UK Introduces New ID Card System, Codename "Older Sibling"

As I have written before here, it irks me when holier-than-thou foreigners pat us on the back for the election of Barack Obama, saying things like "we didn't think you had it in you, old chaps!" America is imperfect, but it's the most perfectly imperfect country ever devised by the hand of man. Yes, with all its flaws, it is still the greatest country in the history of history - put that in your pipe and smoke it Luxembourg.

What really gets my goat is many Euros talking about how they didn't think such a racist country could ever see its way clear to electing a black president. This sort of attitude infuriates me, because only one who had put their ethnic house in complete order should say something as pedantic. And, as anyone with even a rudimentary knowledge of European history (and I'm not talking about World War II - I'm talking about RECENT history) knows or who has taken a cursory glance at a website or newspaper covering European politics in the last few years understands, "the Continent" is anything but when it comes to racial, religious and ethnic equality.

But the folks that I hold to the highest standards because of their close relationship and shared origins are the Brits. And the Brits today, as reported here, showed conclusively that they are moving backwards, not forwards, in this area:

Britain has begun a national identity card plan for some foreign nationals in an attempt to combat terrorism and identity fraud. Opponents say it represents a costly erosion of civil liberties. The program has been debated heatedly for several years. The cards are expected to store biometric data and information about the cardholder's nationality and work eligibility.
The first group to receive the new cards will be foreign students and permanent residents' spouses who apply for visa renewals. Officials expect more than 50,000 cards to be issued in the next four months and that the program will be expanded in coming years.

This topic has been hotly debated in Britain for several years since passage of the 2006 Identity Cards Act which gave the green light to this system (you can read more about it here). But what does this really mean for Brits? What should they expect? The answers might frighten you if you hold your freedom and civil liberties precious and think it is important to protect minorities within your country:

Under the NIR ("National Identity Register"), UK Residents with an ID card will be required to fulfil certain functions:
-Attend in person to be photographed, have their fingerprints taken and iris scanned.
-Promptly inform the police or Home Office if a card is lost or damaged.
-Promptly inform the National Identity Register of any change of address.
-Promptly inform the National Identity Register of any prescribed change of circumstances affecting the information recorded about them in the Register.

Whoa - everyone who gets an ID card will be fingerprinted and have their eyes scanned? Are you kidding me? We are not fighting Europa. We are now fighting Oceana.

Well, how are you rolling this out - is this a requirement for everyone? This isn't being "targeted" at certain segments of the population, right?

The first to receive ID cards will be foreign nationals, from 25 November 2008, and the Government intends to follow this up by offering young people ID cards in 2010. Ordinary British citizens will then be offered (on a voluntary basis at first, but later in larger volumes) ID cards from 2011 to 2012.

Oh good, so "ordinary" British citizens won't need an ID card until at least 2012 if not later - but foreign nationals need one starting this week? Well, I'm sure the scope of what this will be used for will be limited. You know, just preventing identity theft or for customs purposes:

For example, Gordon Brown was reported to be "planning a massive expansion of the ID cards project that would widen surveillance of everyday life by allowing high-street businesses to share confidential information with police databases."[57] He apparently described how "police could be alerted as soon as a wanted person used a biometric-enabled cash card or even entered a building via an iris-scan door."[58]

Ah, I see. Good, so limitless surveillance. Excellent. And at least it isn't targeting minorities or people who have been in the country for a short period of time, foreigners, things like that. Y'know - the dangerous elements. The ones you need to keep an eye on. Hey - if they have nothing to hide, they shouldn't care, right?

Good thing you Brits are around to pat us on the back for our progress in electing a black president. We can really take a cue from you chaps about how to treat everyone equally, openly and with respect. Speaking of which, tell me again the last minority prime minister you folks elected? Simply goes to show you that no matter what it is we get wrong here - and we gets lots of stuff wrong -everyone else will inevitably get it wronger.

Next time you complain about that DMV line, remember that at least they aren't fingerprinting you or scanning your iris. Liberal or conservative, be glad you're an American - where at least you know you're free (from compulsory biometric identification and registration).

Al-Qaeda translator to Obama: We Know Bad Words!!

So, the #2 man in Al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, today announced that President-Elect Obama, along with other notable black people such as secretaries of state Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, are "house Negroes."

