Very briefly:
- Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez dies (The Guardian) — In other news, Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead. Sorry. Couldn’t resist. I’d like to think this augurs well for Venezuela’s future, but that remains to be seen. Things there are likely too messed up for things to get better soon. Still — this guy was a linchpin of trouble we’ve had in the region, with his buds in Bolivia, Ecuador, etc. We’ll see.
- Dow Clinches Record, Topping 2007 All-Time High (WSJ) — Something else that could have been the lede, on another day. Do you feel more affluent? I don’t.
- World stock markets hit new highs (BBC) — Thanks to the Beeb for letting us know this wasn’t just a U.S. phenomenon.
- Senate committee approves Brennan for CIA (WashPost) — You know, the drone guy.
- TSA Will Lift Ban Of Small Knives, Wiffle Ball Bats Aboard Planes (NPR) — Hey, maybe that means I won’t have to throw yet another keychain-sized Swiss Army Knife in the trash in order to board! Next, maybe I’ll be able to take my car keys into the State Fair…
- Elephants walking (thestate.com) — OK so it’s not huge news (although you could possibly say it was earth-shaking). But it’s local.
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Jeez I hate playing devil’s advocate, especially since I have serious issues with Chavez’s economic and foreign policy and is bombastic nature, but comparing Chavez to Fransisco Franco a known human rights violator and a man that oversaw the murder of 50,000 of his own citizens is sloppy journalism/editorialism on your part Brad. Last time I check Chavez was elected by the citizens of Venezuela and he also never carried out a violent campaign of political suppression like Franco. You sound just like when a Tea Partyer compares Pres. Obama to Adolf Hitler it trivializes the murder of millions by the Nazis, by somehow making a disagreement over raising taxes sound like it is the equivalent of the Shoah.
I actually wasn’t making a political comparison, equating the maoist to the fascist. I was making a bad joke based on the fact that, as with Franco, we had been hearing about how he was near death for so long. If you remember, that was the basis of the running SNL joke about Franco.
Maybe a link to the video clip would help.
Done.
Last time I checked, both Obama and Hitler were killing their country’s citizens without due process. That’s one similarity. One by the millions, the other with unlawful drone strikes.
Why do you want some German to die?
Glad you went with the Franco joke. That was the first thing that came to mind when I heard about Hugo’s untimely demise. R.I.P. to my favorite Bolivarian.
The Venezuelan government is claiming we infected Chavez with cancer. Next, they’ll demand to see his long form birth certificate!
Kathryn – I demand to see his death certificate! Release it or he didn’t really die!
Silence [delegitimizes] himself and his failed right wing agenda by comparing Obama to Hitler. Shame on that disgusting comment.
bud – are you denying that the Holocaust happened, or that Obama is killing American citizens without due process via drone strikes?
Chavez legacy is mixed. He was no friend of the US government but he did have his philanthropic moments supplying heating oil to the poor in New England being one example. And it also appears that Chavez was legitimately elected to lead his country, something George W. Bush cannot claim for 2000. Conservatives don’t like him because he called out big business for there greedy ways. Let’s just lay off Chavez for now and let his family mourn him peacefully. In due time we can honesly revisit his time in power in it’s entirety.
Fitting that Chavez and Stalin share a death day…
Going to the funeral bud? Say hello to Sean Penn when you get there.
Now that the DOW is at a record level, unemployment is falling with 3 straight years of positive job growth, the budget deficit down and the growth of the economy exceeding that of most OECD countries it’s time to declare the Bush recession over. Thank you Mr. President and the Democrats in congress for doing an outstanding job in the face of an avalanche of opposition from the clueless (or more cynically, evil plutocrat) Republicans in congress.
Silence, I won’t address any comments that compare Hitler to any living American politician. It’s off limits period. That would include any and all politicians that I despise, even George W. Bush. So lay off that…
Bud’s comment was slightly edited, in keeping with my civility policy. (I should have done the same with a previous one; I apologize for not being sufficiently alert when I approved it; I’ll go edit it now.)
Now, that said, let me stick up for his position. Personally, I don’t subscribe to the popular notion that it’s always illegitimate to draw comparisons to the Nazis, or (this one’s sort of related) to compare any current conflict to WWII.
However, in this case… comparing the drone policy — a highly selective program of waging war on a select few terrorists — to the systematic murder of 20 million people, simply because they were Jewish or Polish or homosexual or feeble-minded or something else they couldn’t help… that’s beyond the pale. That is not, either quantitatively or qualitatively, a legitimate comparison. We can certainly legitimately debate the wisdom, the Constitutionality, even the morality of the drone program. But suggesting it’s anything like mass murder is absurd, and wrong.
