Ft. Hood Tragedy Polarizes Nation Immediately

Major Nidal Hasan sure got both sides spewing their rhetoric.

One side uses the tragedy as an excuse to condemn all of Islam and its followers and to justify the wars in the Middle East.  The other side condemns those who condemn Islam.

As the picture becomes clearer about Hasan and his extremist views, those who were quick to blame Islam may have more of a leg to stand on than when the news first hit about the shootings at Ft. Hood.  It doesn’t by any means justify jumping to conclusions based on the Major’s Middle Eastern name and apparent religious affiliation, but it’s beginning to seem like what looked like a duck and quacked like a duck is, in fact, a duck.

Perhaps.

One of the downsides of our world of instant news is that no one has the time to gather facts before presenting them in a way that fashions some sort of picture.  There is no illumination; just a few spare details and the rest is left to speculation until more facts help reveal the true image.  Unfortunately, by the time the true story comes to light, the blogosphere has already reached their conclusions and they’re just waiting for new details simply to enhance their preconceived notions.

It’s not just the blogosphere that overreacts, either.  Sen. Joe Lieberman sure has done enough of his own lately, seeking a Congressional investigation to consider the Ft. Hood shootings a terrorist act.  No formal charges have even been made yet and Lieberman wants Hasan declared a terrorist.

Sen. Lieberman:

It’s — first, this was a terrible tragedy. Second, it’s too early — it’s premature to reach conclusions about what motivated Hasan. But it’s clear that he was, one, under personal stress and, two, if the reports that we’re receiving of various statements he made, acts he took, are valid, he had turned to Islamist extremism.

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And therefore, if that is true, the murder of these 13 people was a terrorist act and, in fact, it was the most destructive terrorist act to be committed on American soil since 9/11.

He admits that it’s too early to say, but then goes on anyway with his multitude of ifs leading to his statement meant merely to rile people up.  This is something to be expected from blowhard pundits like Limbaugh, Wallace, and Beck, but not a U.S. Senator.  Nothing good comes of this except for more marginalization, more hate, and more misguided anger.  Thank you, Mr. Lieberman.  Job well done.

Perhaps everyone should just hold off while evidence is gathered, witnesses interviewed, and even an interrogation of the accused before he’s condemned before a trial.  Remember, not only is Hasan an American citizen, he’s a Major in the Army.  It seems that the senator has jumped to conclusions, based either on the information currently available, or perhaps, more likely, due to the fact that Maj. Hasan is a Muslim and there’s a sense of blame associated with Muslims simply due to their chosen faith.  As if his being a Muslim automatically places him alongside Bin Laden and Mohammad Atta without so much as even receiving his Miranda rights.

More and more facts will rise to the surface as the days go by and the investigation continues.  Authorities say that they still don’t have a motive for the massacre, but regardless, there is no excuse.  It was an unconscionable act of violence that took 13 lives and changed countless more.  Perhaps we’ll find that this was part of some bigger plot.  Or maybe we’ll find that it was just a man who snapped and came undone in the worst way.

But like Sen. Lieberman said, it’s too early to tell.

Senate Already Pessimistic About Health Care

The worst part of the news that the Senate will have a really tough time passing the health care bill – Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid even suggesting that nothing will get done this year – is that the impasse is with Democrats.

It’s disheartening and infuriating to see the Democrats not only straddling the middle of the road mediocrity, but actually being completely on the right side of the party lines.  We already have conservatives that are worried about the size of government.  They’re called Republicans – although, their track record of late really warrants them that term in the loosest of senses.

Republican Senator Olympia Snowe said that she would vote in favor of the bill, so long as the public option is altered so that it only goes into effect after a series of triggers require it.

That approach appeals to moderates such as Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La. “If the private market fails to reform, there would be a fallback position,” Landrieu said last week. “It should be triggered by choice and affordability, not by political whim.”

Excuse me, Sen. Landrieu, it’s already been triggered by choice (lack thereof) and affordability (again, lack thereof) with the elections of the past three years that saw an overwhelming majority of Democrats in the Congress and in the Presidency.  It’s not political whim when those elected officials are doing what the people elected them to do.  In fact, to not do so, would be a failure.

House Passes Health Care Bill

A strong, necessary step forward.  Now, onto the Senate, which always proves to be a tougher forum.  Things get stickier when every state, regardless of population, has equal say.  I’m looking at you, Wyoming.

