liberal justifications

"liberals" in america do not support president obama's proposal for intervention in syria.  "liberals" in america need to reconsider what liberalism means.

i support social liberalism in america, because i see an importance in fostering equality for all people over absolute freedom.  political and social equality: equal treatment of all people socially and legally, equal access to a pursuit of happiness, equal guarantees of safety.  this means the freedom of others may sometimes be limited.  an entrepreneur cannot use a river or a parcel of land if the activities he conducts pollute those resources, causing harm or limiting the activities, health, or pursuit of happiness of others.

liberalism's fierce protection of equality over liberty puts its goals in opposition at times to conservative and libertarian america, but our ideals as liberal americans, our sympathies and compassion, should not crumble at the border.  liberal america is understandably tired of war, but we also seem to have lost compassion for those people in the world who do not live in a society like ours.

obama is not proposing we go to war.  he's not even proposing we involve ourselves in another war.  he is merely proposing that we have compassion for other people and solidarity with the international community.  chemical weapons should not be used against any people and we have an external, technological advantage to the situation in syria to discourage the use of chemical weapons by the assad regime.  a strike by the united states would not commit u.s. forces to the conflict, would not aim to kill syrian citizens, would not cripple the assad regime, nor aid to any great extent the syrian rebels.  the strike proposed by the president would hopefully dissuade the assad regime from continuing the desperate and monstrous use of chemical weapons on the people it ostensible governs.

the diplomatic compromise worked out by russian president vladimir putin (and john kerry) to destroy the chemical weapons held by the assad regime will probably just lead nowhere.  the country is a morass of a civil war.  according to experts and history (see qaddafi), the destruction of chemical weapons can be difficult even without a war and time-consuming.  we haven't even started the process of negotiating with syrian president assad.  we have not been able to actually negotiate the destruction of these weapons with the syrian government.  this is just an idea floated by the russians.  meanwhile the syrian civil war continues and maybe the assad regime will again use chemical weapons against its own people and half a year from now we will again find our president asking for permission to conduct strikes against the assad regime.  we will find ourselves right back where we are and without even putting boots on the ground we will america sunk in this.

i think the united states will be influential in the world for a long time yet.  we do not have to champion democracy; we do not have to fertilize the world with our goals and ideals; we can make it a goal of ours to protect and encourage all humans so that they may pursue their own purposes.  if universal equality is ever an ideal, we must take measures to protect life equally.

time untidy

all the wasted time.  hours as long as southern summer heat stifling.  it's hard to breathe under all those hours.

sometimes i get home and look around the apartment and know i should tidy up after spending the entire weekend out of the house.  my eye can't land on anything: the papers on the desk; the cords on the floor; the stack of books on the footstool; the clothes cradles in the chair; the unmade bed.  i sigh and leave it all there suspended.

a swirling madness all around me - that's what my apartment can feel like.  colors and shapes and blurs and sensations; a cyclone like the hitches and switches and flips and connections i can feel pop and jolt in my head.  sometimes everything gets done in segmented swooshes of activity, regimented, regulated, easy.  time seems steady, trickling forward in every direction all at once, a stream banked by my own consciousness.  then sometimes whole rooms and whole days get swallowed up by the hours, the by the minutes, my head swollen with seconds.  nothing seems possible.  i couldn't lift a finger.  i couldn't drink a cup of tea.  there isn't time.

these are the worst days.

active not aggressive

it's doves versus hawks.  it's neo-conservative versus liberal.  it's john mccain against hillary clinton.

a diplomat needs finesse, but the world knows the united states better for its hubris.  john mccain doesn't understand foreign relations or what the word influence means.

“Now this is the same president that two years ago said that Bashar Assad must leave office, and so where is America’s credibility?” Mr. McCain said on Fox News. “Where is our ability to influence events in the region? And I promise you that those who say we should stay out of Syria do not understand that this is now a regional conflict.”

i have argued that obama should be more aggressive about addressing the situation in syria.  it seems like europe is ready - they're looking for consensus from the rest of the world.  and by ready, i mean by lending support to the opposition as we did to the rebels in libya.  syria deserves this sort of aid from us.  let them fight their own battle.  let this be their own independence.  but let the u.s. aid them so that they may successfully break from the yoke of a dictator who uses chemical weapons to quell his own people.

if obama has committed to the level of activity in syria i would have recommended, this doesn't mean he's been completely idle.  he has been attempting to extend influence.  he leaned on bashar al-assad to commit to first form a unity government; he has allowed funding for the rebels; he set a "red-line" against chemical weapons to at least encourage the assad government to avoid their use, assuming at least the posture indicating that the united states believes the government should step aside.

america does not want to become involved in the syrian conflict, but if one looks at the media that seems to be exactly the direction we are headed.  not only is the direct involvement mccain calls for scary, i'm not sure that it will be necessary.  the united states can do plenty to support the syrian opposition without moving troops to the country.  what america should see is that the media is overblowing the situation and mccain is playing politics.  the situation in syria is emotional but our involvement does not have to be.

un-summer

the cat sat tightly on the bed, her legs tucked up under her like a spider - she stares out the window (big yellow eyes round) and she knows.

what exactly is that smell?  hot when i went to bed, at some point i pushed off the blanket over and me and dug down under the comforter.  the morning is cold and these are the final days, everyone recovering from summer sickness.  it's a crispness, a clarity, but also a wetness that aromatically heralds autumn's approach and underscores the mornings of many oregon summer days.

it's a break from the sinking sewers, their contents dried and decomposing in the stretch of rainless days in the past few months.

