Stump Lane
in the dirt since history began

SO YEAH, he’s got a quick little move to the basket, but Obama’s missed layup ain’t got shit on Darryl Fucking Dawkins renovating NBA backboards:

Let’s just say if basketball skills are a criteria for being President, there are other, more bad-ass candidates that deserve consideration.

Fracture:

WARREN JEFFS is hard core:

Back in the late 90s, Sterling Harker made it known that he was opposed to marriages between underage girls and older men. He says that put him on Warren Jeffs’ “blacklist.” Jeffs would eventually take away his two wives and children and kick him out of the FLDS sect. “He just cuts people off,” Sterling said. “No remorse, No consideration. Ruthless.”
[ABC4.com: Banished polygamist fathers hope to reunite with kids]

The group that expelled a man who wasn’t in keeping with the correct religious beliefs, (but kept his wife and kids!) now says it is being persecuted for its religious beliefs.

NO I DIDN’T watch the fucking thing. But there was talk of this part on the fucking radio this morning:

NASH MCCABE (Latrobe, Pennsylvania): (From videotape.) Senator Obama, I have a question, and I want to know if you believe in the American flag. I am not questioning your patriotism, but all our servicemen, policemen and EMS wear the flag. I want to know why you don’t.

MR. GIBSON: Just to add to that, I noticed you put one on yesterday. But — you’ve talked about this before, but it comes up again and again when we talk to voters. And as you may know, it is all over the Internet. And it’s something of a theme that Senators Clinton and McCain’s advisers agree could give you a major vulnerability if you’re the candidate in November. How do you convince Democrats that this would not be a vulnerability?

SENATOR OBAMA: Well, look, I revere the American flag, and I would not be running for president if I did not revere this country. This is — I would not be standing here if it wasn’t for this country. . . .
[New York Times: Democratic Debate in Philadelphia]

Don’t tell me the candidate would have lost ground if he had instead answered: “Are you fucking kidding me?” and maybe laid the blank stare on ‘em.

I mean it. Please don’t tell me.

Or, Not Condescending: Ur Doing It Rong.

OBAMA SPEAKS to the ruling class (donors!) about the people they see out their car windows; and said a very bad thing, meaning he used the B-word. (No, not that B-word; “bitter.”):

“You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them, and they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

Your Montag will assume that the focus groups indicate that the key Pensylvania Democratic primary voters:

• have guns
• are religious
• are antipathetic to people who aren’t like them
• possess anti-immigrant sentiment
• aren’t sure about all of these international trade deals

Why else would Obama have to try and explain them to his donors?

So, yeah, Obama was condescending. And I’m pretty sure he’s wrong that more than one or two of these five traits are symptoms of economic-related “bitterness.” (And that people who are religious or value the 2nd Amendment may object to the idea that “bitterness” has fuck-all to do with it.) And I’m pretty sure “anti-trade,” is more disingenuous rhetorical turn than, you know, accurate description of the rubes’ position on trade deals. But the guy’s gotta get money, right?

Hillary Clinton speaks to the political class (voters!) about how great they truly are, but isn’t condescending at all. Not a bit:

“I’ve spent a lot of time traveling around this beautiful, historic state… I have a great deal of affection for the state and for the people and this campaign has been a privilege and a joy. It’s being reported that my opponent said that the people of Pennsylvania who’ve faced hard times are bitter. Well, that’s not my experience. As I travel around Pennsylvania, I meet people who are resilient, who are optimistic, who are positive who are rolling up their sleeves. They’re working hard every day for a better future for themselves and their children. Pennsylvanians don’t need a president who looks down on them. They need a president who stands up for them, who fights for them.”

Vote for me because I like you, and I would never, ever call you something horrible like “bitter.” No I wouldn’t. You’re so sweet and good! I won’t mention international trade deals if you don’t.

The McCain campaign speaks to no one in particular Politico, and says nothing at all of import, and barely condescends enough to be condescending:

“[Obama's statement] shows an elitism and condescension towards hardworking Americans that is nothing short of breathtaking. It is hard to imagine someone running for president who is more out of touch with average Americans.”

“More out of touch” than what?

[MSNBC: HRC: OBAMA SAYS PENNSYLVANIANS 'BITTER']

Fledermaus Can’t Get It:

DEMOCRATIC SENATOR Jay Rockefeller has no backbone:

“McCain was a fighter pilot, who dropped laser-guided missiles from 35,000 feet. He was long gone when they hit,” Rockefeller told the newspaper, which published the article on the interview Tuesday.

“What happened when they [the missiles] get to the ground? He doesn’t know. You have to care about the lives of people. McCain never gets into those issues,” he is quoted saying.

On Tuesday, Rockefeller issued a statement, saying, “I have deep respect for John McCain’s honorable and noble service to our country. I made an inaccurate and wrong analogy and I have extended my sincere apology to him.

“While we differ a great deal on policy issues, I profoundly respect and appreciate his dedication to our country, and I regret my very poor choice of words,” he said.
[FOX News: After Rockefeller Insult, McCain Camp Claims Obama Won’t Shut Down Campaign Smears]

Look, do you think John McCain apologized to the people his missiles landed on? Fuck no. This is America, politicians. Don’t. Apologize. For. Anything. You sound like a bunch of assholes when you do that.

