This is one of those days where I realize I'm tired of the leaders of my country making deals with devils. I'm tired of reading every day of blatant hypocrisy from the Bush administration, tired of being ashamed of him and his government, and of all the people who support him for narrow ideological reasons while willfully ignoring the damage he's doing to those who can least afford it.

One of the things that saddens me the most is the President's dealing with, supporting, financing, and protecting dictatorships around the world while paying lip service to "fighting for democracy" overseas. This is something that everyone--liberal and conservative, Christian and atheist, right and left--should be up in arms over. Yet days, months, years go by without any accountability.

You only have to pay attention to what's out there right now to see multiple examples of this. One is Sudan. The White House has been timid and ineffectual in dealing with the ongoing crisis there, much like the hesitation shown by our government toward Bosnia during the Clinton years. Despite some fits of tough talk, the White House has been backing down from taking strong action and has quietly been trying to get Sudan off the public agenda. Meanwhile, in the words of Human Rights Watch:

The Janjaweed and Sudanese armed forces continued a campaign begun in earnest in 2003 of ethnic cleansing and forced displacement by bombing and burning villages, killing civilians, and raping women. The first half of 2004 saw a dramatic increase in these atrocities. By year’s end hundreds of villages were destroyed, an estimated 2 million civilians were forcibly displaced by the government of Sudan and its militias, and 70,000 died as a direct or indirect cause of this campaign.

Bush has talked a lot about the plight of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, for good reason; but here is a situation that in its pervasiveness and alarming immediacy is much worse. Yet Bush does nothing. I could make claims on this regarding the color of its residents' skin, or the influence of Sudan's large oil reserve, but for now I'll leave such areas of inquiry to the gentle reader. Thankfully, some are not waiting for the deadbeat president but are taking matters into their own hands. Bravo, Illinois.

Another pertinent example is Uzbekistan. Over two years ago, in my essay on the cycle of corruption in our dealings with Iraq, I singled out Uzbekistan as an example of our government's tragic habit of supporting dictators in areas of strategic or oil-related significance. Recent news reports have highlighted ongoing violence against the populace their by its brutal government, but this is nothing new--Uzbekistan has a long history of human-rights abuse. Yet Bush has placated this dictatorship due to the Uzbek cooperation in our "war on terror" (the definition of which seems to only narrow with time). I even came across a document today which shows, with heartbreaking understatement, the long-term connections between Bush, ravenous corporate interests, and corrupt dictatorships.

I could go on, but all the evidence is there for any observant reader. We invade Iraq unprovoked over phony weapons programs while leaving North Korea, a legitimate threat possessing nuclear capability, in a bizarre limbo. We blast out inflamed rhetoric over Iran's supposed development of nuclear technology while giving a free pass to another technically rogue nuclear state, Israel. We speak, teary-eyed, of bringing hope and freedom to the rest of the world. Yet we sell out our own people by exporting jobs as fast as we can and throwing our markets wide open to systematic human-rights abusers like China.

It's very simple, really. The White House bases its actions on furthering bottom-line issues of corporate wealth and military dominance, but bases its rhetoric on ideological absolutes. The disconnect between the two is obvious to any mildly critical observer, and creates a bizarre scenario where questioning the actions of the administration is turned into questioning freedom, religion, and democracy itself, as though, pharoah-like, Bush is not merely leading the country but is the very living personification of its virtues.

Just today Bush said, when speaking about stem-cell research, "We should not use public money to support the further destruction of human life." This is a perfect case of his muddying the water with absolute language, rather than approaching an issue with any sort of intellectual rigor. When I read that quote, the first thought in my mind was "Iraq." If the President really means what he said, then he's a hypocrite. And, sadly, the same goes for everyone who supports him--a man responsible for many executions, thousands of Iraqi deaths, and turning a blind eye to killing around the world--in the name of a "culture of life".

Labels: Politics

I'll step away from all the politics for a moment to briefly address a question I hear meat-eaters ask us vegetarians from time to time: "why would a vegetarian want to eat fake meat?" Why, these thoughtful souls wonder, would anyone who doesn't eat meat want to eat something that tastes or looks like meat, that is, all the simulated-meat products out there (from veggie burgers to Tofurkey to simulations of ground beef, chicken nuggets, ribs, etc.)?

Before getting to that, I have to set the proper context. Firstly, my dear carnivores, think for a moment--why do you like to eat real meat? Is it because it's meat? I highly doubt it. Do you enjoy a hamburger because it's a ground-up hunk of cow muscle? Or pepperoni on your pizza because it's a slice of pig tissue? Or your Thanksgiving turkey because it's a dismembered bird carcass? Perhaps a small percentage of hardcore weirdos actually do enjoy meat for those reasons, but I firmly believe, having been a meat eater for most of my life (up until 5 years ago), that people who eat meat enjoy it, not for the fact that it's meat, but because...are you ready for this? Because it tastes good. That it's slowly rotting animal flesh is incidental.

