SMCCDI News:
Millions of Iranians expressed their satisfaction of the outcome of the US Presidential elections and George W. Bush's victory by calling and congratulating each other or waling in the streets and shaking each others hands or showing the V sign.
Many are speaking about the promises made by Mr. Bush to back the Iranian Nation in its quest for freedom and democracy.
As Iranians and especially the younger generations have become happy , those affiliated to the Islamic regime are seen deeply worried about their future based on crimes and corruption.
The regime and its US based known apologists and lobbyists had tried hard to make fear to Iranians on the outcome of a Bush win. Money was poured by controversial individuals, such as Akbar Ghahary the treasurer of IAPAC, to money oriented TV and radio networks, such as, 670 AM, Tamasha TV, Melli TV and a specific program of Apadana TV hosted by an ideologist named Faramarz Foroozandeh.
But all these desperate tries were not able to lure the Iranians of inside and nor especially the members of the Diaspora.
Witnessing such fiasco, the Islamic regime tried hard to bring the few thousands of professional demonstrators for its organized celebration of the 1979 attack against the US Embassy in Tehran. It's to note that the Iranian Capital has over 12 millions of inhabitants and that the today's official commemoration of one of the main Islamist act of terror ecountered another massive popular rejection.
2004-11-04
2004-11-03
The Next Generation ...
... has just earned his yellow belt in Tae Kwon Do. Just got the word from his mom, down in California. And he'll be coming up here to visit over Thanksgiving weekend - that's going to be fun!
Let's blogroll!
An ailing Wretchard reflects on the unfairness of time's irreversible arrow, which forces us to drive by looking in the rear-view mirror.
Serenity just can't get it right ... she's too reverent for some readers, and too coarse for others. I'd be bitter, too.
Kat at The Middle Groundtakes on the liberal misreading of "mainfest destiny".
Serenity just can't get it right ... she's too reverent for some readers, and too coarse for others. I'd be bitter, too.
Kat at The Middle Groundtakes on the liberal misreading of "mainfest destiny".
Morning Report: November 3, 2004
Bush wins popular vote; Kerry contests Ohio. Dreams Into Lightning has no particular contribution to make to the presidential election coverage, so we will simply note that it appears certain that President George W. Bush will emerge as the winner of the 2004 election. We will post on any significant developments.
GOP keeps control of Congress, may expand Senate lead. The Republican Party has retained its House majority and appears set to expand its lead in the Senate. News reports showed Senate minority leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota trailing his Republican challenger John Thune.
Karzai wins Afghan election. Hamid Karzai has won the Afghan presidency in the first such election in the history of Afghanistan. According to the AP story on Karzai's election, 'The country's joint U.N.-Afghan electoral board confirmed that the American-backed incumbent had clinched a five-year term as the country's first popularly chosen leader.' Electoral board chairman Zakim Shah said Karzai won 55.4 percent support in the Oct. 9 election, 39 points clear of his closest challenger and enough to avoid a second round.
UAE president dies. The President of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan, has died. Analysts expect a reasonably smooth transfer of power as Sheikh Maktoum bin Rashid al-Maktoum assumes acting presidency for 30 days while UAE's ruling council chooses a new president. Mahmoud carries a tribute. The BBC covers Zayed's death.
GOP keeps control of Congress, may expand Senate lead. The Republican Party has retained its House majority and appears set to expand its lead in the Senate. News reports showed Senate minority leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota trailing his Republican challenger John Thune.
Karzai wins Afghan election. Hamid Karzai has won the Afghan presidency in the first such election in the history of Afghanistan. According to the AP story on Karzai's election, 'The country's joint U.N.-Afghan electoral board confirmed that the American-backed incumbent had clinched a five-year term as the country's first popularly chosen leader.' Electoral board chairman Zakim Shah said Karzai won 55.4 percent support in the Oct. 9 election, 39 points clear of his closest challenger and enough to avoid a second round.
UAE president dies. The President of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan, has died. Analysts expect a reasonably smooth transfer of power as Sheikh Maktoum bin Rashid al-Maktoum assumes acting presidency for 30 days while UAE's ruling council chooses a new president. Mahmoud carries a tribute. The BBC covers Zayed's death.
