No new cartoon this week, I’m afraid… but here’s a favorite of mine from the archives.

I’m just too busy with Other Projects this week. Some of which I’ve already mentioned on this blog, others of which I’ll describe in the future.

One thing that may be of interest to Portlanders… my work will be appearing in a Portland gallery, Pushdot Studio, in July, alongside work by six other Portland cartoonists. I’m quite excited… some of the other cartoonists are close friends of mine, others are folks whom I’ve never met but whose work I’ve admired for years. The opening’s on July third; if you’re in Portland, please come see us. Jenn Lee is organizing the show, and her blog has the details.

By the way, I’ve got a lot of cartooning stuff on my plate right now, so I may not post much (or at all) for the next few days.

When will I learn to stop trusting the mainstream media?

Seriously. I keep on thinking that I’ve gotten cynical and mistrustful enough. But then I find out that such-and-such a thing, which I assumed to be true merely because all the legitimate media sources said it was true, turns out to be a lie.

Which brings us to former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, one of my favorite American politicians. Like a lot of Greens, I’ve been hoping that the Green Party winds up endorsing McKinney rather than Nader as their 2004 presidential candidate.

McKinney lost her seat in the Democratic primary in a “racially polorized” vote (83% of Blacks voted for McKinney) to a Black Republican who ran as a Democrat. According to the New York Times (8/21/02), “McKinney’s [opponent] capitalized on the furor caused by Miss McKinney’s suggestion this year that President Bush might have known about the September 11 attacks but did nothing so his supporters could make money in a war.”

That’s true - the widely-reported comment by McKinney killed her with white Democrats that election. (Another problem was crossover Republicans voting against McKinney in the primary, a practice made possible by Georgia law). I mean, accusing Bush of knowing about September 11th in advance and covering it up - that’s just insane. McKinney must be crazy. Mainstream Democrats abandoned McKinney in droves.

But it turns out that McKinney never said that. The press just made it up.

Greg Palast - who I sometimes thinks is the only real journalist still reporting on American elections - wasn’t able to find the quote or anything like it; not in transcripsts of McKinney interviews, not in the transcripts from the House of Representatives, not anywhere. The quote was just a lie - one that (at least temporarily) killed the career of an outspoken black, left-wing politician.

Palast also interviewed the Times reporter, who wasn’t able to tell him a source for the quote; the Times reporter just saws that the quote was “all over the place,” and so assumed it must be true.

Go read Palast’s entire article - there’s a lot there which will show you why I admire McKinney so much, and why I’m so pissed off, and why the so-called liberal media remains the racist, lying, white media it’s always been.

It’s been four days since Palast’s article was posted on AlterNet - a quick LexisNexis search shows, unsurprisingly, that no mainstream paper has picked up the false quote story. It’s likely none of them ever will.

One bit of good news, however - the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports “Cynthia McKinney Poised for Political Return,” either as a Congresswoman or as the Green Party nominee for the White House. From that article:

So maybe a scummy lying so-called “liberal” press isn’t enough to keep a good woman down. I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed for Cynthia.

(Note - This post is a response to some comments Allison, of the excellent blog “An Unsealed Room,” has made both in the comments responding to my most recent cartoon, and also in a post on her own blog.)

Allison, I have acknowleged again and again that the wall serves a purpose of saving lives - as you should know, since we’ve discussed this before. I’ve even advocated building a wall along the green line. You can’t reasonably expect a four-panel cartoon to be as nuanced as a prose discussion.

I’m sorry that you (reasonably) found MFB’s post in my comments insulting, but you’ve been pretty insulting yourself. One thing that makes me roll my eyes is someone who suggests that a stance opposing their own must be, as you described my views, “knee-jerk reactions and un-thought-out stances.” I’ve actually thought a lot about these issues, for many years; you may not agree with what I say, but I’m neither knee-jerk or thoughtless.

You complain that I don’t “have a word of sadness or regret for the daily murders that are occurring in Israel in the NON-occupied territories.” Well, of course I’m saddened (and more, infuriated) whenever I read about the murders of civilians (in the occupied territories or not) - that’s a lot of why I care so much about the peace process. I’m sorry if you think otherwise.

I don’t post about every unjust death on my blog, because I don’t see the point; if I did that, I’d feel a need to post about both Palestinian and Israeli deaths, and it would quickly take over the blog. I’d rather not post about individual attacks at all. This blog isn’t a newspaper; it’s not my job to provide a record of deaths.

