Not exactly her name in lights ...

but darned close. Rebecca gave the book talk Tuesday in Albuquerque.

What's in a name?

French Muslims are livid about the preferred title that the rampaging be-headers in Iraq and Syria, the so-called Islamic State, have taken for themselves.

“This is not a state; this is a terrorist organization,” he added. “I call them terrorists because that’s what they are. One has to call a dog a dog. One can’t play with words.”

Ahmet Ogras, vice president of the French Council of the Muslim Faith

I sympathize. I've often felt similarly when watching Christianists in our midst, like Pat Robertson, appropriate the good name of my faith for oppressive ends.

Since the attacks of September 11, we seem to be stuck with the label "Homeland Security" for a bureaucracy that too often seems more interested in 24/7 snooping into our private lives than protecting us. Where'd that foreign-sounding locution come from? Josh Marshall has dug into the history of the use of "Homeland" by our rulers. He feels that the phrase carries more than a whiff of fascism, of the "blood and soil" nationalisms of the mid-20th century that led to barbarism in Europe. He first finds the usage in the 1990s in the victorious excitement at the apparent arrival of a unipolar, U.S.-led, world after the collapse of the Soviet Union. And he finds even earlier suggestions of the term.

... implicit in the 'homeland' terminology is an imperial vision of America's role in the world. There's defense - which is something safely beyond our borders but operating in areas of our control and dominance and then there's us proper - the homeland.

His discussion left me wondering whether the more significant linguistic anomaly in our current usage is not the still-jarring "Department of Homeland Security" but the longer standing and equally inaccurate "Department of Defense"?

That name for the Cabinet department which runs the U.S. military is actually younger than I am, having been adopted in 1949. Before that, there was the Department of War. At least consciously, until after the Second World War, we still had a pre-imperial view of our military. We thought the armed forces were more for necessary protection from foreign threats than for power projection around the world -- even though we had a long history of sending in the Marines to muck about in other people's countries, especially south of the border.

Since 1945, the foreign aims of the United States have been to win and maintain global hegemony, sometimes through institutional arrangements like the United Nations, NATO and trade pacts, but through force if necessary. This is what we "defend."

When the United States simply made "war" rather than claiming to "defend," it acted on the assumption that its citizens supported and expressed their own interests through its power projections. Imperial power projections have never really been popular, because the people of this nation have instinctively known that we scarcely face military threats. We only support wars when kept shaking in our boots. During the worst of the Cold War, continual pointing to (mostly illusory) nuclear threats served the production of terror. It should be no surprise that the long, bloody, draft-dependent military adventure in Vietnam became so unpopular; people in this country instinctively understood that a remote part of southeast Asia presented no vital threat. Since Vietnam, our rulers have understood we won't accept significant numbers of U.S. casualties except when immediately panicked.

Seen through this lens, the adoption of "Homeland Security" betrays its deeply anti-democratic character. For our rulers, tasked by their sponsors in the one percent and ideologically in accord with imperial aims, the United States and its people are just another theater of the "war" against which they "defend" global hegemony. They have to work tirelessly to keep us scared, focused on fluctuating enemies. (The terrorists understand this better than we often do!)

In most undemocratic states, the bureaucracy that is analogous to our "Homeland Security" is called the "Interior" department, charged with internal security for the rulers against not-so-much foreign challenges as homegrown opposition. Because of our peculiar history, that name, the Department of the Interior fell to the part of government that first managed lands expropriated from the native population and now is devoted to resource extraction by our oil and mineral barons.

Hence we are stuck with "Homeland Security" for the government department that pretends to protect but mostly keeps us frightened and, in a pinch, would likely be used to keep us in line.

An uplifting afternoon

Every stop on the bookapalooza is different, as in every city the local hosts for Rebecca's talks about U.S. torture are different.

Here in Albuquerque, our friends from the band Losotros/Lasotras have set up several events for her, including one tonight at Bookworks, talking with a class at UNM tomorrow, and an appearance along with the band at the Albuquerque Center for Peace and Justice on Friday.


