Owning the Hatred

There are a lot of discussions out there about Scott Roeder, the man held in the murder of Dr. Tiller. Hilzoy, Friedersdorf, Balkin, MB and others bring up many good points about how to deal with a non-Muslim, domestic, Caucasian terrorist. Whether we deal with this incident within the sphere of the GWoT or as a matter of conventional criminal proceedings has become, thanks to the broad definitions applied to the former approach, a valid question.

My primary concern is less how to handle Roeder than how to handle those with whom he associated.

There is considerable evidence that Roeder was affiliated with at least one fairly militant fringe group with anti-choice sympathies (among other Conservatist positions). There is also some evidence that these groups did not entirely share Roeder's perspective, and may well have been less extreme as a whole. While they clearly were not active participants in Sunday's tragedy, they are clearly implicated as influences on Roeder's state of mind if not his precise actions.

Assuming the GWoT methodologies are appropriate, these groups with whom Roeder associated are implicated as condoning or supporting terrorism on US soil. They provided him with inflammatory literature, support - however conditional - for his views, and a forum for his extremism.

Naturally, the less-unhinged among the groups will instantly disavow Roeder and the worst of the militancy of their own group as outside the main of their organisations. That does not excuse them for failing to rein in Roeder and the others, failing to report Roeder to the authorities, or any of a hundred other steps they could have taken to prevent Tiller's murder. And those claims are already refuted by the leadership of larger organisations such as Operation Rescue - who, while denouncing the killing itself, are actively advocating nearly anything short of that to shut down clinics like the one where Dr. Tiller practised.

To those of us for whom the GWoT is an abomination of illegal, inhuman sadism, our chief difficulties have always been at once the Othering of the assailants and the perceived immediacy of the threat. Prior to September 11, 2001 there was only one successful attack by Muslim terrorists on US soil, and there have been none since, so regardless for the reasoning for such the potential of that threat is substantially reduced. Conversely, attacks on one segment of the US population by another, or on one organisation by members of another, are multiple: post-Katrina New Orleans is a prime example - and so is the murder of a physician in a church on a Sunday during worship. Consider that in each of the cases the community of victims goes far beyond the individuals directly impacted: the entire African American community of Louisiana has been effectively traumatised by the experience of New Orleans, and Dr. Tiller's entire parish was present to witness his killing and are equally affected. And in the cases of domestic activity in these cases, it is nearly impossible to Other the assailants: they look like Middle America, and the only thing differentiating them from the rest of the populace is their willingness - even eagerness - to use violence to achieve their ends.

Illustrating how the GWoT has been misused against innocent US citizens has been ineffective to date: the rage to vengeance of the early Noughties swept aside any arguments against the Great Misadventure. But these new events are hitting far closer to home: the mass killing of "liberals" at a Unitarian church, and now the "execution" of a physician at his church during Sunday services are beginning to resonate as beyond defensible to the point that GWoT-scale response may be justified.

This is how the scope of the GWoT broadens, and why it is dangerous to declare war on an intangible. I am not fond of the anti-choice movement in the least; but the fact that we can lump the violent fringe of the anti-choice community in the same "terrorist" bundle with the aparently intended targets of the GWoT shows just how dangerous the GWoT is both in concept and in execution. Tiller's murderer deserves the most thorough investigation, the most able prosecution - but also the most able defense; and the organisations that aided and abetted the party responsible for Tiller's death deserve careful scrutiny and sharp criticism, but no more than that if we even pretend to cherish the freedom of speech and assembly outlined in the Constitution. On the other hand, without a clearer illustration of just how excessive the GWoT is by definition, it may be instructive for those who advocate it to experience its application closer to home.

Of course there are threats to the peace and security of the US, both at home and abroad: these are the reasons we have law enforcement, intelligence agencies, alliances and treaties, Interpol and a host of other resources available to us. Those resources ought to be exhausted first. Failing to do so leaves us with the very real possibility that any one of us could be branded with the "threat to the Republic" language the GWoT employs and treated the same as GWoT detainees now in custody. We're supposed to be better than that.