“Last time I checked, both Obama and Hitler were killing their country’s citizens without due process. That’s one similarity. One by the millions, the other with unlawful drone strikes.”…Silence
I am going to defend Silence on this one even though he is more than capable of mounting his own defense in a very capable manner.
Please read the comment and take it as I think Silence meant it to be. Silence was addressing the fact that citizens of Germany were being killed by Hitler in gas chambers without due process and that citizens of the USA are being killed by Obama via drones without due process. His reference was that both were “similar” but not the same. I.E., killed without due process of law. Silence never compared the two as being equal under a “mass murder” definition.
Now, whether it is one or one million, either way the person or persons who ends up dead was denied the opportunity to offer a defense in a court of law therefore, denied due process. The US citizens who were targeted and killed via drones weren’t even tried in absentia.
If there is any hatred or anger on this blog, I think we know from whence it comes. I may not like Obama’s policies or politics but I don’t “despise” him and I don’t call liberals, Democrats, or others I disagree with bastards, SOBs, evil, and other hate filled rhetoric when discussing the issues.
Sorry, but the lack of proportionality between the two means they are not “similar.”
It’s like saying General Santa Ana is the same as an illegal alien who picks our vegetables because both of them came north from Old Mexico. One came to get a job to feed his family; the other came to kill everybody in the Alamo.
Of course, he probably would have said the Texicans were terrorists, so perhaps I’m muddying the Rio…
To some extent, the lack of similarity is obvious to me because I don’t share the sincere outrage that many feel about Obama killing U.S. citizens. My attitude toward that is conflicted. On the one hand, I’m a big believer in the rule of law. On the other hand, I’m a little bothered by the idea of putting U.S. citizens in some special, protected category above all other people on Earth. It sort of reminds me of the arrogance of the Romans — a Roman citizen was too good to be crucified, for instance, no matter what he’d done.
Coincidentally, it’s a similar (that word again) dynamic that keeps me from being outraged over illegal immigration. I want our immigration rules to be followed, but it bothers me that because of the accident of my birth, I don’t have the barriers in my life that prevent some poor Mexican from coming here in time to feed his starving family.
Anyway, back to the topic at hand — I think that even if I thought killing Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan was outrageous, I would still see the vast quantitative and qualitative difference between that and what Hitler did.
Brad, of course there is a quantitative difference. But there’s not a qualitative difference.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” – Jefferson, T. (1776)
Our founding fathers recognized that certain rights were given by god, and therefore should be unalienable by government. The first right that they mentioned was the right to “Life”. Unalienable means that a government shouldn’t take it away without due process.
Ah, but it says “all men.” It doesn’t put American citizens in a separate category. If that’s your governing principle (and by the way, the Declaration is NOT the Constitution), then every president who has ever waged war is “similar” to Hitler.
Especially Lincoln, since he sent his armies out to kill hundreds of thousands of people I believe he would have regarded as American citizens, since he did not accept the legitimacy of secession.
But you see, there was a qualitative difference. Ordering violence in the pursuit of a legitimate national security priority is not in any way the same as deciding to wipe out demographic groups in the service of an ideology. It’s not just a matter of scale. These things are different in their essence.
Bart, thank you for your defense! Who knew that a virtual front page would set off so spirited a discussion!
“Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.” — John Donne
My last comment on the subject.
Brad, If I may, I’d like to clarify my earlier comment. I was making the point that Obama has engaged, and is continuing to engage in the unlawful killing of American citizens through the use of remotely piloted vehicles. Despite a constitutional guarantee of due process, he has created a system of extrajudicial justice that simply has no precedent in modern American politics. He is judge, jury and executioner. Murder is murder. There is no differentiation for scale when you are talking about people being involved. Losing one immediate family member is more painful than a genocide that is a world away. That’s the practical effect. I was sad and shed tears when my grandparents died. I don’t waste much time thinking about Rwanda.
Now certainly, the killing of a select group of likely terrorists does not rise to the level of ethnic cleansing, or the Shoah, to use that terminology. In no way am I trying to minimize the true horror or scale of the genocide that occurred during the Holocaust. I do however, see a correlation between abusing the power of the state to kill groups of individuals without a trial and abusing the power of the state to kill millions of individuals without a trial.
Obama has continued or expanded some of the worst abuses of the Bush era, many of which he specifically campaigned against. Indefinite detention without due process at Guantanamo for instance. You know who else had prison camps to hold enemies, without trial or legal recourse? Hint, it was not Mother Teresa. (See “Reichstag Fire Decree”)
Drone strikes against suspected terrorists are another. Once again, American citizens are supposed to have the right to trial, and Obama as the President is sworn to uphold that right. Instead, he has pioneered the use of drone strikes in modern warfare, even against our own citizens. Oddly enough, a certain German also used drone aircraft to strike fear into the hearts of his enemies.