Bush Wins Popular Vote
By approximately 51% to 48%, or 55,662,415 votes against 51,904,364 at last count, President George W. Bush has won the support of the majority of American voters for re-election. At this hour several states are still in play, and challenger John Kerry has questioned the Ohio vote, which brought Bush 20 electoral votes and put him within 1 EV of the 270-vote threshold needed to win the presidency. Stay tuned.
Voters defeat gay marriage ... this time.
Gay marriage lost out in eleven out of eleven state ballots, but supporters must realize that this is just the beginning of the struggle. Ampersand at Alas, a Blog says it better than I can.
2004-11-02
Freedom and Slavery: Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
About a month ago, the leftist British newspaper The Guardian embarked on a campaign to reach out to American voters. The editors felt it would be a good idea to "educate" Americans in a Clark County, Ohio, about the coming Presidential election. Perhaps predictably, American reaction to the venture was not favorable. Also unsurprisingly, a fair number of Americans responded by quoting a certain eighteenth-century document that begins with the words, "When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands ... ".
Thomas Jefferson, like John Adams, died exactly fifty years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence - so the Norton Anthology tells us. But Norton also provides American readers with a Declaration that is different from the familiar redaction: this, excerpted from Jefferson's autobiography, is the original draft as Jefferson himself wrote it. Jefferson provides the proofreader's marks, too, as evidence of what was changed: for, as he pointedly notes, "the sentiments of men are known not only by what they receive, but by what they reject also."
What Congress rejected may be of particular interest to us here. While the emendations are numerous and often trivial, one of the longest deleted passages concerns the institution of slavery in America:
First, let's notice the words in capitals (the emphasis is Jefferson's own): he explicitly contrasts the Christian King against "infidel" foreign nations, and it is not in the King's favor! This calls to mind Mary Rowlandson's repeated references to the behavior of the "praying Indians" in her captivity narrative. In both cases the intent is to draw attention to the abandonment of supposed "Christian" ideals; but here, the target is the King of England himself.
Jefferson also emphasizes the words men, lives, and liberties, familiar to us from the document's famous opening passage:
It appears that Jefferson intends to create a certain symmetry here: the King has oppressed the Colonists and the Africans; he has deprived the Africans of their liberty, and incited them to deprive the Colonists of their lives.
Like other passages excised by Congress (e.g., the references to "treasonable insurrections of our fellow citizens" and "disturbers of our harmony"), this seems to point to a perception, on Jefferson's part, that the Crown was attempting, perhaps successfully, to sow internal discord among the Colonists. That Congress saw fit to remove these passages might suggest that it was a sensitive issue.
Now to return to the question of slavery. Clearly, a full discussion of the moral contradictions in revolutionary America far exceeds the scope of this post. However, we may raise one or two basic questions about Jefferson.
Did Thomas Jefferson intend to abolish slavery? These passages suggest that he did. He doesn't sound as if he's joking here, and I do not detect any eighteenth-century equivalent of /sarc tags in the text. He meant his document to be taken seriously, and it was, at a cost of 4,435 battle deaths in a seven-year war. The Declaration of Independence is taken seriously by Americans to this day, as the indignant voters of Clark County will attest. And yet, Thomas Jefferson himself kept slaves all his life.
Let's notice something else. Jefferson is eager to attribute both slavery, and the Colonists' internal problems, to the agency of the Crown. Is this justified? I don't know; again, that's outside the scope of this reading. But Jefferson's language around the issue of slavery seems to revolve around a disavowal of responsibility: somehow, slavery is something the King did to us, or made us do - and not something in which we voluntarily participated.
Earlier in this course, we encountered a disturbing case of complicity in the slave trade, in which Olaudah Equiano, himself a slave, writes matter-of-factly:
For Equiano, freedom only comes, and can only come, through his participation in the system that enslaves others. He participates in this system as a matter of survival. This is one of the cruelest aspects of the system: the complicity that it enforces from those it holds hostage.