Yesterday we had the pleasure of seeing our friends perform on the World Music Stage at the Oldtown Gazebo in the midst of crowds in town for the Balloon Fest.


Pretty soon part of the crowd was on their feet.

We don't often get to have so much joy in the midst of spreading the word about pain.

And the winner is ...

... $2.89 for regular gas outside of Oklahoma City. Times are good in oil country.

So imagine my surprise as we rolled across western Oklahoma and the Texas panhandle to see broad expanses of wind turbines competing with the ever-present celebration of the oil industry.

The sight confirmed for me the accuracy and wisdom of what David Roberts has been writing since his return to Grist from a year long break for recharging and reflection. Denial among Republicans and right wingers of the reality of climate science is no longer intellectual. They know radical changes in the climate are happening and that these are man-made.

But denial has become just a tribal marker; "our kind of people" don't go in for that high-brow, squishy environmental stuff. They will hang onto denial as if their lives depended on it. Otherwise they'd have to concede that "those people" have a point.

But being hard-headed business and civic leaders, they will also aim to cash in whatever opportunities follow from our need to mitigate the damage to our lives from fossil fuels. The U.S. military has been in the forefront of preparing for climate change for years. Evidently the oil companies plan to keep their dominance in the new energy economy that is coming.

Those forests of windmills in Texas are testimony to their prescience. We need to watch what they do as well as what they say. And our political efforts for sustainability need to be grounded in those observations, not only on our own cherished tribal shibboleths.

Rolling along across the country

Present circumstances are not conducive to deep blog thoughts. The bookapalooza is in the midst of a l-o-n-g several day sprint from Alabama to New Mexico. Our days consist of barreling down I-40, dodging semi-trucks.

One observation: yesterday we woke up on the east side of Arkansas near Memphis, TN. By midday we were in a Taco Bell on the west edge of the same state -- and suddenly realized we'd made a big cultural transition. We're in the West again. I don't have evidence to back this up, just feelings. But for the last two months, since leaving St. Paul, Minnesota, we've been in places where society and history looked to the Atlantic seaboard. Once again, we're pushing on now into the western frontier; it's another world. The sky, even if clouded, is getting wider.

How do we know where to stop, eat, even sleep? We're using an iPhone app called iExit that tells us what's coming along in the more featureless areas.

iExit can't guarantee there is anyplace we want to be, and it catches nowhere near all the options, but it helps.

An immodest proposal

We encountered this in a women's bathroom in a truck stop in Mississippi.

I'm sure such dispensers are common enough in public Men's bathrooms, but I've seldom seen one in the "Ladies."

Maybe these benighted states we're currently driving across (AL, MS, TN, AR, OK, and TX} that are striving to make abortion completely inaccessible to women who need it, should require these machines in every women's bathroom. Maybe they could also dispense non-prescription morning after pills. Now that might reduce the frequency of abortions.

But they aren't really interested in controlling abortions -- they want to control women's sexuality. Easier access to condoms wouldn't help with that.

Friday cat blogging

From his perch on the weaving in progress, Bentley greets each visitor to the rug shop in the French Quarter in New Orleans. He accepts petting from all.

What are we so afraid of, anyway?

Dr. King stares down from the monument on the national mall in Washington.

The most remarkable thing about terrorism is how rare it is here in the U.S., despite our plentiful and easily obtained weaponry, which would make carrying out such an attack so uncomplicated.

According to the Global Terrorism Database, since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, a total of 49 Americans have been killed in terrorist incidents. The New America Foundation, focusing only on jihadist acts of terrorism, counts 25 Americans killed in that time. Your chance of dying from almost anything else, including getting struck by lightning, is far, far higher.

According to FBI crime statistics (with a little extrapolation for 2014), more than 200,000 Americans have been murdered since September 11, 2001 —just regular folks killing their wives, neighbors, and business rivals, mostly with guns but also with knives, poison, paperweights, and what have you. Over the same period, somewhere between 2.7 million and 5.7 million of us died because of preventable medical errors. Around half a million Americans died in car accidents.