Obama rose to power during a time of great economic turmoil. Hitler also rose to power during a time of great economic turmoil. Like Hitler, Obama has shown a willingness to use executive branch power to bypass an unwilling or disagreeable congress/parliament. Both leaders had several top generals resign after unfortunate details of their personal lives came to light. Both used “off the books” financing to run extraordinary deficits, specifically to support massive public works projects. (MEFO & ARRA)
Hitler supported the Facists in Spain. Obama supports the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Syria and throughout the Middle East. I’m sure that there are other similarities.
HOWEVER. there are certainly many differences between Obama and Hitler. Obama hasn’t ordered any genocides. There’s no evidence that Hitler ever played basketball or golf. I’m sure that there are others.
I think maybe they both liked dogs, too. The fiends!
I was making the point that Obama has engaged, and is continuing to engage in the unlawful killing of American citizens through the use of remotely piloted vehicles.
-Silence
I agree 100% with that statement. Bad as that is it doesn’t make him Hitler.
Despite a constitutional guarantee of due process, he has created a system of extrajudicial justice that simply has no precedent in modern American politics.
-Silence
That’s nonsense. The whole extraordinary rendition thing resulted in plenty of death. The indescriminate bombing of Iraq was far worse than the drones. And don’t suggest there is some radical difference between an American citizen and a child who is not an American citizen. Johnson, Nixon, Reagan, Clinton and both Bushes killed many small children without “due process” so don’t hide behind that. Plus Bush DID the drone thing too, just not to the same extent.
Bud – Yes, I am absolutely suggesting that under United States law, there is a difference between US Citizens and foreign nationals. Governance is basically a social contract, and since power derives from the consent of the governed, we created a system of checks and balances on executive power that is supposed to prevent citizens getting murdered without the benefit of due process and access to the legal system.
As always, I’m NOT an attorney or constitutional law scholar, so this is just my opinion, but: There’s a concept called “Color of Law.” It’s when an agent of the government commits an act that is ostensibly sanctioned by the government, but isn’t really supported by the law. They are using their authority to willfully deprive or conspire to deprive another person of any right protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States. That’s what’s going on here, as far as I’m concerned.
For bud’s sake, I will mention a few other known differences:
Hitler was a strict vegetarian, and promoted a vegetarian lifestyle to those around him. Obama is known to like cheeseburgers.
Hitler did not drink alcohol. Obama definitely drinks beer, and even has a special White House brew.
Hitler did not smoke and agressively campaigned against smoking. Obama is an admitted smoker.
Hitler was addicted to amphetemines during WWII, but is not known to have used marijuana or cocaine. Obama has admitted to past use of both cocaine and marijuana.
Where differences exist, I am fully willing to admit them!
Bud – Yes, I am absolutely suggesting that under United States law, there is a difference between US Citizens and foreign nationals.
-Silence
You’re hiding behind a non-sequter. A foreign national, especially a child, is a living, breathing human being that deserves respect and certainly doesn’t deserve a cluster bomb or napalm. Sure it may be techically true that an American citizen, by law, is entitled to certain constitutional rights not granted to non-citizens but it is equally true that under international law people of any nation have rights. Morally it is at least as wrong to kill a child as it is to kill a terrorist suspect even if he is an American citizen.
But EVEN IF I were to concede that it is somehow morally or legally worse to kill an American citizen who is suspected of being a terrorist than it is to kill a foreigner for the same reason THAT STILL DOES NOT IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM translate into a logical comparison to Hitler.
Silence introduces the word of the day: Conflation!
From Merriam Webster: “1a : to bring together : fuse b : confuse , ex: be careful not to conflate gossip with real news…”
Like this: a)All potatoes have eyes, b) some eyes need glasses to work well, c) therefore some potatoes need glasses.
Similarly: a)the Nazis had Hitler, b)we have Obama, c)(according to Silence) Obama is just like Hitler, so d) we’re just like the Nazis?
Silence’s futile attempt to brand Obama as some type of tyrrant because of one misguided policy matter shows how desparate the conservatives are to run away from the obvious resounding success of the Obama presidency. He has a engineered a success foreign policy that has prevented any terrorist attacks on American soil and very few on Americans abroad. Obama’s record on that account is quite amazing when you actually look at the numbers. With an end to the Iraq war and a drawdown in Afghanistan fewer young American soldiers are exposed to the hazards of war than at any time since 2000.
As for the nation’s economy the turnaround is astonishing given the obsticles he has faced from the opposition party. Silence is a pretty smart guy so I suspect in a few years he’ll thank me for beginning the conversion process that transforms him into a pragmatic liberal.
bud – if not wanting Americans to be denied due process makes me into a card carrying ACLU liberal, so be it.
