I agree with Marty Lederman at SCOTUS blog that this is surely a case for testimony from experts and a thorough discussion. Pushing through changes to the most fundamental underpinnings of our system of government in order to meet arbitrary deadlines is a very bad idea. The compromises seem to be better than what came before, but that really isn’t good enough. History shows that cutting deals on fundamental liberties is dangerous business.
It looks as though it’s going to happen, but it is probably still worthwhile to call your representatives and ask for a delay so that the congress can give this important legislation due consideration.
While agreeing with E.J. Dionne’s basic premise in his op-ed this morning — that the Cheney administration acted like a bunch of rabid dogs back in 2002, making it extremely difficult to even debate, much less vote against the decisions to go to war — Michael Crowley makes the point that I mentioned earlier, which is that the Democratic leadership, particularly the Presidential Hopeful Club, were fighting the last war:
The 2002 debate was filled with discussions about who got the Gulf War “right” and who was “wrong,” and how the anti-war folks–who predicted all sorts of disasters that never came to pass–could have miscalculated so badly. Back in ’91, anti-war votes killed the near-term presidential aspirations of some key Democratic senators, which may help to explain why ambitious people like John Kerry, John Edwards, Joe Biden, and even Hillary Clinton all voted the way they did (pro-war) in 2002. Scare tactics or not, they may have felt they couldn’t afford, politically, to risk the sort of damage incurred by people like Democratic Senator Sam Nunn, who wound up on the “wrong” side of the 1991 vote and retired soon after instead of running for president as once expected.
Republicans had used the Gulf War I votes of various Senators as a cudgel to beat them over the head with throughout the 90’s adding significantly to the lore that Democrats are mincing cowards. Gulf War I was perceieved as an unalloyed success for the USA and people don’t like killjoys.
I wrote the other day that Democrats’ political instincts proved to be wrong both times, which may actually be at the root of the problem. My answer to this is that in the case of war, perhaps Democratic politicians should just vote their consciences and defend their decision on that basis. Deal making and bet hedging has not paid off for us anyway. Maybe we should simply do what we think is right in these matters and let the chips fall where they may. It’s possible that had we done this in 91 we would have ended up exactly where we did — on the Killjoy side of the equation. It’s hard to argue with a glorious victory. But had we done it in 2002, we would have ended up with credibility.
You can’t tell the future. When it comes to the big stuff, it’s best to do what you think is right and let the chips fall where they may. Democrats have shown that they aren’t partocularly good at playing politics with war anyway. If they simply do what they think is right at least they can sleep at night. And after all, if they’d voted against the Iraq war resolution, they would have been on the same side as pretty much everyone on the planet except the Republicna party.
I just spent the last hour reading this series of posts on Obsidion Wings about the reprehensible Lindsey Graham amendment to limit habeas corpus. I feel sick.
I suppose that everyone has certain nightmares that haunt them deeply in some far corner of their consciousness. My most vivid one is being imprisoned for something I didn’t do and having no hope of ever being freed. (I’m certain it comes from growing up with an authoritarian father who refused to hear explanations for perceived transgressions.) The Darkness At Noon scenario literally terrifies me. It’s one of the main reasons I’m a liberal.
This widely circulated Washington Post article from today, in which a lawyer describes his indisputably innocent client’s incarceration in Guantanamo is chilling. I would hope that it would make at least a handful of Senators consider supporting the Bingaman Amendment, which will undo at least some of the damage.
The Republican senate is using habeas corpus as a political football. South Carolinian Lindsay Graham, the sponsor, is undoubtedly feeling tremendous pressure because of his “soft” stance on torture (I still can’t believe we are even talking about it) and this is his way of restoring some manly credentials. But there is no excuse for the Democrats who signed on to this. Nor is there any excuse for the Blue state moderates either.
There was obviously some back room dickering on this bit of legislation and that makes me about as sick as anything about this whole thing. They’re playing politics with habeas corpus for Gawd’s sake. This isn’t some fucking highway bill or a farm subsidy. It’s the very foundation of our system of government and the single most important element of liberty. If the state can just declare someone an “unlawful combatant” and lock them up forever, we have voted ourselves into tyranny.
