Sunday, December 10, 2006
Bush is Hitler and you're not dead yet?
If George W. Bush is Hitler, and the United States is a fascist regime, as so many from the Angry Left assert, how come his enemies are not dropping dead like flies, the way the enemies of Russia's Vladimir Putin have been recently? If Noam Fucking Chomsky - to name just one example - had been directing his venom toward Russia and not the United States, he would have been dead by now. It's funny how these assertions about the evil nature of this country are proven wrong by the very fact that they are uttered openly and with complete impunity: in most countries they would not be tolerated. And that's exactly why the Angry Left says those things - because it feels perfectly safe. It is so cowardly that it will retreat and impose censorship at a mere hint of violence from the Perpetually Offended (i.e. muslims) - under the cover of "sensitivity", of course - but it will beat its chest and spray spittle yelling about its inalienable right to say any vile nonsense about the only country that will go to great lengths to protect that right. Few things are more pathetic.
Thursday, December 7, 2006
The Futurist
Almost every article in the excellent blog The Futurist is a tasty morsel of good news in the poisonous soup of negativity we are force-fed day after day by the mainstream media. (Unlike in the MSM, these articles started appearing well before the electoral victory of the Democrats. Were it not for this victory, we would never have learned from the likes of the New York Times that the American economy is doing quite well, actually.)
Check out, for example, The US Economy Today - Amazing Resilience, in which the Futurist looks at the numerous negative forces that could be expected to put a damper on our economy: terrorism, corporate scandals, Hurricane Katrina, high oil prices, and points out that only a few decades ago a subset of those would have thrown the US economy (and most other economies) into a deep recession, while today all of them combined manage, at most, to knock off a couple of percentage points from our rate of growth.
Yet the Futurist is not a Polyanna, nor a Buddhist monk reaching for a strawberry while being chased by tigers. He (I'm guessing the writer is a man) is not an incurable optimist, but someone who is very capable of backing his positive outlook with strong, rational arguments. Of course, some of this is merely predicting, which can always prove to be off the mark in a big way, but given the equally (im)plausible predictions that in the next few decades the polar ice caps will melt, or that advancements in biotechnology will increase our expected lifespans to 130 (or more) years, I'm inclined to give more weight to the latter, if only because it is something to hope for, instead of fear.Â
Check out, for example, The US Economy Today - Amazing Resilience, in which the Futurist looks at the numerous negative forces that could be expected to put a damper on our economy: terrorism, corporate scandals, Hurricane Katrina, high oil prices, and points out that only a few decades ago a subset of those would have thrown the US economy (and most other economies) into a deep recession, while today all of them combined manage, at most, to knock off a couple of percentage points from our rate of growth.
Yet the Futurist is not a Polyanna, nor a Buddhist monk reaching for a strawberry while being chased by tigers. He (I'm guessing the writer is a man) is not an incurable optimist, but someone who is very capable of backing his positive outlook with strong, rational arguments. Of course, some of this is merely predicting, which can always prove to be off the mark in a big way, but given the equally (im)plausible predictions that in the next few decades the polar ice caps will melt, or that advancements in biotechnology will increase our expected lifespans to 130 (or more) years, I'm inclined to give more weight to the latter, if only because it is something to hope for, instead of fear.Â
Monday, November 27, 2006
The End of Faith
I have just finished reading Sam Harris' phenomenal book, "The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason". Without hesitation, I would call it the most important book of the decade. Reading it was both uplifting and depressing. Uplifting, because it is a wonderful feeling to have someone much smarter than I express with such clarity and force ideas that I could very well call my own. The only thing better than that would be if I were able to write so well myself, and be read by so many (this book was a bestseller in the US). Depressing, because there seems to be no viable alternative to the path of apocalyptic destruction we appear to be on. That is, Sam Harris does offer such an alternative - abandoning irrational beliefs in exchange for spirituality and ethics anchored in reason and honest inquiry - but I just can't imagine enough people taking up his challenge for it to make any difference. At least not during my lifetime, which, incidentally, may be cut short by maniacs smart enough to make and use nuclear weapons, but dumb enough to believe that for mass murder they will be rewarded in the afterlife with their own personalized bordellos, each with 72 horny virgins.
