Update: It’s ON. It’ll be somewhat disorganized, because I didn’t get enough response to reserve a private room, but WTH, we’re bloggers…we’re not supposed to be organized. See you at 7pm

Folks, let’s have dinner and a couple of Tsingtao’s and have some fun, regardless of our political affiliations, biases, prejudices, or lack thereof.

I’m going to suggest that we meet Saturday night at 7pm at Ocean Ave. Seafood, 747 N. Broadway, in Chinatown in downtown L.A.

That’s a good venue, because a key blogger may well be able to come join us there, but not further south. Plus I like their salt shrimp.

I’ll be there, wearing a really loud Hawaiian shirt, and whoever feels like joining me is more than welcome.

Leave a comment and let me know if you’re coming – that way I can try and get a block of tables or a private room, if there are enough of us.

It started in 2002 when I wrote something about Veteran’s Day over at Armed Liberal. Here’s what I wrote in ‘I Started To Write About Veteran’s Day…’:

…and to thank the veterans alive and dead for protecting me and mine.

And worried that what I wrote kept coming out sounding either too qualified or would be interpreted as being too nationalistic.

And I realized something about my own thinking, a basic principle I’ll set out as a guiding point for the Democrats and the Left in general as they try and figure out the next act in this drama we are in.

First, you have to love America.

This isn’t a perfect country. I think it’s the best county; I’ve debated this with commenters before, and I’ll point out that while people worldwide tend to vote with their feet, there may be other (economic) attractions that pull them. But there are virtues here which far outweigh any sins. And I’ll start with the virtue of hope.

The hope of the immigrants, abandoning their farms and security for a new place here.

The hope of the settlers, walking across Death Valley, burying their dead as they went.

The hope of the “folks” who moved to California after the war.

The hope of the two Latino kids doing their Computer Science homework at Starbucks’.

I love this country, my country, my people. And those who attack her…from guerilla cells, boardrooms, or their comfy chairs in expensive restaurants…better watch out.

I don’t get a clear sense that my fellow liberals feel the same way. And if so, why should “the folks” follow them? Why are we worthy of the support of a nation that we don’t support?

So let me suggest an axiom for the New Model Democrats:

America is a great goddamn country, and we’re both going to defend it from those who attack it and fight to make it better.

And for everyone who is going to comment and remind me that ‘all liberals already do that’…no they don’t. Not when the Chancellor has to intervene at U.C. Berkeley to get “permission” for American flags to be flown and red-white-and-blue ribbons to be worn. Not when the strongest voices in liberalism give lip service to responding to an attack on our citizens on our soil.

Loving this country isn’t the same thing as jingoism; it isn’t the same thing as imperialism; it isn’t the same thing as blind support of the worst traits of our government or our people.

It starts with recognizing the best traits, and there are a hell of a lot of them.

They were worth defending in my father’s time, and they are worth defending today.

So thanks, veterans. Thanks soldiers and sailors and marines and airmen. Thanks for doing your jobs and I hope you all come home hale and whole, every one of you.

Two years ago, I discussed why I felt that being progressive did not contradict being patriotic, and why even the most ardent American leftist could – and should – embrace American exceptionalism.

Last year, I explained my own journey from disdaining the men and women who serve in the military to honoring them, pointing to Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson as an example of what our military really is made of.

This year, I want to talk about what we owe the men and women serving today.

The war we are involved in has cost 2,000 of them their lives, and many others wounds from which they may never heal. It has cost others their jobs and families as the heavy use of reserves has disrupted many lives.

First and foremost we owe them simple care. It’s outrageous that bloggers are shilling to raise a few tens of thousands of dollars to buy voice-actuated laptops for the troops. It’s outrageous that more large businesses don’t support their reservists. I’ve turned a budget-minded eye to some cuts in VA care for aging veterans who have long since returned to civilian life, but the notion that freshly-wounded veterans of current wars lack for any care is offensive.

It’s a cost of making war.

Next, we owe them personal respect. Reactions to veterans in this war is more characterized by applause than opprobrium, and that’s a good thing. It is one thing to put out a flag on Veteran’s Day, and another to go out of one’s way to shake the hand of a soldier you happen to see at an airport. I’ve done them both, and both of them feel pretty good.

Next, we owe them some measure of understanding and forgiveness. Commenter JC recently posted a thread of comments which set out the basic premise that the horrible death dealt to a child – burned to death by U.S. weapons illegitimized the war. The child’s death is, to him made more horrible by the war’s illegitimacy – I pointed out to him that because he began from the premise that the war was morally wrong, any death was automatically inherently evil.