Bud, you need to drink that Kool-Aid a little more slowly; you’ll choke otherwise.
I mean, I like Obama. I rooted for him this time around in the election. I think the Obama haters are way wrong-headed.
But come on… “resounding success.”
I think maybe you need to spend some time out in the private sector, trying to do business development (which is part of my job at ADCO) to see just how much this economy continues to drag.
As for foreign policy, Obama has continued the policies of the Bush administration, with the exception that he has been far more aggressive in killing terrorists, wherever they may be found.
If you think there’s been some radical change, tell that to the detainees at Guantanamo. Mind you, I’m not being critical. I support Obama’s decisions to place pragmatism ahead of his base’s expectations.
But there just hasn’t been this big night-and-day change.
And our nation is struggling economically, in spite of what the Dow did yesterday. And today.
I think Obama’s doing a good job, considering. But “resounding success?” No.
The economy is still basically on life support. Low interest rates are responsible for the stock market gains, and job growth is still weak, at best.
We won’t see a correction until we see interest rates rise. Until grandma and little Jimmy can get 5% on their savings account and it’s easier to borrow money at 2% and get a 6% return on money invested the cycle won’t reverse. Which is why we see jumps in the stock market but not on Main Street.
We may see a correction before rates rise, a market correction could happen any day or minute. That being said, I think the Fed will attempt to keep rates down until unemployment (real unemployment) falls substantially. They’ve said as much. Once again, the government is punishing savers and people who did the right things to prepare for their own future.
I will have to paraphrase the comments but in essence, in all of the financial reports, while the stock market has rebounded and Wall Street is once again flush, Main Street has not begun to realize any of the benefits that are confined to a few. One description is that the stock market recovery is not the elixer for recovery in the economy or unemployment which continues to hover around the 8% mark.
There are still over 15 million workers either out of work, out of the job market, or underemployed, drawing unemployment, going on food stamps, and seeking help anywhere they can find it—-and the number is actually growing instead of shrinking.
I still work in the private sector and while there is work out there, most of it is not of enough significance to make a real difference. Consumer confidence is at rock bottom and every business I deal with is worried about the impending impact of the new regulations based on what they are being told by their tax attorneys, accountants, and other business people.
If this is indicative of what a “resounding success” is supposed to represent, I damn sure don’t want to see the opposite.
Silence, Obama did not “rise” to power as that word is commonly understood; he was democratically elected. Rising to power would, however, include such ploys as Gerrymandering. But we agree on that.
I think that this issue of Federal force was resolved in practical terms after Ruby Ridge and the Branch Davidians. Those were borderline examples where both sides were in the wrong. With drone strikes against known terrorists in remote non-US locations very few are holding to such a rigid viewpoint. In my book you are no longer an American if you claim you are at war with the USA from another country and actively join such a campaign. That is treasonous. And not what the founding fathers were trying to protect. Bring this topic up when something similar happens domestically.
Mark – I was thinking he rose from being a state senator to a US senator to president.
To me, the question is not so much will (or when will) the US deploy drones domestically against targeted civilians; it’s when will another country deploy a drone here to take out somebody (even one of its own citizens) it defines as a threat to its security. A Chinese dissident, for example. On what basis could the United States criticize China in that case if it claims for itself the right to launch drones basically worldwide under the same principle? Because we’re us, and they’re them? I mean, after all, to quote Brad, ” I’m a little bothered by the idea of putting U.S. citizens in some special, protected category above all other people on Earth.”
During today’s Rand Paul filibuster of John Brennan’s nomination, Lindsay Graham gleefully offered as how Eric Holder should indeed feel legally unconstrained about employing drones domestically. “I think it’s paranoia between libertarians and the hard left that is unjustified…I trust this president and other presidents to exercise commander-in-chief authority in a time of war.” There it is again, that “time of war” phrase. Where are we at now, coming up on 12 years and counting? Does anybody really think that by this flimsy definition of “at war,” we will ever not be at war again? Therefore, what Graham is really saying is that ceding extraordinary powers and prerogatives to the executive branch is A) a permanent feature of American government, and B) should be founded on “trust.”
Philip raises a good point, but to be honest, it’s not even really about drones. As a lawful society, we have a right to know exactly what the rules are. When is it OK for our government to mete out capital punishment? If we don’t or can’t know the answer to that, we are no better than the most capricious third world dictatorship.
Silence, you are absolutely correct that the rule of law is the most important issue. But you know it is clear to everyone that terrorists who renounce the United States and enter into violent struggle against us have placed themselves in jeoprody. I am sure that they had no illusions about that.
This isn’t about changing the rules; it’s about a few people behaving badly. Treason is treason. It is not disagreement, it is a rejection of one’s country – from the outside. That has always been a potentially capital offense; in every society throughout history.