If you can spend next Wednesday’s lunch hour in downtown San Francisco, try to be here:

Sudan Day of Conscience

12-1, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 25, 2004

CIVIC CENTER PLAZA (ACROSS FROM CITY HALL)

San Francisco

The United Religions Initiative, San Francisco Interfaith Council, and Jewish Community Relations Council in partnership with community, ethnic and civic groups invite you to join

AN INTERFAITH VIGIL TO CALL ATTENTION TO THE HUMAN TRAGEDY UNFOLDING IN DARFUR. JOIN LEADERS OF ALL FAITHS AND ETHNIC COMMUNITIES TO CALL FOR AN END TO THIS ATROCITY AND TO ENGAGE THE BAY AREA IN HELPING BRING CRITICALLY NEEDED RELIEF!

The Save Darfur Coalition, composed of faith-based, humanitarian and secular civic organizations, has identified Wednesday, August 25, 2004 as Sudan: Day of Conscience. On that day, communities across North America are urged to engage in interfaith activities — designed to raise public awareness about the horrific situation in Darfur and to urge the international community to take immediate and decisive action to stop the killing, the rape, and the destruction of villages, and to assure that humanitarian relief reaches all those in need as quickly as possible.

Being in the business of driving up your own health care costs –

is a tough place to be. But Philip Morris was up to the challenge. According to the August 2004 issue of American Journal of Public Health (I have access to a departmental subscription at work), from 1996 to 1998, Philip Morris collaborated with its health care provider, CIGNA, to “censor accurate information on the harm of smoking and on environmental tobacco smoke exposure from CIGNA health newsletters sent to employees of Philip Morris and its affiliates.” The agreement came to light after Blue Cross/Blue Shield and the state of Minnesota sued the tobacco industry and won access to business documents in the settlement. “The arrangement between Philip Morris and CIGNA involved the active participation of employees from both the tobacco company and the health insurer,” the authors write. Employees of the Philip Morris benefits department would review each issue of CIGNA’s Well-Being newsletter for “objectionable” material. If a “problem” was discovered, the tobacco company had a choice of (1) blocking delivery of the newsletter altogether or (2) replacing the article with alternate content. Sometimes CIGNA employees alerted Philip Morris employees to potentially objectionable content, as in this quoted communication: “Please take a look at page 7, the asthma piece. It mentions cigarette smoking as a possible trigger for an attack, I thought I should bring that to your attention.” Other times, Philip Morris employees would raise the objection: “It contains some objectionable content referencing smoking. Specifically, the article lists ‘cigarette smoking’ as one of the irritants in the environment which can trigger an asthma attack. The article goes on to say ‘Do not allow smoking in your home or any other environment that you can control.’… It is my recommendation that we forego the winter edition due to content…” The astonishing agreement to censor smoking-related content apparently ended in 1999, as a result of the aforementioned settlement. I am not at all surprised that Philip Morris did this, but for their health insurance carrier to collaborate! — boggles the mind. As the authors note:

While this arrangement no longer exists, the potential for similar arrangements involving other industries is a matter of concern. Have paint manufacturers asked for censorship on the hazards of lead paint? Have gun makers asked that their employees not read about statistics on gun-related violence?

Obviously this list could be extended… pesticide manufacturers, HRT manufacturers, etc. The authors’ wise recommendation is that those agencies that accredit managed care companies “mandate that health plans not censor employee-directed health information at the request of employers.”

Now, what were you saying about family values? –

Bush’s wingnut Catholic advisor, Deal Hudson, resigns over a little sexual misconduct. The Revealer has more.

While the resolute president flip-flops on the assault weapons ban –

Both Nicholas Kristoff and the Newsday editorial page explain why it cannot be allowed to expire. While you’re at it, look back at what Arianna wrote earlier this year: “…Bush is feigning support for the measure while effectively ensuring its demise. The reason is as simple as it is craven: It’s all about placating the NRA, which has promised to withhold its presidential endorsement until after the assault weapons ban has expired.”

Parting shots –

from an outgoing Republican who thinks the war in Iraq was unjustified.

Mr. President, your base is leaking –

David Broder last week, George Will this week… With conservative friends like these, no wonder Bush is trying to look moderate.

“Nuance” trumps groupthink –

Good column by Fareed Zakaria on the practicality of Kerry’s Iraq position compared to Bush’s. I like what he pulls from a book by Larry Bossidy:

Bossidy has written a book titled “Execution,” which is worth reading in this context. Almost every requirement he lays out was ignored by the Bush administration in its occupation of Iraq. One important example: “You cannot have an execution culture without robust dialogue — one that brings reality to the surface through openness, candor and informality,” Bossidy writes. “Robust dialogue starts when people go in with open minds. You cannot set realistic goals until you’ve debated the assumptions behind them.”