That's not the story though. See the story isn't that HE said that. HE actually did NOT say that. Actually, what he said, according to Fox News, translates literally from Arabic to "house slaves." But the translator over at Al-Qaeda - who graciously provided the English subtitles - wanted to make sure we understood that this was a RACIAL epithet and not simply a garden-variety insult, and added the subtitle "house Negroes" rather than "house slaves."

Good to know they are doing their market research about how best to make statements as degrading and insulting as possible. We don't want to lose anything in translation, guys.

The Flip Side of Obama's Victory

Sometimes when someone who you expect to screw up most of the time because they have a history of doing so does not screw up, you are overly effusive with your praise and blunder into actually being insulting and reading more into one victory than is appropriate. This is a phenomenon happening with great frequency right now in the "rest of the world" and its reaction to Senator Obama's sweeping victory last week.

I want to point out one example here, which is an article written by Steven Wells, contributor to both the UK Guardian and also Philadelphia Weekly here in the States. The article can be found here and I will just address some of the points made.

Mr. Wells writes this open letter to America ostensibly as a congratulations, but it veers hard right into a rebuke of America's history virtually in its totality. That is the danger of Senator Obama's election - it does not change history, but what it does do is give us a clearer picture of how some people have seen America because now they've decided to tell us how they "really felt" about us, seeing as how as of last Tuesday we moved past our racist history. And that is the other danger - that the world has read far too much into this result.

In this article, Mr. Wells congratulates us for the election result - and lots of other things about America that he finds to be "really cool" but admonishes us for some of the things we've done... and then just keeps on going:

But there’s the other stuff.

You know, overthrowing democratically elected governments, supporting fascists, supporting the Khmer Rouge, supporting Islamic fundamentalists, torture, Cheney, Abu Ghraib, Gitmo, Rush Limbaugh, Nixon, Joe McCarthy, Ronald Reagan. All that stuff. And electing Bush. And then—astoundingly, mindblowingly, jawdroppingly—re–electing Bush. When you guys suck, you really suck.

Then there’s the racism thing. A lot of us grew up with TV images of cops beating civil rights demonstrators, the genocide in Vietnam, the persecution of Muhammad Ali, the murders of the black panthers, Dr. King and Malcolm X. We know that modern white America thinks its shit don’t stink, that racism is in the past and anyway, things are much worse in Europe, and that American kids are colorblind (despite the fact that they cluster in blacks–only and whites–only groups in college cafeterias).

There’s an article in the latest GQ that describes modern America as suffering from ”segregation without the racists”. Meaning, presumably, that non–white Americans choose the low–paid jobs and choose to live in the shit parts of town. Because if America isn’t profoundly racist, what other possible explanation could there be? Rightly or wrongly this is how the rest of the world sees America—as a nation utterly obsessed with race and profoundly poisoned by racism.

This is the sort of thing that makes my blood boil about this election. This was an election about America re-embracing the virtues we extol and have said we embody. About a nation that had lost its way reclaiming the high road. This was not an election about proving something to the rest of the world about our feelings on race, the electoral equivalent of saying "hey, I'm not racist, I've got a black friend!" Meet Mr. Obama: our black friend. I mean, Mr. Wells, Vietnam? Civil rights demonstrators? 1968 called and wants its article back. You don't have something a tad more recent you'd like to discuss?

Further, the slightly-to-extremely pedantic Mr. Wells is from the UK (I presume), and perhaps he should get down off his soapbox, walk home from Speaker's Corner and do a little digging into his nation's own sordid history of racism and xenophobia - a condition, I might add, that persists to this day. I invite Mr. Wells to investigate how England treated its colonial holdings, including the appalling treatment of India that lasted well into the 20th century. But, undaunted, Mr. Wells continues:

The rest of the world looks at a US school system that is more segregated now than it was before the start of the civil rights movement. They look at the major US cities, most of which—like most of Philadelphia—are segregated with a totality that would bring joy to the architects of apartheid South Africa. And then we read articles in USAian magazines and newspapers that talk of racism in the past tense. And we scratch our heads in wonder.

