Lagniappe - Today, I am outraged and upset by what in my mind is the psychological terrorism inflicted on children by anti-abortion zealots. I experienced this personally - or rather, I should say, my whole family, including my impressionable four-year-old daughter, experienced this terrorism. What started out as a wonderful family outing to the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, ended up a nightmare for my little daughter. My family left the New Orleans Fairgrounds after listening to a wonderful performance by Keb Mo and after having some great food and drink and snowballs, etc. On our way to our parked car, anti-abortion terrorists were out on the streets exercising their constitutional rights to free speech by holding up larger than life-size graphic pictures of aborted fetuses - blood and guts and deformed faces and limbs and everything. There was no direction we could go in without being subject to this display of "free speech." My daughter was traumatized and, though she'll probably get over this, she is currently unable to sleep in her bed tonight because of the pictures these "so-called" Christian defenders of children thrust into her face. The hypocrisy of it is astounding to me. The New Orleans Jazz Fest is a family affair. I can't tell you how many small children attend this event. It is in the hundreds, if not thousands. And these anti-abortion zealots, who profess to be Christian and concerned for the well-being of children, think it appropriate to show these pictures in a place where children are sure to see them. My wife and I confronted one of these "Christian ministers" and his response was - "Sorry, people need to see these pictures and we'll pray for your daughter so that she won't be traumatized. And you can go home and tell her what this is all about in a way that she won't be scared." So, scarring the minds of the "born" to protect the lives of the "unborn" is just fine and dandy. And I guess I can send him my daughter's therapy bills, too??? These people don't care for children. These people don't respect the values of parenthood - they certainly didn't respect my role as a parent. These people are not pro-life. They are harbingers of death and hate. And their moral self-righteousness is nothing more than a lie. How can they sleep at night knowing that they are traumatizing children in the name of God? I am reading to my daughter every night from C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia. We have read through each of the seven volumes in the series once, and we are re-reading them again because my daughter enjoys them so much. And I am reminded of Emeth's story of his meeting with Aslan, the Christ figure, in Book 7, The Last Battle. Emeth, a Tarkaan who had worshipped Tash, Aslan's evil opposite, all of his life, tells of his encounter with Aslan:

But I said [to Aslan], Alas, Lord, I am no son of thine but the servant of Tash. He answered, Child, all the service thou hast done to Tash, I account as service done to me. ... I take to me the services which thou hast done to him. For I and he are of such different kinds that no service which is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him. Therefore if any man swear by Tash and keep his oath for the oath's sake, it is by me he has truly sworn, though he know it not, and it is I who reward him. And if any man do a cruelty in my name, then, though he says the name Aslan, it is Tash whom he serves and by Tash his deed is accepted. [emphasis added]

Since these hypocritical, anti-child zealots have given me no choice but to explain to my daughter what she saw and experienced because of them and their misguided and uncaring Christian zealotry, I think I will tell my daughter that these are people who say the name of Aslan, but their cruelty and insensitivity by frightening her really make them servants of Tash. Far be it from me to judge these people, but that's what I believe them to be: nothing more than pretender servants of Christ who are really doing the devil's work in this instance.

Cuaderno Latinoamericano - Well, looks like Chile is getting the shaft from the U.S. because it refused to go along with the Bush Administration's UN ultimatum. Funny, that. After all the things Pinochet did, including disappearing so many people, to pave the way for Chile's becoming the ideal free trade partner of the United States - look at the thanks he and his country get for being a sellout to Washington for all those years. Well, perhaps a lesson can be squeezed out of this after all: pro-market policies at such a high cost to the national psyche won't get you anywhere - so might as well be decent to your own people.

Liberal Lighthouse - You go, Michael Kinsley! Lay it on the line and tell it like it is. Talk about corporate welfare! Check out Kinsley's blistering critique of the post-Iraq war "rebuilding" contracts that are being privately doled out by Bush, but which are being publicly funded by the witless US taxpayer.

Lagniappe - OK. Now that the US troops are securely in control of Baghdad, what kind of freedom-loving, law-and-order abiding democracy are they working to establish? Well, let's start with the local police force that the US military is "training." Thanassis Cambanis, of The Boston Globe, has this interesting story of the Baghdad police force now responsible for a "new style" of policing - one that promises to be the exact opposite to the repressive and oppressive state security apparatus of Saddam Hussein's regime. How well is this nascent police force shaping up? Well, Iraqi Police Commissioner Ali Ismail, who is working with the US military, represents, I guess, the hope of a "new" Iraqi police culture that is respectful of civil liberties and the rule of law. What does Ismail think of his law enforcement responsibilities in a liberated Iraq? Cambanis reports:

As a group of neighbors watched, Ismail shoved two men into a car, after neighbors fingered them as thieves. They had no stolen property with them. Asked why they were being arrested, Ismail cited his instincts after 15 years as a beat cop.