Jerry Long is more pointed, stating that nuance beats delusion.

How chicken hawks campaign against veterans –

It’s all here (I actually saw it here first, but was irritated by the smattering of orphaned punctuation marks.)

States are taking on global warming –

Interesting strategy. (And global warming might cause earthquakes?)

Just how effective has that slimey Swift Boat Ad been? –

Apparently it’s working on undecided voters, which is a shame since it can be so easily refuted. WaPo has even more. Eric Alterman says something worth remembering:

“The people in the Bush administration are competent in only one thing: smearing their opponents and intimidating the media into passing along their falsehoods unedited. Now that John McCain, like Colin Powell before him, has sacrificed his leverage together with his reputation for honesty by running interference for this bunch, there will certainly be more—and worse—to come. The Kerry campaign had better find a way to deal with it for if the past two elections demonstrate anything it all, it’s that this works.”

Kerry is finally hitting back.

Does the Iraqi soccer team endorse Bush? –

You would be excused for thinking so, given their prominence in campaign ads. But (via Daily Kos) the players have something to say about it:

Ahmed Manajid, who played as a midfielder on Wednesday, had an even stronger response when asked about Bush’s TV advertisement. “How will he meet his god having slaughtered so many men and women?” Manajid told me. “He has committed so many crimes.”

[---]

“My problems are not with the American people,” says Iraqi soccer coach Adnan Hamad. “They are with what America has done in Iraq: destroy everything. The American army has killed so many people in Iraq. What is freedom when I go to the [national] stadium and there are shootings on the road?”

Rumsfeld gets off easy, again –

OK, sure, it was more than a few bad apples, but nosiree, nobody in the administration authorized the torture of Iraqi prisoners.

John McCain, Sycophant –

I used to admire John McCain; he seemed to stick to his rather moderate and reasoned principles. I hoped John Kerry wasn’t really courting him for a running mate, but I respected the guy. Now, everytime McCain stumps for Bush, he diminishes himself. What’s up with this, anyway? Are the Bushies testing his VP appeal? Because, you know, Cheney might be in jail during the next four years, and stories like this don’t help Condi’s chances.

Remember bin Laden? –

I was following links about the expected October Surprise, leading to this item, about which a commenter said, “The capture of Bin Laden in late October will be our version of the Reichstag fire.” Embarrassed that I did not immediately grasp the reference (I love history, but I don’t remember it), I googled this. Ah! NOW I understand!

Well, somebody had to say it –

Sen. Tom Harkin takes issue with Cheney’s “sensitive war” mockery: “When I hear this coming from Dick Cheney, who was a coward, who would not serve during the Vietnam War, it makes my blood boil,” said Harkin. “He’ll be tough, but he’ll be tough with someone else’s kid’s blood.”

Bush’s War on The Enlightenment –

Last year I read a terrific Lewis Lapham column on Bush that included this spot-on characterization:

President Bush speaks for an earlier period in American history, from a pulpit in the Puritan forest before it received the gift of books. If his biographers can be trusted, we now have in the White House a president so secure in his belief that the course of human events rests in “the hand of a just and faithful God” that he counts his ignorance as a virtue and regards his lack of curiosity as a sign of moral strength.

That is the intellectual nature of the man currently dictating your nation’s science policies. Actual scientists have protested mightily, to little avail. Bush stacks advisory committees with ideologues, rules by arbitrary regulation (because legislation would surely fail), and always, always favors business over humanity. The Washington Post has a three-part series very worth reading, which details this administration’s assaults on OSHA and the EPA — assaults which merely hogtie the agencies, but ultimately endanger our lives. Go here, here, and here. Coincidentally?, the New York Times has a feature on the same topic. Rep Henry Waxman has been on the case; check his web site from time to time to see what the administration is trying to undo and what you can do to fight.

Meanwhile, here is a great cartoon that encapsulates the situation nicely; I keep it taped up in my cubicle. (The site has an irritating feature to keep you from illegally reproducing the cartoon; when the big red “no copy” circle comes up, just move your mouse to the side so that you can see the cartoon again.)

Oh, and did you hear Laura Bush speaking out on stem cell research? If this was her idea, someone shoulda just said no:

But I know that embryonic stem cell research is very preliminary right now and the implication that cures for Alzheimer’s are around the corner is just not right and it’s really not fair to people who are watching a loved one suffer with this disease.