Upon further investigation, I found that the House Bill does something I didn’t even realize needed to be done:

In a further slap, the industry would lose its exemption from federal antitrust restrictions on price gouging, bid rigging and market allocation.

Why in the world was the health insurance industry exempt from those restrictions in the first place!?  This is fucking bullshit.  There is absolutely NO reason for that industry to be exempt from those protections.  None.  No wonder premiums were skyrocketing and coverages denied.  Insurance companies could work together to keep profits up and payments down without breaking any antitrust laws.  Un-fucking-real.  People should be enraged by this.  Maybe I’m just late to the party with this, but I have a feeling most people didn’t know that the current health care industry was that unregulated.

No wonder everything went to complete shit.  I would love to know whose genius idea that was.  In an industry where there’s already very little competition – everyone needs health coverage – let’s just let them run rampant without any of the antitrust protections that other industries have.  I’m sure it has nothing to do with health care lobbyists and insurance companies donating huge sums of money to politician’s campaigns. None at all.

Here’s hoping the Senate follows suit and passes their version of the health care bill.  It’s beyond time to improve this system.

Prejudice Overheard

Today I heard someone speaking on the phone about the massacre at Fort Hood yesterday.

“…the fact that he is a Muslim doesn’t even come up.  It’s ridiculous.  They try to make it sound like it was some psychological problem…”

This person was convinced that Major Hasan’s motive was simply that he was a Muslim and that Muslims are inherently violent.  And this person clearly is not alone in that belief.

Dreher:

No matter how badly the media try to spin it another way, or to ignore the religion ghost in this story, Hasan’s religion was to all appearances a key factor in the mass murder he committed. You don’t have a Muslim shouting “Allahu akbar!” as he executes people one by one, and conclude that religion is incidental to his crime. You have to be a moral idiot to draw that conclusion, a politically correct nitwit.

So: how should we regard the role of Hasan’s religion in this infamy?

John Infidelesto:

This was jihad.

 

(links courtesy The Daily Dish)

It’s hard to combat this type of prejudice and marginalization when it seems to come directly from our country’s own foreign policy.  Our president for the previous eight years, not-so-subtlely claimed that this war was a “crusade,” evoking pretty stark images of Christians versus Muslims in a holy war.  That wasn’t lost on many Americans.  While some found it cringe-worthy and blasphemous, others found it justified.

Even if Hasan turns out to be some radical Islamic fundamentalist, it doesn’t confirm the belief that Islam is evil, Islam is dangerous, or that all Muslims are homicidal maniacs waiting in the wings.  It just means that this particular Muslim was disturbed – for a multitude of reasons, including his fundamentalism – and snapped.

It’d actually be much easier to just blame Hasan’s actions on Islam.  Most people would like that idea because it sums up a very complex situation into a nice, little box to point your anger and frustration.  From the information so far, it just doesn’t seem like this is the whole story for Hasan and the tragedy at Ft. Hood.

While people like Dreher cry about people ignoring the Muslim aspect of Hasan, it’s equally as irresponsible to neglect the affect the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have on our troops, no matter what creed, race, ethnicity, or religion.

And for those people like the one I overheard today on the phone, it’s helpful to place this deadly rampage in the right context of history.  Case in point, just today, a man opened fire at work in Orlando killing one and injuring five others.

He wasn’t Muslim; he was just pissed off about being fired.

Get Out Of The Desert! Cont’d

I know this is playing to emotions and there are difficult, real-world issues at stake here, but for the same party that touts family values and the traditional nuclear family to also want to just keep sending moms and dad overseas to fight for a pointless war for nearly a decade just seems so very contradictory and blind.

Let’s get out of both Afghanistan and Iraq for all of the little girls in the country who want their daddy back home.

 

Carrie Prejean: Porn Star

Carrie Prejean strikes again! This is the fresh, young face of the GOP, ladies and gents!  And she’s in a – mock surprise! – a sex tape!

Shocker.

Prejean joins the ranks of such relevant American heroes as Kim Kardashian, Pamela Anderson Lee, and Paris Hilton.

Never would’ve guessed someone whose politics involve burying one’s self underneath a mask of bigoted ideology would be outed at some point (see Ted Haggard, Larry Craig, Mark Foley, etc.).

Apparently the dethroned Miss California 2009 even had the gall to deny that it was her while watching the tape!  That is, until the camera panned up and clearly showed otherwise.

Probably a bad idea to claim to be this beacon of purity and value and then get breast implants, pose nude, then record yourself playing with yourself… and then somehow have that tape leaked out to TMZ.