''I know these people,'' he said. ''They are bad. We'll throw them in prison for a while to teach them a lesson.''

This, coming from a beat cop with 15 years experience under the Saddam Hussein regime!! You be the judge. As for my opinion, it seems like the average Iraqi citizen will have a US-trained and supported police force that is essentially not that much different in its thinking about civil liberties and the rule of law than the thuggish security apparatus of Saddam Hussein. You just need to "look bad" to some Iraqi cop, and its off to prison you go for your "lesson."

Lagniappe - How about a little Conservative Media Bias (and just plain old sloppy reporting). Julia Duin has a news report in The Washington Times discussing the remarks made by actor Tim Robbins and Win Without War National Director Tom Andrews at the National Press Club Luncheon on April 15. In this report, Duin - who incorrectly refers to Tom Andrews throughout the article as Tom Edwards - writes the following:

Mr. Edwards said his coalition wants to "bury the Bush doctrine" of preventive war, "which holds that the United States has the right to attack any country that it claims to be a potential threat — not an actual threat, not an imminent threat, but a potential threat."

What Andrews actually said was the following:

The mission of the Win Without War coalition is to defeat this administration’s policy of unilateral, preemptive war and its rejection of international cooperation, international law and the institutions that make the international rule of law possible. In short, we need to everything within our power to bury the Bush doctrine in Iraq.

Five paragraphs later, Andrews continues:

The US war against Iraq is in many ways a trial run to establish what this administration calls a “new norm” in international relations. This new norm is the doctrine of preventive war that the Administration announced explicitly in its National Security Strategy last fall and which it has expounded on since. It holds that the US has the right to attack any country that it claims to be a potential threat—not an actual threat, nor an imminent threatbut a potential threat. The new strategy stresses offensive military intervention, preemptive first strikes, and proactive counter proliferation measures against so-called rogue states and other enemies.

Now, one might quibble with me about this, but it seems to me that Duin's selective citation patchwork sanitizes Andrews' description and depiction of the Bush Doctrine - giving the false impression that Andrews agrees with the description of the Bush doctrine as one of "preventive war" - clearly a term preferred by Conservative Bush supporters. This is not how Andrews describes the doctrine, and Duin's report, I think, misrepresents this. Duin certainly misreports what the Win Without War coalition wants to "bury" in Iraq. A clear, though subtle case of Conservative bias in reporting.

Lagniappe - Michael Kinsley of Slate tells truth to the anti-war movement. He expresses what I have been feeling lately as someone morally opposed to war and its concomitant destruction, but also someone very anti-dictator and pro-liberation. I admit to being very glad that, for the moment at least, Iraqis are out from under the horror of a repressive regime. But I still don't think the war was morally correct. For me, it is a question of means versus ends. I am one who does not hold that the end necessarily justifies the means. And I think the pro-war gloaters who have never been able to resist equating anti-war sentiment with pro-Saddam sentiment are missing the point.

Cuaderno Latinoamericano - Want to get a glimpse of the war in Iraq that Mexicans are getting? If so, check out this article. What impresses me from this report is the clear distinction between the war bombast of U.S. media reporting and the focus on the human face of the war in foreign media reporting. We don't even get a picture of the hopes and fears within the US of the consequences of the war. This is disturbing. What has become clear to me is that war is pure poison - and it destroys more than just the lives of Iraqis and US/British soldiers.

In my classrooms, students on opposite sides of the conflict are surly and impatient with one another. Among the grad students in the program that I help administer, vicious polemics are bandied about on listservs and irreparable divides are shaping up between opposing cliques. Even in my wife's church community, committees are falling apart and friendships are fraying - all because of this damned war.

The damage done by this war is profound and is very present right here in my own little world. Poison, pure poison.

Cuaderno Latinoamericano - Is the war good for Latin America? Andres Oppenheimer suggests NOT.

Lagniappe - You've got to wonder what Bush saw when he looked into Putin's soul. From the look of things now, seem's like Bush's self-annointed powers of divination were about as good as any crackpot streetcorner fortune-teller. Either Putin is a good deceiver, or Bush is incredibly naive. You pick it.

Lagniappe - Dahlia Lithwick has a very nice piece in Slate on the very topic of race in the Miguel Estrada affair. She's balanced in her criticism of both conservatives and liberals, but echos my thoughts expressed below quite well.