In the run–up to this election, some Eastern Europeans I spoke to were absolutely certain that the USA is so racist that Obama will simply not be allowed to be president. Others—mostly Western Europeans—have been almost giddy with excitement. But it’s an excitement tempered with disbelief. Is the America of Jim Crow, the KKK, Birth of a Nation, ghettos, race riots, lynchings and beatings—where, in vast swathes of the country, blacks and whites are expected to vote for different parties, as if they were entirely separate and distinct tribes—did this America really elect Barack Obama?

Sigh. Mr. Wells, have you ever been to your beloved London? Would you describe it as living in racial harmony, or starkly polarized, with Middle Eastern and Indian citizens living virtually isolated north of the Marble Arch - an area where people I know who live in London refuse to go after the sun sets. Nobody has it perfectly yet, Mr. Wells. And Eastern Europeans? I mean, you guys really want to open your collective mouths about racism and people not being "allowed" to do this, that or the other? Don't make me say it. Don't make me. Wasn't it the anniversary of Kristallnacht the other night - dammit, I couldn't help myself.

Fact of the matter is that every country on this planet has problems with either a religious, ethnic or cultural minority. Show me one that does not. Show me a country where the many have not ever oppressed the few. You cannot. Countries are as good as their citizens, and citizens are people. Imperfect, fearful, flawed people. The best you can hope for is that countries will endeavor to become more enlightened and tolerant as their citizens move in that direction. Some move faster. Some move more slowly. But for the rest of the world, where there is still ethnic cleansing and genocide, if not now then within a generation in the past, to cast a skeptical and overly critical eye in OUR direction is a bit offensive. If you wish to take us to task for the past eight years, by all means, let's talk. But when you take this election and turn it into a referendum on the history of this nation, you're treading on thin ice. A lot of nations have done a lot of bad things. Let's not start pointing fingers or some of you may not like where things end up.

Mr. Wells does finish his backhanded compliment on a high note:

...we think that if America can elect a black president then anything is possible. It might even be that all the talk we hear coming out of American mouths about truth and justice and liberty and common human decency might actually be matched by American actions. By electing Obama you have proved yourselves greater, wiser, nicer and more truly American than we thought you possibly could be. And if you can do something this amazing, maybe the rest of the world can shake of its own horrible racist past too. You give us hope, America. You rejected the party of fear, racism and greed, and you elected the candidate who spoke to the best in you. And that action speaks to the best in all of us. All six billion of us. This morning, America, you really are as great as you think you are. (Don’t let it go to your head.)

Sigh. Having a black president does not, in and of itself, solve anything, with the exception of it making it impossible for that president to be George Bush. It does not make us wiser, better or more decent. It just means we voted for (in my opinion) the better man for the job without letting his race be a deciding issue for white voters. This is the danger in Obama's victory - the world has painted us with too negative a brush up to now, and now whipsaws the other way, and places far too great a weight on one act. The world equates all Republicans as racist fear-mongers and all people who voted for Obama as enlightened. Neither is true and to think so is dangerously simple-minded.

America is a complicated country - I would argue the most complex nation ever in the history of man. It cannot be painted one thing or another thing because it is always so very many things at once. To have painted us as a culture bubbling over with racism at all times and in all places - but that this suddenly and joyously ended on last Tuesday - is mind-numbingly simplistic. I hope for the sake of the rest of the world, they judge both our successes and failures on a more realistic scale going forward.

Sarah and Todd Palin "Live" With Racism In Alaska

African-Americans thank the good Governor for her sincere empathy. Is there a greater champion of minority civil rights in this country than Sarah Palin? I remember when Sarah took on the establishment by marrying Todd, a "native Alaskan." Sheer guts.

Obama Assassination Plot Foiled! UPDATES AND CORRECTIONS

AP wire reports the ATF intervened in a plot by neo-Nazi skinheads to assassinate Barack Obama and murder 102 African-American individuals in Tennessee.

That's building racist energy turned kinetic. You see it on the far fringe of the Republican base - the very far fringe. Same intolerance that justifies bombing an abortion clinic, holding up a placard stating "God hates fags," and decreeing a man's middle name is indicative of a connection to Islamofascism.

The only saving grace?: Almost all of this fringe element are too lazy or disaffected to put crazy into motion. Almost all.

