) show that every element of today's impasse between the U.S. government and the Islamic Republic was also present in the negotiations with the shah. These range from Iran's insistence on its Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) right to a "full fuel cycle," its complaint that the United States was singling it out for guarantees no other country was required to give, and finally the U.S. offer to make Iran part of an international consortium to enrich uranium outside Iran, the so-called "Russian solution." The shah repeatedly insisted that at least he did not want a nuclear bomb -- yet he was adamant that Iran not be treated as a second-class citizen. These negotiations, details of which have not been published before now, don't just expose the regime's lies about the alleged U.S. double standard, they also offer a useful guide for Western negotiators in navigating the waters of Iranian nationalism, both real and feigned.

via www.foreignpolicy.com

Read (the Constitution) Along with John

In the New York Times:

Reading Between the Battle Lines of the Constitution: An Annotated Guide

Despite the framers' stated intentions in the preamble to the Constitution, there is little “domestic tranquility” when it comes to interpreting what the document means.

A pdf version of the document is also available.

This should be fun!

Howard Dean: Tea Party 'Has Trouble With Diversity'

Former Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean said Wednesday that the Tea Party's rise to political potency has been driven by the movement's older, white members who are both fearful of and resistant to growing diversity in the United States, a trend defined most visibly by the election of the first black president.

via www.huffingtonpost.com

Dan Agin: Scalia's Tyranny and the Madness of Power

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, apparently burdened by a parochial ideology that overwhelms his reasoning ability, has recently repeated his idea that tyranny of the majority is acceptable in our democracy as long as the victims of that tyranny are not specifically protected by our Constitution.

The problem is that this is not a joke -- it's serious business and potentially dangerous. Justice Scalia seems to have forgotten that the American Revolution was a revolution against tyranny of any kind and not a revolution to install a tyranny of the majority.

via www.huffingtonpost.com

Jackson Diehl - Dangerously silent on human rights

Yes, Obama made a public statement the day an empty chair represented Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo at the Nobel peace prize ceremony, and both he and Clinton issued statements last week when Russia's best-known political prisoner, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, was convicted on blatantly trumped-up charges. But in all sorts of less prominent places and cases, the U.S. voice remains positively timid - or not heard at all.

via www.washingtonpost.com