The Allen Almanac

Over at TalkingPointMemo there is a moving blog entry by eastside93 detailing his decision not to vote for Barack Obama yesterday.

I didn’t vote.  Not for President, anyway.

Oh, I went to the voting booth.  I signed, was given my stub, and was walked over to a voting machine.  I cast votes for statewide races and a state referendum on water and sewer improvements.

I stood there, and I thought about all of these people, who influenced my life so greatly.  But I didn’t vote for who would be the 44th President of the United States.

When my ballot was complete, except for the top line, I finally decided who I was going to vote for – and then decided to let him vote for me.  I reached down, picked him up, and told him to find Obama’s name on the screen and touch it.

And so it came to pass that Alexander Reed, age 5, read the voting screen, found the right candidate, touched his name, and actually cast a vote for Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

Oh, the vote will be recorded as mine.  But I didn’t cast it.

Then again, the person who actually pressed the Obama box and the red “vote” button was the person I was really voting for all along.

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The son of Muslim father and an atheist mother will be President of the United States.

Beautifully American…

Hopefully, we’ll be telling our grandkids about this one.

Follow the link for the full text…

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Go read this great article on Slate

We have become such “good Americans” that we no longer have the moral imagination to picture what it might be like to be in a bureaucratic category that voids our human rights, be it “enemy combatant” or “illegal immigrant.” Thus, in the week before the election, hardly a ripple answered the latest decree from the Bush administration: Detainees held in CIA prisons were forbidden from telling their lawyers what methods of interrogation were used on them, presumably so they wouldn’t give away any of the top-secret torture methods that we don’t use. Cautiously, I look back on that as the crystallizing moment of Bushworld: tautological as a Gilbert and Sullivan libretto, absurd as a Marx Brothers movie, and scary as a Kafka novel.

The Guardian has an interesting piece by Simon Jenkins on their blog, commentisfree, about the US’ and Britain’s attempt to find a replacement for the Cold War.

Blair has not been able to persuade his Nato allies in Europe of his apocalyptic world-view. The use of the word terrorism to imply some grand military offensive against the west may sound good in White House national security documents and Downing Street speeches. But terrorism is not an enemy or an ideology, let alone a country or an army. It is a weapon, like a gun or a bomb. It is not something that can be defeated, only guarded against.

Nor can terrorism ever win. Blair’s flattering reference to it was in reality to al-Qaida and to the Islamist jihadism whose cause he has so incessantly advertised. As the American strategist Louise Richardson points out in What Terrorists Want, al-Qaida has not the remotest chance of defeating the west or undermining its civilisation. Only a deranged paranoid could think that. Some group or other will always look for ways to commit random killings, against which national security services need to be vigilant. But this is not war. Richardson points out that these groups are being grotesquely overrated. They cannot plausibly deploy weapons of true mass destruction, and remain stuck with the oldest terrorist tool of all, the man with a bomb (and if we are really negligent, with a plane).

[..]

What is sad about Blair’s statement is not its strategic naivety but the psychology behind it. Why have the leaders of Britain and America felt driven to adopt so wildly distorted a concept of menace? In an analysis of terrorism in the latest New York Review of Books, Max Rodenbeck offers plausible but depressing answers. They include the short-term popularity that war offers democratic leaders, the yearning of defence chiefs and industries to prove the worth of expensive kit and, in Iraq’s case, “the influence of neoconservatives and of the pro-Israeli lobby, seeing a chance to set a superpower on Israel’s enemies”.

All this is true, but I sense a deeper disconnect. The west is ruled by a generation of leaders with no experience of war or its threat. Blair and his team cannot recall the aftermath of the second world war, and in the cold war they rushed to join CND. They were distant from those real global horrors. Yet now in power they seem to crave an enemy of equivalent monstrosity. Modern government has a big hole in its ego, yearning to be filled by something called a “threat to security”.

This is the real threat facing us today. I wish more people would wake up and realize the man telling you he is keeping the boogeyman away is the boogeyman.

Bent Corner found something interesting on a trip to Wal-Mart. They are selling T-Shirts with Nazi symbols on them.

Wal-Mart Shirt

Nazi Death Head

I stopped in at Wal-Mart today after I got off work. I had to pick up a few things. As I was walking past the men’s clothing area, something caught my eye. I noticed something weird over at a wall of t-shirts. One of the t-shirts had a design on it that looked remarkably like something related to Nazis. Specifically, the Totenkopf or “Death’s Head”.

I took a picture of it with my camera phone.

The Death’s Head symbol was worn by the members of the German Nazi SS. The Totenkopf on the Wal-Mart t-shirt looks very similar to the divisional insignia of the 3rd SS Division Totenkopf. As you can see, It’s almost an exact copy.

As Bent Corner points out, this is almost definitely an honest mistake on Wal-Mart’s part.

Update: Wal-Mart has acknowledged the problem and is removing the shirts from their store.