***UPDATE***: Some of my conservative peers are livid, angry at the purported intimation of this post - that I am conflating a despicably racist group of skinheads with a living component of the Republican base.

I will not retract my statements, but bring them into focus.

No. These pitiful nihilists, these sub-citizens who bring our democratic enterprise down and defile it, are not part of any Republican party I know.

Notwithstanding, I will not avert my eyes and disregard the patent correlation between the rancid intolerance bandied about by the outer most edges of the current GOP base (Karl Rove's, Rush Limbaugh's and James Dobson's Frankenstein collective) and the impetus to commit harm held by misanthropic groups like the Neo-Nazis, Ku Klux Klan or skinheads. I agree - the dogma birthed by such defective thinking is not exclusive to the Republican party. The Democratic base is no more immune. Its far left extremities also meddle with black principles of radicalism, anarchism and fascism. On the rare instance, these doctrinal underpinnings are seized by beyond-the-pale factions to promote equally aberrant acts (think PETA or the faceless, feral mobs protesting the WTO).

There are domestic terrorists - and many of them have a ideological bent, whether right or left. The Council for Foreign Relations and the FBI classify them accordingly:

The FBI classifies domestic terrorist threats mostly by political motive, dividing them into three main categories: left wing, right wing, and special interest.

And the right-wing extremists share a predictable dynamic:

What is right-wing domestic terrorism?

Attacks committed by people who favor individual freedoms over governmental regulation are classified as right-wing domestic terrorism. Such extremists may be motivated by issues of race, such as the Ku Klux Klan, or other issues, such as opposition to abortion or immigration. According to the FBI, right-wing terrorists often take “racist and racial supremacy and embrace antigovernment, antiregulatory” platforms. Far-right movements often blend political rhetoric with racial undertones, despite recent attempts to reach a broader audience by eliminating racial language. Authorities do not categorize people with extreme right-wing political ideals as threats unless the group they are affiliated with demonstrates a real potential for violence.

Once this threat for violence manifests itself, the bastards have no place in the Republican tent. I concede this. Even the right, militant fringes recoil and reconvene, far away from these pariahs.

No - I do not conflate extremist groups with the Republican base. Even the most abhorrent sub parts of the Republican base. However, if you cannot find at least a tenuous link between the credos or ethos of the farthest right wing of the GOP and the folks that fall off the party's edge into the criminal abyss, then allow me to recommend a 24 hour cable news network you may enjoy.

Are the bovine hoards lumbering through McCain-Palin rallies, documented by video in various states, shouting filth like Obama is a "negra," "Muslim" (as if it's a bad thing), "Arab" (as if it's bad thing), "terrorist" and today, within earshot of Governor Palin, "n*gger," [see UPDATE 3 below] not an ostensible appendage of the Republican base? Are they not an old vestigial tail lingering on the larger Republican organism, doddering into the evening of this election cycle? Even a single drop of water is a constituent part of the greater ocean.

Do you not find an ill-informed, ignorant, intolerant sect infecting the base of the greater GOP at this moment in history? Do you not believe Pat Robertson and James Dobson hate homosexuals when they say they hate homosexuals or blame "abortionists" for the fate of 9-11? Do you not think Phil Berg and Andy Martin, who spout lies that Obama is Muslim and previously schooled at a madrasa, are not sympathetic to some segment of Republicanism in vogue? When Hannity and Limbaugh happily grant them a mainstream audience, amplify their slimy rhetoric and impassively condone their message without factual challenge or providing context?

Yes, the Democrats have their proximal fleas as well. Scroll down to my post about Reverend Wright. I mention him in the same breath as Ward Churchill and Cindy Sheehan, a cabal of far left pernicion. However, the assassination plot hits closer to the Republican home.

If Pat Robertson wants to say abortionists caused 9-11 and Ward Churchill speaks of folks who died in 9-11 are "little Eichmanns," then they can sleep together. I'm not making a distinction. I only note that if hate-mongering devolves into hate-crimes, you can normally locate the perpetrators banging on either the Republicans' or the Democrats' front door as if they belong inside. And you know which door is which.