Jefferson does not see his own complicity in the slave system, perhaps, because he does not see it as something in which he has freedom to act as an individual. He is a wealthy, powerful, respected, white man, with enough courage and learning to set down the words that will "dissolve the political bands" that tie the Colonies to Britain - and yet, he cannot see himself as free to act, because, in his own mind, slavery exists because of the King.
Jefferson felt strongly enough about slavery to explicitly condemn it in the most important document he ever wrote; and when the political system of his day would not permit such a radical step, he saw to it that history would inherit the record of his efforts. And yet, Thomas Jefferson did not free a single slave - because he refused to see beyond the limits of his own, self-imposed, imaginary bondage.
Jefferson's failure is America's tragedy.
Thomas Jefferson, like John Adams, died exactly fifty years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence - so the Norton Anthology tells us. But Norton also provides American readers with a Declaration that is different from the familiar redaction: this, excerpted from Jefferson's autobiography, is the original draft as Jefferson himself wrote it. Jefferson provides the proofreader's marks, too, as evidence of what was changed: for, as he pointedly notes, "the sentiments of men are known not only by what they receive, but by what they reject also."
What Congress rejected may be of particular interest to us here. While the emendations are numerous and often trivial, one of the longest deleted passages concerns the institution of slavery in America:
[The King] has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them off into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of INFIDEL powers, is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN king of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought and sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce. And that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people on whom he has also obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed against the LIBERTIES of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the LIVES of another.
First, let's notice the words in capitals (the emphasis is Jefferson's own): he explicitly contrasts the Christian King against "infidel" foreign nations, and it is not in the King's favor! This calls to mind Mary Rowlandson's repeated references to the behavior of the "praying Indians" in her captivity narrative. In both cases the intent is to draw attention to the abandonment of supposed "Christian" ideals; but here, the target is the King of England himself.
Jefferson also emphasizes the words men, lives, and liberties, familiar to us from the document's famous opening passage:
We hold these truths to be self evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator withinherent andcertain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
It appears that Jefferson intends to create a certain symmetry here: the King has oppressed the Colonists and the Africans; he has deprived the Africans of their liberty, and incited them to deprive the Colonists of their lives.
Like other passages excised by Congress (e.g., the references to "treasonable insurrections of our fellow citizens" and "disturbers of our harmony"), this seems to point to a perception, on Jefferson's part, that the Crown was attempting, perhaps successfully, to sow internal discord among the Colonists. That Congress saw fit to remove these passages might suggest that it was a sensitive issue.
Now to return to the question of slavery. Clearly, a full discussion of the moral contradictions in revolutionary America far exceeds the scope of this post. However, we may raise one or two basic questions about Jefferson.
Did Thomas Jefferson intend to abolish slavery? These passages suggest that he did. He doesn't sound as if he's joking here, and I do not detect any eighteenth-century equivalent of /sarc tags in the text. He meant his document to be taken seriously, and it was, at a cost of 4,435 battle deaths in a seven-year war. The Declaration of Independence is taken seriously by Americans to this day, as the indignant voters of Clark County will attest. And yet, Thomas Jefferson himself kept slaves all his life.
Let's notice something else. Jefferson is eager to attribute both slavery, and the Colonists' internal problems, to the agency of the Crown. Is this justified? I don't know; again, that's outside the scope of this reading. But Jefferson's language around the issue of slavery seems to revolve around a disavowal of responsibility: somehow, slavery is something the King did to us, or made us do - and not something in which we voluntarily participated.
Earlier in this course, we encountered a disturbing case of complicity in the slave trade, in which Olaudah Equiano, himself a slave, writes matter-of-factly:
After we had discharged our cargo there, we took in a live cargo (as well as a cargo of slaves). Here I sold my goods tolerably well ...
For Equiano, freedom only comes, and can only come, through his participation in the system that enslaves others. He participates in this system as a matter of survival. This is one of the cruelest aspects of the system: the complicity that it enforces from those it holds hostage.
Jefferson does not see his own complicity in the slave system, perhaps, because he does not see it as something in which he has freedom to act as an individual. He is a wealthy, powerful, respected, white man, with enough courage and learning to set down the words that will "dissolve the political bands" that tie the Colonies to Britain - and yet, he cannot see himself as free to act, because, in his own mind, slavery exists because of the King.
