On Dreams

I think that one of the best Martin Luther King day tributes came from Jon Rosenberg, creator of Scenes from a Multiverse. The premise of the comic is that there are an infinite number of universes inhabited by sentient beings, all of whom are pretty much exactly as fucking stupid as we are.

MLK was assassinated during a push for worker's rights, part of a social justice initiative that went beyond the call for de jure equality and made the case for a more equal society. In today's America, Martin Luther King's name is one embraced by people of all backgrounds, creeds, and political persuasions. But if you share his goals, you get beaten in the streets just the same as his followers did at the time.

Many, on air and off, have asked the question: "What would Martin Luther King Jr. say if he saw today's America." Obviously none of us know, but whatever it is, it would without a doubt be painful to hear.

In Response to Mr. Hitchens (better late than never)

Christopher Hitchens argued last Monday that those who are alarmed about the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki are under heavy obligation to say what they would have done instead.


It's pretty much just the sort of thing Christopher Hitchens would say. And I sort of agree. I don't necessarily see it as an obligation, but I absolutely am far less likely to take someone seriously if they haven't at least thought about alternatives.


If it doesn't bother you at all, you can fuck right the hell off.


An American citizen has been killed in our name, with no due process of law. This should be a crisis of conscience for all of us.

This isn't to say that I don't think it's utterly appropriate to target an enemy commander during a time of war, regardless of the circumstances of his birth. But this is about precedent, and that means doing the paperwork. And the rationale given for the hit's legality is flimsy at best.

For the past 10+ years we have been engaged in a global conflict against a transnational enemy whose troops have no uniforms, who don't amass at the border, who regard success in terms of how many, not how few civilian casualties are inflicted, and who reside in places where they are not the state or of the state but are under some level of protection.

The rules of war were not written with this sort of conflict in mind; that much is obvious. The rational response to this realization would be to work with the international community craft new rules that impose limits on the use of military might in accordance with the spirit of existing international law but without the outmoded language.

Our response instead has been to do whatever is easiest, and create a post hoc justification for it based on tenuous interpretations of existing law. It's a disgrace, and as Americans we were taught to expect better than this.

It should absolutely be legal to take out a man who has betrayed his country to a transnational death cult, and with apparent lethal result, who is holed up someplace inaccessible to any agency  able to capture him.

But under current law, it doesn't appear to be. We have only our own laziness to blame for this.

What would I have done instead? I'd have worked to establish a judicial process for targeted overseas killings that isn't just a bunch of lawyers putting their heads together to try and find a way to call something legal. I'm going to favor a drone strike over boots on the ground any day, and I'm going to favor a drone strike over an insurgent attack that kills civilians any day. But if people are going to be killed in my name as an American, I want an assurance that they're the right people. This isn't merely a moral concern. Whenever we misfire, whenever we shoot into a crowd, whenever we target the wrong person, we are potentially creating new enemies who see the killing of their loved ones not as collateral damage but as murder. The ethics and the cost-benefit analysis are grey under the best of circumstances. To say that this is distressing is an understatement. But it ought to be distressing, or else we find ourselves as we do today where the ethical implications of covert action are the result of anything but the best of circumstances.

This isn't about whether or not it was right to kill that one man. It's about how the justifications used for the killing can be abused in the future. Even if one trusted the Obama administration fully to discharge this newfound (and as of yet unchallenged) power, it's still unconscionable to let it stand when it could one day fall into the hands of, oh, I don't know... a presidential candidate who has all but called for the lynching of Ben Bernanke


As we watch the American Spring begin to take root, we should keep in mind that Wall Street isn't the only place in the world operating with a massive moral hazard. Unaccountable power is a cancer on our society no matter who wields it.

The Mad Dog of the Near-East Falls

I wrote, then deleted, a triumphalist piece about Libya, which now that I think about it I never went on the record about in the first place.

Because, you know, everyone just needs to hear what I, of the chattering underclass, have to say about it.

I'm going to make a confession here. In my heart of hearts, I'm an interventionist.

