Extended Phenotype

From President Franklin Roosevelt’s 1940 State of the Union Address:

The social and economic forces which have been mismanaged abroad until they have resulted in revolution, dictatorship and war are the same as those which we here are struggling to adjust peacefully at home.

You are well aware that dictatorships–and the philosophy of force that justifies and accompanies dictatorships–have originated in almost every case in the necessity for drastic action to improve internal conditions in places where democratic action for one reason or another has failed to respond to modern needs and modern demands.

It was with far-sighted wisdom that the framers of our Constitution brought together in one magnificent phrase three great concepts–“common defense,” “general welfare” and “domestic tranquility.”

More than a century and a half later we, who are here today, still believe with them that our best defense is the promotion of our general welfare and domestic tranquillity.

In previous messages to the Congress I have repeatedly warned that, whether we like it or not, the daily lives of American citizens will, of necessity, feel the shock of events on other continents. This is no longer mere theory; because it has been definitely proved to us by the facts of yesterday and today.

To say that the domestic well-being of one hundred and thirty million Americans is deeply affected by the well-being or the ill-being of the populations of other nations is only to recognize in world affairs the truth that we all accept in home affairs.

If in any local unit-a city, county, State or region–low standards of living are permitted to continue, the level of the civilization of the entire nation will be pulled downward.

The identical principle extends to the rest of the civilized world. But there are those who wishfully insist, in innocence or ignorance or both, that the United States of America as a self-contained unit can live happily and prosperously, its future secure, inside a high wall of isolation while, outside, the rest of Civilization and the commerce and culture of mankind are shattered.

Last night I saw Fahrenheit 9/11 again, with a different group of friends. The Neptune theatre was packed, with a long ticket holder’s line down the block. My feeling about the movie remains the same — it’s a terrific work, but it could be better. My sole reservation about the movie, which in all other respects is a brilliant piece of editorial documentary (or polemic electioneering, you decide) is that Moore slips into conspiracy theory far too much. It simply isn’t necessary, and in fact detracts from Moore’s overall point.

Moore spends roughly the first half of the movie painting the links in what appears to be a conspiracy between the Bush family, their cronies in the U.S. defense and oil sector, and the Saudi elite. In the process of portraying Bush family history as a grand conspiracy which would make an X-Files screenwriter proud, Moore misses a more important point. It doesn’t take a conspiracy for money, power, and influence to be tightly cross-linked between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia. What Moore calls a conspiracy is usually called the “stock market.” The Saudis aren’t alone in investing in U.S. funds like Carlyle — investors from 55 countries have money in the Carlyle Group’s funds, mainly because the stock market boom of the 1990’s made U.S. funds extremely attractive places to put capital.

There’s a laundry list of ways in which Moore ties together individual pieces of data into a conspiracy theory, and it would be largely redundant to catalog them here. The blogging community is well ahead of the game and you can find analysis everywhere you look. The real point is that conspiracy isn’t necessary for the nation to conclude that Bush and his team have been terrible leaders. Destructive tax-cutting practices combined with increased spending, intentional disregard for the results of solid economic and scientific advisors, poor handling of terrorist threats before 9/11, and a welter of lies designed to justify the Iraq War speak for themselves.

We don’t need to believe, for example, that Saddam is an innocent guy who never threatened America or killed Americans in order to question whether a headlong, poorly planned rush to war was the right decision to make.

We don’t need to believe that there is an elite conspiracy between rich Westerners and rich Saudis to understand how the current terrorist onslaught is a direct result of decades of U.S. Middle Eastern policy — policy pursued by Democrats and Republicans alike.

I simply think Moore’s movie would have been even stronger without resort to elaborate conspiracies. Nevertheless, the movie will have an impact. Moore has an incredible talent for shocking you, making you angry, and wanting to know more. My hope is that people who see the movie will be motivated to learn more about the reality and not treat F9/11 as gospel, because if there’s one thing Moore isn’t, it’s a an accurate journalist.