I know it’s bad form to bring this up, but it’s worth mentioning at this moment. Historian Alan Bullock put it this way:
“Hitler came to office in 1933 as the result, not of any irresistible revolutionary or national movement sweeping him into power, nor even of a popular victory at the polls, but as part of a shoddy political deal with the ‘Old Gang’ whom he had been attacking for months… Hitler did not seize power; he was jobbed into office by a backstairs intrigue.
You don’t make back-room deals in which you fuck with the very basis of our system of government. It is irresponsible in the extreme. Considering the people we are dealing with, it’s especially risky. You just don’t know what they are going to do.
It’s bad enough to do it when the administration is riding on a wave of popularity. To do it when there is no good political reason is mind-boggling. Like I said, it’s one thing for little Lindsay to have to prove he’s not a Democratic eunuch. It’s quite another for anybody who isn’t a Republican from the deep south to feel the need to back this horror.
Katherine at Obsidion Wings concludes her (and Hilzoy’s) masterful series with this:
[I]f you agree, if not with our conclusions, than at least that this is maybe important and complicated enough that we could stand to wait a few weeks, please call your senators, and ask them to vote for Jeff Bingaman’s S. AMDT 2517 to bill S. 1042. And please consider asking other people to do the same.
This one is worth making a call for. it’s important.
It just ain’t gonna fly, George. You’re a liar. You lied about Iraqi intelligence and deliberately mislead Congress. Your soul was already burdened by your disgraceful negligence that contributed to the deaths of over 3000 Americans on 9/11. And to date you’ve added the deaths of 2000 plus American military and uncounted Iraqi civilians to that shameful sum.
You’re a liar, George. And an incompetent. And the majority of the American people, who you duped for so long, and whose children you are needlessly sending to their deaths, are beginning to understand that. Loud and clear.
In all this talk of boycotting Target today, I am reminded of this little gem from over the week-end. Wal-Mart supposedly beat back a boycott threat from the Catholic League by firing an employee who failed to properly toe the conservative Christian line:
A Roman Catholic civil rights group[wha?—ed.] called off a boycott of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. on Friday after the world’s largest retailer apologized for an employee’s e-mail that called Christmas a mix of world religions.
“This is a sweet victory for the Catholic League, Christians in general and people of all faiths,” said Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, in a statement on the group’s website.
Wal-Mart said Thursday that a customer service employee named Kirby had written an inappropriate e-mail to a woman who complained that the retailer had replaced a “Merry Christmas” greeting with “happy holidays.” The company, based in Bentonville, Ark., also said Kirby no longer worked for Wal-Mart.
Kirby wrote that Christmas resulted from traditions such as Siberian shamanism and Visigoth calendars.
“Santa is also borrowed from the [Caucasus], mistletoe from the Celts, yule log from the Goths, the time from the Visigoth and the tree from the worship of Baal. It is a wide wide world,” Kirby wrote.
Wal-Mart spokesman Dan Fogleman said the e-mail — sent without review by other employees — did not represent Wal-Mart’s policies.
He said employees would continue to wish people “happy holidays” because the greeting was more inclusive.
Donohue of the Catholic League said the practice, although “dumb,” was never part of his group’s complaint.
“We only trigger boycotts when we’ve been grossly offended,” he said.
We don’t know the whole story, of course, but what Kirby said was the truth. Are they going to argue that Santa was one of the three wise men? Is the Christmas tree an old middle eastern phallic symbol celebrating the virgin birth? What do they tell their kids when they ask about this stuff, that it’s all in a lost book in the Bible? What nonsense. What the Irish cretin twins (Big Bills Donohue and O’Reilly) are so exercised about is the “Happy Holidays” thing. And WalMart didn’t budge on that. They just sacrificed Poor Kirby — and Donohue was magically no longer “grossly offended” (by the facts.) Sure.
Everybody just keep in mind when the radical Christian right start bellyaching about “Happy Holidays” this season that their favorite retailer doesn’t give a shit.
The truth is that their little boycott threat was nothing more than kabuki in the first place. It turns out that Wal-mart and the churches are much more entwined than I realized. (I have long joked that shopping is America’s true religion, but this is ridiculous.) And anti-Wal-Mart forces are on to them and are fighting fire with fire.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and its critics have been fighting for the hearts and minds of the American public, through advertising, media outreach, worker testimonials and public debate. Now the two sides are fighting for souls.