Our soldiers deal in death, and to paraphrase Patton, their job is not to die for their country, but to see that others die for theirs. We have, in this war gone to unprecedented lengths to spare the innocent, and to act militarily with a standard of care that would have been unthinkable twenty years ago, much less in World War II. To some, it’s still not enough.

That may be the case, and the merits of the war may well be subject to argument by reasonable people (as well as the unreasonable on both sides). But the men and women who bear the arms, drop the bombs, launch the missiles and shells are – with rare exceptions – blameless. If there is moral hazard in this war, let the politicians who decided it and the citizens – like me – who supported it bear that risk. The troops who bear the physical risk should be beyond that. As they bear the physical risk for us, we should bear the moral risk for them.

And finally and most of all, we owe the soldiers a level of seriousness in discussing matters of war that has been largely absent from the discussion in the last few years. Cheap partisan and ideological struggles have been played out around the issues of this war. Both sides – again – should look and feel guilty over what they have done in the name of political advantage and expediency.

Veteran’s Day is a simple day in which we – as a nation – express our gratitude to the veterans who have sacrificed, suffered, and risked for us. Acknowledging that requires three simple things:

* To acknowledge that there is an ‘us’ on whose behalf the veterans have served.

* To acknowledge that their service itself was an honor.

* To acknowledge that our nation – like all others – owes no small part of its existence, wealth, and freedom to the simple fact that we were (and I hope are) willing to defend it with the force of arms. We are born in blood, and live with bloody hands.

Finally, to acknowledge that last moral debt with a personal commitment to make that blood others have spent for us matter. To use our freedom, build our community, do something to create a future better than our present.

Honoring our veterans today is the right thing to do. Tomorrow, join them and offer some service yourself to make the country whose uniform they wear a better place – in any way you know how.

I’m bumping this, and will bump it once a day until Veteran’s Day this Friday.

– A.L.

Blackfive, the Paratrooper of Single-Malt Scotch, just announced a fundraising campaign for another very special campaign – Project Valor IT.

The project provides voice-actuated computers to wounded soldiers so they can send and receive emails and surf the web from the hospital.

Yes, those should be provided as a part of their government-paid care. But they’re not, and while we’re advocating it (I’ll be sending a letter to Rep. Harmon and my dovish Senators), the soldiers are still in need.

They are arranging an interservice competition; I’ll stand beside Blackfive and support the Army. A C-note is on the way via PayPal, and it’d be great if you’d go over to Blackfive donate as well.

Here’s something I just ran into in the L.A. Times – an obituary for C.P. Ellis.

Who’s C.P. Ellis?

C.P. Ellis, whose startling metamorphosis from Ku Klux Klan officer to civil rights activist was described in the 1996 book “Best of Enemies” and a subsequent documentary, “An Unlikely Friendship,” has died. He was 78.

Ellis died Thursday at Durham Regional Hospital in Durham, N.C., of undisclosed causes. He had suffered from Alzheimer’s disease and used a wheelchair in recent years.

The event that converted the city’s oft-praised “odd couple” from adversaries to allies was a 1971 community discussion session about the violence occurring as Durham tried to integrate its schools. Ellis and Atwater co-chaired the 10 days of 12-hour talks, forging not only the unusual friendship but profoundly changing Ellis’ deeply rooted segregationist thinking.

Ellis and Atwater had been such bitter foes that she once pulled a knife on him at a Durham City Council meeting, and Ellis brought a machine gun to their first 1971 discussion session.

They became such close comrades that, after the meetings, Ellis renounced his position as Exalted Grand Cyclops of the KKK, repudiated segregation and joined Atwater in working to desegregate the Durham school system.

You know, it’s things like this that make me doubt my own agnosticism. There is something good in each of us, and even in someone that I’d have thrown away, the evidence seems clear that there’s a reason not to.

Well, all the California propositions I opposed lost, but so did the ones I supported.

I’m pleased that there’s a large constituency for reform in California; but I’m obviously displeased that it’s not a big enough one to win.

The Governor’s ham-handed campaign had something to do with that. I’m working on a Veteran’s Day post for tomorrow, but shortly thereafter will try and lay out what should be some obvious principles that somehow got missed in the campaign.

This isn’t over. (I’m avoiding “we’ll be back,” but it’s really really hard to do so…)

I’ve been remiss in blogging about the initiatives, but stuff has been happening in my real life, so … sorry about that.

