Sunday, November 29, 2015

Weekend Roundup

Not much time to collect things today, but here are a few links on the week's newsk:

  • Julie Turkewitz/Jack Healy: 3 Are Dead in Colorado Springs Shootout at Planned Parenthood Center: A gunman, identified as Robert Lewis Dear, entered a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, shot some people, and shot at police when they arrived on the scene. He was captured alive and unhurt after killing three people and wounding nine others. This link provides some preliminary reporting. Note especially:

    Since abortion became legal nationally, with the Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade in 1973, many abortion clinics and staff members across the country have been subjected to harassment including death and bomb threats, and hundreds of acts of violence including arson, bombings and assaults and eight murders, according to figures compiled by the Naral Pro-Choice America Foundation.

    Planned Parenthood's Colorado Springs center was one of many locations around the country that became the site of large anti-abortion protests over the summer after abortion opponents released surreptitious videos of Planned Parenthood officials discussing using fetal organs for research. On Aug. 22, the day of nationwide protests to defund Planned Parenthood, more than 300 people protested outside the clinic here, according to local news reports.

    The campaign not just to stigmatize Planned Parenthood but to put it out of business was led this summer by all 16 Republican presidential candidates, while most Republicans in Congress (especially in the House) were so agitated over the issue that they wanted to shut down the federal government if Congress and the President didn't bow to their extortion. Such politicians are casually given the benefit of the doubt when they try to distance themselves from vigilante-terrorists who take their words so seriously they translate them into criminal acts. But in fact most of those politicians do support extra-legal murder and mayhem when the US practices it abroad (e.g., from drones). And one hardly need add that virtually every one of them is equally committed to making sure that vigilante-terrorists here in America have unfettered access to all the guns they can handle. So why excuse them from complicity in murders that are known to have a chilling, and sometimes devastating, effect on the constitutional rights of American women to private health care? (Indeed, see this report: GOP Presidential Candidates Sharing Stage With Pastor Who Hailed Murder of Abortion Provider. The article specifically mentions Cruz, Huckabee, and Jindal. Cruz subsequently received the endorsement of Troy Newman, the leader of Operation Rescue, a group which has been closely aligned with anti-abortion criminals.)

    A few more links on the shooting:

  • DR Tucker: Emma's World: Part III: The first two parts were an attempt to put a human face on one of the casualties of the Paris ISIS attack: specifically, a tourist from Tasmania named Emma Parkinson. This one quotes from a piece written on the occasion of an earlier gun massacre, about a still earlier gun massacre: Will Oremus: After a 1996 Mass Shooting, Australia Enacted Strict Gun Laws. It Hasn't Had a Similar Massacre Since. You may recall that the intermediary massacre, the slaughter of elementary school children and teachers in Newtown, Connecticut, was followed by a loosening of gun regulation, and a few dozen only marginally less shocking mass shootings. Following the 1996 Australian shooting, over 90% of all Australians agreed on the need for much stricter gun control. As I recall, polling showed that after Newtown a majority of Americans also desired stricter gun control, but opinion was far less united, and various institutional factors allowed the gun industry to prevail. A lot of factors differ between Australia and America here. One might, for instance, point to the cultural import of the old west in America, or to the fact that the US since WWII has fought far more wars than anyone else, and that the US government spends more money on arms than the rest of the world does. Still, two factors stand out: one is that Americans care very little about the welfare of their fellow Americans; the other is that Americans have very little understanding of the actual effects of mass gun proliferation. In particular, they don't realize that Australia provides a very relevant case study of the effects of strict gun regulation. Oremus writes:

    What happened next has been the subject of several academic studies. Violent crime and gun-related deaths did not come to an end in Australia, of course. But as the Washington Post's Wonkblog pointed out in August, homicides by firearm plunged 59 percent between 1995 and 2006, with no corresponding increase in non-firearm-related homicides. The drop in suicides by gun was even steeper: 65 percent. Studies found a close correlation between the sharp declines and the gun buybacks. Robberies involving a firearm also dropped significantly. Meanwhile, home invasions did not increase, contrary to fears that firearm ownership is needed to deter such crimes. But here's the most stunning statistic. In the decade before the Port Arthur massacre, there had been 11 mass shootings in the country. There hasn't been a single one in Australia since.

Also, a few links for further study (briefly noted; i.e., I don't have time for this shit right now):

  • Phyllis Bennis: After the Paris Attacks, a Call for Justice -- Not Vengeance. Recapitulates a similar statement made after 9/11, predicting no good would come of responding to the attacks with a "war of vengeance." Indeed. Also cites the common French response to 9/11: "nous sommes tous Américains" -- showing then as now that the French can't shake their self-gratifying identity as colonial masters, even long after their empire went bankrupt.

  • Lauren Fox: Why the Paris Attacks Unleashed a New Level of Anti-Muslim Vitriol in the US: Certainly did, but I'm not sure the author here got the reasons right. For one thing, the US has been fighting several wars against Muslims for 14 years -- and arguably a good deal longer, with 1990 and 1979 key moments of escalation, on top of America's increasing support of Israel, especially coming out of the 1967 and 1973 wars. For another, while the Bush administration was fairly conscientious about positing a battle between "good Muslims" and "bad Muslims," Obama has largely dropped that ball, partly as a result of disengaging from major theatres like Iraq, and partly because the picture itself has become increasingly murky. Also, I think, because the wars have been so unsatisfying that we've lost the commitment that most imperial powers feel to the natives who aligned with them, and are increasingly in trouble because of that -- although this point may just be swamped by the rising tide of nativism stirred up by demagogues like Trump, and the general meanness of the American electorate.

  • Rebecca Gordon: Corruption USA: Doesn't review so much as jump off from Sarah Chayes' book about corruption in Afghanistan, Thieves of State: Why Corruption Threatens Global Security. Raises the question of whether the US is similarly beleaguered by corruption. Spends a lot of time on Ferguson, Missouri, which while pretty clear (and graphic) is small potatoes -- compared to, say, oil and finance.

  • John B Judis: The Paradoxical Politics of Inequality.

  • Nomi Prins: The American Hunger Games: "Six top Republican Candidates Take Economic Policy Into the Wilderness." Looks at the proposed economic policies of Bush, Carson, Cruz, Fiorina, Rubio, and Trump.

  • Abba Solomon: Golem and Big Brother: A review of Jeff Halper's new book, War Against the People: Israel, the Palestinians and Global Pacification (Pluto Press). Halper founded the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, and wrote an essay called "The Matrix of Domination" which was one of the first expositions to show how Israel's many mechanisms for controlling Palestinians work together. The new book shows how Israeli businesses are taking technology developed for controlling Palestinians and marketing it to the rest of the world. If you don't yet think that the conflict over Israel-Palestine concerns you, this book should prove eye-opening.

  • Philip Weiss: Trump's claim of 9/11 celebration in New Jersey is based on arrest of 5 'laughing' Israelis: A story to file away for a possible footnote, if that's what it is. I do clearly recall Benjamin Netanyahu and Shimon Peres smiling on 9/11 and bragging about how good the terror attacks was for Israel -- a faux pas that John Major also made, one that combines "now you know what it feels like" with "with our vast experience in these things we can help you." It should have occurred to people then that the US was being attacked because it had usurped Britain's colonial role in the Middle East and had doubled down on its alliance with Israel against any reasonable alternative. I also recall that Israel almost instantly released stock video that purported to show Palestinians celebrating and burning American flags -- an image that did its intended damage before anyone could soberly think about it.

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