Part of the problem, paradoxically, are the very people whom one would naturally expect to provide a counterbalance to religious lunatics, namely the secular liberals. As Sam Harris points out in his book, and in the excellent essay in The Los Angeles Times, "The End of Liberalism", Western liberals have been so blindsided by self-hatred and its monstrous children: moral relativism and dogmatic multiculturalism, that they actually play into the hands of those, who want to destroy Western civilization. To know that this is true one needs only to look at the treatment the erstwhile icon of the European Left, Oriana Fallaci, received from liberals for daring to criticize... islam, and for speaking about the cultural values of the West as if they were (oh, what blasphemy!) superior to the cult of death and destruction emanating from the "islamic world". Sadly, it appears that only the religious lunatics of the West are willing to take a stand against the lunatics of the Middle East - if that's the case, I'm with the former. I can coexist with Jerry Falwell and George W. Bush, but not with Bin Laden or Ahmadinejad. There are people far scarrier than Dick Cheney. The Left, in the grips of BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome), disagrees. To hell with them.
Here are the major points from Sam Harris' book (as I recall them):
Part of the problem, paradoxically, are the very people whom one would naturally expect to provide a counterbalance to religious lunatics, namely the secular liberals. As Sam Harris points out in his book, and in the excellent essay in The Los Angeles Times, "The End of Liberalism", Western liberals have been so blindsided by self-hatred and its monstrous children: moral relativism and dogmatic multiculturalism, that they actually play into the hands of those, who want to destroy Western civilization. To know that this is true one needs only to look at the treatment the erstwhile icon of the European Left, Oriana Fallaci, received from liberals for daring to criticize... islam, and for speaking about the cultural values of the West as if they were (oh, what blasphemy!) superior to the cult of death and destruction emanating from the "islamic world". Sadly, it appears that only the religious lunatics of the West are willing to take a stand against the lunatics of the Middle East - if that's the case, I'm with the former. I can coexist with Jerry Falwell and George W. Bush, but not with Bin Laden or Ahmadinejad. There are people far scarrier than Dick Cheney. The Left, in the grips of BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome), disagrees. To hell with them.
Here are the major points from Sam Harris' book (as I recall them):
- The human species is on the brink of annihilation because of a clash between worldviews that spring from irrational beliefs
- We live in the Age of Unreason
- This really is a war with islam, and not with terrorism
- Islam is not, and never was, a "religion of peace"
- The role that religion plays in the current conflict has been taken out of discourse
- Islam as a religion is not unique in its aggresive stance against non-believers; the Old and New Testament also contain unambiguous calls to exterminate the non-believers. The only difference is that the adherents of Judaism and Christianity either don't read their holy texts, or don't take them seriously any more.
- Religions have been a tremendous burden on human societies, causing untold suffering and destruction, and hampering progress throughout centuries
- The current predicament of humanity is different from past ones in that now people who disdain life and crave death can get their hands on weapons with the ability to annihilate the human race
- There must be a way to have ethics and spirituality without religion. In fact, we better find it fast, otherwise we may not survive next 50 years
- Happiness and suffering could well form the basis on which to build a rational, non-religious system of ethics
Monday, November 20, 2006
10 years without America
Abandoning Iraqis to be slaughtered by their fellow muslims sounds heartless and un-American, and it probably is. Yet in all honesty I can't say that I care very much. If history is any guide, our sacrifice will not earn us much gratitute, and whetever little there will be, it will be short-lived. Just consider history as recent as the Kosovo war. If it weren't for the American initiative and leadership, the Europeans would have kept watching the Serbs "ethnically cleanse" Kosovo, until not a single moslem would have been left alive in the province. Did this win us any "brownie points" in the so-called "islamic world"? Don't bet on it. In Europe then? You must be kidding.