Quote of the Day

[T]he fact that lives are at stake is not enough to justify giving up on democracy. And be clear: when you think that when you lose out in a political debate in which lives are at stake, that makes it OK to kill people to get your way, you have given up on democracy.

Hilzoy, taking on the anti-choice voices that claim killing doctors is justified because it saves [the] lives [of all the aborted foetuses].

Read the whole thing here.

"Our Most Effective Rhetoric And Actions"

That's what Randall Terry, founder of Operation Rescue, is looking to preserve in the wake of the Tiller murder: the ability to "peacefully protest" abortion providers. Terry fears that, following Dr. Tiller's shooting in his Church yesterday that the authorities will seek to curtail anti-abortion protest efforts.

Hilzoy looks into those so-called peaceful protests. She found a chilling example in a Rolling Stone review of (also from Operation Rescue) Troy Newman's campaign against Dr. Tiller - which targeted not only the MD but his entire staff and any service enterprise even loosely associated with the clinic. This includes mass protests at homes, shopping and entertainment venues, mass mailings to entire neighborhoods, mailings and protests at spouses' places of employment, harassment of businesses that clinic staff frequented, and other reprehensible tactics.

From Rolling Stone:

Operation Rescue's smear campaign against [clinic administrative assistant Sara] Phares is part of a new strategy to shut down abortion clinics by systematically harassing their employees into quitting. Banned by law from blockading clinics as it did in its early days, Operation Rescue has taken its offensive to the front lawns and mailboxes of clinic workers. In Wichita, members of the group rummage through employees' garbage in search of incriminating information. They tail them around town as they run errands. They picket clinic staffers at restaurants while they're inside having dinner and castigate them while they're standing in line at Starbucks. Operation Rescue is also visiting companies that do business with the clinic and threatening them with a boycott if they don't sever their ties with the facility. This is America's new abortion war, and the objective, in military terms, is to cut off the supply lines to abortion clinics and demoralize their troops.

Troy Newman, the head of Operation Rescue, calls it the Year of Rebuke -- and if it works in Wichita, he plans to unleash the campaign of intimidation on abortion clinics all across the country. "I want these employees to realize that their lives have changed," he says. "As long as they're embedded in the abortion industry receiving blood money, they can't live a normal life. They just can't."

Hilzoy:

If you read the whole story, you can find out how Newman threatened the Tillers' dry cleaner and a cab company that sometimes took patients to and from the clinic:

Newman then tells him, in the most courteous tone imaginable, that he might see a few people outside the company holding signs. Just to let everybody know what he's participating in. "It's not personal," Newman says gently.

They also go through employees' trash, and offer rewards for incriminating information. They stop children on sidewalks and tell them their neighbors kill little babies.

The point made is very clear: organisations like Operation Rescue employ the sort of aggressive, intimidating tactics that their opponents are (to put it mildly) reluctant to use against them. Those methods are met with charges "religious discrimination," "harassment," "assault" and other inflammatory descriptors by the anti-choice league when used against them. Yet somehow they are "legitimate, peaceful protest" methods when used by the anti-choice groups to intimidate and harass anyone working for, or doing business with, an abortion provider.

If anyone thinks this is acceptable, imagine taking these tactics and applying them to the treatment of, say, a religious minority or ethnic group. Suddenly the offensiveness of these activities becomes more apparent. And once the offensiveness of the methods is made apparent, it becomes clear that there is no justification for them. The claims of the anti-choice groups that they are saving lives ring hollow when it becomes clear how many lives they are destroying in the process.

H/T Bark Bark Woof Woof.

It Must Be The Altitude

Four stories out of Colorado (three via Mustang Bobby at Bark Bark Woof Woof) caught my eye today.