On your blog, you don’t write about the individual Palestinians who die, even the children and bystanders, but you frequently post about the deaths of individual Israelis. Should I conclude that you don’t feel sadness and regret when innocent Palestinians die? I think the answer is “no, I shouldn’t conclude that” - obviously, you can’t write about every death, and that you don’t write about every tragedy doesn’t mean you don’t regret them.

Nonetheless, your blog does paint a very one-sided picture of the conflict. Someone reading your blog would have almost no idea at all that there have been many more Palestinians than Israelis killed in this conflict; your blog gives the impression that the innocent, saintly Israelis are constantly being attacked for no reason by people who don’t have the slightest cause for complaint, and never vice-versa.

Now, I know that’s not what you really think. I know that when I challenge you, you readily acknowledge that Israel has done wrong in the past. I know that you have a more nuanced view than your basically one-sided blog posts imply. Why? First, because you’re obviously an intelligent, thoughtful person. And second, because I give you the benefit of the doubt. I wish you’d do the same for me.

At Camp David, both Israel’s and Arafat’s delegation (and Clinton’s) negotiated in bad faith and did things which were either wrong or mistaken. The point of view you seemingly argue here - that Israel was utterly sincere, and the only holdouts were Palestinians - is one-sided and false. (Note that the opposite point of view - Arafat was blameless, only the Americans and Israelis negotiated in bad faith - is equally wrongheaded, and I don’t advocate it.)

Israel walked away from negotiations at Taba (to reflect the newly-elected Sharon’s preference for non-negotiation at that time), when the Palestinians there were willing to continue. Israel ignored Saudi Arabia’s offer of recognition in exchange for withdrawal - it didn’t even attempt to use that offer as a starting point for discussions. Yet somehow you’re convinced that the Palestinians are the only ones who have refused negotiations.

There has never been a time - not even today - when the situation is as you describe. The Israelis are not as blameless as you imagine them to be; Palestinians have acted badly in their approach to negotiations (and in many other ways, the most horrible of which is terrorism), but they’re not the only ones at fault.

I’ve seen this tact taken by Israeli partisans many times over the years. “In the past, we weren’t pure. But today, the only holdout is those nasty Palestinians being unwilling to negotiate.” Unless you’re willing to view the current Israeli government’s actions critically, you’ll never see negotiations as anything but angelic Israelis being turned down by demonic Palestinians. And that’s not the reality, Allison. The Palestinians are not the only problem here.

Neither side is angelic here; neither side is doing all they can, or should, to try and reach peace. Neither side is making the concessions they should be making; neither side is acting in entirely good faith. Both sides have been cursed with leaders who love land and power more than they love life; both sides are willing to make provocations that they know will lead to reprisals in which their own countrymen and women will suffer and die.

Read over this blog and look for me making excuses for wrongful Palestinian actions, or defending the deaths of Israelis (or Americans who go there to support Israel), or claiming that Israel is now the sole problem. You won’t find it. It’s true, I criticize Israel much more (and for good reason; as a Jew, I have a personal connection to Israel, plus many more of my tax dollars go to Israel than Palestinians), but I don’t post excuses for Palestinian actions, I don’t claim that the current Palestinian leadership is interested only in trying “to figure out how we can best repair past errors and build a real future for both of us” (how naïve can you get?), and I don’t claim that only one side is the problem in the here and now.

Do I take a side? Yes. I’m not objective, and I’ve never claimed to be. But for you to imply on your blog that my view is any more “lop-sided and unidimensional” than your own is ridiculous.

By the way, I do welcome you posting here (or posting replies to me on your blog), and I hope you keep on doing so. We don’t agree, but I for one think it’s valuable - and maybe a minor miracle, given the current dismal state of public debate - that we can disagree with respect. I remain a fan of your blog. (And here’s a link to a post of yours - not because I have anything to say about that particular post, but because I’m hoping you’ll win that contest Bear is running!)

The second installment of my Dicebox fill-in has been posted over at Girlamatic. Check it out.

Over at Smart Genes, Rick argues that the Wall doesn’t matter much. (Link via Civic Dialogues).

Apparently Rick doesn’t think that the “facts on the ground” problem exists at all. By building the Wall, Sharon is attempting to create facts on the ground which will determine how future peace negotiations will go. It is far easier for Sharon - or for a future prime minister after Sharon - to give up the Wall before Israel sinks another hundred million dollars into building it.