Most of us appreciate, at least intellectually, that our chance of dying in a terrorist attack is approximately zero, and even if it increases, that increase would mean it has gone from approximately zero all the way up to pretty much zero. But that's not how we act and react. ...

[Imagine what would happen after a hypothetical attack. Republicans would] go on TV to denounce [Obama] for being so weak that the evildoers struck us in our very heart, and proclaim not only that the blood of the victims is on the hands of every Democrat, but that more attacks are coming and we're more vulnerable than we've ever been. Dick Cheney would emerge snarling from his subterranean lair to warn us that this is only the beginning and we really need to start bombing at least five or six more countries. Senator Lindsey Graham, who has already said about ISIL that "this president needs to rise to the occasion before we all get killed back here at home," might just tear off his shirt and scream, "We're all gonna die! We're all gonna die!" right on Fox News Sunday.

And the public would follow right along. In a recent CNN poll, 41 percent said they were very or somewhat worried that they or a member of their family would be a victim of terrorism—which, to repeat, is about as likely as they or a member of their family getting hit by a falling piano. ...

Paul Waldman, the American Prospect

Indeed we've become a nation of cowards.

I'm chewing on this while mentally preparing for a visit this morning to the Birmingham, Alabama Civil Rights Institute. These were people who knew real fear and many of whom overcame that fear.

A nation of cowards

Yesterday Rebecca carried on an animated conversation about Mainstreaming Torturewith students and faculty at Loyola Law School in New Orleans. In every talk, she elaborates on the point that by embracing torture of enemies -- whether those enemies are resisting occupation in Iraq, Afghanistan and other distant lands or among the "tortureable" class of persons in our domestic prisons -- the United States is transforming its more privileged citizens into "a nation of cowards." We, the spectators of state terror, are encouraged to be attached to a false "security" that our authorities promise is guaranteed by their outrages on human persons. And we become easy marks for those who would terrify us.

According to Joshua Marshall, current US political developments confirm her thesis:

The Return of Terror Politics
... Something very big happened in June when ISIL burst out of Syria and overran a huge chunk of Sunni Iraq. But in the field of US domestic opinion something much bigger and graver happened in September when ISIL beheaded US reporter James Foley and again when they behead fellow journalist and captive Steven Sotloff. (The filmed executions of other foreign nationals followed.) Public opinion data seems to show that these two incidents had a massive and galvanizing effect on US public opinion - driving a public extremely unsupportive of further foreign military operations toward overwhelming support for attacking ISIL.

To make the point clear, what happened in June was a very big deal in terms of the already fractured and fragmented state system in the Arab Middle East. But the executions changed the equation for the US public. It goes without saying that the executions were grisly and brutal, deeply disturbing and revealing about the character of this group. So June and September have an obvious connection. But hundreds of thousands of Syrians and Iraqis have been killed in recent years. Thousand of US military personnel have been killed. And even many US civilians and captives have been killed.

But these executions were packaged - there's no other way to put - as brilliantly evil propaganda. That made all the difference in the world in terms of the shifting sands of US public opinion which soon bore fruit in shifting US policy.

Republican Senate candidates and the right wing media generally are all too happy to stoke the fear. They seek to gain advantage over President Obama and Democrats who, once again, can be tarred as bumblers when faced with mortal perils. They would love to return to their glory days in the traumatic aftermath of 9/11 when war hawks ruled the roost.

For the media, stoking fear makes for better story lines. For good or ill, media need elections to be close contests. Turmoil and ferment, emotion and strife sell. Our trained, habitual cowardice is good for the wingers and good for business.

A tribute to Tom Ammiano

Yesterday we spent time with a man who had worked for the election of the late Harold Washington as mayor of Chicago. Decades later, he was still proud of that work. He maintained that Washington was a politician of unrivaled integrity; he never had to regret that campaign.