OK, see, the fact that the answers are not “around the corner” and that the research is “very preliminary” would be a very good reason to facilitate the research, rather than obstruct it. As Charles Pierce observed, “Where in hell is the President’s Council On Bioethics? (Probably either bleeding people with leeches or booking tours to Lourdes.) I mean, would I ask Gregor Mendel where the biography section is?” Mrs. Bush was also upbraided here.

If we all expect it, is it still an October surprise? –

Here’s a roundup of the most “popular” October surprise theories; here is the site where you can weigh in. With polls like this, and with the likes of David Broder suggesting that Bush will be a one-termer, you can almost hear the administration hoping for something that will “rally Americans around their president” or give them a reason to postpone elections…

Troubled Times –

I’m having a terrible time linking to the New York Times today; everytime I click on a story link, my browser freezes. If you’re able to get through, this Bob Herbert piece is a chilling read — Jeb is trying to intimidate elderly black voters, now.

And on the subject of October Surprises and Block the Vote! efforts, Molly Ivins says we could more profitably spend our time contemplating the truly diabolical feats the Bushies have already pulled off…

Kerry’s tricky position on the Iraq War –

Is simplified here by Kevin Drumm and others. (If you suffer the same kinds of challenges as the leader of the free world, you’ll find Bob Somersby’s explanation particularly useful: “What is Kerry’s stand on Iraq? Readers, get ready for some real brain-work! Here goes: Kerry says Bush should have had the authority to go to war, but then went to war prematurely. Wow! Have you finished scratching your heads about all the nuance involved in that statement?”)

Bush Love-Ins –

Bush is particularly effective campaigning among hand-picked crowds teeming with evangelicals and pre-screened questioners who submit loyalty oaths. If you read things like Left At The Altar, you’re probably not invited…

Yes, clothes do apparently make the man –

WaPo’s John Harris proves it in one of the most idiotic pieces of campaign reporting I’ve yet read. I mean, really. This is fluffier than anything by Jodi Wilgoren - who at least laces her stories with malevolent misinformation. The Daily Howler finds it ironic that a press that couldn’t cut Gore any slack and in fact spent many pages mocking his clothing selections, seems smitten with Bush’s “shirtsleeves.”

Finally –

I’ll have more to say, later, on an important series of articles running in the Washington Post. Stay tuned. (If you have any luck getting an article pulled up on the Times site, try to read the piece by Elizabeth Busmiller on those Bush Love-Ins.)

More fallout –

on the administration’s decision to blow its own horn and thus blow the cover of the most richly connected Al Qaeda suspect yet detained.

The sensitive men of the Bush White House –

The Progress Report has a fabulous rebuttal to Cheney for mocking Kerry’s “sensitive war” comment. Unfortunately, the US press seems not to have the same investigative resources at its disposal as the small team of writers at TPR, because all we’re hearing and reading in the “liberal media” is Cheney’s mockery — nothing of these (all from TPR):

PRESIDENT BUSH STRESSES NEED TO BE “SENSITIVE” IN MILTARY AFFAIRS: On 3/4/01, President Bush stressed the need to be “sensitive” in conducting military affairs, stating, “because America is powerful, we must be sensitive about expressing our power and influence.” And just last week, President Bush said, “In terms of the balance between running down intelligence and bringing people to justice obviously is — we need to be very sensitive on that.”

SPECIAL FORCES STATE NEED TO FIGHT “SENSITIVE WAR ON TERRORISM”: The Bush campaign’s latest salvo, while aimed at Kerry, also is an attack on the military’s top special forces commanders. On 7/20/04, the Bush administration sent one of the Air Force’s top special forces officers to Capitol Hill to assuage concerns about tactics being used in the War on Terror. In his testimony, Chief Master Sgt. Robert Martens reassured Republican Chairman Rep. Jim Saxton (R-NJ) that “our special operators offer a seasoned, culturally sensitive war on terrorism.”

VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY SAYS MILITARY MUST NOT BE INSENSITIVE: On 4/13/04, Cheney said the Bush administration was focused on conducting sensitive military operations. He stated, “We recognize that the presence of U.S. forces can in some cases present a burden on the local community. We’re not insensitive to that. We work almost on a continual basis with the local officials to remove points of friction and reduce the extent to which problems arise in terms of those relationships.”