When people are out of work, I want my tax dollars to put them back to work.  When they don't have health insurance, I want to give it to them. And when they're suffering under the yoke of a cruel and repressive dictator, I want to free them, whether they live overseas or in Michigan. Or at least, such is my aspiration. Some undertakings, however noble the intent, can be ignoble in any conceivable attempt at their execution. As such, I was against the war in Iraq, glad the United States didn't intervene in Egypt, and sadly cognizant of the fact that if any moment existed where a nation-building mission in Afghanistan could have worked, it ended when we became occupiers rather than liberators.

In Libya I was for intervention the moment it became clear that Moummar Ghatafi was going to slaughter all who opposed him otherwise. There is, as I see it, a moral imperative to act when one has a good-faith basis for believing that one can favorably influence the outcome. Going in with allies, not Americanizing the conflict, and waiting for a UN mandate for action were all evidence that this action would be the closest thing to a responsible use of military power in recent memory.

Which is why I was more than a little pissed to hear so many people on the left--some of whom I respect a great deal-- declare American participation in this conflict to be proof that Obama is no different from George W.Bush. And moreover, that those supporting action in Libya who opposed it in Iraq were fascinated solelt by the politics of personality. I'm reminded of a Yakov Smirnov joke: "In America, people are free to go to Washington and tell comrade citizens president of the USA is idiot. In Russia, people are free to go to Red Square in Moscow and tell comrade citizens president of USA is also idiot. Russia is just like America!"

I'm used to intellectually dishonest bullshit coming from the likes of Eric Cantor, Michelle Bachmann or  Max Baucus. Getting yourself elected to Congress diminishes one's ability to speak frankly. But to see the left-wing narrative that this President is insufficiently progressive (however true it may be in the general case) overwhelm honest reporting of the facts is infuriating. This wasn't another unwinnable war. It wasn't an enormous waste of resources. It wasn't the United States terrorizing the Middle East with its military might.

It was, of course, "hostilities," and while I agree that the Administration did something genuinely dishonest and unfortunate in skirting the War Powers Act without raising any of the very real questions as to its Constitutionality, I have a hard time believing that the people who wanted him to break the law in order to unilaterally raise the debt ceiling are seriously bothered by this. What, from a legal perspective, is the difference between saying that you're not following a law because it isn't Constitutional and saying that it doesn't apply? Anyone looking to challenge the decision would have to go through the same legal channels and the arguments would take the same shape.

I find it enormously regrettable, but it seems to me that Obama's motives are clear. He didn't want to deal with the whims of a Congress whose sole purpose for the past year has been to oppose him at every turn, regardless of the implications . He also didn't want to provoke a Constitutional crisis, which could well have ended in the evaporation of the War Powers Act. As it stands, he's merely weakened it by precedent, and not irreparably. Under his admittedly ludicrous interpretation, a President still wouldn't have the unilateral power to put boots on the ground, or to take military action without the support of the international community. And even that precedent may not hold.

It was, without a doubt, a weak move. It's not something I would have ever done if I was in charge. But I'm not certain that it wasn't for the best.

In any case, reasonable minds can disagree about the War Powers Act and the President's handling of it. As it stands, a dictator has fallen and there are no American flags burning in the streets of Tripoli. Those incapable of seeing the significance of that fact-- and the fact that the only NATO casualty of the struggle was a robotic helicopter-- ought to be looked at with skepticism when they comment on other political and geopolitical matters.

As for the ones spouting that BS from an elected office? I want to know if they've been lobbied by the Ghatafi regime.

I will say that I'm not impressed with a lot of the news coverage on the war. The press is dropping clear hints at the true nature of the rebel soldiers without connecting the dots. The rebels' premature victory celebrations that take place as soon as the loyalists and mercenaries are driven into retreat were described as being reminiscent of Bedouin tribal warfare. That this would suggest a brand of soldier prone do things more atrocious than fire their guns into the air inches away from their comrades' heads does not enter discussion, despite the near-certainty of severe abuses perpetrated by these undisciplined revolutionaries Possibly worse ones than have been reported. It's true that there would likely have been greater and worse under an unchecked Ghatafi reprisal, but if we're going to applaud the result of the conflict, we ought to be aware of the unintended consequences.

The events in Libya may yet have a profound positive impact on the Arab Spring, and how the nascent democracies arising from it view the United States. As such, I have been following them with cautious optimism. One can't help but be happy to see a scene like this:

Here's hoping that the most is made of this great opportunity.

Is this thing on?