Democracy and Freedom cannot be force fed at the point of an occupier’s gun. To think otherwise is folly. One has to stop and ponder. How could we have been so impossibly naive? How could we expect to easily plant a clone of U.S. culture, values, and government in a country so riven with religious, territorial, and tribal rivalries, so suspicious of U.S. motives, and so at odds with the galloping materialism which drives the western-style economies? As so many warned this Administration before it launched its misguided war on Iraq, there is evidence that our crack down in Iraq is likely to convince 1,000 new Bin Ladens to plan other horrors of the type we have seen in the past several days. Instead of damaging the terrorists, we have given them new fuel for their fury. We did not complete our mission in Afghanistan because we were so eager to attack Iraq. Now it appears that Al Queda is back with a vengeance. We have returned to orange alert in the U.S., and we may well have destabilized the Mideast region, a region we have never fully understood. We have alienated friends around the globe with our dissembling and our haughty insistence on punishing former friends who may not see things quite our way. The path of diplomacy and reason have gone out the window to be replaced by force, unilateralism, and punishment for transgressions…Indeed, we may have sparked a new international arms race as countries move ahead to develop WMD as a last ditch attempt to ward off a possible preemptive strike from a newly belligerent U.S. which claims the right to hit where it wants.

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This was from 2003 but someone posted it to Digg today. It’s a very prescient article.

Did you know that the same inventor came up with both Freon and leaded gasoline? His name was Thomas Midgley, Jr. and he worked for General Motors in the 1920’s and 30’s. One historian remarked that Midgley “had more impact on the atmosphere than any other single organism in earth history.” At the age of 51 he contracted polio and had to retire. Because of the disabling effects of polio, he invented a series of ropes and pulleys to help lift himself out of bed. At the age of 55, it strangled him to death when he got entangled in it.

Boston 1775 has an interesting post up detailing an Irish immigrant’s experience upon arriving in Boston in 1737. It is remarkable how similar it is to how modern immigran’t are treated. This is from Hector McNeill’s memoirs:

Here we met with a verey indifferent reception from the People of the country, who seem’d to have a contempt for Strangers, of what denomination soever; more Especially those who came from Ireland (whom they took for granted were all Roman catholicks). . . .

On our Landing at Hubbards Wharf, my father was accosted by that churlish old man himself. He ask’d in an angry tone, from whence we came; who sent for us; why we came there; and why we did not stay in our own country. To all these questions, my father answered him in few words, telling him with some heat and firmness, that ’twas not him who sent for us, nor were we accountable to him in any respect whatsoever. The Vile wretch snarled as he went and shut his window, growling out something about takeing the Bread out of childrens mouths, etca., etca. This verey uncouth Salutation from the first man we met at Landing, lookd verey discouraging and wrought so deeply on my fathers spirrits, that he did not recover himself for some moments. At length the Tears running freely over his manly cheeks, gave Way to that Passion he could no otherwise vent, and he became calm before we reached the house of our Benefactors.

A Little Lad who lived next door Observeing me a Stranger, fell into conversation with me, and being highly diverted with my manner of Pronounceation, (whither to amuse himself or some of his comrades to whom he intended to introduce me) led me out into the streets where we soon met with other Boys who were going to see a Ship Launched. Thither I accompany’d them where were gathered togeither great numbers of Spectators among others many small boys, some of whom began to make remarks on my dress and appearance.

At length one more Audacious then the Others, singled himself out, and endeavour’d to Provoke me by his Scurrilous Language, which I for some time bore with christian Patience, (considering my self a Stranger, and haveing taken great notice of the reception my father had just received from Old Hubbard I expected little favour from those who were now round me). At length this unmannerly boy most unhappily for himself, call’d me Irish. The word was scarcely out of his mouth, before he had my little fist—dab—in his Eyes. A Battle ensued and he was beaten most unmercyfully; for tho I had but just come on shore from a fateaguing half starved Passage, the Agitation of Spirrits into which I had been thrown by that days Adventures supply’d my want of Strength and Experience too. For I had never been bred to a fighting or quarelsome life.

I returned to our Lodgings highly Extol’d by the Spectators for my courage and dexterity, little thinking of the train of Mischiefes and hardships, which began to follow me from that moment forward. For dureing the whole time of my Boy-hood in the town of Boston my life was one continued State of warfare. Scarcely ever did the day Pass, but one, two, or more Battles, was my sure lot. As the country boys were verey apt to cast reflections on me or my country, so never did I let them Pass unpunished. Even those who were much too old, and too Strong for me, I never Permitted to insult me with impunity. Untill at last I became such an Adept at Boxing, that they became civil and Complisante to me for theire own sakes. . . .

On my first appearance at a Publick School, where we were upwards of two hundred boys, (our Masters name was Allen,) I happened to be the only Stranger (for not being country born in those days made one an Alien to all intents,) here to theire everlasting Shame, I was cruely treated. For they Seldome contented themselves with threshing me one at a time, but would frequently shew me foul-play, and get at me two or more at once, untill they had master’d me for that time. This I allways revenged singley whenever an Oppertunity offer’d, untill at last, being brought by custom, to suffer a great deal of Bruseing and in my turn to Pay as well, they let me alone in peace.

Here I would not be understood to glory in haveing been the cock of the school. Nor would I have any body think, that I approve of a quarelsome fighting life, in Either Boys or Men; but I reather mention theese things (tho meer childish triffles) to Shew Posterity how hard the fate of Strangers was in those days in New England; and of all Strangers none so disliked as those whom they called Irish, of whom they thought as the Jews of Old, with respect to the Galileans (can any good come out of Ireland). But blessed be god the times are much alter’d; the People of New England, have now a better Oppinion of us; they haveing found by Experience, that the Protestant Settlers from the North of Ireland, are the most invaluable Set of People theire New country can boast of, they being in generall industrious, Sober, honest, people; and Valiant in theire Wars with the french and Indians, from which incumbrance this country has not been long Exempted. This more than can be said of the People of any Other country whatever who have yet come among the New-Englanders.

For more on who Hector McNeill was and why we should care, check out the original post at Boston 1775.