Random Link Dump

Wan Yanhai released: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20061127/hl_afp/healthaidschinarights_061127061946

An article from SFgate.com on gay life in rural China. I wonder how it compares to gay life in Idaho.

Some needs to teach the Brits how to apologize.

Tired yet?

My sentiments exactly: http://www.easterwood.org/hmmn/?p=88

Collateral Damage, Terrorism, Laws of War

Just something that has been bouncing around in my head for a while. What is moral difference between targeting civilians and engaging in military actions that you know with a high degree of certainty will result in civilian injuries and death? Shouldn’t the principle be “do no harm”, not “don’t say you’re going to harm”? Here are some articles I dug up on the web:

“Collateral Damage is Murder” by Michael Boldin

“Terrorism and Response: A Moral Inquiry into the Killing of Noncombatants” by Camillo C. Bica, Ph.D.

“Reflections on Kant and Moral Equivalence” by Michael Neumann

If any anyone knows of other writings on this subject, legal or otherwise, please let me know!

السّلام للبنان

The maddening, horrifying orgy of performative violence rages on in Lebanon. A glimmer of hope on Flickr. For Lebanese (and Palestinian) voices on life under siege, check out these blogs:

Save Lebanon

Kerblog

تووت من أجل غزة وبيروت (entries in English)

Random Links

The New York Times notices that not all gay folks are into the marriage thing. A lot of straight people aren’t either.

I’m usually predisposed to keeping essential services public, but in this case, things should be kept private.

Ugly in More Ways than One

The other day I was half-joking with some folks about the politics of typography. Then I saw this from the May 2006 issue of Metropolis, via the AIGA website: POTUS Typographicus: Appealing to the Baseline and George W’s Typographic Legacy. Heller argues that “…good design in patriotic.” Ultimately though, what is more disturbing than unkerned, overstyled typographic disasters is their cynical attempt to sway public opinion through visual repetition. As Heller notes himself, “No president before Bush—not Kennedy, Reagan, or Clinton—relied on such huge typographic statements to get their messages across. I checked 100 or so photographs of past presidents’ major speeches and saw no such signs or banners for ‘The New Frontier,’ or even ‘The Evil Empire.’” Just because it says “Protecting America’s Borders” or “Iraqi Freedom” a hundred times behind Bush’s head doesn’t make it so. The true “patriotic” (whatever than means) designer would refuse to lend an air of aesthetic legitimacy to Bush & Co. by helping them in the selection of more visually appealing fonts.

For more on the relationship between letterforms and politics check out: Blackletter: Type and National Identity.

Gay Panic & the Middle East Conflict

Another crazy week. Tuesday was a panel discussion at the LGBT Center surrounding the execution of two youth in Iran a year ago. Yesterday I went to meeting of folks trying to organize a response to Israel’s attacks on Lebanon. Today, a protest in the pouring rain outside the US Mission. It’s all been a blur…one of those weeks when events in the world pull you along, leaving little room for reflection. Then I came across this article in the San Jose Mercury about a group of prosecutors trying to stop the use of the “Gay Panic” defense and an idea crystallized: The claim of fear by the powerful serves to justify violence against the weak.  This claim of fear transforms active violence into reactive “self-defense.” The homophobe uses “gay panic” to justify gay bashing. The Israeli government and its US and British backers use fear of terrorism to justify the invasion of Gaza and the seige of Lebanon. NYPD officers use fear to justify their killing of an unarmed African immigrant in the Bronx.

How do bury the notion that one person’s peace of mind is worth the lives of hundreds or thousands of others? How do we cut through this false logic of fear that enables Empire?

Legacies of Empire

Priyamvada Gopal, lecturer at Oxford, in an editorial on the Guardian website, writes:

Indeed, one legacy of European colonialism that we all reckon with is the self-fulfilling prophecy of the “clash of civilisations”. The claim that east and west are bound to come into conflict is merely an extension of imperial practice which found it useful to seal off porous cultures into fixed categories.

So how do we get out of this “self-fulfilling prophecy”, this vicious cycle fueled by power grabs masquerading as religious piety, scripted media epic melodramas of global battles between good versus evil, and erosion of security and community by successive waves of neoliberalism?

Social Isolation and the Rise of Neoconservatism and Christian Nationalism

The WPost has an interesting article on social isolation in the United States. According to the results of the National Science Foundation’s most recent General Social Survey, published yesterday in the American Sociological Review, the number of socially isolated Americans (those who do not have a close relation in which to confide personal matters) has more than doubled since 1985. The data, gathered from survey last conducted in 1984 show that only half of respondents had someone close to talk to.

I think this is a major trend underlying the popularization of neoconservative ideology and Christian nationalism. People who feel alone are vulnerable to ideologies that preach individualized morality and discipline and strict adherence to supernatural authority as perceived antidotes to the alienation of living alone in a “dangerous world.” More than any other political movement, the Right has been able to capitalize on this feeling of isolation among the exurban residents that comprise the majority of the US population. For the US left/progressive movements I believe addressing this suburban American loneliness is one of the critical steps towards turning the tide in this country. It’s not just about defending the social safety net of goverment programs such as Social Security, public education, etc. but also about reinvigorating the idea of the social itself, the importance of friendships and community that intertwine and extend beyond the nuclear family unit. The Right provides a false atrophied version of this in the Church, but I think it’s up to the Left to articulate a vision of a social America that includes Churches, but also other community formations as well.

So how can the US Left do this? How do we take on the challenge of reinvigorating social life in the sprawling exurbs?