Apologies for my (unfortunately characteristic) absence. This time it's because I got an almost-full-time job for a company that forbids me from identifying myself as their employee online. They're apparently very sensitive about who knows who touches their flowers.

I've been out of my parents' house for about three months now, which has done wonders for my sanity. Not doing wonders for my sanity is the fact that John Ensign may never go to jail.

If you only give a shit about one political sex scandal this year, please make it this one.

Usually what makes these stories relevant to the political discussion is the extent to which the politician in question gained their status by pimping their morals. Hence the entirely justified disgust at the revelation that at the same time that Arnold Schwarzenegger was decrying the scourge of single-parent minority households, he may have already helped to create one.

But seriously, I don't care. The possibility that the Governator's misadventures may suck up what ink may have otherwise been alloted to Ensign's rankles me. Because Ensign is more than your garden-variety Republican hypocrite. He was a made man. Groomed for a future run at the Presidency by a theocratic fundamentalist cult known as The Family that has its hands up more Washington asses than a cross between Vishnu and Jack Abramoff. So in his capacity as a deacon and a gynecologist (or at least, claiming those capacities in order to claim privileged information), Senator Tom Coburn recommended a 1.2 million dollar payout to the Hampton family (wound up being less), and an illegal lobbying gig for the cuckolded husband.

That's what we already knew.  What has become clear since the report by the Senate Ethics Committee is that Ensign tricked his parents into committing perjury on his behalf. It has also become clear that at least at first, his advances toward Cindy Hampton were unwanted. Ensign continued them anyway, pressing his leverage over her as her boss and as the man footing the bill for her kids' pricey education.

And this is where it's hard for me to continue, because when I describe this behavior I'm not quite sure whether I should be referring to it as sexual harassment or as rape.

We haven't come to expect a whole lot out of our politicians lately, and frankly we've come to expect far less from those with an R in front of their name. But this shit is beyond the pale.  And there's an explanation for it. From Jeff Sharlet's reporting on the support system in place for John Ensign at the Family's C Street house:

David Coe, Doug Coe's son and heir apparent, calls himself simply a friend to men such as John Ensign, whom he guided through the coverup of his affair. I met the younger Coe when I lived for several weeks as a member of the Family. He's a surprising source of counsel, spiritual or otherwise. Attempting to explain what it means to be chosen for leadership like King David was -- or Mark Sanford, according to his own estimate -- he asked a young man who'd put himself, body and soul, under the Family's authority, "Let's say I hear you raped three little girls. What would I think of you?" The man guessed that Coe would probably think that he was a monster. "No," answered Coe, "I wouldn't." Why? Because, as a member of the Family, he's among what Family leaders refer to as the "new chosen." If you're chosen, the normal rules don't apply.

It was David Coe who rang Ensign's cell phone at the hotel room where he and Cindy were meeting for what would be the last time and said "I know what you're doing. Put your pants on and go home."

He wasn't calling because Ensign's pursuit of Cindy Hampton was an abuse of his power, both as her boss and as someone upon whom her family depended on for a great deal. He wasn't calling because it was high-octane hypocrisy. He was calling because as the future head of the elite fundamentalist movement and all its sinister clout, he really wanted his John Ensign project to yeild a "god-controlled" presidency.

The Family protects far worse men (and they're all men) than John Ensign on the global stage--indeed the anti-gay legislation written by their Ugandan protege David Bahati may any day now put the death penalty on the books for "aggravated homosexuality"-- but he's the high water mark for this side of the Atlantic, at least since the Nixon era.

Whether or not rape is an accurate descriptor for John Ensign's actions couldn't have mattered for his groomers. Their former pet "new chosen," Siad Barre used it as an interrogation tactic when he ruled Somalia. In all cases, their status as important people; "key men" in the struggle against socialists like Castro or FDR or Obama, exempts them from normal morality.

I've been involved in a lot of arguments on the Internet where the phrase "rape culture" has been invoked and I've at times been critical of the circumstances in which it's applied, but Jesus fucking Christ the fact that neither John Ensign nor his co-conspirator Tom Coburn are currently facing indictment for their actions is prima facie evidence of the persistence of rape culture.

As is the paternal bullshit of the Toronto cop who declared, before a group of law students, that if one wanted to avoid being raped, the best thing to do is not to dress like a slut.