Let me wrap up some concise arguments on the remaining initiatives, and remind you that regardless of whether you’re voting right (like me!) or wrong, get out and vote tomorrow.

Mostly, vote for Prop 77, the anti-gerrymandering bill.Prop 76 sets out a complex set of caps on state government spending, and moves a significant amount of budgetary power to the executive.

I’m wrestling a bit with this one, because of there was ever a proposition that had “Unintended Consequences” spelled out in big red letters, this is the one. The notion of a mechanical set of limits on state policy (limiting spending is in fact limiting policy) kind of creeps me out.

But I’m more creeped out by the flat inability of multiple generations of state politicians to manage the budget.

So I’m a reluctant “yes” on this one. Even the Governor of Colorado – which recently modified a similar spending cap in an election last month – came out in support of it.

Prop 77 is to me the big one. I’ve railed for years about the habit politicians have of choosing their voters, and this is the first and best chance we have to make a change in this.

It’s not perfect, I’m sure that given an infinite amount of time we could do better, but the Democrats had a chance to work out a compromise with the Governator on this and failed, had a chance to mount their own competing vision for redistricting and failed.

This is the one to vote for if you don’t vote for anything else. Lots of reasonable people have come out against it because “it hurts Democrats.” I’m a Democrat (believe it or not) but I’m an American and a Californian first, and the notion that someone would suggest that doing something bad for my state or country is a good thing because it will help my party is flatly offensive to me.

Props 78 and 79 are Big Pharma’s and Big Law’s competing versions of how they will get the cost of drugs under control. Not an issue worth an initiative, and both are too badly flawed. No on both of them.

Prop 80 is an effort to have amateurs reregulate the electrical markets for the state. Nein, danke. That’s a big “no, thanks.”

So to recap:

Yes on 77. yes on 77, and yes on 77.

Yes on 76.

Yes on 75.

Yes on 74.

No on 73, 78, 79, and 80.

Josh Marshall has posted the rough draft of what he hopes will be the definitive Wilson scandal timeline. He’s asking for emendations and suggestions, and on reading it, one immediately comes to mind.

He says:

February 26, 2002:

# Wilson arrives in Niger. After meeting with the former Nigerian Prime Minister, the former Minister of Mines and Energy, and other business contacts, Wilson concludes that “it was highly unlikely that anything was going on.”

Hmmm. Let’s go to the record.
From Page 43 of the Senate report (pdf):

The intelligence report indicated that former Nigerian President Ibrahaim Mayaki was unaware of any contracts that had been signed between Niger and any rogue states for the sale of yellowcake while he was Prime Minister (1997 – 1999) or Foreign Minister (1996 – 1997). Mayaki said that if there had been any such contract during his tenure, he would have been aware of it. Mayaki said, however, that in June 1999, [redacted] businessman, approached him and insisted that Mayaki meet with an Iraqi delegation to discuss “expanding commercial relations between Niger and Iraq. The intelligence report said that Mayaki interpreted “expanding commercial relations” to mean that the delegation wanted to discuss uranium yellowcake sales. The intelligence report also said that “although the meeting took place, Mayaki let the matter drop due to the UN sanctions on Iraq.”

So Josh – how about amending the report to read that “Amb. Wilson was personally told that Iraqi agents were seeking uranium ore, but discounted the importance of the information” – ??

Let’s consider this a test; I’ve respected Josh as a good journalist who happens to be a passionate partisan. One side or the other will win out. I’ll email him and we’ll see.

For the record, my own view on the Fitzpatrick investigation was blogged here awhile ago:

I’ve stayed out of the swamp that is the Rove/Wilson/Plame game for the same reason I stay out of it when TG gets one of her speeding tickets, and is outraged, yes outraged that she has to go to court.

Yes, I know everyone does it, but that’s not going to do you much good in front of the judge when you’re explaining why the officer wrote you for 58 in a 40.

So yes, I know everyone talks to the press, and typically violates all kinds of policies up to and including secrecy, but there’s no way it doesn’t – at minimum – look bad when you’re the one caught doing it.

Aaron is having a competition for the Blogger Deck O’Cards.

I absolutely think that WoC should be the Jack of Hearts. First, because one of us (me) got married while blogging here, and then another of us (Joe) met the woman he’s going to marry at our wedding. I mean jeez, people, how much more “hearts” could you get?

Oh, and I have a secret fondness for the cheesy Dylan song as well…

I’ve been following the French papers a bit in keeping up on the riots in les banlieue.

And found an interesting thing today which I’m mulling over.