Furthermore, no peace treaty is viable unless Palestinian leaders can convince ordinary Palestinians that Israel is sincere about a peace agreement, and can be trusted to make and keep such an agreement. (The vice-versa is also true, of course). Just as building ever more settlements convinced many Palestinians that Israel wasn’t serious about Oslo, a wall built miles inside Palestinian terratory is a powerful argument that Israel is not approaching “the road map” in good faith. If Israel wants to be seen as a sincere negotiating partner, then it must halt all land-grab activities - or even activities that appear to be land-grabbing to Palestinians. If Israel is not willing to do that, then Palestinian leaders who favor negotiations will not seem very credible.

Israel cannot seriously negotiate peace while building new settlements, or while building this Wall. Whatever Israel’s intentions, if their actions speak of land-grabbing, no one outside of Israel and the US will take Israeli claims of wanting a peaceful settlement seriously.
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Will Shetterly is thinking heretical thoughts:

One could argue, I suppose, that the US has been essential to fighting Evil, in World War 2 and again in the Cold War. This is true, as far as it goes, but it’s also very speculative; there’s no way of knowing if those threats would even have risen in a world history in which America remained British.

More to the point, the US wasn’t founded to be a global superhero; it was founded to enable us to enjoy “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” It’s unclear that these things are any more enjoyable under American rule than they would have been under British rule.

–Mark Lilla

(via Philocrites)

If true, this story is outragous (and frightening): in Billings, Montana, the DEA used the anti-drug RAVE act to prevent a benefit for pro-drug-legalization groups.

So the RAVE Act is used, not to oppose drug use, but to oppose the free speech of folks who disagree with anti-drug laws.
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Mark Kleiman brings up something that I’ve been thinking about lately.

There are some things even a majority shouldn’t be able to do: one such thing is to impose sharia laws on women (or men). Individual freedom is, in this case, more important in my view than democracy is.

Of course, the tension between individual liberty and democracy is nothing new. John Judas has a good essay on the subject in the current Foreign Affairs (link via the Mad Prophet Blog). Reviewing Fareed Zakaria’s The Future of Freedom, Judas writes:

There’s also an interesting discussion of how these two forces are at work in current US politics. For instance:

Regarding Iraq, I’m afraid I can’t even see it as a tough question. Maintaining the freedom for women - all women - to walk where they want, when they want, with whom they want, wearing what they want is what really counts. Next to that, the right to vote for a government that will most likely crush women’s rights and revoke future elections just doesn’t seem terribly essential.

I’m not saying Democracy isn’t important - it is. But there are prices too high to pay, even for Democracy. At the risk of sounding like a libertarian, fundamental liberties have to be secured first; only then is the right to vote meaningful.

In an earlier post, despite writing that I didn’t “entirely trust the article’s source,” I posted quotes from a disturbing Arab News article claiming to quote racist statements from Israeli children.

In retrospect, I shouldn’t have posted that at all; but it was worth it, because Jonathan Edelstein (in my comments) did a wonderful job of reviewing the article’s statements (and deceptions). To make up for my previous mis-post, let me quote from Jonathan’s most recent post to Alas’ comments (I think more people will see it here than there).

Meanwhile, back on his own blog, the Head Heeb reports some good news from Israel:

Cool.

Eugene Volokh posts an argument from fellow professor Johathan Zasloff, suggesting that Israel’s attacks on Hamas leaders (and anyone who happens to be standing nearby) could be helpful for peace. How? By eliminating Abu Mazen’s competition for leadership, enabling Mazen to “continue to condemn Israeli targeted assassinations, while at the same time enjoying the fruits of Israel’s crushing his opponents.”

Zasloff’s argument, however, is based on the idea that Israel will actually be able to crush Hamas, to such an extent that Hamas will no longer be a relevant part of Palestinian politics. Gee, is that’s all that’s required?

Reality check: If Israel was able to do that, it would have been done years ago.

The question isn’t “what will wiping out Hamas do” - wiping out Hamas isn’t a realistic policy option. It’s not on the menu. The question is “what will attacks that don’t wipe Hamas out, but do inflict casualties on nearby civilians, do?” What Israel’s attacks do is empower Hamas, by making Hamas seem more significant, more like the “real” opposition to Israel, and assisting their recruitment efforts. (Yes, Hamas leaders are killed, but more will rise to replace them.)

