Mouthpiece

It's been nearly a week since the Obama administration announced that they plan to bring Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) to the United States to try him in federal court. So we've had time for conservatives to weigh in. I'm actually surprised that we haven't had even more vitriolic freakouts from Republicans, but maybe they're coming and I speak too soon. As much as I think and write about politics now, I still often feel like a naif, because I was completely ignorant of American politics until 9 years ago. I moved to the United States in 2000. Before that, things like the Contract for America and the Lewinsky scandal were not in my consciousness. Also, I was a teenager.

So I still find myself perplexed at things Republicans do. Right now, I'm befuddled by their stubborn opposition to civilian trials for terrorists. I can't determine whether their opposition is mere allegiance to the line the Bush administration towed, or borne from conservative first principles.

Coherent or not, borne of stubborn loyalty or not, their arguments are here, and they will resonate with the people who trust them and vote for them. So it's important to identify where they're coming from, what they're saying, and how we can dismantle their arguments.

1. It will be a "circus."

Michael Gerson made this point in a Washington Post op-ed yesterday, where he said that Eric Holder "is asking them to make the case against five Sept. 11 conspirators, in a circus atmosphere." A quick google search for "KSM circus trial" will give you dozens of other examples.

What does this mean? I can only determine that it means the trial will be highly publicized. That it will be covered by every major press organization, analyzed in great detail. That the courtroom will be packed. That it will be a huge story.

Why is this bad? As far as I can tell, heavy press coverage of a criminal trial only presents one serious drawback: media accounts can influence jurors. But this isn't a novel problem. It is because of this drawback that sequestration exists. (Sequestration: jurors are isolated from the public and from all media during a trial, to prevent influence).

Perhaps the drawback is that wall-to-wall coverage of a criminal trial annoys the public. But that doesn't present any real barrier to the integrity of the process, and is hardly a reason to have the trial outside the United States.

Neither of those are sufficient to explain the conservatives' complaint that the trial will be a circus. I suspect that the real reason is fear of accountability: the more attention a trial gets, the more the actors involved will be concerned about their public image. They'll be more afraid to misstep, to say something inflammatory, to be overly harsh or insufficiently outraged. But by objecting to a trial's venue on account of excessive public scrutiny, conservatives are essentially saying that they think it's better if trials happen in secret. If no one's there watching, no one's there to object but the lawyers.

Bottom line: trials are better if they're held in secret, apparently.

2. KSM and others will use the trial as a venue to express their views.

Rep. Pete Hoekstra said that the suspects are "going to do everything they can to disrupt it and make it a circus and allow them to use it as a platform to push their ideology." There's that "circus" word again. But I want to focus on the possibility of their using the trial as a "platform to push their ideology."

What would that look like? I don't that Hoekstra or other who have said the same thing (notably, Sarah Palin and Rudy Giuliani) really know. First of all, it's likely that after an indictment is handed down, KSM will plead guilty. He expressed his desire to plead guilty back in December 2008. Many commentators think that's the main reason the Obama administration has decided to prosecute him in a civilian trial, because their victory is assured. But let's say there is a trial, rather than a guilty plea. The only chance KSM would have to speak would be if he testified in his own defense. And what is he going to say that's so potentially damaging that it's worth having the trial outside the United States? It's all stuff we already know. He hates America. He thinks we're a vile evil country and is bent on our destruction.

So what?

You can find similar and worse rhetoric on hundreds of websites, and at rallies hosted by Fred Phelps. You can find it on Osama Bin Laden's videotapes. White supremacists want to destroy at least part of America. And Ted Kaczynski's books have sure sold a lot of copies.

Do conservatives think that KSM's bogus rhetoric and message of America-destruction is going to be even close to compelling enough that it will be anything but laughable? KSM and his cronies are pathetic lunatics, and any passionate rantings they are permitted to do on the public stage will only serve to confirm that fact.

One thing I haven't seen anyone bring up is the trial of the Chicago Seven. That is, as far I can tell, the most famous (and perhaps only) major example of individuals using a trial to advance their political platform.