San Franciscans have been fortunate for decades to play host to the political career of Tom Ammiano, another of that rare breed. This video is a little longer than most I post, but if you want to see what the evolution of a true champion of decent values in the political arena looks like, do take the time to watch it.
H/t to 48 Hills for the video.

New Orleans has messages for us

We're in New Orleans; Rebecca talks about torture at Loyola University law school today.



Our kind host here, whose neighborhood was under 8 feet of water nine years ago during what locals call "the storm" (Hurricane Katrina) urged me to look at and listen to the good folks at Levees.org. They present a warning to many of us: the kind of flooding we associate with this city could happen in many places.

Fifty five percent (55%) of the U.S. population lives in counties protected by levees. This represents 157 million people.

Not to go all apocalyptic, but this could happen a lot more places than we realize. In California, the Sacramento river delta is at particular risk.

We are told citizen activism has reached new peaks since the storm; in multiple ways, people work to protect communities and to demand that the political structure serve that end.

Climate change probably makes such climate disasters more likely. Just saying ...

Regional commandments

Who says our homogenized consumer culture erases all local variations?


These crop up all over the Pacific Northwest. They are a project of this outfit which seems to hold we can cure all our ills if they place enough of them. Most are far more garish than this from Montana.


Right now we're in New Orleans where this is more the style.

My thoughts refuse to congeal this morning

So I'll pass along a bit of sky I photographed last night.

Saturday scenes and scenery: mid-America miscellany

This, from central Illinois, is for my coastal friends laboring under much higher gas prices. Actually, we've seen as low as $2.91. Yes, much of this country could afford to put a price on our carbon pollution!

Mr. Cheeseman is a cheerful feature of central Wisconsin. Gotta like the fellow. He's about 15 feet tall.

We actually ate here outside Indianapolis in the hope that it would be preferable to McD's and Arby's. Don't repeat our mistake.

Who knew the downtown area of Battle Creek, Michigan was so commandingly beautiful? On closer inspection, it seems pretty depressed, but it sure puts up a good front.

Here's another image from Battle Creek.

There's craft beer everywhere, but I can't say I've been bowled over by the quality of any of it. Great labels, though -- this from Wisconsin.

It will perhaps not surprise that this one is from Chicago.

They apparently hold elections for this office in rural Maryland. Slightly frightening idea, though possibly lucrative for the winner.

Who benefits? It is always worth wondering ...

In comments on yesterday's post, Hattie reminded us to ask who benefits from our country's endless wars. Here's a link to good article about contractor profiteering by Dan Froomkin at The Intercept.

And here are some additional direct beneficiaries of U.S. military power projection and the campaign to keep us Very Afraid:
I don't believe that contractor interests (or even control of oil reserves) make up the totality of what drives our persistent military adventures. There's also a nasty stew of prideful national ignorance and atavistic impulses underlying to the drive toward war. But some good old fashioned profiteering sure helps keep the war fires burning brightly.

Friday cat blogging: Carly meets Morty

Carly so wants to play. Don't miss Morty's parting flick of tail.

Thanks to videographer Catherine.

War hawks crowing

It feels incongruous and sad to be in Washington, DC watching a President elected to end unjustified wars in which there could be no "victory" leaping back into the fray.

We happened to be a captive audience to Obama's speech to the UN, passing a slow morning in the crowded waiting area of a car dealer while our faithful Wowser got her oil changed. Loomed over by CNN's feed, our fellow citizens either followed anxiously, dozed, or tried to ignore the speech.

The Prez was at his serious and idealistic best, calling on the better angels of our human nature to overcome aggression, atrocity and oppression.

The questions remain. To what purpose is this country going abroad to kill demons? How would we know if our efforts had "won"? You can maim and blast humans, but you can't without genocide kill a nationalism or a deeply anchored cultural dream, such as that of a Caliphate. You can "degrade" -- but is that a victory? What kind of victory have you won if you've sowed the seeds of one million resentments and vengeances?