One could argue that the sacrifice in Kosovo wasn't that big. We just bombed the Serbs relentlessly for weeks, with almost no risk to the NATO forces, so it was just a matter of paying for the bombs. Well, maybe, but we might have done nothing at all - after all, Kosovo was of no strategic significance to the United States. And what about the II World War, where the sacrifice was enormous? Judging from the anti-Americanism so prevalent in Western Europe these days, someone not very familiar with the XXth century history would likely conclude that the USA must have been the occupier, and not the liberator. The Poles have less hatred toward the Russians, who tried for 200 years to forcibly assimilate a big chunk of Poland, and then, from 1945 till 1989 practically turned the whole country into a "17th Soviet Republic", than the French or the Germans now openly express toward the United States.
I wish we granted that troll Hugo Chavez his wish ("Yankees go home!") and went home, indeed. Let's give the Europeans the chance to defend themselves. (It is going to be quite a funny spectacle to watch them do it. Any tinpot dictator half as arrogant as Yugoslavia's Milosevic will be able to wrap them around his finger. They'll eventually adopt sharia as their law, in the hope that the jihadists will stop sending suicide bombers into European cities.) Let's have the UN continue to deal with the genocide in Sudan in the same brave and decisive way it's been doing so far (i.e. not doing a damn thing). Let's allow North and South Koreans to be finally re-united ander the enlightened leadership of the Great Leader Kim Jong Il.
There was a movie last year in the US entitled "A Day Without a Mexican", showing a fictionalized collapse of most basic services in this country as a result of all the Latino workers (legal and illegal) not being there to perform them. Wouldn't a movie "10 Years Without America" be far more interesting, not to mention scary? It's not hard to imagine the mayhem unleashed, were the United States to disengage from the world's affairs and let the chips fall where they may. That's what many around the world seem to be clamoring for - why not give it to them? Just for ten years. And then come and clean up the smoldering mess. I'm certain of one thing: the anti-American liberals in Europe and elsewhere would not survive such a world. That's "poetic justice" for you.
One could argue that the sacrifice in Kosovo wasn't that big. We just bombed the Serbs relentlessly for weeks, with almost no risk to the NATO forces, so it was just a matter of paying for the bombs. Well, maybe, but we might have done nothing at all - after all, Kosovo was of no strategic significance to the United States. And what about the II World War, where the sacrifice was enormous? Judging from the anti-Americanism so prevalent in Western Europe these days, someone not very familiar with the XXth century history would likely conclude that the USA must have been the occupier, and not the liberator. The Poles have less hatred toward the Russians, who tried for 200 years to forcibly assimilate a big chunk of Poland, and then, from 1945 till 1989 practically turned the whole country into a "17th Soviet Republic", than the French or the Germans now openly express toward the United States.
I wish we granted that troll Hugo Chavez his wish ("Yankees go home!") and went home, indeed. Let's give the Europeans the chance to defend themselves. (It is going to be quite a funny spectacle to watch them do it. Any tinpot dictator half as arrogant as Yugoslavia's Milosevic will be able to wrap them around his finger. They'll eventually adopt sharia as their law, in the hope that the jihadists will stop sending suicide bombers into European cities.) Let's have the UN continue to deal with the genocide in Sudan in the same brave and decisive way it's been doing so far (i.e. not doing a damn thing). Let's allow North and South Koreans to be finally re-united ander the enlightened leadership of the Great Leader Kim Jong Il.
There was a movie last year in the US entitled "A Day Without a Mexican", showing a fictionalized collapse of most basic services in this country as a result of all the Latino workers (legal and illegal) not being there to perform them. Wouldn't a movie "10 Years Without America" be far more interesting, not to mention scary? It's not hard to imagine the mayhem unleashed, were the United States to disengage from the world's affairs and let the chips fall where they may. That's what many around the world seem to be clamoring for - why not give it to them? Just for ten years. And then come and clean up the smoldering mess. I'm certain of one thing: the anti-American liberals in Europe and elsewhere would not survive such a world. That's "poetic justice" for you.