For those of you who aren't familiar with the trial, it was after the 1968 Democratic Convention. Seven individuals were tried for allegedly carrying out a conspiracy to cause havoc and violence in the streets. The defendants not only challenged the charges against them, but by their actions and words they challenged the legitimacy of the justice system and, by extension, the entire government. One defendant wanted to represent himself, and the judge insisted that he would not allow it. That defendant wouldn't stop objecting, so the judge had him literally bound and gagged, sitting in the courtroom. For some more detail on the trial, you can read, for example, this account. I won't recount it all here, because that's not what this post is about. But I think it's important to identify two major differences between the Chicago Seven trial and the forthcoming KSM trial:

1. The defense lawyers were cooperative with their trial-as-theatre scheme.
2. The defendants were right.

The trial was bogus. The charges against them were extremely thin. The judge made numerous decisions during the trial and during sentencing that were later overturned by the Supreme Court. I don't think there are many conservatives who would defend Judge Julius Hoffman today.

Neither of those conditions will be present in the KSM trial. I'm sure that whoever represents KSM will be very cognizant to not allow or encourage the trial and his client to get out of hand. This is, in part because of the public scrutiny that conservatives are complaining about, but also because they just don't make lawyers like Leonard Weinglass any more.

3. We already know he's guilty.

Surprised? I'm not. Michael Gerson says:

There is one serious argument for this course: that a civilian court will provide greater legitimacy for the imposition of the death penalty than a military tribunal. But the guilt of these terrorists is not in question. And it is difficult to imagine that those repulsed or impressed by Khalid Sheik Mohammed's confessed crimes will care much about the procedures surrounding his sentencing.

I like this argument better than all the others I've been hearing from conservatives. At least it's honest. Gerson actually comes out and says that KSM's trial doesn't need legitimacy, because he's guilty. He really seems not to understand the whole point of trials, which is to determine whether someone's guilty. But if we already know he's guilty, and we think the trial is going to result in a guilty verdict, what's the problem? Government expense? Fortunately for many defendants out there, expense is not a justification for dispensing of their constitutional rights, or they'd really be screwed.

Here we come up against the fundamental contradiction in conservatives' argument against a civilian trial for KSM: they want to say both that a guilty verdict is assured, so the trial is pointless, but also that giving him a trial in civilian courts provide constitutional assurances that might allow him to go free.

It's bizarre to see them arguing fervently that KSM should have a military commission instead of a civilian trial, on grounds that the constitution shouldn't apply to him. Because the government has been arguing since the inception of the military commissions that the commission system provides adequate constitutional safeguards. The Supreme Court explicitly ruled that the military commissions had to be an adequate substitute for regular civilian trial to pass muster.

4. KSM's presence in New York will actually pose a danger.

Rep. Gohmert says that ""You've got subways, tunnels, bridges all subject to terrorism... Unless they're trying to create a new jobs bill by allowing terrorism back in New York then this is insane." As far as I can tell, this is the most ridiculous argument of all. Is there some small chance that having these men in New York will pose some additional danger of terrorist activity that is not actually present? Sure. Is it any more than the threat that's raised by high-profile events that take place every day? Every time you ahve a rally, or a speech, or a public gathering, or you build a tall building or a bridge, there's some risk attached. But you still do it anyway, because it needs to be done.

Right Livelihood

Coming up in rural Wisconsin, I was raised by hunters, for hunters, and of hunters.

Hunting, particularly the stalking of the wily whitetail, was part of the regular round of activities; planting in the spring, cultivating over the summer, harvesting in the fall, and, after the harvest was in, hunting whitetail.

And, contrary to what you may be thinking, it was not a boys-only thing. The women of my family hunted right along with the mens.

My great-aunt Nelly filled her tag and the party tag for as many years as I can remember. She hunted right up to her 82nd year and it was only in her late 70's that she allowed me to be her gun bearer. I toted her her big old octagonal barreled Winchester Model 94 38.40 for her and carried the box of shells she loaded herself to save money. She used pistol loads to conserve on powder and minimize the bucking of the Winchester. That meant she had to get pretty close to the deer to put it down but that suited her just fine. One shot, one deer. That was her style.