Thus began the Slutwalks. First in Toronto, and in several cities since, including, on May 7, Boston. Thousands turned out dressed, well, however the fuck they felt like dressing.

Many carried signs that said things like "Sluts Say Yes," and "My Thong is Not an Invitation." There were a few unfortunate assholes dressed as pimps who told reporters that were there looking to get numbers, who mistook my glaring at them as wondering if they were hollering at me, and conveyed, crudely, that they were not.

Like they were ever going to get any of this even if they begged.

Taken after the event, but this is totally what I looked like at the time. 

It was a rowdy, sexy, meaningful good time that ended in Boston Common (or at least the one in Boston did) with speeches.  Here's the one that stuck out for me

There’s a word for all of this. And that word is bullshit. But there’s also a phrase for it: social license to operate. What that means is this: we know that a huge majority of rapes are perpetrated by a small minority of guys who do it again and again. You know why they’re able to rape an average of 6 times each? Because they have social license to operate. In other words: because we let them. Because as a society, we say “oh well, what did she expect would happen if she went back to his room? What did she expect would happen walking around by herself in that neighborhood? What did she expect would happen dressed like a slut?”  

Jaclyn Friedman.  Full transcript here 

There's the key phrase. Social license to operate. John Ensign is not in jail. Tom Coburn is still in the Senate, and may have been granted immunity from prosecution. Because their cabal and our society has given them social license to operate.This is the defining feature of rape culture.

It's a sickness that crosses ideological lines. Whether or not the facts will show him to be guilty of rape, the angry reaction by many on the Left to the mere suggestion that something might be wrong with Julian Assange was appalling, as was Assange's dismissal of the accusations as being "just about a broken condom." Say even that in a comment on the Huffington Post and you're bound to get smeared. What, pray tell, makes Assange so credible that people will believe that the Swedish government collaborating with the CIA to take him down was a more likely proposition than the accusations leveled against him being true?

Privilege.

Who knows if the Senate holds anyone with a secret quite so felonious as John Ensign's. Being a United States Senator confers upon one a sense of privilege that's hard to properly describe. When you have the power to single-handedly cripple an economy by placing a hold on unemployment extensions over a beef regarding earmarks going to your state, you have the power to get away with a whole lot of shit. The Senate Ethics Committee is a small deterrent, but at least it represents a potential downside to foul play-- Indeed, without their investigation, Ensign would likely have wound up going unpunished, as the deceptions the Committee uncovered had previously fooled both the Justice Department and the Federal Election Commission. But if Tom Coburn goes unpunished, and if the new information made public by the Ethics Committee doesn't result in an indictment of John Ensign and possibly Senator Coburn, then there will be that much less to persuade a future John Ensign not to sexually harass his employee. Or to persuade a future Tom Coburn not to help his friend cover it up.

And it's bad enough in the United States Senate as it is.

PAX East: A Modest Success

Editor's Note: There is much to say about the disaster in Japan, but as I'm still playing catch-up, I'll wait on that post and give an update on that thing I've been working on

I hope that next time [Team Respect] goes to a con, there are more of us to hit up the panels and hand out swag, because for as much fun as I had at PAX East, I do wish I'd gotten the chance to play some more videogames.

To that note, I did get the chance to demo the new Mortal Kombat, which was more fun than I've had playing a fighting game in a couple of years (and more fun than I've had playing a Mortal Kombat game since the franchise launched).

I also got to demo Twisted Pixel's The Gunstringer, which is truly fucking astounding. Using the Xbox Kinect, you control the story's hero, who just so happens to be a marionette! As you fight your way through the barren landscape, a narration plays that adapts to the action on screen. It is to puppet theater what Rez was to music.



None of this is to suggest that I regret the other purposes for which I attended PAX. As it stands, [TR] is garnering still more followers on Twitter, with a major spike since the con. We distributed pink wristbands with our twitter name and our URL, collected business cards from a fair number of developers. I was also approached by a teacher from my high school, who was interested in organizing an event there about ethics and hate speech and wanted to know if I'd be interested in giving a talk.

Considering that one of the long-term goals we had from the getgo was doing precisely that sort of thing, I'm pretty fucking psyched.