The first two are typical wingnut histrionics over Teh Sex and other yukky things. First comes state senator Scott Renfroe:

It all started with Republican Scott Renfroe of Greeley, who got some attention for comments he made Monday about a bill that extends health benefits to same-sex partners of state employees. It's "an abomination according to Scripture," Renfroe said, according to the Colorado Independent, to "[take] sins and [make] them to be legally OK.”

Renfroe -- apparently a magnanimous kind of guy -- was willing to admit that homosexuality isn't the only sin listed in the Bible. "I’m not saying this is the only sin that is out there. Obviously we have sin -- we have murder, we have, we have all sorts of sin, we have adultery, and we don’t make laws making those legal, and we would never think to make murder legal," he said.

I wonder how well Renfroe has read his Leviticus (since that's apparently what he's basing this on), and if so whether he thinks twice when he orders baby back ribs or fried shrimp, or when he shaves, or when he wears a poly/cotton blend shirt, or ...

Up next, Dave Schultheis, who for some reason thinks HIV testing of already pregnant women is somehow supportive of promiscuity:

Sexual promiscuity, we know, causes a lot of problems in our state, one of which, obviously, is the contraction of HIV. And we have other programs that deal with the negative consequences -- we put up part of our high schools where we allow students maybe 13 years old who put their child in a small daycare center there.

We do things continually to remove the negative consequences that take place from poor behavior and unacceptable behavior, quite frankly, and I don’t think that’s the role of this body.

His was the only opposing vote on the matter, by the way. I wonder if it occurs to him that pregnant women have had sex already to become pregnant in the first place, so the damage is, so to speak, already done. And the whole presumption that people should be stuck with the consequences their bad choices (which apparently includes children and/or incurable illnesses) is so hateful, misogynistic and downright unChristian as to turn one's stomach.

The third was the demise of the Rocky Mountain News. This, coupled with the imminent demise of the San Francisco Chronicle, is just one more indication of how badly off both the economy and actual journalism are right now.

The last one, however, is just priceless.

Last week a Denver bus driver, while helping two elderly passengers cross the street at their stop, was hit by a truck. He was badly injured, but the story implies that he is recovering.

The priceless part? His actions were so praiseworthy and commendable that the Colorado State Police took note - and cited him for jaywalking.

Of course, the CSP also cited the driver of the truck and the other guy who was helping out (even though he wasn't struck), and they're continuing to investigate (apparently whether to cite the two passengers who needed help in the first place), so I suppose evenhandedness here was the rule of the day.

Given stories like these, I just do not understand what it takes to live there.

A Matter Of Control

North Dakota is attempting an end-run around the vindication of women's rights originally assumed assured by Roe v Wade.

Liss and Misty at Shakesville each have masterful takedowns on the item: go read them here and here. Both of them have much more experience, and far more justification, pointing out the sexist narrow-mindedness of such legislation, than I. There is little that I could add to their righteous condemnation of this recent step.

My question is this:

In this age of plummeting state revenues, these idiots have just created a whole new de facto state social programme. Yet these same people are the ones that complain vociferously about state spending, and particularly state spending on social programmes like what the new legislation simply cries out to implement.

The RWNM cries constantly that public expenditure on social programmes is wrong. It is a waste of resources; it encourages bad behaviour; it rewards the least competent, the indolent, the abusers of the system - the unworthy, in short.

Now we have a mandate from the state of North Dakota to provide exactly what the RWNM claims to oppose: public scrutiny of what until now has been a very private situation. If "personhood" begins at conception, then all manner of potential crimes suddenly face the expectant. How does the State intend to fend off these offenses without implementing monitoring and enforcement regimens?

The simple answer is that the drafters of this legislation haven't thought that far; that this is simply a shaming mechanism to oppress the sexually active (particularly the sexually active woman) and maintain an outmoded and impractical notion of civic order. Prevention is not the goal. Rather, the intent is the exploitation of those caught in the newly legal web of impropriety in order to maintain their concepts of an ordered society.