***UPDATE***: According to David Duke, Obama's candidacy is a "visual aid" for hate groups.

***UPDATE***: I reported erroneously based on other erroneous sources that "n*gger" was shouted at a Palin rally a few days ago. Apparently, the word screamed was "redistributor." Even the pinkos over at Daily Kos make the concession. However, I continue to stand behind every other word of my post and the gravamen of my complaint against the farthest right fringe of the GOP and the farthest left fringe of the Democrats.

"Vote McCain, Not Barack Hussein"

Conservative radio's new group-think perceives the feral left as much more virulent and hateful than the right despite the media elite's skewed vision of the campaign trail. The coterie of GOP pundits warns of a powder keg situation created by the left's never-ending quest to squash dissent and install their world view on the American people. They warn of violence in the wake of a McCain-Palin victory.

Really.

How many video clips can I post:



Yeah, you guys are the victims here. Cry me a river.

Powell the Racist

So says Rush Limbaugh:

"Secretary Powell says his endorsement is not about race," Limbaugh wrote in an e-mail. "OK, fine. I am now researching his past endorsements to see if I can find all the inexperienced, very liberal, white candidates he has endorsed. I'll let you know what I come up with."

How quickly the right wing slime merchants like Limbaugh and Hannity turn on real conservatives when those conservatives think for themselves instead of basking in the celebrated ignorance and fear-mongering of today's Republican party.

Lets hope people like Powell, Ross Douthat, David Frum and others like them get the Republican party back on course.

Baghdad John

I'm sure you all remember Baghdad Bob - Saddam's minister of disinformation turned internet sensation - proclaiming that there were no American tanks in Baghdad while the 3rd Infantry Division was rolling down Hussein Avenue. Well it seems we now have our own American version - Baghdad John. As the Palin-McCain tanks of racism are rolling down Main Street, USA, Baghdad John is telling the world that he's running a respectful campaign. Another day, another appeal to racism by the McCain campaign, and another day where Baghdad John asserts that the campaign he's running differs from the reality on the ground.

From Karen Tumulty of Time:

With so much at stake, and time running short, Frederick did not feel he had the luxury of subtlety. He climbed atop a folding chair to give 30 campaign volunteers who were about to go canvassing door to door their talking points — for instance, the connection between Barack Obama and Osama bin Laden: "Both have friends that bombed the Pentagon," he said. "That is scary." It is also not exactly true — though that distorted reference to Obama's controversial association with William Ayers, a former 60s radical, was enough to get the volunteers stoked. "And he won't salute the flag," one woman added, repeating another myth about Obama. She was quickly topped by a man who called out, "We don't even know where Senator Obama was really born." Actually, we do; it's Hawaii.

The Frederick in the above anecdote is none other than the GOP Chairman of Virgina, Jeffrey M. Frederick. Not some low level volunteer. Not some maverick Maverick supporter spewing hate on his own time. This is the GOP Chairman of Virginia. You can email or call him here, if you so desire.

Now either John McCain is sincere in his desire to run a respectful campaign, but has no control over that campaign (disqualifying him from the presidency), or he is a bigot (disqualifying him from the presidency). And for those who bristle at the allegation that McCain is a racist, I will offer the following - if McCain doesn't want people to think he's a racist, then he should stop appealing to racism in his campaign. If McCain doesn't want people to think he's a racist, then he should stop defending his supporters that call Obama a "terrorist," a "traitor," and advocate killing him. If McCain doesn't want people to think he's racist, then he should stop looking the other way when supporter after supporter treat Obama's middle name as a pejorative term. If McCain doesn't want people to think he's a racist, then he shouldn't let his campaign Co-Chair - his campaign Co-Chair - call Obama "a guy of the street" and insinuate that he was a drug dealer. If McCain doesn't want people to think he's a racist, then he shouldn't unleash his running mate to incite rage and xenophobia resulting in racial outbursts towards the closest black person in the room. If McCain doesn't want people to think he's racist, then he shouldn't allow the invocation at a Palin-McCain rally to explicitly call for a defeat of the Hindu, Buddhist and Muslim people praying for Obama. If McCain doesn't want people to think he's a racist, then he shouldn't allow his supporters to send letters from Republican headquarters stating that "Obama is an Arab."

If McCain doesn't want people to think he's a racist, then he should stop his campaign from saying racist shit. And if Baghdad John doesn't want to become the joke that Baghdad Bob is, then he better start facing reality instead of creating his own.