The American people would be better served, in my opinion by not resorting to conspiracy theories to explain events which are largely structural. Conspiracies, by their nature, can be stopped by stopping the people involved. Structural features of our economy and foreign policy aren’t changed by simply voting people out of office, arresting evildoers, or going to war.

But the truth is that grand conspiracies are rare. The fact is, most of the time bad things occur right out in the open, and nobody notices because we don’t pay attention. Anybody armed with a web browser, Google, and a couple of hours to sit and read can learn more about the Bushes, Saudi Arabia, terrorism, Middle Eastern policy, and recent history than we could ever absorb from a movie. But we don’t.

The real point of Fahrenheit 9/11, the most important point Moore makes, isn’t about Bush at all. For me, the movie’s most powerful moment is Lila Lipscomb standing in front of the White House in tears, saying “People think they know but they don’t know. I thought I knew but I didn’t know.”

We don’t know because we don’t pay attention. Americans are more interested in reality TV than reality. And that, not elaborate conspiracies, is going to be the downfall of democracy in this country, because democracy requires an informed citizenry, a population that KNOWS what they’re voting for.

James Madison wrote: “Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power that knowledge gives.”

Never has this been more true than today, and never have we failed so spectacularly to heed its advice.

It’s hard to really understand how scripted and controlled White House press coverage is without a standard for comparison. Fortunately, Carole Coleman, the Washington correspondent for Ireland’s RTE, was given an exclusive interview with President Bush prior to his visit. It’s worth watching because you can see how Bush responds when asked hard-nosed questions by someone who was believes that’s what journalists do. Bush immediately becomes testy and upset, asking that he be allowed to finish his answers rather than moving on to a new question. The look on his face in several instances is distinctly angry.

In my personal opinion, Coleman wasn’t disrespectful, as has apparently been claimed. She tried to ask questions and follow-ups, and Bush gave long, rambling answers to every question, and disliked having an interviewer control the interview. I’m the wrong person to ask, of course, because I’ve never been impressed with the President’s public speaking abilities, but it does seem to me that he got ruffled and irritated quickly given tough questions.

A commenter on Indymedia.ie (Benny), said:

Wow…the way Bush handled himself was impressive, if folks in the US saw this interview they would naturally side with the president and be impressed with how the commander in chief handled the barrage of interjections and emotionally charged rhetoric. The fact that he did this interview was a HUGE courtesy to the people of Ireland. This wasn’t shown in the US, so it wasn’t to chase after Irish-american votes, however if they do see it, it won’t do his prospects any harm at all.

I couldn’t disagree more. I think people on both sides of the aisle would find Bush’s performance rude and undignified, unbecoming of our leader and chief representative on the world stage.

Is it just me, or are Bush and Cheney losing patience with critics?

Here’s the RTSP link for the interview (RealPlayer). If it doesn’t work clicking directly on the link, copy the shortcut and open it within the File menu of the RealPlayer. The interview starts at 20 minutes 40 seconds into the broadcast, and continues to 31:25 minutes. Indymedia Ireland also has an MP3 of the interview posted.

I was so interested in the Court’s trifecta of enemy combatant opinions this morning that I didn’t even think about the fact that sovereignty was handed over to Iraq two days early. But Jack Balkin brought up the connection today:

The Bush Administration handed sovereignty over to the Iraqi government two days early, on the same day that the Supreme Court was about to announce whether it supported key aspects of the President’s policies. By moving the handover forward, the Administration not only avoided security problems, it also upstaged the Supreme Court.

Conicidence? I think not. It’s called flooding the zone, folks.

Not having the “insider” experience, I have no way to tell how credible such notions are. But given how carefully the news cycle is managed by every White House, not just the current one, I guess Balkin’s claim is plausible.

If it is, it’s too bad, because having read all the opinions now….the Court kicked some power-grabbing, liberty-trampling Administration ass today. Anytime I find myself cheering while reading a Scalia opinion, you know the world’s gone topsy-turvy.

The Court issued opinions in the “Enemy Combatant” cases today, and the outcome wasn’t what I expected. Nevertheless, at first reading the outcomes seem good. The Court issued a substantive opinion in the case of Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, agreed that Guantanamo detainees have a right to habeas proceedings in Rasul v. Bush, and took the “jurisdiction” route in Padilla v. Rumsfeld.