RUMSFELD STRESSES NEED TO BE “SENSITIVE” IN THE WAR: In the lead up to the Iraq war and afterwards, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld promised the Pentagon would be “sensitive.” On 2/5/03, he said “we have to be sensitive, to the extent the world thinks the United States is focused on the problems in Iraq, it’s conceivable that someone could make a mistake and believe that that’s an opportunity for them to take an action which they otherwise would have avoided.” On 7/9/03, he reassured the public that his department was being “sensitive” to troop needs during the war. He said U.S. commanders are “sensitive to the importance of troops knowing what the rotation plan will be so they have some degree of certainty in their lives. And [they] are sensitive to the importance of the quality of their lives.”

GEN. RICHARD MYERS SAYS MILITARY NEEDS TO BE “SENSITIVE” IN WAR: On 10/31/01, Gen. Richard Myers, Bush’s chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was asked about whether the military would be “sensitive” to religious issues in prosecuting the War on Terror. He said “We are, I think, very culturally sensitive.” On 1/7/03, Myers touted the Army’s ability to be “sensitive.” He said “we can ask of our troops to go out there and be, on the one hand, very sensitive to cultural issues, on the other hand, be ready to respond in self-defense to a very ticklish situation, all at the same time.” On 11/19/03, Myers said U.S. troops “are very sensitive to the balance between appropriate military action and not trying to turn the average Iraqi against the coalition.”

GEN. TOMMY FRANKS SAID THE WHITE HOUSE MADE SURE TO BE “SENSITIVE”: On 7/10/03, Gen. Tommy Franks went to Capitol Hill to answer questions about the War on Terror. He said the Bush administration explicitly understood the “sensitive” need for the U.S. to continue pursuing al Qaeda in Afghanistan, instead of appearing like it was solely focused on Iraq. Franks said, “Everyone from the president to Secretary Rumsfeld right through me were very sensitive, to be sure, that our operations moved ahead in Afghanistan in parallel with what we were doing in Iraq.”

ASHCROFT CLAIMS THE ADMINISTRATION IS BEING “SENSITIVE” IN WAR ON TERROR: Attorney General John Ashcroft has repeatedly stressed the need for the Bush administration to be “sensitive” in fighting the War on Terror. On 4/28/03, just a month after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Ashcroft said, “The United States is very sensitive about interfering in the internal politics of other countries.” On 3/20/02, he said the Justice Department was making sure to be “sensitive” in hunting down terrorists. He said, “The agents and officers who conducted the interviews did so in a sensitive manner, showing full respect for the rights and dignity of the individuals being interviewed.”

CHENEY & LOTT URGE MILITARY TO BE SENSITIVE IN CONDUCTING WAR: In conducting the first war in Iraq, then-Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney repeatedly stressed the need for America to fight a “sensitive” war. On 9/11/90, Cheney told Congress that he “was very concerned about…the clash of cultures” brought on by U.S. troops being stationed in Saudi Arabia, and that the U.S. must “try to be sensitive.” Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS) concurred, saying, “I would agree to that. I think [the Saudis] are sensitive, but we also are sensitive.”

CHENEY SAYS PENTAGON MUST BE “SENSITIVE” IN DEVELOPING WEAPONS: On 2/7/90, Cheney told Congress that the Pentagon must be “sensitive” in developing weapons. He said that he understood the need for the Pentagon to explore civilian uses of weapons-related technology, saying, “I think we need to be very sensitive to that as a department.”

WOLFOWITZ SAYS MILITARY MUST BE “SENSITIVE” IN WAR ON TERROR: On 11/9/01, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, a key hawk on military issues, said the armed forces must be “sensitive” to religious issues surrounding the War on Terror. He said, “I think we’ve made it clear we’re going to be sensitive to the fact that Ramadan is the holiest month on the Muslim calendar and we will have that in mind.”

Think Bush/Cheney’s gun-ho (pun intended) base will hear any of that on Fox?

Speaking of frightening concentrations of arbitrary powers –

and of pandering to nationalist conservatives: Border patrol agents are going to be given “sweeping new powers to deport illegal aliens from the frontiers with Mexico and Canada without providing them the opportunity to make their case before an immigration judge,” according to this NYT story - which I missed but a sharp-eyed friend passed along. Get this:

The new rule will apply to illegal immigrants caught within 100 miles of the Mexican and Canadian borders who have spent up to 14 days within the United States. Officials said the border agents would not focus on deporting Mexicans and Canadians, who will still, for the most part, have their cases heard in immigration court. The agents will concentrate instead on immigrants from other countries. In fiscal year 2003, about 37,000 immigrants from countries other than Mexico and Canada - primarily from Central America - were arrested along the Southwest border.