If Israel wants to empower Abu Mazen, they need to change their policy so that Palestinians saying a negotiated solution is possible will seem credible to more ordinary Palestinians. Assassinations of Hamas leaders is not a way to send that message.

Kevin Drum, responding to a similar argument, wrote “I am, as I’ve always been, puzzled by the general hawkish belief that if violence levels are ratcheted up just a little bit more the other guys will finally back down, even though no one ever thinks the same is true in the other direction.”

Stop being macho and start negotiating. Blowing up Hamas leaders (and anyone else standing nearby) is more than a waste of time, it’s immoral and counterproductive.

Ornicus defends hate crimes legislation
I read this post and kept on saying “yes! yes! That’s it exactly!”

Great quote from Prometheus 6

The Black Commentator on the DLC
The Black Commentator isn’t favorably impressed by the GOP’s outpost in the Democratic party; the article, good in its own right, also contains useful-looking links. I liked this Sharpton quote: “The sellout of progressive politics has been a total disgrace for the Democratic Party. Not only is it morally wrong and politically cheap, but it doesn’t even work.” (Via Promethius 6).

Mark Kleiman on the paucity of real bagels outside of NYC
Actually, it’s not Mark but one of Mark’s readers, David Boyum, who answers the question that former New Yorkers have agonized over for years. (I’d add that staleness isn’t really the problem: Real bagels can be frozen and reheated with only a slight loss of quality.)

Mikhaela’s News Blog on Newt Gingrich’s Science Fiction
Apparently Newt is taking up a second career as a novelist; he’s writing an “alternate history” trilogy starting with the premise that the South wins the Battle of Gettysburg.

Julian’s Lounge on arguing with libertarians
Julian, himself a libertarian, describes some libertarian arguments that he finds annoying. Surprisingly, they’re the same ones I find annoying.

Body and Soul on Burma and Unocal
Body and Soul links to a couple of LA Times articles covering the Unocal lawsuit, and also pointing to seven similar instances involving different companies. As Jeanne points out, the infamously “liberal” New York Times has a tendency to bury or de-emphasize stories like this.

Leah of Eschaton on academics in public policy debates
A good post, with (as Kip says) good links. The two Michael Bérubé essays on “political correctness” - one from 1991, one from 2001 - make particularly good reading.

D-squared on pithy quotes from the press

(For the quote in context, click here.)

Bigfatmama on being not just fat but supa fat:
Good post declaring her refusal to buy into fat-hatred. “i won’t write about hating my extra flesh. i don’t have any extra, it’s all necessary, all essentially me.” I’ll have to pay attention to this blog more… Link via Fatshadow.

The Ignatz Awards! (The Ignatzes?)
Sam Heldman puts forth an admittedly premature, but very entertaining, summary of the Supreme Court’s activities this term. (My occasional co-blogger Bean may want to note the existence of a case called “US vs. Bean.”)

U.S.S. Clueless (not that one) on those annoying white kids:

Via The Mad Prophet Blog (who in his anger forgets that objecting to racism doesn’t make misogynistic language okay).

Generally, I think it’s a bad idea for a cartoonist to use arrows to indicate the progression between panels - if you need arrows, then your layout is wrong and needs changing. And that’s the case in this week’s cartoon by Kevin.

But who cares? The cartoon is still one of the nastiest attacks on the President I’ve read in a while. I wish I had thought of it. Go read it.

(Oh, and speaking of things no one but another cartoonist would notice: the lettering’s looking really good this week, Kevin. And what’s with the new style of panel borders?)

Kudos to the Texas anti-abortion group which sued for their right to set up fifteen-foot photos of dead fetuses. Not only are they protecting the general free speech rights of students, their fixation on grossing people out also hurts the public image of the entire pro-life movement. It’s a win-win situation.

The pro-life group says that it was their political views which were being censored, but I bet that if PETA had set up fifteen-foot high gore photos of slaughterhouses in the same plaza, they would have gotten the same reaction. The university claimed that their actions weren’t censorship, because they merely wanted demonstrators confined to “free speech zones.” I figure anything that’s bad for free speech “zones” (shouldn’t the entire country be such a zone?) is good.

Link via the Volokh Conspiracy.

This is my third - and last, I promise - post responding to Matt of Not Geniuses on education reform.

Matt is very much in favor of equalizing education funding (with adjustments to account for cost-of-living in different areas and the like). I used to agree with him about that. What did I know? I was from the northeast. “Screw those Vermont hypocrites,” I said, “let the rich pay more to improve education for all!”