She rolled her own smokes, saved the butts to smoke in her pipe, made coffee in a Hills Bros can set on the fire, drank Four Roses whisky out the bottle, kept a fletch of homemade bacon hanging in the front hall closet, knew all the words to Whisky Before Breakfast and was the onliest person I knew who could outswear my old man.

She scandalized her sisters with her appetite for life and pleasure. Auntie Nelly wore out more than a couple hired men and I don't mean with chores. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I realize she merits her own post. Give me a minute while I make a note.

So, where was I? Right, uh, hunting.

Anyway, this time of year, each year, my brothers, my cousins, my Pop, my uncles, my grandad, several of my aunties and great aunties all headed for the ancestral hunting ground along the Clam River to stalk the Virginia Whitetail Deer. Black bear, too.

Although hunting is certainly a sport, for my family it was part of right livelihood, filling the pantry.

Even a skinny doe browsing on acorns and pine needles can be turned into 70 or 80 pounds of chops and roasts and sausage. Mixed with a little cheap ground pork, the merest deer carcass can be stretched across the whole lean winter. If a Black bear is added to the bag, that's another 20 or 30 quarts of canned meat to fill the hungriest adolescent.

Service in the USN interrupted my annual deer hunt. Put a stop to it, in fact. After six months in Thua-Thien-Hue province, I sort of lost my enthusiasm for shooting at things.

Don't get me wrong. I had no deep philosophic problem with hunting or hunters. I was still fascinated with the exquisite machinery of firearms. I just lost interest. It no longer seemed part of my right livelihood.

My croft in Colorado is deep in prime elk and mulie country. People come out here to hunt and we make pretty good money boarding horses and mules for hunting outfitters. That is, we did.

Four years ago, I decided not to board stock for hunting parties anymore. Again, it was not a deep ethical or philosophic decision. I just didn't want to participate in hunting. It didn't seem part of right livelihood for me.

It wasn't a costly decision. It didn't require a big financial sacrifice. We still did a good boarding business for people who wanted to go into the back country for other reasons.

In this year of the Great Recession, though, I've revisited that decision. My niece Moya insisted on it.

Beef and milk prices are depressed this year. I've been on disability pay since June and I'm presently down to a quarter of my regular wage. Things being what they are, Moya says we can't afford to be picky and choosy about what kind of business we do and don't do. Especially now, as we enter into elk hunting season.

I'm not so sure about that. On the other hand, I suspect Moya is more in the tradition of her great-great Auntie than I am. Nelly did what had to be done to take care of her family and she let the philosophic issues sort themselves out. Its been my experience that women are less likely to stand on dignity and high flown moralizing and more likely to get the kids a hot breakfast before they head off to school in the morning.

Feeding the kids. That's what makes for right livelihood.

Against Pseudonymity and Sexual Shame

I've been fascinated with the internet since about 1998. It was during the spring of my sophomore year of high school that my best friend turned me on to a website whose name I can't even remember now. I do remember that it was a fan site for Ani DiFranco, with whom I was obsessed at the time. I wonder sometimes if it still exists. I think it happens this way for many people--their imaginations first alight on the internet because it provides the possibility of being able to connect with people who think like you, talk like you, fangirl-out like you, act like you or fuck like you.

In my particular case, my best friend and I would geek out on the Ani DiFranco fansite in the computer lab after school; neither of us had internet at home. Both of us were self-styled poets, and the fan site had a section where people could post their poetry, get feedback, and comment on the works of others. We would hurry over to the computer lab every day to see whether we'd gotten any more feedback and to look for the new entries of our favorite writers there.

That year we were both in an English class taught by a brilliant, beautiful, sharp-tongued Canadian woman who kicked our asses almost every single day. She was demanding, funny, incredibly secretive and more than a little neurotic. We didn't study that much poetry in her class, but it was her course that turned me into a poet. She believed it was vital that young students understand literary and rhetorical devices, and quizzed us on them relentlessly. Merely knowing the names of these devices, and being able to spot them, made me suddenly fascinated with the contents of my own work. We were assigned the task of writing a Shakespearean sonnet with a litany of said devices employed; I worked on mine for weeks. Having a massive girlcrush on a teacher is certainly a good way to get one to work hard.