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Winning by losing and vice versa
I admit: I'm one of those people, who lost faith in the "Freedom and Democracy in Iraq" project. Not that I had a lot of faith in it to begin with. Initially I was convinced that the war in Iraq was a mistake, primarily because I did not consider Saddam Hussein - even with the weapons of mass destruction - to be a threat to the United States, at least not as grave as Iran or North Korea. Later, I allowed myself to be swayed by the argument that having a prosperous democracy in the Arab world would change the dynamics in the Middle East, and perhaps have a domino effect in the surrounding medieval satrapies. Yes, it would have been a brilliant stroke - had it had any chance of succeeding. And so I'm back to what I have always believed, which is that democracy and individual freedom are incompatible with the Arab mindset, or even Islam for that matter - the quasi-democratic, deeply corrupt regimes in Muslim countries like Indonesia notwithstanding.
It does not mean, by the way, that I do not believe we can "win" in Iraq, if by "winning" one means suppressing the insurgency and stabilizing the country to the point where we could get out without losing face. The problem is that, unless we stay in Iraq for decades and impose - by any means necessary - our own secularized political and cultural system, Iraq will eventually slide back into bloody chaos soon after our departure. There is just no way around that. Japan and Germany after World War II are often evoked by the proponents of this project as examples of countries that the United States successfully transformed from murderous, aggressive, nationalistic dictatorships into prosperous, docile democracies. However, aside from cultural differences that made Germany and Japan more susceptible to such transformation than Iraq, neither of these two countries was surrounded by neighbors who very much remained in the pre-transformation mold, and who feared the changes taking place accross the border. In order to change Iraq we would have to change the entire Middle East at the same time - an idea as crazy and impossible as it sounds.
The only way a country like Iraq can be "stabilized" is by one of the factions being strong and cruel enough to finish off the others. That's why we can't do it - we are not capable (institutionally more that psychologically, perhaps) of being sufficiently cruel; and by "cruelty" I do not mean faking electrocutions or photographing oneself next to a pile of naked prisoners (none of them dead or being killed). I mean wiping out entire families or clans in reprisal for terrorist acts committed by one of their members; I mean throwing live people into wood choppers; leveling, Hama-like, entire villages and tows, with their inhabitants still inside; mutilating bound prisoners before cutting off their heads and videotaping all this to be shown on TV. I have no doubt that many, if not all, of the insurgent groups currently fighting in Iraq are itching to be the one committing these and other atrocities on a scale sufficient to destroy or scare the others. Mass murder in Iraq is inevitable - the only question is: how quickly will it burn itself out and who will emerge on top after blood stops flowing in the streets?
To be brutally honest, if we play our cards right, the answer to this question should be of no consequence to us. Aside from oil and helping Israel stay alive, we have no interest in this region. The two are huge ones, of course, but the issue of oil could, and should, be resolved by the combination of energy efficiency, alternative fuels, and increased domestic production of oil; this, by the way, would also help diminish the risk of a second Jewish holocaust. How? Without revenues from oil, the countries in the Middle East have no economies to speak of, so they would be forced to go back to nomadic tribalism from before the oil boom, which seems to be their dream anyway.
Whether we get out of Iraq next week or next year, the country will deteriorate into a bloody mess, so we may as well do it sooner rather than later. Yes, the jihadists will declare a victory, but so what? More such victories, and the Arab world will stop being a problem. It's kind of like the "victory" of the Vietnamese, isn't it? However, suicidal idiots that they are, they are not as stupid as to not recognize that while we may not be able to help a defeated country stand back on its feet, we can easily destroy any Muslim country, if it pushes the right buttons. (How long did it take the US military to defeat the Taliban and the Iraqi army, with negligible casualties on its side?) Having a prosperous, strong Middle East at peace with itself might actually be more dangerous to us than having a bloody mess there. Unless they change their culture and abandon their religion, a substantial percentage of Muslims will always want to conquer the world and convert everybody to Islam, so a democratic state would at some point either have to revert to authoritarian rule (like Algeria), or succumb to an Islamic takeover and theocracy. Imagine a country like Japan, with its industrial and technological power, and vast financial resources, becoming hostile and aggressive again?