Lagniappe - Well, well ... I'm back. I've just about given up on trying to resolve to post on a somewhat regular basis. My life is just too preoccupied with other more important things like my job and my family. But, I refuse to give up the ghost because I enjoy posting when I can. I'm sure what little readership I had has now long disappeared, but I've always kinda just done this for myself anyway, so ... what the hell! I'll keep writing for myself and for those who do peek in every now and then.

What has really prompted me to write is an insight that I've recently had about the more subtle race-baiting of the right which has emerged in the debates swirling around the democratic filibuster of Miguel Estrada's nomination to the federal bench. Personally, I think Estrada's ideological tilt is far right of mainstream; but I must say that my gut tendency is to advocate his nomination for one reason only: that he's an Hispanic and we need more Hispanics of all political persuasions involved in our political system in significant ways. I may be an ideological sellout because of this position, but at least I can remain true to my belief in greater ethnic diversity in public officialdom.

Now, the funny thing about this is that, by reading some of the more rabid anti-affirmative action conservative columns these days, one might get the impression that my position, if it gets Estrada confirmed, is fine and dandy. I can't tell you how many Conservative columnists have worked themselves into a frenzy because the "diversity-friendly" democrats don't see Estrada as "Hispanic enough" to meet the affirmative action threshhold. Quite frankly, I'm surprised that conservatives would make this an issue, even if to criticize apparent democratic dishonesty on the issue. By making Estrada's ethnicity the focal point of the discussion, conservative critics of Senate Democrats have simply resorted to the use of the race card in an effort to shame democratic opponents of Estrada. I would suspect that conservatives would find any reference to ethnicity as a yardstick in any context quite distasteful - but I am finding that ethnicity is manipulated as much by conservatives as by liberals. The difference, however, seems to be that conservatives make gratuitous use "race" to throw "race" back in the face of liberals. Today, Miguel Estrada is the "racial" cause celebre of conservatives much like Clarence Thomas was the "racial" cause celebre of the past. In fact, conservatives are much more likely to point to the ethnicity of these folk as central in a discussion of the issues surrounding their nominations than any liberals are. The argument that I see most frequently from conservatives is not that race doesn't matter, but rather how much it desperately does matter to them when it seems to behoove their cause. It's almost as if conservatives will say how race doesn't matter to them and shouldn't to anybody, but get simply livid when a liberal doesn't stick true to their affirmative action proclivities. Tell me if I'm missing something here, but it seems that conservatives consider affirmative action so reprehensible and then spit fire when it isn't practiced by liberals. I fear that, down deep in the recesses of conservative attitudes, the "racism" of the affirmative action kind (which is a conservative position regarding affirmative action, mind you, not a liberal one) would not only be expected, but also quite welcomed, if it served conservative ends. In short, when conservatives point to supposed liberal inconsistency with regard to racial preferences and affirmative action, they simply confirm how important it is to take race and problems of discrimination on the basis of race into account.

In the end, I would think that conservatives would welcome liberal opposition to Estrada on the basis of ideology rather than because he happens to be Hispanic. To criticize liberals for not towing the affirmative action line only makes it more likely that liberals will tow this line in the future. What is it that conservatives want? To me, it seems conservatives want and need liberals to be pro-affirmative action so they can ridicule and bury them during Clarence Thomas and Miguel Estrada moments. Fine. But then just don't pretend that the conservative vision on race is based on the absence of "color consciousness." For it seems that, when it comes to conservative discourse with liberals on issues of race and affirmative action, Estrada's principle value to conservatives is his "color" rather than his legal opinions on the subject. It's ironic that conservatives are flaunting Estrada's ethnicity, while the filibustering Democratic senators are more insterested in hearing his legal opinions. I wonder how Estrada feels about that.

Cuaderno Latinoamericano - Long time, no post. Well, so it goes when one is occupied with other more important things. But I won't give up the ghost just yet. Bush's absolutely disastrous Latin American policy is beginning to be noticed by more than just the specialist journalist like Andres Oppenheimer or the interested academic like me. Peter Bienart of The New Republic has an excellent piece on the very points about Bush's (non) Latin American policy that I have been harping on for so long now. His last few comments in this article are both sarcastic and sad:

Perhaps the White House will turn its attention south as 2004 approaches. Then again, if Karl Rove decides on a different strategy to woo Latinos, maybe Bush can finally admit that he has given up on Latin America. Which would make sense--since Latin America has pretty much given up on him.

Kingfishery & Kingcakery - Bruce Alpert has this piece on Mary Landrieu's latest meeting with the US Trade Representative on the purported sugar deal with Mexico. While I have mixed feelings on this deal as a policy initiative, I remain convinced that the way the Bush team handled this news during the Landrieu/Terrell election was deceitful and opportunistic. Bush is a liar and a conniver, just like most any other politician - and his supporters shouldn't pretend otherwise.

