Freedom Is Slavery, Ignorance Is Strength, War Is Peace

A dose of Campaign 2016 on Democracy Now! each morning is about as much as I can take.  This morning, journalists David Barstow and David Cay Johnston, who've been doing great work on Donald Trump's finances and politics, warned that if Trump becomes president, it could be very bad for basic civil liberties.  Johnston said:

David, if he gets elected, he will have the power of federal law enforcement. I’m not worried if he threatens to sue me, as he has, if he loses. But if he wins, he could put you and I and Dean Baquet on no-fly lists. And the courts have been very reluctant to let people off those, if the government claims national security. He can do all sorts of things to mess up your life. And he’s made it clear he will do this. He talks as if the president is a dictator with unlimited power, who doesn’t need to pay attention to Congress or to the courts. He’s talked of firing generals. And the first thing someone does who plans to turn a republic into a dictatorship is they fire those general officers who are loyal to country and replace them with people loyal to him. And in my book, I quote Donald at length, in several forums, as saying what matters to him is getting revenge—that’s his philosophy: get revenge; even though he says he’s Christian, get revenge—and absolute loyalty to him, the person. That’s what these threats of litigation should really concern the voters about.

This is all true, and is reason to worry.  But I couldn't help reflecting as I listened to Johnston that we already have a President with those powers.  It was "no-fly list" that got my attention, because it reminded me how liberal Democrats, including Bernie Sanders, embraced bipartisanship and jumped on the bandwagon for "no-fly, no-buy" after the Orlando massacre earlier this year.  But hey, an overwhelming majority of American voters supported no-fly no-buy, and many Americans think the press is too dang free anyhow.  Glenn Greenwald and others have been warning ever since Obama took office that even if you trust him not to abuse them, the powers he has arrogated to himself will still be available to the next Republican president.  But, of course, no one could possibly have foreseen that, even after eight years of George W. Bush.

What's Sauce for the Goose

There's an interesting article up at The Nation today, about a vice principal at a parochial school in Seattle who was fired in December when he married another man.  Students at the school protested, and the protest spread to other schools whose students "took action by organizing their own protests and banner drops to demonstrate their solidarity."

The Church's justification for firing Mark Zmuda is simple enough: same-sex marriage violates Catholic doctrine, he knew that as an administrator in a Catholic school he must conform to that doctrine, but he violated it, so he's out.  As far as I can tell from the article, Zmuda accepted his termination without protest: it was students who objected, and they are appealing to the judgment of the Church and its personnel, not trying to get the State to intervene on Zmuda's behalf.

The first thing I thought of when I read this article was the suspension of Duck Dynasty's Phil Robertson for saying bigoted things in a promotional interview last month.  Robertson was quickly reinstated and the show began a new season, though its ratings in the new season have dropped significantly in the wake of the controversy.

After Robertson was suspended, many liberals pointed out that according to his contract with A&E, he could be fired for saying the sort of things he said, and that was just fine with them.  So I wonder how they will react to the very similar firing of Mark Zmuda, who must have known that he was going against Church doctrine, and his employer has the right to fire him, not just legally but morally -- right?

The writers of the Nation article have no qualms.

Some claim that the Archdiocese of Seattle was within its right to fire Zmuda, pointing out the rights and freedoms guaranteed to religious institutions. But what about the basic rights and freedoms of LGBTQ people to be treated equally with respect and dignity? Religious freedom need not entail the right to practice and promote discrimination.

Oh, really? That's exactly what it entails: churches can practice and promote discrimination in many areas -- they are generally granted an exemption from many provisions of civil rights laws.  (And don't forget that non-religious employers have a great deal of discriminatory power in their treatment of employees.  There's little question that A&E trampled on Phil Robertson's civil rights by suspending him for expressing his no doubt sincerely-held beliefs about homosexuality, especially since they probably knew about them all along.)  Churches can discriminate in who they ordain as clergy, for example: they can limit the honor to members of their denomination, and can require them to hold and express orthodox beliefs; they can discriminate on the basis of sex and probably race, let alone sexual orientation.  They can restrict their clergy's sexual practices and relationships.  So Mark Zmuda's firing is not a surprise.

On the other hand, as usual in cases like this, I wonder if the Church is being selective in its strictness.  Are all the staff of its parochial schools Catholic?  Are they all either chastely single or appropriately married?  None of them, I hope, are divorced (let alone remarried), none are living in sin with heterosexual partners.  I suppose that Mark Zmuda lived with his partner for some time before they got legally married, and I'd be surprised if no one at the school or in the Archbishop's office knew about it.  So hypocrisy, as usual, is probably operative here, but that doesn't change the fact that the Church was within its legal rights to fire Zmuda, though not necessarily in the right ethically.