Then I moved to Oregon.

No on equal funding. No, no, never!

When liberals talk about “equal funding,” they usually imagine that means that students in poorer areas will get an increase in funding. That’s what I once thought. But that’s not what it means.

What “equal funding” means is that, in states where rural, conservative anti-tax fundamentalists have a majority, school funding will be cut and cut and cut again. It won’t matter if the folks in urban areas have school systems that have become a nationwide joke; it won’t matter that the urban areas are willing to pay the lion’s share of taxes to improve everyone’s education equally. The anti-tax fundamentalists would rather see every school in the state go flush rather than pay a dime to educate kids.

It’s not that they’re against educating kids, mind you. It’s rather that they’re not as for education as they are for tax cuts. And since conservatives and libertarians alike believe fervantly that there is such a thing as a free lunch, they refuse to believe that there’s any connection between tax cuts and educational quality.

“Equal funding” pacts are educational suicide pacts. I’m sorry if conservatives want to drive their schools out of business, but I don’t see why they should be allowed to destroy schools where I live, too.

I don’t meant to pick on Matt Singer’s post on education at Not Geniuses. In fact, it’s an excellent post, and y’all should go read it. But I have a couple more criticisms (quick ones this time).

One.

As usual when I read “let’s do a grand reform!” discussions of education, I found myself wishing that Matt spent more time establishing, rather than assuming, that American public education is in dire need of radical reform. I don’t think there’s any school system in the world which educates as large a percentage of the population to the just-pre-college level or to the college level. High-school graduates today are just as smart as they were twenty or fifty years ago; furthermore, there are a hell of a lot more such graduates today than at any point in our history.

Rather than trashing schools or blinding accepting right-wing claims that schools suck, Democrats should be defending American public schools for what they are - proof positive that some things are better done by the public sector. (No one but the most extreme libertarians want to return to a system where only those who have the money get educated). Americans have a high rate of literacy and decent math skills, and partly as a result of that our workers have productivity rates that are envied worldwide.

Most public schools are evidence that the anti-government extremists are wrong and Democrats are right. Surveys show that whatever Americans think of the school system in the abstract, they usually feel the schools their own kids attend are pretty good. So why do so many liberals blindly accept right-wing claims of massive school failure? I don’t get it.

As far as I can tell, most US public schools are doing pretty well; only a minority of schools are really bad, and I’d rather see reformers concentrate on that minority, rather than throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

I read Matt Singer’s post on education at Not Geniuses. What most caught my eye was this:

(Matt also worries that boys may feel constrained from reciting poetry in a mixed-sex classroom. I find this concern touching but oddly misplaced, as if girls were the ones chasing down wimpy 8th-grade boys and beating them up. Although there are always individual exceptions, by and large middle-school boys who cross gender boundaries by extolling the virtues of the Sonnet are disciplined by other middle-school boys; so what makes Matt imagine they’d be freer to cross those lines in a single-sex school?)

According to Matt, unspecified “studies show that both boys and girls generally perform worse in mixed-sex classes.” But what “studies say” isn’t really clear. I attended an all-boy’s school in the 10th grade, and academically the education I got was superior. But it wasn’t superior because of my lack of contact with girls; it was superior because it was a private high school, with resources and teachers few public schools could match, and a student body consisting only of academically bright students.

In other words, single-sex schooling, in too many studies, is actually a proxy for a whole mess of other factors - concerned parents, well-paid teachers, selective admissions and so on - which lead to improved educational outcomes, and would do so regardless of single-sex or co-ed status. This evidence is then touted as proof that single-sex education is better. Pamela Robinson and Allen Smithers worked extensively with British statistics (single-sex schooling is more common in England), but were unable to find support for the single-sex-is-better hypothesis. From their report in Research Papers in Education (volume 14):

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So our realtor requires pre-approval as a condition of showing houses. No problem. So now we’re shopping around for mortgage brokers, and it’s weird. People quote us interest rates (we’re mainly in the market for a 30-year-fixed loan), but since we haven’t found a house - and may not find one for many months - that doesn’t really mean much, since interest rates won’t be the same 6 or even 2 months from now, and no one offers more than a 30-day-lockdown.

So what exactly are we comparison shopping for? We’re shopping for someone who can offer a good purely theoretical deal right now, and hoping that whoever offers a good theory-deal now will also be offering good reality-deals an unknown number of months from now.

Very strange.