Can you say “racial profiling”?

Are you as shocked as I am? –

According to the Congressional Budget Office, the president’s tax cuts favor the wealthy! Noooo! “Fully one-third of President Bush’s tax cuts in the last three years have gone to people with the top 1 percent of income…” (See WaPo for a slightly more critical spin.)

PBS –

…continues to coddle radical conservatives by “balancing” its investigative journalism with exclusively right-wing commentary.

Isn’t it a little late for all this? –

Now the Washington Post sort of apologizes for failing to practice journalism in the run-up to Bush’s war on Iraq (although they can’t help pointing out that they also showed “flashes of groundbreaking reporting”):

“The paper was not front-paging stuff,” said Pentagon correspondent Thomas Ricks. “Administration assertions were on the front page. Things that challenged the administration were on A18 on Sunday or A24 on Monday. There was an attitude among editors: Look, we’re going to war, why do we even worry about all this contrary stuff?”

Another shameless terror scare –

Al Qaeda really, really wants to affect the elections, um, somehow… (this will probably become more specific with additional polling)

Finally! –

I must be thought-broadcasting again. Matthew Yglesias spells out what’s been bugging me for a long time about the David Brooks-inspired red state/blue state stereotypes (many of which have been completely debunked, but live on in a cherished fairy tale in the “liberal media”) and finds a study to back me him up. Matthew writes:

Their analysis of 2000 Census data tells us what everyone knows but pretends to forget — big cities are full of poor people. Around one quarter of the residents of America’s 100 largest cities are in the lowest fifth of the national income distribution, while just 16.6 percent of city dwellers are in the top twenty percent. The top three quintiles are underrepresented in cities, while the bottom two are overrepresented. Cities like New York and Boston are, despite the presence of a highly visible, well-educated, wealthy elite, actually “low-moderate” income places where there are fewer people in the top fifth than in the next fifth, fewer in that fifth than in the middle fifth, fewer in the middle than in the next-to-bottom, and fewer there than in the poorest quintile.

It’s not shocking stuff, when you think about it, but a useful corrective to a deplorable tendency among media-types to write as if everyone who lives in big cities is like them and their friends rather than like the folks who drive their cabs and clean their offices.

A useful corrective, indeed. It needs to be leapt upon as hard evidence of the classism and, yes, racism that is so deeply embedded in the conservative political platform and worldview. The bottom two quintiles of income distribution are overrepresented in Brooks’ “coastal metro blue areas” and completely ignored by purveyors of his “heartland” myth.

Maybe Al Qaeda wants us to vote for Nader? –

A good roundup of thoughts on “pre-election terror plots” here.

George Bush showed his true colors early –

Here is an action photo of collegiate Bush sucker-punching a rugby opponent. (Actually, we could argue that his colors were shown even earlier.)

Why, you’d almost think they don’t really want to win the war on terror –

after reading this.

The Leave No Pharmaceutical Corporation Behind Act –

is ticking off seniors.

But just in case you were thinking of importing cheaper drugs from Canada –

The administration devised a new and even more cynical scare tactic: FDA Commissioner Crawford says Al Qaeda may try to tamper with illegally imported prescription drugs! DAMN, these guys are good.

Molly Ivins –

Tries to explain to Canadians why even 45% of the US might vote for Bush, and finds she can’t.

What happens in peoples’ boardrooms is their own business –

I’ve just started reading Robert Reich’s REASON: WHY LIBERALS WILL WIN THE BATTLE FOR AMERICA and, on the train this morning, came to his discussion about what Sen Daniel Moynihan called “defining deviancy down,” leading to lower and lower expectations for good behavior, and how radical conservatives choose to apply this exclusively to sexual behavior when it’s actually “our current condition with regard to the greed and financial corruption that now infects America” (radical conservatives, according to Reich, think fraudulent accounting, insider trading, tax evasion and the like should be private acts, while sex outside of marriage, homosexuality, abortion and divorce should be legislated). Perhaps this misplaced obsession explains why yet another story about Halliburton’s burgeoning corruption, this one involving their inability to account for the staggering sum of 1.8 billion dollars allegedly spent in Iraq, is greeted with gaping yawns from the Right?

Big surprise –

Global demand for oil is even higher than anticipated, which means Cheney really was brilliantly prescient when he argued that we should invade Iraq and seize their oil fields.

Everything’s under control –

“I know what I’m doing when it comes to winning this war…” Dubya, yesterday.