Jefferson felt strongly enough about slavery to explicitly condemn it in the most important document he ever wrote; and when the political system of his day would not permit such a radical step, he saw to it that history would inherit the record of his efforts. And yet, Thomas Jefferson did not free a single slave - because he refused to see beyond the limits of his own, self-imposed, imaginary bondage.
Jefferson's failure is America's tragedy.
"The Cause of America": Thomas Paine (1737-1809)
What a great place to begin on St. Election's Day! Today's assigned reading is from Common Sense. It was the English-born Paine's first publication - a hugely successful, anonymously published tract, and the first to call for independence from Britain. Paine followed Common Sense with the sixteen-part series Crisis.
It's well known that most of the "founding fathers" - men like Washington and Jefferson - were slaveholders. But we should not assume that the vast and disgraceful contradiction between the ideals of liberty and the practice of slavery went unnoticed in revolutionary America. As the African-American poet Phyllis Wheatley noted, it didn't take a philosopher to see that there was something wrong with this picture. And Thomas Paine, himself a working-class Englishmen bitterly opposed to hereditary privilege, began his activist career as an abolition spokesman.
Paine's Common Sense focuses on the arguments for dissolution of ties with the Crown. He does not buy the argument that Britain will "protect" America, noting that Britain "would have defended Turkey from the same motive, viz. for trade and dominion."
He also rejects the argument of England as the ancestral home of the Americans, noting that only about one-third of the Colonial population are of English descent (the rest coming from other parts of Europe). "But, admitting [i.e., even if it were the case] that we are all of English descent, what does it amount to? Nothing."
The son of a Quaker, Paine held humanitarian ideals in the highest regard; but he himself was no pacifist. The following passage is worth quoting in full:
But Paine's quarrel was with the English regime, not with the English people. After his fortunes failed in the post-Revolution era, he returned to England, where (the Norton Anthology informs us) "he wrote his second and most successful work, The Rights of Man". It's important to note that this work was not a Colonial manifesto like Common Sense, but "an impassioned plea against hereditary monarchy" (Norton) - that is, a call for democratic reform in England and France. In short, he was attempting to export the American Revolution.
It's well known that most of the "founding fathers" - men like Washington and Jefferson - were slaveholders. But we should not assume that the vast and disgraceful contradiction between the ideals of liberty and the practice of slavery went unnoticed in revolutionary America. As the African-American poet Phyllis Wheatley noted, it didn't take a philosopher to see that there was something wrong with this picture. And Thomas Paine, himself a working-class Englishmen bitterly opposed to hereditary privilege, began his activist career as an abolition spokesman.
Paine's Common Sense focuses on the arguments for dissolution of ties with the Crown. He does not buy the argument that Britain will "protect" America, noting that Britain "would have defended Turkey from the same motive, viz. for trade and dominion."
He also rejects the argument of England as the ancestral home of the Americans, noting that only about one-third of the Colonial population are of English descent (the rest coming from other parts of Europe). "But, admitting [i.e., even if it were the case] that we are all of English descent, what does it amount to? Nothing."
The son of a Quaker, Paine held humanitarian ideals in the highest regard; but he himself was no pacifist. The following passage is worth quoting in full:
To talk of friendship with those in whom our reason forbids us to have faith, and our afections wounded through a thousand pores instruct us to detest, is madness and folly. Every day wears out the little remains of kindred between us and them; and can there be any reason to hope, that as the relationship expires, the affection will increase, or that we shall agree better when we have ten times more and greater concerns to quarrel over than ever?
Ye that tell us of harmony and reconciliation, can ye restore to us the time that is past? ...
But Paine's quarrel was with the English regime, not with the English people. After his fortunes failed in the post-Revolution era, he returned to England, where (the Norton Anthology informs us) "he wrote his second and most successful work, The Rights of Man". It's important to note that this work was not a Colonial manifesto like Common Sense, but "an impassioned plea against hereditary monarchy" (Norton) - that is, a call for democratic reform in England and France. In short, he was attempting to export the American Revolution.