The Nation article is titled "What the LBGT Movement Can Learn from Seattle High School Students," but it never really tells what the movement can learn.  Contrary to the writers' implications, these kids aren't doing anything new, nothing that the LBGT movement hasn't done many times in the past.  I suppose the answer lies near the end of the piece: "Zmuda’s story is an example of why passing a comprehensive Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA)—one which does not exempt religious institutions, is of paramount importance to combating discrimination."  I doubt very much that Congress could or would pass an ENDA that didn't include a religious exemption, so this recommendation is rather nutty.  I doubt that GLBT churches like the Metropolitan Community Church would favor a law that didn't grant them the same exemptions that heterosexual churches enjoy.  Change in any church must come from within, not from the state, and I certainly favor and support the protest the Seattle students have mounted.  They're actually a lot like the Civil Rights Movement in its heyday, appealing to the conscience of their opponents rather than trying to get the State to intervene.  While I favor legal changes, I also hold that any movement for social justice must not limit itself to working with the courts and the legislature: it must also work to change people's attitudes by persuasion and example.

Russ Feingold Supports Targeted Killings

I've never been a fan of Russ Feingold, but then I never paid much attention to him. Many on the leftward end of the American political spectrum adore him, though.

Today Feingold appeared on Democracy Now! Although he's now one of thirty-five co-chairs of President Obama's re-election campaign, he disapproves of Obama's decision to accept Super PAC money. "That’s not who Barack Obama is," he said, which indicates that he needs to pay more attention. And then, later in a long interview:

AMY GOODMAN: You mentioned the killing of Awlaki. Did you support that in Yemen?

RUSS FEINGOLD: Well, obviously I wasn’t consulted in advance. The question there is, is there a doctrine where if somebody is an American citizen and they are clearly affiliated with an enemy power and it is impossible to get them—if that’s true, and that’s what I don’t know—if it’s impossible to get them any other way, is it justified? I would say, probably. But how do I know whether that’s true. You have to tread very carefully when you’re dealing with American citizens. But I am not shedding any tears over the loss of that person, who I think did horrible things.

To her credit, Goodman followed up, and Feingold provided a textbook example of waffling in reply:

AMY GOODMAN: The President—the ACLU has sued President Obama most recently. "The targeted killing program violates both U.S. and international law," writes the ACLU in their press release. They said, "As we’ve seen today, this is a program under which American citizens far from any battlefield can be executed by their own government without judicial process, and on the basis of standards and evidence that are kept secret not just from the public but from the courts. The government’s authority to use lethal force against its own citizens should be limited to circumstances in which the threat [to] life is concrete, specific and imminent." And they not only killed Awlaki, but then, in a separate killing, they killed his 16-year-old U.S.-born son.

RUSS FEINGOLD: I agree with the proposition of the ACLU’s lawsuit, and I think it should be litigated. I think it will be very interesting to see whether the killing of al-Awlaki fits that definition. I think that’s going to be a close question. As to the other ones, it’s a fair point. And, of course, I agree, as a general policy, as something that’s an excuse to do whatever you want and assassinate U.S. citizens anywhere near a conflict, that cannot be justified. But I think as to the actual person who was the target, I think it’s a fair question that needs to be litigated.

Notice that last sentence in particular, which is charmingly incoherent, and remember that there is no evidence that Awlaki did any "horrible things": he was a propagandist for al-Qaeda, but he doesn't seem to have committed any acts of violence himself. Certainly Feingold didn't specify any, nor did the Obama administration. What provoked Goodman's first question was Feingold's listing Awlaki, along with bin Laden and Qaddafi, as bad people who were now "out of power," thanks to President Obama; but of the three only Qaddafi was ever actually "in power." This could probably be explained as a minor error resulting from speaking extemporaneously if Goodman hadn't asked him to clarify.

Obama's contempt for due process was the entire point of the criticism directed at him in the matter. And if being a propagandist for "horrible things" provides your opponents with a license to kill you, there are a good many Americans, from journalists to government figures, who'd be in big trouble. But as Obama has also made clear -- by his stance on the mere possibility of investigating the Bush administration for its crimes against humanity -- committing horrible things is only a crime for Them, not for Us.