In Le Monde, an article discussing the politics around response to the riots mentions in passing that the public housing budget in the 2005 budget had been cut by 310 million euros.

L’annulation de 310 millions d’euros de crédits dans le budget 2005 (Le Monde du 5 novembre), affectés à l’insertion et au logement social dans les banlieues, ne peut que renforcer leur défiance. “Il est impératif que toutes les leçons soient tirées de ces émeutes. Autant sur les failles de la politique de la ville que sur l’organisation des services publics” , dénonçait, le 3 novembre, le Forum français des maires pour la sécurité urbaine (FFSU). Au fil des crises depuis un quart de siècle, la politique de la ville a en effet subi de multiples inflexions. Aux Grand Projets urbains du gouvernement Jospin de la fin des années 1990 a succédé “le programme national de rénovation urbaine” , mis en oeuvre depuis 2003, par Jean-Louis Borloo, ministre de la cohésion sociale. Au “traitement social” des banlieues dont la droite stigmatisait les échecs, s’est substitué un projet, certes ambitieux mais centré sur le logement et l’habitat.

The response of the French council of “mayors for urban security” was simple – the problem is both urban policy and the organization of social services to the public.
I’m going to dodge the issue of whether a dependent welfare class – confronted with a decline in the government’s commitment to fund their benefits – can be expected to react this way.

I’ll move directly to the meaty question:

In the face of national fiscal crises – and a dependent minority who has been in essence, pacified through generous welfare programs – what happens when you can’t afford those programs any more?

What is the social and political fallout of unintegrated minorities who can’t sustain themselves, and whose subsidies are being cut off?

Remember Yglesias’ notion that hope for democratic progress in Iraq had been defeated – not under challenge or at risk, but kaput?

Maybe not.

Iraqi blogger Ali, writing at Free Iraqi was concerned after the elections:

After the results of the January elections appeared, many Iraqis who were hoping for a democratic Iraq were discouraged. The results not only showed a significant dominance by the religious She’at parties but also gave a serious warning sign that democracy, while what the vast majority of Iraqis want, still may divide Iraq into three small countries or lead to a civil war given that the decades of oppression mainly directed towards the She’at and Kurds may cause these two to always vote along sectarian and ethnic lines, which subsequently would cause the Sunnis, who are till that time seemed to be living in the past and not accepting the fact that they’ve lost power, to vote similarly.

I myself was very discouraged during that time and started having serious doubts that democracy would ever work in Iraq. My best thoughts in the beginning were that we needed a civil war. I thought that it was probably inevitable once the Americans leave and may in the end convince everyone that the only way to succeed is to accept and tolerate each other instead of trying to dominate or isolate themselves. A couple of things gave me hope though, the fact that we have another election coming soon and that the elected government was doing terrible.

But then he reviews the current politics and politicians, and finds one he likes:

It may look strange to many that I consider a man like Mithal Al Alousi as a significant player in Iraq’s politics and it was even stranger months ago. There are reasons why I believe this guy will have a major effect on Iraq’s politics in the near future. While still not as well-known or popular as Allawi or even Chalabi, the man and since he was expelled by Chalbi from the “National Accordance” following his visit to Israel has been gaining support very rapidly. When he started his own party “The Democratic Iraqi Nation Party” a year ago he had only 1600 members in it. Today, only in Hilla he has 15000 registered members in his party. He’s a secular Sunni that gained a lot of support in the south among She’at. That’s something that gives hope. Moreover, and to me this is the most important point, he’s the only Iraqi politician who says it loud and clear all the time that Iraq’s interests lie in a strong strategic alliance with the United States and the free world, and people are not pushed away by that or by his visit to Israel for that matters but in fact it’s having the opposite effect!

and talk to his neighbors:

With these factors considered, the main element that will change Iraq’s fate remains by far the brave and smart Iraqis who may have followed their emotions in the start but that’s changing now. A committed Sunni relative of mine said to me while we were talking about the next elections and the general situation, “I’m sorry Ali, this time I won’t vote for you, I’ll vote either for Allawi or Mithal” I told him that we have joined Mithal and he seemed to be relieved that he was going to vote for someone he believes in and still not breaching his commitment to his family or tribe. He didn’t know how happy and optimistic he made me seeing that he was using his brain, not what traditions, sectarian or tribal laws tell him, to decide on what he thinks is good for him, his family and his country.

Check out his whole post. He’s not mindlessly saying “all is well;” he’s providing a ground-level view of what politics looks like.

And that’s what Iraq needs – politics to replace thug power. I deeply hope Ali helps bring it to be.