ENG 253 Loves Company
So for whatever reason, I committed to spending four hours a week in a classroom in Neuberger Hall with about 40 zillion other undergraduate students studying American Literature Through 1865.
True confessions time: I sometimes find it hard to get excited about going to class. And because I've invested so much time and energy in this blog over the past six months, I sometimes find it hard to tear myself away.
It occurred to me, though, that if I'm going to get the most out of the class, I ought to try to find a way to combine it with my work at Dreams Into Lightning.
So I've decided: If I have to suffer, so do you. ...
True confessions time: I sometimes find it hard to get excited about going to class. And because I've invested so much time and energy in this blog over the past six months, I sometimes find it hard to tear myself away.
It occurred to me, though, that if I'm going to get the most out of the class, I ought to try to find a way to combine it with my work at Dreams Into Lightning.
So I've decided: If I have to suffer, so do you. ...
Fun With Search Terms
Most disturbing Google hit on Dreams Into Lightning: Some individual in Sweden was looking for (and I quote) "build your own fuel air explosive". (OK, pal, here's how you do it: get a five-gallon gas tank, fill it with gasoline - or petrol - and take it out into a deserted area. Then take a match, and ... oh, never mind.) I've noted this character's IP address, by the way.
Lots of people are trying to find bin Laden. I'll let you know as soon as I see him. Meanwhile, I promise to keep you posted on developments. And yes, the Palestinian Authority endorsed John Kerry ... perhaps he should consider a leadership position in that august organization, I'm sure they'll have some openings soon ...
One reader wonders "why weren't women aloud to act in early drama productions?" Well, personally I'm curious as to why children aren't taut to spell these days, but never mind. I'll get back to you on that one.
I'm proud to announce that as of now, Dreams Into Lightning ranks #12 out of 6,750 for the Google query response to Doctorow on Bush, and fifth for the Yahoo query E.L.Doctorow unfeeling president analysis. Those folks would be looking for my October 17 post, The Unfeeling Left.
For those interested in Washington factionalism, a Google search on the query state vs. defense places DiL just fourth out of 40, with the May 6 post State vs. Defense - and the Chalabi charge. I'll be adding that one to the sidebar too.
All this fabulous information is brough to you courtesy of SiteMeter.
Lots of people are trying to find bin Laden. I'll let you know as soon as I see him. Meanwhile, I promise to keep you posted on developments. And yes, the Palestinian Authority endorsed John Kerry ... perhaps he should consider a leadership position in that august organization, I'm sure they'll have some openings soon ...
One reader wonders "why weren't women aloud to act in early drama productions?" Well, personally I'm curious as to why children aren't taut to spell these days, but never mind. I'll get back to you on that one.
I'm proud to announce that as of now, Dreams Into Lightning ranks #12 out of 6,750 for the Google query response to Doctorow on Bush, and fifth for the Yahoo query E.L.Doctorow unfeeling president analysis. Those folks would be looking for my October 17 post, The Unfeeling Left.
For those interested in Washington factionalism, a Google search on the query state vs. defense places DiL just fourth out of 40, with the May 6 post State vs. Defense - and the Chalabi charge. I'll be adding that one to the sidebar too.
All this fabulous information is brough to you courtesy of SiteMeter.
I did it!
Just got back from the Multnomah County, Oregon election office, where I placed my votes in favor of President Bush, in favor of Goli Ameri, and against Oregon Measure 36.
On the cab ride (both there and back) I had to endure Al Franken on the radio, which I suppose somehow balances out the time I had to listen to Dr. Laura *spit* Schlessinger.
Now, having done my patriotic duty as a citizen of the United States, I must move on to other things. Like paying the rent. I know I left that checkbook around here ... somewhere ....................
On the cab ride (both there and back) I had to endure Al Franken on the radio, which I suppose somehow balances out the time I had to listen to Dr. Laura *spit* Schlessinger.
Now, having done my patriotic duty as a citizen of the United States, I must move on to other things. Like paying the rent. I know I left that checkbook around here ... somewhere ....................
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