Lesson learned: if you’re thinking about claiming to be a moral authority, don’t.

Get Out Of The Desert!

As if we needed any more American deaths to make this war real to those of us back home who have the luxury of thinking about the ideal of spreading democracy and freedom across the planet.  Well, here we have it.

12 American soldiers.  Dead.  On American soil.

This is what happens to the human psyche when trained to kill and subjected to years in a war zone.  It breaks.  And, in this case, it takes others with it.

We went into Afghanistan and liberated it from the Taliban.  We installed a democratic government.  We’re done.  It’s over.  Time to come home.

The fact that that the Taliban has reemerged in Pakistan is not the same fight.  Sure, it’s the “War on Terror” but there’s no need for the tens of thousands of troops on the ground nor the 40,000 potentially deployed in The Surge, Part II (we all know how well sequels tend to be).  We can surgically help out Pakistan if need be with their fight with the Taliban.

It’s been over nine years since 9/11.  We’ve been at war for nearly a decade.  The human cost is incalculable, especially when you include the pain of people losing their loved ones as well as those troops who survive physically, but are mentally and emotionally wrecked.

This has to stop. Now. There are no more excuses.  No more reasons to stay.  No more staying the course.  No more troop surges for victory.  Win or lose, we’re done.

Bring our troops home.  It’s time to get out of the desert.

The South, Cont’d.

It turns out that those numbers on the South’s approval/disapproval of President Obama didn’t tell the whole story.  Wouldn’t be the first time that numbers were misleading.

Not that the South isn’t skewed heavily against Obama in relation to the rest of the country, though, only that they seem to be pretty unhappy with all of government, including their own party.

They’re disaffected about everything. Unsurprisingly, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are unpopular; they actually fare worse than Mr Obama. But so are Mitch McConnell and John Boehner, albeit to a lesser extent: Mr Boehner gets 26% favourable/36% unfavourable. Congressional Republicans are at 30/47. The only thing that southerners favour more than disfavour is the Republican Party, and even that isn’t getting majority support (48/37).

It makes sense that they would still be supportive of the GOP since they are almost all red states, but even that support is far from overwhelming.

The Economist draws its own conclusions for this general malaise and they seem to be very plausible explanations.

Accuracy vs. Balance

Columnist Dan Froomkin:

Journalists should strive for accuracy, and fairness. Objectivity is impossible, and is too often confused with balance. And the problem with balance is that we are not living in a balanced time. For instance, is it patently obvious that at this point in our history, the leading luminaries on one side of the American political spectrum are considerably less tethered to reality than those on the other side. Madly trying to split the difference, as so many of my mainstream-media colleagues feel impelled to do, does a disservice to the concept of the truth.

Sure, there are always – at least – two sides to a story.  But one of those sides could very well be completely, utterly false.  Does that side deserve equal time as the side that is based on reality?  Of course not.

The goal of journalism is to be fair and provide an accurate account of what happened.  This current obsession and complete overcompensation for balance skews every single issue into being a matter of opinion.  The problem is, everyone has an opinion, but not everyone is right.  There are facts and then there are beliefs.  And, lately our society has put way too much importance on beliefs and it has caused our mainstream media to completely ignore the difference between the two, airing two sides of an issue regardless of whether or not they have any facts to back up their opinion.

Without those facts, an opinion is simply hot air, not news.

(link courtesy of The Daily Dish)

Hey, The South, Come Join The Rest Of Us In 2009

I know racism is a loaded accusation and shouldn’t be tossed around lightly.  Former President Jimmy Carter recently launched it at Rep. Joe Wilson for his absurd outburst at President Obama during his address to Congress.  Perhaps it was unwarranted to label him a racist, perhaps not.  But to simply dismiss that race has anything at all to do with some of the dissent with Obama is to be blind to reality.

Just take a look at these approval-disapproval numbers:

(via The Daily Kos)

Notice Obama’s numbers in the south: 28-67.  Unreal.  That’s not a slight shift from the rest of the country.  That’s polar opposite.

It seems like a lot more than coincidence that a black president would have such an unfavorable approval rating in the part of the country that seceded in order to be able to keep slavery from being outlawed, don’t you think?

I know that urban areas across the country are in dire need of education funding and improvement, but I think our entire society would benefit from pumping money into schools in the south, especially the rural areas.  And not just K-12, but let’s start a mandatory adult education program for all registered voters to inform them of a couple apparently overlooked topics like American History and Biology.

(thanks to The Daily Dish for the link)