We’re not turning the corner, afterall –

I was listening to CNN last night and heard a remarkably detailed report about BushCo’s decision to stop using the phrase “turning the corner” in Bush’s stump speeches because Dems are making too much hay with it. Yep, they’re all over the language thing… Hard to believe that was a feature news story, but then again, issues are so hard to cover.

International Election Monitors –

Just spotted this good news via Tapped: the US will get international election monitors this fall.

Be afraid, be very afraid (please) –

Tom Engelhardt doesn’t believe the administration can orchestrate an October Surprise, but he admits it’s hard not to be suspicious:

…take the most recent Orange Alert, which came just after the Democratic Convention as Kerry was setting out on the campaign trail and was based on a series of arrests of al-Qaeda figures in Pakistan, the first of which, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, the FBI’s twenty-second “Most Wanted” terrorist, was announced on the day of Kerry’s acceptance speech. To be more precise, it was announced by Faisal Saleh Hayyat, Pakistan’s interior minister, at that top Pakistani hour for making crucial announcements – midnight (but acceptance speech day halfway across the world.). Actually, to be yet more accurate, the arrest itself had been made not that day but four days earlier. What’s surprising here is not the four-day lag, but the speed with which the announcement was made – a kind of unseemly tip-off to any al-Qaeda figures connected to Ghailani. As former CIA operative Robert Baer commented on the timing of the announcement: “It makes no sense to make the announcement then. Presumably, everything [Al Qaeda] does is compartmented. By announcing to everybody in the world that we have this guy, and he is talking, you have to assume that you shoot tactics. To keep these guys off-balance, a lot of this stuff should be kept in secret. You get no benefit from announcing an arrest like this.”

On the same topic, remember the TNR article I linked to a few weeks ago, predicting that Pakistani officials would announce the arrest of a high value Al Qaeda target during the Democratic National Convention? The same authors reflect on the implications of their prescience here. William Rivers Pitt also explores the curious timing of the terror alerts. Julius Civitatus provides a very handy graphic, correlating Bush’s poll numbers to terror alerts. And Ray McGovern thinks we should still be concerned about attempts to cancel or postpone the elections:

…if the president’s numbers look no better in October than they do now, there will be particularly strong personal incentive on the part of the president, Rumsfeld, and Vice President Cheney to pull out all the stops in order to make four more years a sure thing. What seems increasingly clear is that putting off the election is under active consideration—a course more likely to be chosen to the extent it achieves status as just another option.

When did Liberal become a bad word? –

Kathy Pollitt reclaims liberal values in her Nation column. I’m not sure her “enlightened borough of Brooklyn” comment (contrasting it to “rural conservative states”) is particularly helpful, but she nails it here:

We liberals and progressives and leftists have our own noble principles, our own beautiful abstract words. We should take our stand on them. Fairness is a liberal value. Equality is a liberal value. Education is a liberal value. Honesty in government, public service for modest remuneration, safeguarding public resources and the land–these are all values we share. Liberty is a liberal value, trusting people to make their own decisions, letting people speak their minds even if their views are unpopular. So is social solidarity, the belief that we should share the nation’s enormous wealth so that everyone can live decently. The truth is, most of the good things about this country have been fought for by liberals (indeed, by leftists and, dare one say it, Communists)–women’s rights, civil liberties, the end of legal segregation, freedom of religion, the social safety net, unions, workers’ rights, consumer protection, international cooperation, resistance to corporate domination–and resisted by conservatives. If conservatives had carried the day, blacks would still be in the back of the bus, women would be barefoot and pregnant, medical care would be on a cash-only basis, there’d be mouse feet in your breakfast cereal and workers would still be sleeping next to their machines.

In an essay in the August Harper’s (the essay is not available online), Marilynn Robinson writes about liberal fear of claiming the “liberal” label in “The Tyranny of Petty Coercion.” Among some of the many eloquent statements she makes, she argues that “the banishment of the word ‘liberal’ was simultaneous with the collapse of liberalism itself…”

…To be shamed out of the use of a word is to make a more profound concession to opinion than is consistent with personal integrity. What is at stake? Our hope for a good community. Liberalism saw to the well-being of the vulnerable. Now that it has ebbed, the ranks of the vulnerable continuously swell. If this seems too great a claim to make for it, pick up a newspaper. Trivial failures of courage may seem minor enough in any particular instance, and yet they change history and society. They also change culture.

Shameless plug –

If you want to nominate Left At The Altar for the Washington Post’s Best Blogs contest, go here ;-).