how do you feel about the summer sickness?  it seems as if the rate of infection has been low, the symptoms mild this year.  john said, summer was over long ago, even as he continued to drink through the afternoon into the evening and through to the next day.  but we're all okay.

i hear some friends long for the cold wet days of oregon winter.  having grown up in alabama, i thought i had had enough of the sun - summers in the south are brutal, hot, humid, unrelenting.  but here, i think all year of the summer, long for the long hot days when we'll stay up too late and drink too much and bike about it and dance and go to the river and go camping and feel the vitamin d build up under our skin.

the hand of god in the patent wars

this is also the story of another obama disappointment - which will only further the lie that i am secretly a republican.  i promise you, though, i have no plans to vote republican.  i have no sympathy.  i am just at times disappointed in obama's decisions.  i think you can still be a democrat and criticize the official you helped elect.  i can still want something more.

let me tell you why i'm disappointed now.

president obama overturned a decision by the united states trade commission to ban sales of older model apple iphones and ipads in the country.

the trade commission had determined that apple had infringed upon patents possessed by samsung. "Apple argued that Samsung had committed to licensing its patents related to wireless technology standards, but was refusing to keep that promise. Samsung said Apple refused to pay licensing fees for its patents."  this is a war that apple started and now that the courts and the trade commission are ruling against apple, apple had run to the president.  this reeks. what does the president have to do with patent infringement?  does he really believe that the american economy could collapse if apple cannot sell its older products after a federal body of experts have determined that apple continues to act unfairly?

here's what i think happened.  apple approached the president as a friend and a large american company.  apple, a company that hardly pays any taxes in the united states.  and the president was convinced he needed to help this huge behemoth of a company out, to keep him on its good side.

this past friday, the same trade commission decided that older samsung products had violated apple patents.  the president has sixty days to overrule the freeze placed on samsung products.  but will he?  will he show the country that apple and samsung and other corporations need to end the childish brinkmanship over patents?  will the president overrule the trade commission for the benefit of american consumers and for the sake of fairness and competition?  or will the president ignore this development because apple is an american company with friends in high places.

seeing this ugly feud that apple started, president obama needs to chastise apple and other companies to behave civilly and fairly and not reward unruly companies that make plenty of money on americans on products exported from foreign factories and paying hardly anything in tax to the american government.  let's get real.

now we're still waiting for obama to act.  he could overturn the decision against samsung as well, fairly saying "enough" to all the companies in america currently fighting the patent wars.  this would be a wise move, though i am not sure it would completely cut the competitiveness between these companies nor do i think it would do much to quell apple's aggression.  but it would be a step in the right direction.

untitled (anxiety)

sometimes it's difficult to know just want to say.  i want to say something, that surely there must be something to say, but i'm at a loss.

all i can imagine is the fear and pain.  a greatness of fear and pain that erases any hope, any sense of survival.

have i ever mentioned my fear of confinement?  i've never found myself in an actually frightening situation of confinement or paralysis, but thinking about such a condition makes me feel cagey, makes me start to hyperventilate.  trapped under fallen rocks; pressed under a collapsed building; locked in, paralyzed like the writer of the diving bell and the butterfly; alien control of my body, my consciousness unwilling witness to my body's action: this is what i fear.

i have not suffered, but imaging what it must be like for a man or woman to face painful, inescapable death bears down on me.  no one deserves this.  and we, the living, not survivors but those kept in the security of our homes and routines, can do nothing but worry and try to sympathize, try to understand, though this is impossible.

and what do we take away from the loss of our loved ones from the world?  senselessness.  no program.  no plan.  death can just be senseless and we are left with the broken trajectory of someone's life, with all these expectations we had for a person.

senate confirmed disappointments

a while ago, my friend told me he believed the senate might actually change its rules for the filibuster.  incredulous, i insisted it would never happen, but over the past week or so it has really seemed like senate democrats would push for a change.  harry reid said, “This is a moment in history where circumstances dictate the need for change.”

a miracle, i had faith.

and then lost it.

at this point america knows how paralyzing the filibuster can be our governing bodies.  the changes senator reid proposed to the rules guiding the senate would have been minor - confirmation of presidential nominations to posts within the executive branch would not have been subject to filibuster, potentially allowing these posts to be filled rapidly.  nominations to the supreme court would not have subject to this rule change and the filibuster could have still been used to prolong discussion (stall the vote) on general legislation.  it seems sometimes that the filibuster should be abolished completed from congressional procedure, but at least this rule change seemed modest for those who believe the filibuster to be necessary.  we have watched the obama administration struggle to fill vacant chairmanships and posts within the executive branch.  the amount of vacancies in the administration due to republican blockage in congress is historic.  and the people who fill these positions change with every administration.  when the republicans regain the white house, they'll be seeking to confirm their own nominations to these positions, positions that handle the quotidian governing of different departments within the governments.  the confirmation process originated to ensure that responsible people filled these positions, that our government followed a meritocratic nomination process against cronyism.  the confirmation process was never meant to allow any political party in congress to keep the elected president's administration from functioning.

the senate should have voted to abolish paralization and the american people are still waiting for the change they chanted for five years ago.

instead we get compromise.  which isn't compromise at all.  senate republicans have promised to allow a vote on a couple nominations and the rules regarding the filibuster remain the same.  tacitly, republicans have also promised that other nominations would still be held up, that they would continue to paralyze the governing of the country whenever in a minority in congress.  this is not compromise - this is optics.

and these optics are harry reid's.  one cannot say that history dictates a need for change then accept a republican allowance of a few votes.  nothing has changed.  there was no compromise.  there is only disappointment.