There is, however, a possible, more complex answer. The parties behind the new law actually want this agenda pursued by the State. It is in keeping with the support of the now-vast Homeland Security apparatus and enhanced intelligence gathering: these efforts create a new observation state to intimidate dissent and encourage political and social orthodoxy.

The continued infiltration and eavesdropping on peaceful groups in the name of anti-terror efforts is harmonious with this new law. Through their invocation of national security, the intelligence agencies, DHS and local police forces enabled the observation of any group deemed "Unamerican:" groups so targeted included the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), antiwar activist groups and social equality advocates. By expanding the definition of "Unamerican" to include unintended pregnancy, the same groups that seek to re-form society to their perceived norms get one more weapon in their arsenal. And if doing so expands the public sphere that is a small price to pay, since now that expansion will fall under law enforcement and not social engineering.

If this sounds like a stretch, consider this: the same advocates of Amendment 2 in Florida and Proposition 8 in California, after assuring voters that these measures were not intended to strip rights from anyone, have commenced campaigns in both states to annul or revoke any benefits - public or private - for unmarried couples of any sexual persuasion under the provisions of the new laws, and are turning a blind eye to the rise in hate crimes that are accompanying their passage. Likewise, similar efforts as the North Dakota law have been used to run family planning out of other states and have encouraged practicing gynecologists to leave for less restrictive communities. And the national brouhaha that was the Terri Schaivo case proved that the Conservatives will eagerly engage whatever public bodies it deems necessary - along with all their attendant machinery - to achieve their goals. None of these are the actions of a group that values a hands-off public policy.

Of course, opposition to these moves is strong, so the likelihood of their success is low. But by pursuing these lines, those behind this push have made their goals clear: creation of a society aligned along their moral standards and criminalisation of any variation from those standards. These are not the values of a democracy.

The War With Drugs, Part One

Jim Hightower tells us this would-be-entertaining-if-it-weren't-so-despicable tale about how the CIA is using Viagra in Afghanistan to win over the populace.

Then, last year, a CIA officer reached into his bag of tricks and pulled out a big one. He was wooing a 60-something-year-old chieftain in Southern Afghanistan who was suffering an embarrassing decline in something essential for a guy who has four – count ‘em, four – younger wives: a firm sexual drive. “Take one of these,” said the agent, “you’ll love it.” What he offered was four Viagra pills... Four days later, the CIA agent returned to the village, and the old tribal leader was wreathed in a big grin that only sex can induce. “You are a great man,” he exulted! And, while the chieftain had never before taken sides in the American offensive, suddenly he was a spewing fountain of information about the Taliban’s movements in his area. All he requested in exchange was more of those blue pills.

I suppose in a part of the world that is the chief producer of opium, waging a war with controlled substances might come with the territory. However, anyone who thinks that we're in Afghanistan for any reason - like, for example, "destroying the terrorists" or "freeing the people" - that doesn't involve paying off the Afghans in some measurable form is woefully uninformed.

In this case, we have an arm of a government that, until last month, was celebrating loudly the advances of Afghan women in a post-Taliban Afghanistan pushing prescription drugs on their husbands to improve their husbands' sex lives - all the while standing back from playing a truly supportive role for the women of that country. We also have an agent, presumably not an MD, handing out medication that is distributed in his own country through controlled medical channels, and doing so without even blinking.

The precedent set has a number of horrific implications. First, obviously the Afghan male population will be more - um, benefited - by this sort of action than the women. Second, it sends a dangerous message to women across the globe: the US is willing to ignore your needs to achieve its own. Third, sooner or later the CIA is going to leave Afghanistan; since Viagra is not cheap, when the CIA supply dries up the Afghans will need capital to purchase the prescriptions, and so far the biggest and most consistent money maker they've found is opium, which bodes ill for anti-drug campaigns elsewhere (mind you, this could be useful for some unnamed political movement intent on demonizing drug use and squeezing its government for law enforcement investment). And while it's arguable that this approach is less demonstrably inhumane than the interrogation techniques espoused by the former [mal]administration, the morality of this approach is no less questionable.