It does not mean, by the way, that I do not believe we can "win" in Iraq, if by "winning" one means suppressing the insurgency and stabilizing the country to the point where we could get out without losing face. The problem is that, unless we stay in Iraq for decades and impose - by any means necessary - our own secularized political and cultural system, Iraq will eventually slide back into bloody chaos soon after our departure. There is just no way around that. Japan and Germany after World War II are often evoked by the proponents of this project as examples of countries that the United States successfully transformed from murderous, aggressive, nationalistic dictatorships into prosperous, docile democracies. However, aside from cultural differences that made Germany and Japan more susceptible to such transformation than Iraq, neither of these two countries was surrounded by neighbors who very much remained in the pre-transformation mold, and who feared the changes taking place accross the border. In order to change Iraq we would have to change the entire Middle East at the same time - an idea as crazy and impossible as it sounds.
The only way a country like Iraq can be "stabilized" is by one of the factions being strong and cruel enough to finish off the others. That's why we can't do it - we are not capable (institutionally more that psychologically, perhaps) of being sufficiently cruel; and by "cruelty" I do not mean faking electrocutions or photographing oneself next to a pile of naked prisoners (none of them dead or being killed). I mean wiping out entire families or clans in reprisal for terrorist acts committed by one of their members; I mean throwing live people into wood choppers; leveling, Hama-like, entire villages and tows, with their inhabitants still inside; mutilating bound prisoners before cutting off their heads and videotaping all this to be shown on TV. I have no doubt that many, if not all, of the insurgent groups currently fighting in Iraq are itching to be the one committing these and other atrocities on a scale sufficient to destroy or scare the others. Mass murder in Iraq is inevitable - the only question is: how quickly will it burn itself out and who will emerge on top after blood stops flowing in the streets?
To be brutally honest, if we play our cards right, the answer to this question should be of no consequence to us. Aside from oil and helping Israel stay alive, we have no interest in this region. The two are huge ones, of course, but the issue of oil could, and should, be resolved by the combination of energy efficiency, alternative fuels, and increased domestic production of oil; this, by the way, would also help diminish the risk of a second Jewish holocaust. How? Without revenues from oil, the countries in the Middle East have no economies to speak of, so they would be forced to go back to nomadic tribalism from before the oil boom, which seems to be their dream anyway.
Whether we get out of Iraq next week or next year, the country will deteriorate into a bloody mess, so we may as well do it sooner rather than later. Yes, the jihadists will declare a victory, but so what? More such victories, and the Arab world will stop being a problem. It's kind of like the "victory" of the Vietnamese, isn't it? However, suicidal idiots that they are, they are not as stupid as to not recognize that while we may not be able to help a defeated country stand back on its feet, we can easily destroy any Muslim country, if it pushes the right buttons. (How long did it take the US military to defeat the Taliban and the Iraqi army, with negligible casualties on its side?) Having a prosperous, strong Middle East at peace with itself might actually be more dangerous to us than having a bloody mess there. Unless they change their culture and abandon their religion, a substantial percentage of Muslims will always want to conquer the world and convert everybody to Islam, so a democratic state would at some point either have to revert to authoritarian rule (like Algeria), or succumb to an Islamic takeover and theocracy. Imagine a country like Japan, with its industrial and technological power, and vast financial resources, becoming hostile and aggressive again?