We also joined the high school's Writer's Group, which met weekly and was surprisingly free-wheeling. Sometimes the faculty adviser showed up, sometimes he didn't. We sat in the backyard of one of the participants and smoked cigarettes right in front of the teacher, who either didn't care or pretended not to. We drank coffee and some of the seniors would even drink wine. We would read our latest work, attempt to give each other feedback, and shoot the shit.

It was these two communities, both online and off, where I started to grow as a thinker, a feminist, and a writer. I can't emphasize enough how important it was to me to be exposed to women just a few years older than me, confident and cosmopolitan-seeming, who said things that first shocked and then galvanized me.

Now I'm part of a different, bigger, much more diffuse community of feminist bloggers and thinkers. Yet, I don't feel that I can throw myself fully into membership, and I think that artifact of blogging, pseudonymity, is partly to blame.

When I started really being involved in the internet, like most people, I had no idea that I was going to become a blogger that anyone had ever heard of. My first significant contribution was as a commenter at Unfogged, which is where I first became acquainted with and deeply influenced by our blogmistress, the original Bitch. I commented under my own first name. I had a livejournal under my own first name (now defunct). I didn't know, or think about, the fact that who I was might end up mattering. Eventually, I started to think that it might matter. So, about three years ago, I adopted the pseudonym M. LeBlanc, deleted my livejournal, and started a blog called Rock, Paper, Swords which wasn't read by too many people beyond my friends from Unfogged.

Last Friday, I was guest-blogging for Spencer Ackerman at Attackerman, and one commenter said something that reminded me of this whole history, this whole life of writing that I've been relaying. He said "I’m having a hard time forming an opinion about your opinion, since you blog under an initial and I therefore can’t tell your gender." He was being funny, but I didn't realize that for about thirty seconds and I was like "whoa."

You see, when I first adopted the pseudonym M. LeBlanc, I was intending on blogging under a genderless identity. M. LeBlanc was the pseudonym of the nineteenth-century mathematician Sophie Germain, which she adopted so she could actually get some of her work published. I thought it would be an interesting exercise to conceal my gender and see if it affected the reception of my work.

But I couldn't do it. I couldn't keep it up for more than a few weeks. It was too hard for me not to say things that would give away my gender. To talk about my relationships with men, to discuss feminism in an intensely personal way, to talk about my experience of street harassment. I gave up. Quickly.

Three years later, I'm thinking about giving up my pseudonymity entirely. I had coffee with Ann Friedman of Feministing and The American Prospect on Friday and we talked about the problems of pseudonymity. The thing is, writing under a pseudonym is absolutely great for blogging. Unfortunately, it's not much good for anything else. If you want to write for a major publication, even one that's just online, and if you want to get paid for your work writing anywhere, you basically have to write under your own name. Which is all well and good, except for that without my writing that I've done under a pseudonym, I'm nobody, just a young lawyer with a little work experience and a lot of attitude.

So I feel torn. While writing under a pseudonym, I've written about a lot of topics and said a lot of things I probably never would have said if I were worried about how they would reflect on my real identity. I wrote about my feelings about porn. I wrote about menstruation. I wrote about my sexual life as an adolescent. I wrote about street harassment again and again and again; I wrote about using emergency contraception. I wrote about being raped.

I look back and think, man, if I were writing under my real name, would I ever have written any of those things, all of which I'm proud of? I know I wouldn't have.

But why?

What is the source of my nagging feeling that if those things were on the internet, popping up under a Google search for the name I was given at birth, that a wide swath of the employers I might someday want to work for would never hire me?

It's one thing only: externally-imposed bogus sexual shame. It's not as if my political opinions are so far out as to represent some kind of employment liability. I'm a pretty standard liberal. I haven't written anything racist or offensive. No, the only reason I'm worried about these writings is that they acknowledge, frankly and openly, that I'm a sexual being. But it's not like I'm writing a sex blog filled with the details of my exploits. I'm simply exploring the ramifications of sex and sexuality in the life of a young woman, a politically-minded feminist. And that, to my mind, is dangerous.