Cuaderno Latinoamericano - Clay who? Like the energizer bunny, Bush's Latin American policy keeps going, and going, and going ... down the drain. As Andres Oppenheimer notes in the column linked to above, Bush sends people like Clay Johnson III, his deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, to attend the inauguration of a Latin American head of state as head of the US delegation. Even Oppenheimer had no clue who Johnson was, and had to make a few phone calls to find out. Bush should not be surprised when Latin America comes up to bite his global foreign policy initiatives in the a**. As past US Presidents have discovered after behaving so cavalierly towards the region, Latin America will get the US's attention in other, more troubling ways, if it can't get the US's attention in the course of normal, stable, day-to-day affairs that carry some importance within the region.

Cuaderno Latinoamericano - Is Brazil planning to join the nuclear club? Jeesh!! At least Brazil is friendly towards the United States ... for now. We'll see how Bush treats Lula's government.

Cuaderno Latinoamericano - Want to see what Bush's failure in his Latin American policy has meant for his ability to carry out his objectives in other, "more important" parts of the world? Check out this interesting story on how the Venezuelan crisis (due in part to Bush Administration incompetence) is affecting the likelihood of going to war with Iraq. Message to Bush: Ignore Latin America at your own peril!

Cuaderno Latinoamericano - Bye-Bye, Otto Reich - and good riddance! Apparently, Reich fell out of favor even with some Republican members of Congress - not to mention Colin Powell. Can't say that I'm very happy about this Noriega fellow as his replacement, though. I don't know that much about him. I'll do some homework and give my two cents as soon as I get a chance. Boy, there's a lot going on in Latin America these days - all a reflection of the Bush Administration's absolute failure with regard to the region. As Andres Oppenheimer has recently written about Bush's Latin American Policy: What policy? Bush's negligence of the region and his utter lack of leadership has only added to the upheavals and crises that the region is experiencing. Hell, Bush's best shot at making an impact in the region (with the Fox Administration of Mexico), has taken an irreversible turn for the worse with Mexican Foreign Relations Secretary Jorge Castañeda resigning because of the Bush Administration's inability or unwillingness to shape a constructive and engaged relationship with Mexico. He just simply got fed up with grovelling at the doorstep of the White House. Castañeda is not a man to take such patronizing snubs lightly, and his resignation will cause Bush even more trouble as his replacement is outspokenly critical of NAFTA. All Mexico has to do to terminate its adhesion to NAFTA is to give six month's notice of its intent to withdraw. This probably won't happen with Fox at the helm, but watch the debate surface and gain some steam in Mexico to the embarrassment of Bush, whose plan for the hemisphere includes an extension of the free trade regime. Hey, let's look at the record: Bush flubs the situation in Venezuela during the first briefly successful, but ultimately unsuccessful coup against Hugo Chavez (look what results that has borne in Venezuela now!); Bush snubs the newly-elected President of Brazil by refusing to send even Colin Powell to attend the inauguration; and now Bush can be blamed for Castañeda's quitting the Mexican government. This policy drift is dangerous and pathetic.

Lagniappe - Finally, a Republican with the "cojones" to be REALLY pro-life. Republican Gov. George Ryan of Illinois, as the papers are quipping, emptied the state's death row. How outraged will Republican pundits be? I hope plenty outraged ... so much so that they can't keep this brave and morally correct act out of the news. All of George Ryan's foibles aside, he is to be admired for this singular act. I can't say I think the man deserves the Nobel Peace Prize, as some are saying; but he'll certainly be remembered and honored much more for this than for anything else he's done in office. Good for you, Mr. Ryan!

Lagniappe - Well, I've stumbled across all by myself a great "Bushism" - always good for a laugh. Apparently, in defending his absurd $670+ billion tax cut plan, Bush railed against his critics who say the plan favors the rich by complaining about the "class war of politics". What the hell does this mean? Does he mean that the actual various social classes are fighting a war of politics? I think he means the "politics of class warfare" in which politicians who may or may not come from a particular social "class", use the divisions between the classes (i.e. "class warfare"), in their political jockeying. Come on, Bush! Get your turns of phrases correct! Show some intelligence, for goodness' sake!

Cuaderno Latinoamericano - Lula has taken over the reins of government in Brazil, thus inaugurating an opportunity for a type of "new-left" leadership for the region. Andres Oppenheimer explains that Lula is not to be feared as some Conservative Republicans do; and that Bush made a mistake in snubbing Brazil by not sending Secretary of State Colin Powell to attend the inauguration. Just goes to show that the Bush Administration's Latin American policy is very misguided and captive to the narrow interests of the "anti-leftist" leadership of Otto Reich.