The world’s largest retailer and its adversaries are hoping to sway religious leaders to their respective causes, seeking to use the clergy’s powerful influence to reach flocks that may not respond to mere public relations or media-driven pitches.
Wal-Mart has quietly reached out to church officials with invitations to visit its headquarters in Bentonville, Ark., to serve on leadership committees and to open a dialogue with the company.
Across the aisle, one of the company’s chief foes, Wal-Mart Watch, this weekend is launching seven days of anti-Wal-Mart consciousness-raising at more than 200 churches, synagogues and mosques in 100 cities, where leaders have agreed to sermonize about what they see as moral problems with the company.
“They are each probing for weaknesses behind enemy lines,” said Nelson Lichtenstein, professor of history at UC Santa Barbara and editor of the forthcoming book “Wal-Mart: The Face of 21st Century Capitalism.” “The liberals are trying to go into the churches even in conservative Republican neighborhoods. And then Wal-Mart goes into black churches and poor neighborhoods and says, ‘Look, on this question, you should be with us because we provide jobs.’ “
Wal-Mart Watch’s religious efforts are part of the group’s Higher Expectations Week, a series of nationwide events at churches, clubs, colleges and other organizations that highlight criticism of the retailer. The activities include free screenings of Robert Greenwald’s recently released documentary, “Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price,” a critical look at how the company, the largest private employer in the U.S., treats workers.
Wal-Mart declined to comment on its outreach to clergy. But church leaders from around the country said the retailer had contacted them to encourage their support — or to respond to their criticism — of the company.
The Rev. Ron Stief, director of the Washington office of the United Church of Christ, said a Wal-Mart representative telephoned him about six weeks ago after he criticized the company in a church newspaper article about Greenwald’s documentary. After years of writing letters to the company to complain about Wal-Mart’s conduct, Stief said, he finally received an invitation to Bentonville.
“They wanted me to come see their side of it,” he said. Stief said he hoped to take the retailer up on the offer after he and other church members see the film.
The Rev. Clarence Pemberton Jr., pastor of New Hope Baptist Church in Philadelphia, said a Wal-Mart representative attended Tuesday’s regular meeting of about 75 Baptist ministers in that city.
“It appeared that what he was trying to do was to influence us or put us in opposition to this film that is coming out and will be in the churches,” Pemberton said, referring to the documentary. “It was implied very strongly that it was about some sort of cash rewards for people who would become partners with Wal-Mart and what they were trying to do.”
Bishop Edward L. Brown, a regional leader of the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, said a Wal-Mart representative attended a CME bishops meeting last spring in Memphis, Tenn.
[…]
Wal-Mart Watch, in reaching out to churches, has opened a new front in its campaign, hoping to win converts among those who are not natural allies of labor and environmental activists, the mainstays of the group’s support.
“In order to make the impact we wish to make, we need to have breadth and depth of supporters, and we’ve been discovering that one way of developing that is with communities of faith,” said Wal-Mart Watch spokeswoman Tracy Sefl. “The notion of justice, fairness and opportunity is a message that is powerful from the pulpit and is a message that really transcends simply talking about the stores in familiar ways.”
[…]
The Rev. Frank Alton of Immanuel Presbyterian Church in Koreatown said he could not recall ever sermonizing about a specific company in his 10 1/2 years in his pulpit. But asking his 250 members to consider the ethical implications of Wal-Mart, he said, was worth making an exception.
“They are a leader, and they are multiplying around the world — they have a responsibility as a leader and an innovator and pioneer to set a standard since others are following them,” Alton said. “They are destroying community, which is a value of Jesus; they are exercising greed, which is against the values of Jesus; and they are promoting a culture of greed and extending a culture of poverty, which are against the values of Jesus.
I don’t know quite what to think about all this. I’m so determinedly secular that it’s beyond my ken. But, if Wal-mart is passing out currency to conservative churches, I think it’s only right that the liberal churches get in on the act by at least making the very logical argument that exploitation of the poor for obscene profit isn’t exactly Christian. (But, can someone tell me on what basis Wal-Mart can make an explicitly Christian argument in its favor? Where in the Bible is selling cheap Chinese crap for Jesus mentioned?)
This looks to be a real red state blue state battle shaping up. These companies must grow or die. The blue states are where the people are. We can make a difference here by keeping Wal-Mart out (or atl east contained) and Target in line. We can reward companies like Costco that treat their workers like human beings.