When we started out, we weren't quite sure what we could accomplish at PAX East with such little time to organize and so few resources. The bar we set for ourselves was thus: Make it absolutely fucking clear that at this con, in this city, the people who are interested in helping greatly outnumber the trolls.

The douchetrucks behind @teamrape managed to stage a "flashmob" consisting of between 15 and 18 people outside a nearby UNO's.  They also managed to get us to give them handfulls of bracelets before we knew who they were, and get themselves kicked out of the Gender in Games panel. They've been at this for a couple of months longer than we have, and are followed by 60 people on twitter.

As of this writing, we've distributed around 2000 wristbands, are followed by 192 twitter users-- including the great and powerful @Themiscyra, who on Sunday became the first woman to take the stage for the final round of the Omegathon, and did so proudly displaying a [Team Respect] wristband-- and have made significant content with the press, the industry, and activists in the community. We also met with the brilliant minds at MIT's Gambit Lab, who in addition to their great work in gaming, created the Hate Speech Project as a reaction to the hostility surrounding the dickwolves debacle. It was put on display at the back of their booth at the expo hall.



A full report will follow over at the Team Respect blog, but in short: [TR] is WINNING. This started as a response to a specific mishap in the gaming community, but it won't end there.

As gamers, we're sick of merely saying "games aren't bad for you." Games are GOOD for you. They keep soldiers deployed in combat zones from wanting to kill themselves-- in fact the only behavior more effective in decreasing risk of suicide is 5 hours of daily exercise.  They treat depression.  They improve confidence and self-esteem, and channel positive energy. If you don't overindulge, they make you a more productive, more considerate, more helpful member of society.  But the catch is, none of that shit works if you're an asshole, or are playing in a space that's dominated by assholes.

We can't sanitize the Internet or online gaming as a whole--nor do we want that power-- but from what we've learned at PAX, it's quite clear what our mission from here on out ought to be: To carve out a space where people can expect to be treated respectfully, and to encourage people to take that attitude out to the gaming community as a whole. To encourage others to lead by example and in so doing change the fucking world. The limits of what can be accomplished by our efforts have yet to be fully defined, but what we already know commands us to press forward.

I would be remiss if I didn't call your attention to this man

Editor's note: this post was originally intended to contain only one sentence about the situation in Cairo, but it got away from me. If you're looking for content that better fits the title of this post, skip down to the bottom.

I've been almost completely unable to divert my attention from coverage of the protests in Tahrir Square in Cairo. I just got through watching a group of anti-government protesters rip a man who seems to have been a pro-Mubarak provocateur from his truck and beat him. They attempted to dismantle it for the scrap metal, which was all too important earlier in the day when whatever chunks of metal were available were used as improvized tower sheilds, linked together like the Roman legion, in order to drive back the thugs hired by the ruling party to transmute what was originally a non-violent protest into a violent one.

over 750 people were injured in a battle that has been described by witnesses as "medieval" At least four were killed. The morning call to prayer has been drowned out by gunfire.

Journalists and Westerners have been especially targeted by the pro-Mubarak thugs, with Anderson Cooper and his crew-- to give only one example-- having been attacked when they tried to get a better vantage point.

The work of the People has become this: hold the square at all costs, even unto death. They have been going home in shifts for food and supplies, and have taken responsibility for securing the perimeter, which had previously been the Army's task. Tanks have laid down smokescreens hoping to interfere with the ability of both sides to hit each other with stones and petrol bombs, and giving cover so that anyone wishing to leave unharmed was given the opportunity to do so.

This isn't the post I set out to write, so I'm going to leave it at this: Our brothers and sisters in Egypt started this movement out of a yearning for democracy, but now they are in this fight for their lives. The ruling party is out for their blood, and if they remain in power when all is said and done, there is no reason to believe that they'll put this shit behind them, if past is prologue. Those of us watching this revolution from the comfort in our homes have an obligation to not be idiots about it when we talk about Egypt. The reporting of Al Jazeera as well as this brilliant post at Sarthanpalos--which I urge everyone to read-- have been invaluable resources toward this aim.

Ahem.

Now for something a bit closer to home, and indeed closer to having anything to do with the title of this post. This is Zach Wahls, a college student and fellow Eagle Scout, speaking at the Iowa State House-- where a Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage is being considered-- in defense of his two moms.



Preach it, Zach