[H/T Kevin Hayden]

THIS WEEK, we are once again regaled with a declassified torture memo [pdf] from apologetic for child testicle crushing, John Yoo the Baptist. If you know me at all, you know Your Montag is absolutely opposed to the use of physical coercion and torture as instruments of state power. You might wonder, though, what neoconservative, pro-victory, Associate Professor of Political Science, United States loving, Donald Douglas — who fully supports current U.S. military operations around the world — has to say about it:

Never mind the fact that for deeply principled, philosophical reasons we might need to consider the selective use of torture against our enemies. As Jerome Slater has argued in advocating agressive [sic] interrogations:

• Put differently, so long as the threat of large-scale terrorist attacks against innocents is taken seriously, as it must be, it is neither practicable nor morally persuasive to absolutely prohibit the physical coercion or even outright torture of captured terrorist plotters—undoubtedly evils, but lesser evils than preventable mass murder. In any case, although the torture issue is still debatable today, assuredly the next major attack on the United States—or perhaps Europe—will make it moot. At that point, the only room for practical choice will be between controlled and uncontrolled torture—if we are lucky. Far better, then, to avoid easy rhetoric and think through the issue while we still have the luxury of doing so.

Slater was writing a few years ago, but now, more than ever, even the slightest mention of torture elicits the most violent knee-jerk reaction among the vanguard of the surrendering antiwar contingents.

But Yoo’s right: Sometimes we need to think about this stuff. Sometimes we have to draw those lines between the thinkable and the unthinkable, to think about what indeed needs to be done to protect American national security, unflinchingly, without succumbing to the natural human impulse to recoil from the commitment of requisite acts.
American Power: [Sometimes You Have to Draw Lines: John Yoo Responds]

Don’t get me wrong! I can imagine scenarios where I would fucking torture someone a second asshole to, say: protect schoolchildren: from a bomb: I saw an evildoer hide in a locker: and there wasn’t time to evacuate the school: and I was able to capture the evildoer: and the evildoer was the only person around who knew the locker combination and how to stop the bomb from going off.

I don’t know how deeply principled or philosophical these reasons are, but if such an imagined scenario were to ever arise in the real world*, I would feel ethically at ease in using violence and coercion to force a “good” outcome. And, even though the torture I would employ is rightfully unlawful, I would trust — when the cops came and asked, “holy fuck, why did you crush this man’s toes with a toilet tank cover, and knock his teeth out with a cold chisel?” and I answered, “to save the schoolchildren from that bomb over there,” — that justice would look kindly upon me.

The decision to use physical coercion or torture is not to be taken lightly! Having laws and policies does not stop individuals, even state agents, from using these techniques for “deeply principled and philosophical” reasons. Laws and policies only require that that individual stand behind their reasons in the interest of justice, and necessary checks and balances. This way it is the individual actor, presumably capable of applying ethical thought to the situation, who makes the call on whether the desired outcome is, in fact, the lesser evil than the means to achieve it.

Giving the long arm of the state the bludgeon of torture to wield, with the horrific strength of naked state power behind it — allowing institutions (not capable of applying ethical thought to the situation!) to determine desired outcomes, and call upon their agents to blindly “follow orders” to torture — is, quite frankly, fucking insane.

But, my selfless, unconditional loyalty, and unflinching will to protect doesn’t extend very far beyond my family and small circle of friends. I do suffer from a vague sense of community and a love of my home state — but blind, jingoistic nationalism isn’t really my cup of tea, which I daresay, allows me to perceive correctly. What I worry about is every nationalist, jingoistic yahoo with a government credential running around perceiving threats to The Homeland and living out dark heroic fantasies of torture, under the cover of institutional tolerance, or blanket immunity, or some shit.

By the way, you can say, “the next major attack … will make [the torture debate] moot,” all you want, but that don’t necessarily make it fucking so!

So let’s go back to this, which came earlier in the linked article than the above:

Yoo’s legal theories, of course, will never be forgiven by the paranoid left. It’s not the terrorists seeking our destruction who’re dangerous, it’s the Bush administration itself.

Now, let’s not reserve scorn only for the Bush administration, let’s say ‘the bipartisan American imperial adventure.’ And yes, let’s admit: terrorists can occasionally be dangerous. However, considering which of these groups ostensibly operates “in our name,” and recognizing which of these groups has the far greater amount of power to enact their agenda… Well, this is one of those problems of imposition of power and the “ethic of truths” — and the associated dilemma of people who find themselves faced with said power:

It’s easy to know how to react in case of a terrorist attack. It’s far more difficult to know how to respond in the face of an unjust exercise of state power.

A just society would not put its citizens in the latter situation.

What vexes me most about this is how this post 9-11 dystopian surveillance and security apparatus jibes with the political ideal of self sufficiency. The right puts a lot of stock in personal responsibility, and objections to the Nanny State; but seem to place an astonishing amount of faith in the increasingly brazen, unfettered exercise of power by the Daddy State to keep them safe from evil.

* So we acknowledge the ‘ticking bomb scenario’ in order to participate in this very polite and civilized debate. HOWEVER, one wonders which has happened more: all conditions being met to justify a real world case of torture; or the rhetorical use of the ‘ticking bomb scenario’ to justify a deeply principled, philosophical case in favor of instituting “legal” torture.

Zbigniew Brzezinski

Collect them all!

[Cross-posted.]