If the culture war is going retail, we libs have some serious clout There isn’t some stupid structural impediment involved in this battle — an electoral college or federalist system that dilutes our influence. This one’s all about the numbers.
Target needs to understand that this latest is not a battle over the morning after pill, it is about birth control in general, and that the majority isn’t going to stand for it. Here’s a handy list of articles that explains the position of these “pharmacists of conscience” and what is their real agenda. Here’s one:
There are mainly three types of drugs that are causing me to feel a tremendous amount of guilt after I have dispensed them. These three are misoprostol, birth control pills, and “morning after pills.”
A little education might go a long way with the corporate cowards at Target. They may not unbderstand entirely what they are getting into by allowing themselves to start picking and choosing among different religions and personal beliefs. If they fail to get it, then boycott ’em. This is the new front in the culture war and we’ve got the advantage this time if we choose to use it.
Those of us who’ve been writing about the torture regime for a long while already knew that the DOD had decided to use the SERE techniques to “interrogate” prisoners. This NY Times article reveals something about this I didn’t know before — the SERE techniques were developed for special forces to learn to resist the harsh torture techniques of the totalitarian communist regimes:
SERE, for Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape. Based on studies of North Korean and Vietnamese efforts to break American prisoners, SERE was intended to train American soldiers to resist the abuse they might face in enemy custody.
[…]
The Pentagon appears to have flipped SERE’s teachings on their head, mining the program not for resistance techniques but for interrogation methods. At a June 2004 briefing, the chief of the United States Southern Command, Gen. James T. Hill, said a team from Guantánamo went “up to our SERE school and developed a list of techniques” for “high-profile, high-value” detainees. General Hill had sent this list – which included prolonged isolation and sleep deprivation, stress positions, physical assault and the exploitation of detainees’ phobias – to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who approved most of the tactics in December 2002.
[…]
the Pentagon cannot point to any intelligence gains resulting from the techniques that have so tarnished America’s image. That’s because the techniques designed by communist interrogators were created to control a prisoner’s will rather than to extract useful intelligence.
Can you believe it? It’s not just that torture doesn’t work generally, which it doesn’t. And it’s not just that torture is morally repugnant and stains all who are involved with it. It does. The most amazingly thing about this (Commie) torture regime is that it’s specifically designed to extract false confessions for propaganda purposes. Dear gawd, can they really be so incompetent that they didn’t understand the difference between creating propaganda and gaining intelligence?
Sadly, yes. I keep forgetting that the GWOT is really a massive mind-fuck for these deluded neocon fabulists. They have long been convinced that the major problem for the US is that the wogs think we are a bunch of weaklings. Here’s what Bush said about this just last Friday:
We know the vision of the radicals because they have openly stated it — in videos and audiotapes and letters and declarations and on websites.
First, these extremists want to end American and Western influence in the broader Middle East, because we stand for democracy and peace, and stand in the way of their ambitions. Al Qaeda’s leader, Osama bin Laden, has called on Muslims to dedicate, their “resources, their sons and money to driving the infidels out of our lands.” The tactics of al Qaeda and other Islamic extremists have been consistent for a quarter of a century: They hit us, and expect us to run.
Last month, the world learned of a letter written by al Qaeda’s number two leader, a guy named Zawahiri. And he wrote this letter to his chief deputy in Iraq — the terrorist Zarqawi. In it, Zawahiri points to the Vietnam War as a model for al Qaeda. This is what he said: “The aftermath of the collapse of American power in Vietnam — and how they ran and left their agents — is noteworthy.” The terrorists witnessed a similar response after the attacks on American troops in Beirut in 1983 and Mogadishu in 1993. They believe that America can be made to run again — only this time on a larger scale, with greater consequences.
to the extent that American passivity and inaction opened the door to 9/11, neither Democrats nor Republicans, and neither liberals nor conservatives, are in a position to derive any partisan or ideological advantage. The reason, quite simply, is that much the same methods for dealing with terrorism were employed by the administrations of both parties, stretching as far back as Richard Nixon in 1970 and proceeding through Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan (yes, Ronald Reagan), George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and right up to the pre-9/11 George W. Bush.