At the same time, I've written a number of things that I would be proud and unhesitant to have associated with my real name. Things that I even think would reflect positively on my abilities as a lawyer and advocate. I wrote about the rhetoric keeping so-called terrorists in legal limbo in Guantanamo. I wrote about becoming a lawyer; I wrote about growing up as the child of a single father. I wrote about re-conceptualizing anti-choice violence, analyzed anti-choice rhetoric, and talked about the moral case against torture. I wrote about racial identity and intersectionality.

I've been wanting to come out of the pseudonymity closet for over a year, and each time I discuss it with my boyfriend, he seems perplexed by my fear. Each and every time, he asks me, what is it, what, that you've written that you think would be such a liability? I name the same topics that I named above. He is unconvinced, always. When he signed up for a twitter account and "followed" both me and his boss, I did a double-take and asked him if he was okay with the possibility that his bosses might read my blog and know it was me. He shrugged and said he thought the women who supervise him would dig my work.

Feminists rag on male privilege a lot, but I think my boyfriend's attitude here is one of the best kinds of privilege I know--the lack of fear. Being unafraid to be yourself, being unashamed about your personal and political views. Being confident. Not having that feeling that you're on the brink of making a single mistake that could make your whole life fall apart and doom you to a life of obscurity and mediocrity.

Since I'm unemployed, I've been thinking a lot about doing more writing. Maybe even getting paid for it every now and then. But I feel hampered by fear. Once you're out, you can't go back in, it's true. However, on some days, courageous days, I think, will I ever want to go back in? I've been writing ever since I was a kid--short stories, poetry, essays, diaries, reviews, polemics, confessionals. What makes me think that I'm going to want to stop any time soon?

Like Butta Baby

Just want to thank everyone for all good wishes, vibes, prayers, meditations, emails, and much affection sent my way during the period of my chemical infusions.

You'll never know and I can never adequately express what a difference it has made.

From my heart to yours . Thank You.

Check Please!

A modest proposal for ending the occupation of Iraq: pay for it.

A lot of crocodile tears are being shed over the "cost" of a national health plan. The GOP and its allies in the media are beside themselves over the idea that health care is a national responsibilty. They are terrifed that the bill for caring for all our people might be shared by all our people, themselves included.

The fearful prospect of a healthy nation has moved the anti-democratic forces to dream up an entire movement of tea-baggers . They hope to distribute their anxiety at the prospect across the general population. They have even discovered they can expoit the issue to undo a woman's right to choose and to demolish health plans achieved by collective bargaining agreements.

Its all very reminiscent of their concerns at the time they were planning to make war on Iraq. I recall the anguish of the right over how we were going to pay for the invasion and the occupation.

Psyche!

Actually, I don't remember that at all. I remember a lot of blithe propaganda about Iraqi oil paying for everything. I remember some adviser of dubya's was fired for suggesting we could be on the hook for $100 billion or so. I remember my own Democratic Party, as recently as this spring, voting to borrow more billions from China to finance operations in Iraq.

Of course, that was before we knew how badly the right felt about debt and bailouts and borrowing money from China and mortaging the hopes and dreams of their grandchildren and (insert cliche) blah blah blah.

Who knew? But now we do. So, it would seem the quickest way to bring an end to the occupation of Iraq would be to pay for it. Cause you know how the righties hate to pay for anything. The richer they are, the tighter they are.

So, I propose an Iraq Occupation tax. This could be a surtax on Federal income tax (exempting households with members on active military duty). It could be a tax on defense contractors and mercenary outfits like Blackwater. It could be a tax on stock transactions (my personal favorite). It could be a tax on offshore accounts. There are all kinds of possibilities.

It would last until the Occupation is paid for (including veteran's care and any reparations owed Iraq) and China repaid.

The point is, the threat of paying for the Occupation would, I'm sure, bring it to a close quicker than you can say Check Please!

Sometimes I blog around

I'm guest-blogging today at Spencer Ackerman's blog, Attackerman. Just thought you all might like to know. My posts so far are here and here.

I shall update if there are more.

A sneak peek:

[W]hat’s wrong with hiring gay people? Okay, so homosexual conduct is a sin, according to them. But so are a lot of other things. Catholic charities actually hires a fair number of attorneys to carry out social services; I almost applied for a job with them. Were they going to do a moral purity test on me before hiring me? Because I sin a lot. I use birth control. I’m having pre-marital sex and have been doing so for over ten years without regret or repenting. Sinner! I forget, what do the Catholics think about oral sex? Isn’t that “spilling the seed”? The precious.

