One of the issues I have with terrorism – as opposed to warfare (even guerilla warfare) – is that it must be corrosive to the souls of those who practice it, and I wonder often how easy it might be to step back from a position ankle-deep in the blood of innocents and rejoin the human community.

The history of the PA, or the IRA stand as good examples of that; the ‘Rafia’ tag that the IRA is now given by some in Ireland stands as a good example of how decent people – people who believe in peace, civil society and the rule of law – see them.

Much of what I’d banked my positions in the Israel-Palestine conflict, and the greater conflict with the Islamists on was my belief that the Arab world was full of decent people (as defined above) who had been cowed into silence by the thugs who had taken control of their governments and streets.

Today, in Iraq, Lebanon, and Ireland, we’re seeing the decent people as they rise up.

I’m working on a long post about the crisis in liberalism, based in part on having just re-read Theodore Lowi’s “The End of Liberalism” which I pulled off the shelf when it called to me…

…but TG reminds me that today is our 1^st anniversary and we have better things to do.

So I’ll leave you with a Lowi quote:

The most clinically accurate term to describe the American variant is interest group liberalism. It may be called liberalism because it expects to use government in a positive and expansive role, it is motivated by the highest sentiments, and it posesses strong faith that what is good for government is good for the society. It is “Interest group liberalism” because it sees as both necessary and good that the policy agenda and the public interests be defined in terms of the organized groups in society.

– p. 71

There’s a lot here to work with… especially in the “Era of the Armed Liberal,” as Austin Bay puts it.

In the latest blog game, bold the states you’ve been to, underline the states you’ve lived in and italicize the state you’re in now…

Alabama / Alaska / Arizona / Arkansas / California / Colorado / Connecticut / Delaware / Florida / Georgia / Hawaii / Idaho / Illinois / Indiana / Iowa / Kansas / Kentucky / Louisiana / Maine / Maryland / Massachusetts / Michigan / Minnesota / Mississippi / Missouri / Montana / Nebraska / Nevada / New Hampshire / New Jersey / New Mexico / New York / North Carolina / North Dakota / Ohio / Oklahoma / Oregon / Pennsylvania / Rhode Island / South Carolina / South Dakota / Tennessee / Texas / Utah / Vermont / Virginia / Washington / West Virginia / Wisconsin / Wyoming / Washington D.C /

Go HERE to have a form generate the HTML for you.

I’m definitely a purple kind of guy…

As of 1:45 PM Pacific time, here are the topics on the democrats.org site; the official site of the Democratic National Committee:

The Bush Budget Disaster

Take Action to Protect Social Security

DNC Launches New Radio Ads to Air During Bush Social Security Tour

Listen to the ads…
Read more about “Heartland”…
Read more about “Cuts”…
Read more about “Familias”…

Today on the Blog

Your interview with Gov. Dean: The answers: Governor Dean has answered your questions.

The fight to protect ANWR continues: For the last four years, Democrats have stood up and protected the wildlife reserve from President Bush and his cronies in the energy industry.

Your interview with Gov. Dean: Governor Howard Dean is going to give a high profile interview — and it’s with you. Submit your question today by clicking here and then return on Friday, March 11 to read his answers to this online interview with our grassroots supporters.

DNC Headlines

Mar 10, 2005: The DNC Launches Radio Ad Against Bush

Mar 10, 2005: Bush Wants to Shore Up His Base…of Republicans in Congress

Mar 10, 2005: Republican vs. Republican Part II

Mar 9, 2005: Governor Dean Statement on the Election of Doris Matsui

I know what I’d like to be asking Gov. Dean.

Why doesn’t the word “bankruptcy” appear anywhere on this page?

And how the hell could you have laid down and rolled over for the bankruptcy bill? If there was ever a bully pulpit to stand behind and use to point out the corporatist flaws of the GOP, this was it.

Note that I’m not opposed to government actions that help corporations; sometimes what’s good for G.M. is actually good for America.