Unsurprisingly, he traces our wimpification all the way back to 1970 when a couple of diplomats were killed in the Sudan by the PLO. If we’d nipped that damned Palestinian bullshit in the bud by dropping some well placed nukes where they were most needed (The USSR), the world trade center would be standing today. We’ve never been tough enough for these guys.
This is the consciousness that pervades the inner sanctum of the Bush foreign policy and defense cabal. (Or, at least, it did. It’s hard to know what they are thinking now.) But considering the way they arrange the world and its history in their strange minds, it’s possible that they didn’t stop to think what the torture regime they so eagerly adopted was actually designed to do before they gave the order to use it.
But, you cannot discount the idea that they may have consciously sought to elicit false confessions through some misplaced fourth generation “mindwar” wet dream in which we would psych out the terrorists by being so macho that they would run like rabbits back into their caves and spidey-holes. Who knows? These guys could have originally thought we could prove how tough we really are by showing footage of al Qaeda opeatives confessing to non-existent crimes on FoxNews. With Cheney and Rumsfeld in charge, it’s entirely possible that this whole torture regime may have sprung from a late night viewing of “The Manchurian Candidate” and “The Battle of Algiers” over cigars and a six pack of Zima. That’s about as strategically sophisticated as these guys get.
There are several things that are exceedingly sleazy about this report that you won’t learn from the NPR story, but PZ Meyers will tell you. First, Sternberg is an Old Earth Creationist. Second of all, the reporter, Barbara Hagerty, has connections to nutty Howard Ahmanson, a follower of the racist Rushdoony who also advocated a US theocracy, and Ahmanson is a major funder of the “intelligent design” creationism con developed at Discovery Institute.
Most importantly, the paper which Sternberg published, and sparked the controversy was, as PZ writes, “an excellent example of garbage pseudoscience that was slipped through the peer review process with the aid of a little cronyism from the acting editor, Sternberg, and is representative of the level of trash we get from the Designists…And in particular, this kind of bad science is being peddled for political ends, which makes it especially pressing to deplore it.”
Exactly.
The report claims that untenured professors who believe in “intelligent design” creationism risk not getting tenure. I certainly hope that’s true.
But to NPR, that’s a restriction of academic freedom. I fail to see how. Look, if a young astronomy professor believed the moon was made of green cheese, she shouldn’t get tenure, either. And there is just as much evidence that the moon is made of green cheese as there is for “intelligent design” creationism: none at all.
NPR should be ashamed of itself.
[NOTE To “intelligent design” creationists who wish to argue with me that it actually is a scientific idea: Please go to Pharyngula and argue with Dr. Myers. When you convince him that you are right, by all means let me know and I will be happy to dicuss your ideas. Until then, bugger off.]
It is vitally important to distinguish between the methods used to establish that a fact is a fact and the tactics used to persuade the larger public to accept that fact. They are not one and the same.
For example, it is beyond dispute, by reasonable people, that contrary to the assertions of Bo and Ti of the Heaven’s Gate cult, there really was no UFO hiding behind the tail of Comet Hale-Bopp. However, if you had a child who was in thrall to these dangerous crazies, no amount of logic or reason would convince them otherwise:
The New Yorker…reported on a camera shop in Southern California that had sold an expensive 3 1/2″ Questar Maksutov-Cassegrain telescope (a favorite of amateur astronomers for decades) to two of the Heaven’s Gate cult members, who said that they wanted to see the UFO following Hale-Bopp. They came back weeks later to return the telescope, disappointed that it could not reveal the UFO and was thus obviously a defective instrument.
So how do you save your child from such crazies, when they are beyond reason? Well, you don’t have too many choices. Most boil down to, “Shut up and get in the car. We’re taking you away from these idiots before you piss your life away. Get in the car, now.” And some people get so desperate they kidnap their kids and hire a deprogrammer to reverse the brainwashing.
Now all this raises a host of ethical questions which can keep the blogosphere humming till the pixels all come home. But let’s change the example slightly. What happens when an entire country is convinced there’s a UFO behind Hale-Bopp? Abandoning the metaphor, how do you bring the country to its senses when it’s been programmed to trust the serial lies and distortions of a compulsive liar of a president?