Ponder this
You, who are celebrating the Democratic takeover of Congress - can you stop for a moment and consider these questions:
Maybe, just maybe, this will manage to wipe that smile off your face for a moment, as it should. One doesn't have to be a Republican - and I am not - to feel uneasy.
- How come the Republicans are behaving like adults and not throwing tantrums about "stolen elections"?
- Why are the jihadis and other assorted enemies of our country happy about the Dems' victory?
Maybe, just maybe, this will manage to wipe that smile off your face for a moment, as it should. One doesn't have to be a Republican - and I am not - to feel uneasy.
Sunday, November 12, 2006
The People have spoken
I know it's been already five days since the midterm election, but the days flew by so fast, that I didn't get a chance to write my comments about it until now. I'm quite conflicted about the outcome, really. One the one hand, the huge victory of the Democrats was a surprise and a disappointment; seeing the very people, who for the last several years spewed nothing but hatred and bile directed at their country and her president, rejoice and taunt the losing side, was quite painful. In my opinion the Democrats clearly did not deserve to win, and so it felt like injustice - it was the same feeling I had gotten watching OJ Simpson get away with double homicide.
On the other hand, the Republicans fully deserved a big dope slap. They have been corrupted by power and kept making one arrogant and stupid misstep after another:
... to name just the most eggregious ones. And so they deserved to lose, only perhaps not as badly. It's not that I feel sorry for them, but the drastic measure the American electorate took seems a bit like divorcing an alcoholic to marry a heroin addict. A powerful warning would have been good enough: losing a few seats while keeping the majority, just hanging by a thread. Except, of course, elections are blunt objects, especially in the American system of "winner-takes-all". Besides, I do trust the wisdom of the American electorate - it has been proven right in the past, and there is no reason to doubt that it will be so this time as well.
Let me say a few words in praise of voluntary participation in elections, which is one of the reasons I have more trust in the electorate that I would have otherwise. Some countries force their citizens to vote, e.g. by imposing fines on those, who don't - Australia comes to mind. I could not disagree more - after all, paradoxical as it may seem, not-voting is voting. It is just indirect: by not casting my vote I let other people make the choice for me. This is a perfectly legitimate option, consistent with the idea of representative - as opposed to direct - democracy. How is this different from allowing ather people - representatives in Congress, senators, the president - to make decisions on my behalf? People who choose to vote are those who care, and I'd rather trust their collective judgment than rely on the choices of people, who don't give a shit, but go to the polls merely to avoid fines.
Then, there were the five proposals in the State of Michigan, from allowing dove hunting (rejected), to a set level of funding for education (rejected), to banning affirmative action, i.e. preferential treatment given on the basis of race or gender (passed). The fact that this last proposal (Proposal 2) passed, is nothing if not stunning, considering the opposition mounted against it. It was truly a fight of a small army of Davids against not one, but multiple Goliaths. Both the Republican and the Democratic candidate for governor spoke against this proposal. (Only the Libertarian canditate - a black person, interestingly enough - spoke in favor.) University of Michigan, having spent hundreds of thousands of dollars defending its affirmative action practices in court was - obviously - vehemently opposed. Major corporations issued statements criticizing the proposal. The groups opposing its passage outspent the proponents 3:1.
Some tactics used by the opposition, most notably the very vocal and aggresive BAMN (By Any Means Necessary) were crossing into the realm of thuggery: spreading lies, intimidation, physical violence. BAMN members apparently meant it when they named their organization: any means (they consider) necessary; those means included: busing children from Detroit to Ann Arbor for a counterdemonstration that thwarted the tiny gathering of anti-affirmative-action students and involved some pushing and shoving; physically blocking signature-gatherers on UM campus from approaching people; contacting the black people, who had signed the petition to put the proposal on the ballot, and intimidating them into testifying before a judge that they had been mislead; organizing a loud and obnoxious demonstration in front of a court where supporters of the proposal were testifying - this "peaceful" demonstration included spraying the people leaving the courthouse with soft drinks from cans; mounting one legal challenge after another in order to deny the citizens of Michigan a chance to vote on the proposal; etc.