Before and after the speech, the cable talking heads reminded us to be VERY AFRAID of terrorist plots and cells that might have infiltrated "the Homeland." What have you won if you reduce your own people to shivering cowards who spy on each other and bluster for the cameras?

To what purpose are we called to this war?

(The triumphal neo-conservative headline pictured above is still on display in tourist areas of the capital.)

Creative disruption in bookselling: a case in point

This almost seems as if it ought to be a "strange country" post. But it is not. The pictured offering of Mainstreaming Torture from Walmart is real.

Improbable as it may seem, Rebecca's book about which she is currently touring is available through Walmart.

That doesn't mean that it is available in the discount retailer's stores. According to marketing experts, the stores carry about 200 titles, all by famous best selling authors. Much as we might hope, Mainstreaming isn't likely to be among them.

But this is apparently a symptom of an emerging struggle between online and big box retailers for our dollars. Even Walmart fears the Amazon "Borg" will eat them. So Walmart has been dipping a toe into online book sales -- Amazon's original turf. In June when Amazon was impeding sales of Hachette titles in a pricing dispute, Walmart emailed blasted its customers, promoting the availability of the books through its channels.

Some commentators think it would be foolish to bet against Walmart.

Unlike Amazon, Wal-Mart has physical locations that it can use to grow its digital brand. The company has plans to do that by using technology to improve the in-store shopping experience. Over 140 million people visit a Wal-mart store each week, so it would be silly for the company to not look to use both platforms to support each other.

Amazon's competitive advantage over Walmart is its unrivaled, hyper-efficient distribution capacity. Walmart aims to improve its own logistic capacity.

For the moment, I can't say Walmart has made itself competitive on this particular Oxford Press title. Its current listed price is about $5 higher that Amazon's and, to the West Coast, Walmart only promises about 7 day shipping at the regular, "value," level.

But clearly there's a retail war brewing.

Folly recycled; to what purpose?

So it's begun, the "hot" phase of the United States' Mid-East War 3.0 -- or whatever you want to call our bombing of targets in Syria.

Neither we (the people) nor our leaders can know what this adventure will mean or where the conflict will end.

No war in history has been won by air power. Since what we have is air power, it is hard to believe that. But since Guernica and Dresden, despite "Shock and Awe" in Baghdad and apartment towers imploded in Gaza, bombing campaigns have failed to conquer determined resistance. They can maim, kill and destroy the remnants of civilization, but they do not conquer.

For years now, the U.S. peace movement, such as there is one, has asked the Obama administration, what is the continuing purpose of the endless war in Afghanistan? What is the excuse for killing one more Afghan, one more U.S. soldier? At length, the majority of the people in this country came to ask the same thing.

We ask now, what is the point of fiercely bombing barely understood, shape-shifting, forces in several distant countries? Oh, the chicken hawks and the addled junkies of empire are howling for more blood. But "to what purpose?" is still the right question.

As costs in lives, in treasure, in domestic decay, and in international hatred rise, we can expect the U.S. populace to begin to ask the same question. We are not as stupid all the time as our leaders take us to be.

A statement of the obvious from CREDOaction:

...the United States cannot lead any intervention without making a terrible situation even worse ...

It's probably worth clicking the link to sign their petition, if only to receive more practical alerts as many forces strive to build a domestic political opposition to the latest folly.

War has particular dangers for Democrats. Simply by being out of office in the mid '00s, Democrats became the defacto antiwar party. A generation-worth of the sharpest, most engaged young people were attracted to it as the vehicle for their revulsion at the war. If both parties fully endorse a permanent futile war, expect alienation from the political process to increase. This has happened before -- we got Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Wall Street ascendant, and social collapse out of mass alienation. We've got less margin for error these days.

Evidence that this is a strange country

Somehow I think even the most dedicated fishing fanatic might feel a little queasy at the prospect of using this appliance. But what do I know? Encountered in rural Wisconsin.