That is the tactical problem that many of us* have faced since the fall of 2000, when Bush’s Texas-sized lies and distortions went global and the American people, bless their trusting hearts, fell for ’em. Reason, ultimately, is not that effective on people whose brains have been set to refuse admittance to reality. Sooner or later, you need to follow a variation of Sean-Paul’s intelligent advice:
The President is a liar. The Democrats did not have the same intelligence as the White House did. And that’s all any Democrat has to say. Don’t try to explain it. Don’t let the Republicans misdirect you into the details or distract you in any way. Just keep hammering the same line over and over and over because the public already knows it’s true: The President is misleading the American people. The Democrats did not have the same intelligence as the White House did. Rinse and repeat all the way to 2006.
Again, establishing a fact is not the same as persuading others to accept that fact. The fact – the president is a liar – has long been established. Now, how do you get others to accept it? Say it: The president is a liar. Say it again: The president is a liar. And when someone demands proof, you repeat: The president is a liar.
Now, suppose they say, “But you’ve shown me no proof. That’s just your opinion. Prove it.” Now what? You say, “The president is liar.”
Now to us liberals, this may appear at first to be a bit, how shall I say it, irrational and unfair. It is not. First of all, the person you are trying to convince is perfectly capable and in fact probably has read many of the same articles you have read, in which the lies of Bush are so painfully apparent. Their ability to reason is skewed, not their ability to read. Attempts to “set their reason straight” by advancing reasoned arguments merely reinforces the delusion.
The important thing to remember is that a deeply-held delusion is invested with deep emotional attachment. One’s self-esteem, one’s positive opinion of oneself, has become deliberately entertwined with maintaining that delusion at all costs. Dangerously so. It is that emotional attachment you must confront. When that has been dealt with, the ability to reason is freed to arrive at the obivious conclusion: The president is a liar.
Now in dealing with someone on the emotional level, there’s no reason to be cruel, but you need to be firm. You need to weaken, in the face of enormous resistance, the emotional glue that binds the deluded to his/her delusion. You don’t humiliate as in, “Schmuck! Any moron can see the president is lying through his teeth. WTF is wrong with you?” That further binds the delusion to the person’s sense of self, which now feels attacked and therefore becomes defensive. Instead, you simply repeat, “The president is a liar.”
Eventually, the repetition will permit the idea to seep enough into their consciousness to make the deluded start to wonder whether it is worthwhile investing their sense of self so deeply in someone who just may be, in fact, a liar. Your clue that this is happening is a change in the way the way the discourse is conducted. Instead of, “Oh yeah? Prove he’s a liar!” you’ll start to hear things like, “I guess he did cherrypick the intelligence a bit and in a sense, that’s a lie. But you don’t think Bush made stuff up out of whole cloth, do you?”
At which point, you respond, “The president is a liar” but, as Sean-Paul says, don’t go into the details. Remember, they’ve already heard them but they can’t reason about them properly yet and the problem they are having is emotional, not intellectual. They’ve started to wake up, but they are still entangling their own sense of integrity with Bush’s.
It’s only when they respond, “Okay, he’s a liar. He lied and manipulated intelligence to get us into the war. But we have to support Bush now if we are not going to embolden the enemy” that you ease up slightly. You say, “The president is a liar. He lied to your face. Over and over. He lied to the soliders who are now fighting for their lives over there. The president is a liar. You owe him nothing. He owes you the truth.”
Dig?
*Yes, many of us were quite immune from the start to the Bush administration’s assault on reality. While I can’t help feeling that maybe we are a bit smarter than the rubes, reason informs me it’s not that simple. For one thing, some very smart people – eg Kevin – were gulled for the longest time, before they finally woke up, and I’m certain that on any fair intelligence test Kevin would trump me easily. I think it’s more the draw of the cards. For example, Lincoln was a tee-totaler, but unlike the moralizing prigs that surrounded him, he didn’t believe his alcoholic abstinence showed strength of character. “I never had a taste for it,” was about all he said.
Likewise, I think that we never had a predisposition to believe what government officials say. And while I think that’s a good thing, all in all, I can also understand where that kind of skepticism, carried to an extreme, can lead into trouble. It is for that reason that I am not opposed to having those more gullible – like George Packer – publish their thoughts for serious consideration. But it stands to reason that those of us who are more skeptical must also be provided a seat at the table of mainstream discourse. The fact that we are not is an exceedingly dangerous situation as it skews the spectrum of acceptable opinion far too much towards unquestioned belief in a government’s willingness to be honest.