Given the resources and the sheer aggresiveness of the campaign against Proposal 2, it is truly remarkable that it passed, and by such a wide percentage margin: 58:42.
On the other hand, the Republicans fully deserved a big dope slap. They have been corrupted by power and kept making one arrogant and stupid misstep after another:
- ballooning budget deficit (Are they trying to bunkrupt the country?? Sure looks like it.)
- trying to squeeze in some sort of amnesty for illegal immigrants
- huge increase in pork-barrel spending
- unethical and reckless behavior, including, but not limited to, the "Foley affair"
- attempt to meddle in people's private lives and decisions (the Terri Schiavo debacle)
- inability or unwillingness to talk openly and forcefully about the war in Iraq, allowing the anti-war, anti-American media to distort the picture and win the propaganda battle
- wasting the opportunity to get Americans behind a bold plan toward energy independence - and not having such a bold plan in the first place
... to name just the most eggregious ones. And so they deserved to lose, only perhaps not as badly. It's not that I feel sorry for them, but the drastic measure the American electorate took seems a bit like divorcing an alcoholic to marry a heroin addict. A powerful warning would have been good enough: losing a few seats while keeping the majority, just hanging by a thread. Except, of course, elections are blunt objects, especially in the American system of "winner-takes-all". Besides, I do trust the wisdom of the American electorate - it has been proven right in the past, and there is no reason to doubt that it will be so this time as well.
Let me say a few words in praise of voluntary participation in elections, which is one of the reasons I have more trust in the electorate that I would have otherwise. Some countries force their citizens to vote, e.g. by imposing fines on those, who don't - Australia comes to mind. I could not disagree more - after all, paradoxical as it may seem, not-voting is voting. It is just indirect: by not casting my vote I let other people make the choice for me. This is a perfectly legitimate option, consistent with the idea of representative - as opposed to direct - democracy. How is this different from allowing ather people - representatives in Congress, senators, the president - to make decisions on my behalf? People who choose to vote are those who care, and I'd rather trust their collective judgment than rely on the choices of people, who don't give a shit, but go to the polls merely to avoid fines.
Then, there were the five proposals in the State of Michigan, from allowing dove hunting (rejected), to a set level of funding for education (rejected), to banning affirmative action, i.e. preferential treatment given on the basis of race or gender (passed). The fact that this last proposal (Proposal 2) passed, is nothing if not stunning, considering the opposition mounted against it. It was truly a fight of a small army of Davids against not one, but multiple Goliaths. Both the Republican and the Democratic candidate for governor spoke against this proposal. (Only the Libertarian canditate - a black person, interestingly enough - spoke in favor.) University of Michigan, having spent hundreds of thousands of dollars defending its affirmative action practices in court was - obviously - vehemently opposed. Major corporations issued statements criticizing the proposal. The groups opposing its passage outspent the proponents 3:1.
Some tactics used by the opposition, most notably the very vocal and aggresive BAMN (By Any Means Necessary) were crossing into the realm of thuggery: spreading lies, intimidation, physical violence. BAMN members apparently meant it when they named their organization: any means (they consider) necessary; those means included: busing children from Detroit to Ann Arbor for a counterdemonstration that thwarted the tiny gathering of anti-affirmative-action students and involved some pushing and shoving; physically blocking signature-gatherers on UM campus from approaching people; contacting the black people, who had signed the petition to put the proposal on the ballot, and intimidating them into testifying before a judge that they had been mislead; organizing a loud and obnoxious demonstration in front of a court where supporters of the proposal were testifying - this "peaceful" demonstration included spraying the people leaving the courthouse with soft drinks from cans; mounting one legal challenge after another in order to deny the citizens of Michigan a chance to vote on the proposal; etc.
Given the resources and the sheer aggresiveness of the campaign against Proposal 2, it is truly remarkable that it passed, and by such a wide percentage margin: 58:42.