In the case of Yaser Hamdi, Justice O’Connor writes:

We hold that although Congress authorized the detention of combatants in the narrow circumstances alleged here, due process demands that a citizen held in the United States as an enemy combatant be given a meaningful opportunity to contest the factual basis for that detention before a neutral decisionmaker.

On the face of it, the Hamdi decision would seem to uphold the Commander-in-Chief’s ability to detain enemy combatants, but require that whenever such detainees are citizens and held in the United States, due process will apply. I’ll be interested in reading more knowledgeable analysis of the decision, but it would seem that the Court is cognizant of the dangers involved in unchecked Executive power, and willing to place limits while still allowing Executive freedom during war. I am encouraged, however, by O’Connor’s recognition of the terrible dangers involved in trampling due process:

Striking the proper constitutional balance here is of great importance to the Nation during this period of on-going combat. But it is equally vital that our calculus not give short shrift to the values that this country holds dear or the privilege that is American citizenship. It is during our most challenging and uncertain moments that our Nation’s commitment to due process is most severely tested; and it is in those times that we must preserve our commitment at home to the principles for which we fight abroad.

O’Connor goes on to say that “neither the process proposed by the Government nor the process apparently envisioned by the District Court below strikes the proper constitutional balance…” and goes on to reject the government’s assertion that separation of powers mandates a limited role for the courts:

We have long since made clear that a state of war is not a blank check for the President when it comes to the rights of the Nation’s citizens (Youngstown Sheet & Tube). Whatever power the United States Constitution envisions for the Executive in its exchanges with other nations or with enemy organizations in times of conflict, it most assuredly envisions a role for all three branches when individual liberties are at stake.

Interestingly, Scalia’s dissent rejects even the compromise proposed by the majority: either you charge someone with a crime, or you suspend the writ of habeas corpus. Congress did not suspend the writ in the Authorization for Use of Military Force, as everyone agrees. Scalia believes that this means criminal prosecution is the only avenue constitutionally open to the Executive branch. He disagrees with the majority position, but only because he believes Hamdi must be charged with a crime or released.

The Hamdi precedent may help Padilla in further proceedings, since one can easily surmise that any conclusions reached in Hamdi would apply to Padilla given proper jurisdiction and venue for the hearing.

The compromise position in Hamdi isn’t an unqualified success for defenders of civil liberties, as Scalia’s dissent would be if it were the majority opinion. Nonetheless, all three “Enemy Combatant” cases would seem to represent a strong statement by the Court about civil liberties, the central place of habeas corpus in protecting due process, and the limits to Executive power. It will be interesting to see how constitutional scholars interpret the rulings, however, since I’m just an interested amateur.

Like many, I saw Fahrenheit 9/11 this weekend. I liked it, and at the same time hated it.

I liked it because it’s an amazing piece of propaganda and electioneering. And unless you obsessively follow the news, there was something in the movie that you didn’t know before. The audience cheered, the audience booed, the audience occasionally gasped when they learned something new. The musical choices were simply brilliant and had the audience in stiches. If anything can galvanize support among voters on the fence, let’s hope Moore can.

I hated it because increasingly it takes stunts like Moore’s movie to make us aware of the facts. Fahrenheit 9/11 would be pointless if the majority of people didn’t believe that Iraq and al-Qaeda were linked, or if we were knowledgeable about the Middle East, Iraq, and Afghanistan. On average, however, we aren’t. A functioning democratic republic requires informed citizens, and increasingly we’re not.

Moore tasked himself with creating a concise but entertaining lesson in recent American and Middle Eastern history, and succeeds brilliantly.

Was he “fair”? Hardly — many of the issues discussed are more complex than he portrays. Did he succeed in educating us? That depends strongly on whether his audience follows up by expanding what they read and listen to in the coming months. I’d like to believe that we can read, talk to each other, and come to our own conclusions. But I’m willing to let satire, humor, and invective take the place of more sober forms of learning. And Moore is simply the master at driving the Democratic message using all three.