Enjoy the rest at the links.

UPDATE: Here's another one. I advise advice columnists on advice giving! So meta.

Life-saving, life-changing, affordable health care

Last week, Barack Obama famously said about the fight over universal health care currently gripping both houses of congress and most of the country: "This is a health care bill, not an abortion bill."

What does that mean? Abortion is health care. The health care bill, providing as it does for a "public option," which will be run by the government, necessarily describes what will and will not be covered by said public option. So, naturally, the bill couldn't exactly remain silent on the issue of abortion, one of the mostly hotly contested and unnecessarily controversial medical procedures.

What President Obama apparently meant is that he wanted the bill not to change the status quo on abortion. That, it seems, is the notion that "federal dollars are not used to subsidize abortions." Which, of course, isn't true. Medicaid does pay for abortions. In Illinois, physicians just need to fill out form HFS2390, which lays out the acceptable reasons for requesting that Medicaid funds pay for an abortion:



No, he means "elective" abortion. Which is a term that doesn't make sense. Plenty of the circumstances that make an abortion procedure Medicaid-eligible are "elective." I am certain there are many victims of rape and incest that "elect" to carry the fetus to term and give birth. So what President Obama, and the hundreds of elected Democrats and Republicans who agree with him mean when they say "abortion" is "elective abortion" which is really "abortions that do not make the women who receive them into bad dirty sluts."

It's completely arbitrary. Funding abortions of pregnancies that are a result of rape, and not funding abortions that are a result of consensual sex is apparently the bizarre status quo that we want to conserve.

Let's step back a bit. Why are we having this fight over health care in the first place? This knock down, drag-out fight over what we believe our government's responsibility it to ensure that its citizens are taken care of? Well, it's mostly because we are an extremely rich, industrialized country that has millions of people who are without insurance and thus, without health care. It's also because our health care system is incredibly expensive, and consumes a huge chunk of our GDP every year. So, we're trying to increase coverage, and control costs. As Matthew Yglesias pointed out today, in the grand scheme of things, abortions are actually pretty cheap. He quotes a figure of $200, but in my experience it's really more like $400. But two hundred or four, it's a remarkably cheap procedure compared to almost anything else. Routine blood work runs into the several hundred dollars. I had a mole biopsied about a year ago and I was shocked at the cost. Even a month's worth of prescription anti-depressants, if they're not generic, can run you over a hundred dollars.

Not only are abortions incredibly necessary for millions of women, they also don't cost that much. Which means that anyone who can scrape together the funds for one and can get to a clinic is going to get one if that's what they want to do. The only people who really, desperately need the abortions covered by their health insurance? Poor women.

The day the Stupak amendment was passed, I was somewhat blase about it, because I mistakenly thought that it merely continued the government's long-running ridiculous refusal to pay for abortions that it deemed to be in its fake "elective" category. Until I realized a few days ago, that it will jeopardize abortion coverage for private insurance as well. Many of which cover abortions as a matter of routine in all kinds of health care plans.

For instance, the insurance plan purchased from Cigna by the Republican National Committee, for its employees, covers "elective" abortion.

And huh, look at that, the insurance plan purchased from by Principal by Focus on the Family doesn't cover "elective" abortion, but Principal provides other policies that do!

Which is basically the same thing that all these Congressmen and women are up in arms about.

Jill Filipovic had a hilarious post up at Feministe today outlining all the things to which she morally objects and demands that she not be required to subsidize indirectly by paying taxes to the federal government. She's being silly, but the point is a serious one that I was making in conversation with my boyfriend last night: in general, we do not allow people to opt out of paying taxes just because those taxes pay for things that are against their beliefs, religious or otherwise. There are all kinds of wacky beliefs out there. And while the first amendment protects your ability to practice your religion as you see fit, it generally doesn't get you out of complying with the law, especially laws like paying taxes (the whole Wisconsin v. Yoder thing is a notable exception).

And yet, all this time, American taxpayer dollars have been paying for abortions all along. Just not the ones for the sluts.