Thus, we have a disconnect. Meat eaters are seeking out an aesthetic experience which has very little to do with the reality of meat itself. If one attacks a live cow, pig, or chicken with a knife, slicing off chunks or tearing the flesh from the bone with one's teeth, the experience will be completely unlike what one gets with a burger, chicken sandwich, or pepperoni pizza. It would, in fact, disgust and horrify most otherwise gentle meat eaters. Only through extensive processing, transforming, seasoning, and often cosmetic steps as well, does meat become something that the average human carnivore "loves".

Now we've come back around and are only a short hop over to the vegetarian point of view. I eat "fake" hamburgers, sausage, bacon, chicken, dairy products, heck, even jerky. I do this because I like the taste, texture, and comfort of the overall aesthetic experience. It was initially a little odd to make the switch from the "real" thing (which I hope I've successfully shown to be, in fact, an artificial experience), but I adapted quickly and realized that I could get just as much satisfaction from the simulated items as the animal-based versions. That so much of our culture's experience of meat derives not from its origin, but a distant post-processed state, makes this leap eminently logical. The health benefits of avoiding meat, not to mention the way my conscience is lightened by not contributing to horrific suffering of animals and grotesque consumption of resources and pollution in industrial meat production, seals the deal.

And to address one final point that my carnivorous comrades may not fully appreciate, it's good to remember that not all vegetarians or vegans are in it for the same reasons. Some are in it for the principle that it's wrong to kill living beings for food, that all creatures have a right to self-determination and do not "belong" to us. Others believe that humans are biologically unsuited for digesting meat. Still others, like me, believe that while it's perfectly natural biologically for us to eat meat, contributing to the wholly destructive and polluting meat industry is an unethical act. And some people have health problems or food allergies which make avoiding meat a necessity.

The point is that there are many different ways to look at this issue, and many different motivations and ideals behind actions that may seem a bit odd to the unquestioning mainstream culture. The next time you contemplate why things like Tofurkey and soy cheese exist, consider your own basic assumptions and what you're taking for granted.

And I really recommend those Quorn patties. They give the answer to what mycoprotein tastes like: "chicken."

Labels: Culture

A brief roundup of a few items I've come across in recent days that concern me. I may do this periodically to keep up with items which merit more description than a simple link, but for which I don't have time to write a longer piece.

A proposed Missouri law would ban doctors from even mentioning the word abortion, or telling patients how to obtain one. For all the rhetoric we hear about "activist judges", here's another clear case of "activist legislators" who, through internal processes insulated from voters, can essentially eliminate something legal through their control of budgets. Through an ongoing series of measures that defund and undermine anyone with connections to abortion, they're writing de facto anti-abortion laws without popular votes--legislation without representation, in my opinion. Which, I believe, is more of a concern when denying rights than when providing them. This is the very kind of conspiracy that gun owners fear is being waged against their rights, but unlike that case, this is real.

New tactics in "debating" evolution. Honest debate is fine--that is, after all, what science is all about. But this debate is dishonest and unscientific. In fact, it's unscientific by design, because it begins with an idea that is "inherently right" (creation) and then attempts to discredit anything that might conflict with that assumption. In scientific terms, that's backwards--the scientific method moves from unbiased observations toward an uncertain result. A scientist may have a hypothesis, or even a hope of discovering something specific, but not a pre-planned outcome. In scientific circles, deciding the outcome first and then selectively choosing evidence is called fraud. It's fine if you believe in creation--beliefs don't have to be scientific, and I'm not trying to say that creationism is wrong--but it's wrong to go about attacking evolution in a fraudulently pseudo-scientific way.

US eases Saudi visa restrictions. This, then, is the payoff for their promise to pump more oil. Trading security for oil, travelers from perhaps the world's main wellspring of terrorism get their restrictions eased. Not that I'm a supporter of racial profiling--delays for any nationality may well be wrong--but with the evidence we've seen of Saudi money involved in terror, and the continuing inability of our various branches of government intelligence to share even basic information, somehow I don't think we're going about this the right way. Especially when I still have to take off my shoes every time I want to get on a plane...

I could rant about the grotesquely uncompassionate nature of Republican meddling in such issues as Medicare and Social Security, but this gentleman does a very nice job of singling out one current absurdity.

And finally, an inspiring story of women's lib in Afghanistan: stoned to death for adultery. Was that before or after the men's hard day of work increasing opium exports? That's freedom, ladies and gentlemen, Bush-style.

Labels: Politics