But this was such a clear-cut case of taking from the weak and giving to the rich with no public purpose except giving more to those that have that my head is swimming.

And the missed opportunity for the Democrats to define themselves – by challenging irresponsable and rapacious lending as much as they are challenging irresponsable borrowing – boggles my mind.

Even if their side was doomed to go down to defeat, this was a place to make a public stand, and the failure to make that stand is more than a little puzzing to me.

…if you’ve sent email to me at the ‘armed’ address in the last month. Somehow the mail server and spam filter interacted in such a way that about 10% of the mail go through, and 90% didn’t.

The servers responsible have been flogged. I’ll catch up on the 800 mail messages over the next few days, and then have myself flogged for not paying better attention.

I’m normally not a fan of hyperpartisan Atrios (who is sadly part of the marching-over-the-cliff wing of the Democratic Party), but he’s got a great roundup of Senators to contact and how to contact them if you’re unhappy (as you should be) with the bankruptcy bill.

Click over and make some phone calls. (Calls are better than emails, by the way…)

Commenter John Thacker points me to a London Times article showing Bush doing a smart and moral thing.

Henry Farrell had suggested, and I approved of, the notion of Bush disinviting the Sinn Fein to the St. Patrick’s day celebration at the White House. He’s done that and more:

The sisters and the fiancée of a Catholic man said to have been murdered by the IRA will be fêted by President Bush in the White House on St Patrick’s Day as part of a strategy calculated by Washington to isolate Gerry Adams, the Sinn Fein leader.

Paula McCartney and her four sisters, as well as Bridgeen Hagans, who was to marry Robert McCartney this summer, will fly to Washington on March 15 to highlight their campaign to bring his killers to justice.

Good for him.

Josh Marshall has spun off an excellent temporary blog on the travesty of the new bankruptcy bill.

I’m strongly opposed to this, but resigned to it’s passage. The venal residents of Democratic SkyBoxland are too busy tongue-kissing the bought-and-paid for residents of the Grand Owned Party on this issue. Here’s a case where there are real issues – the casual washing away of debt – that need to be addressed, but not by indenturing whole classes of people to finance companies that are as culpable for bad underwriting as the borrowers are for irresponsibility.A bill that stood on three legs:

* Borrower responsibility, shared by borrowers of all economic classes;
* Lender responsibility, in limiting the fines and penalties on distressed borrowers, and in tightening underwriting requirements and marketing regulations to make it harder for lenders to push credit on people, and raise the rates to usurious levels if a payment is missed.
* Realistic provisions for health and other genuine personal disasters

…would be a good bill.

And the reality is that this is a disaster for the Democratic Party. Why??

Because instead of standing for something – the powerless against the powerful – they regularly sell out. See my old post about Kos’ client, Rep. Jim Moran, who took a personal loan of $447,000 from MBNA four days before he signed on as a lead sponsor of the bill.

This kind of thing makes it damn hard to stand up and point fingers where and when they should be pointed.

But hey, as long as the contibutions and consulting contracts keep coming in, that’s OK, right?

I’m actually thinking about canceling my subscription to the L.A. Times this morning.

Why?

Because, as the straw the broke the camel’s back, this morning there’s a Ted Rall comic in the Opinion section. Rall is a litigious hypocrite, who never met a better human being he couldn’t sue or slander.

I’ll give myself a couple hours to think about it, and then probably give them a call and drop an email. I know it’ll deprive me of a key source of blog material, but that just means I’ll have to work harder on things.

TG is holding Hearns, our 18-year old cat, who has been dying all day.

Actually, she’s been dying for a week, refusing food and barely able to take water; we’ve been giving her IV fluids for most of a year, and we stopped yesterday. She doesn’t seem to be in any discomfort, but hasn’t had the strength to move for a day or so now.

Littlest Guy and I dug a small grave for her in the yard this morning, and talked about what it meant to have responsibility for another living thing.