WINGNUTTV 8

In September I began tutoring, once a week, a Central American teen living at Bethany Christian Services. This teen, as do the others in Bethany's ESL program, have refugee status.  That is, they have legal status according to federal law.  But you wouldn't know that if you had watched our local WOODTV 8's hysterical dreck  "A Secret School for Illegal Immigrants."

I never watch local TV news (I let my mother-in-law fill me on local news--typically stories of crime and other lurid happenings), but a friend told me about this news story from a year ago September.  I accessed it a couple of weeks ago, but evidently WOODTV has since then taken it down from its Youtube site, though you can still see the trailer for the story here.

This "Target 8 Investigating" story was bad in so many ways, I'm not sure where to begin.  So I'll begin with this.  I talked with a Bethany employee about this news story, and she told me the reporters came under false pretenses.  Ostensibly, Channel 8 wanted to know about Bethany's work with what are known under federal law as Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC).  Actually, Channel 8 was after a story that would sensationalize the issue of undocumented immigrants.  So strike one, WOODTV, for irresponsible journalism.

Strike two? The title of the story. Bethany Christian Services is not a "secret school." It does not hide its work with refugee minors.  It just doesn't advertise it given that some of its minors are leery of the gangs that scared them out of their Central American country, or of the smugglers that helped them escape.  Moreover, they are not illegal as I noted earlier.  These students have legal status as refugees (under the title Unaccompanied Minor Refugees--a step up from UAC), and some even have green cards (Legal Permanent Residents--LPRs). The news story's title to my mind is libel.

Strike three. The voice-over narration. The male voice sounded like some reality show about undercover cops rather than a story about refugee minors. Melodrama and innuendo aren't journalism.

Strike four.  The claim that the Obama administration is secretly moving UACs into Michigan unbeknownst to Michiganders and its lawmakers. Apparently, it's only a secret to Michiganders and lawmakers that make no effort to do any research on the matter.  They may want to check out the Department of Homeland Security's website that explains the process regarding UACs, here (this took me a nanosecond to locate).

Strike five isn't really about WOODTV, but my district's congressional Representative, Justin Amash (who appears in the trailer).  He claims he's a libertarian, but why then would he argue against the free movement of people?  No doubt he's playing to the nativists in Michigan.

President Obama has said if Congress doesn't move on comprehensive immigration reform, he will issue another round of executive orders to give the eleven million or so undocumented immigrants a route to legal status, and to fix this problem:

We're deporting people that shouldn't be deported. We're not deporting folks that are dangerous and need to be deported.

No doubt, should he do this, there will be another round of hysteria about "amnesty." I wonder what the hallowed Ronald Reagan would say about all this? This is the president who signed the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act that granted amnesty to around three million, and, given family reunification policies, drew in many more immigrants.

Meanwhile, I'll continue to work with this not-so-secret school, tutoring a very legal immigrant minor. A fine young man that has fled gang violence that, in part, my compatriots have encouraged--with their voracious demand for illicit drugs. A young man who suffers from migraines due to the stress of adjusting to life here, and missing his family. A young man who dreams of going to college for an engineering degree. I am happy to help him.

War! Huh...Why bother declare it, yeah...

Thanksgiving, 1993 (I think), in our
Astoria, Queens apartment.

A colleague and friend of mine, Andy Grossman, had an interesting take on Representative Doug Lamborn's (R-CO) suggestion that generals who disagree with Obama's response to ISIS (or ISIL) should resign en masse.

Before I relate what Grossman said, a word about him.  And this will be quite a digression.  I first met Andy in grad school, in a survey course on International Relations.  We soon got the nickname "reactionary corner," apparently because we took realist positions among students who tended to be far left, and for whom realism is anathema (I should add that this label was given and received with good humor, and I'll say that we both shared, and share, the most unrealist concern with the impact of warmaking on democratic practices).  Anyway, Andy and I became friends, and we and a cluster of others began doing Thanksgiving together and summer croquet parties.

Andy finished his PhD long before I did, and secured a position at Albion College (Albion, Michigan), where he still teaches today.  He soon turned his dissertation into a book, Neither Dead nor Red, a very fine account of the origins of Civil Defense, framed as a strand of US political development.

I finally finished in 2000 and took a visiting position at Wabash College (Crawfordsville, IN). This one-year position turned into an extended one, and there was talk of converting my position to tenure-track.  In my fourth year, it became clear this wasn't going to happen.  I wasn't cut out for an institution with the unspoken rule that if you can't cheerlead for all male education, then keep your trap shut (its laughable slogan back then was "Boys go to college, men go to Wabash).  That said, I learned a great deal from fellow faculty there about teaching, the college fully supported my efforts to develop innovative curriculum, and I got to work with many fine students.  Still, I was out of work in the summer of 2005.  I'd been on market for a tenure-track position almost every year while there, had landed some interviews, but no luck.

2012.  A little party at Kim Geiger's home to
celebrate AG's promotion to full professor and
my successful bid for tenure.

This is where Andy Grossman comes back into the story.  He basically saved my academic ass.  One of the faculty in his department--political science--was moving to another institution, and he was able to offer me a visiting position.  That turned into a three year stint.  They were three great years of almost daily chats with Andy and others in the department about teaching and our research interests.  Still, it wasn't tenure-track.  So I was back on the market for three more years (a grueling process, let me tell you).  When I finally got an offer from Grand Valley State University (GVSU), Albion College countered with its own offer.  What a conundrum.  Take a position that allows me to be a Latin Americanist again, or stay with colleagues I really enjoyed?  After much deliberation, I accepted the GVSU offer.  Serendipitously, this turned out to be the right move.  Albion College, struggling financially, soon thereafter released numerous tenure-track faculty.

So, a shout out to Andy Grossman for resuscitating my professional life.  And now back to the topics of this posting: War, the US military, the Commander-in-Chief.

Another friend from grad school days, Kim Geiger, sent Andy Grossman a short piece titled "GOP congressman says he's urging American generals to resign rather than follow president's orders" (see also Tom Ricks' relevant commentary here). Here's what Grossman had to say in response.

I had not heard about this. A nice spin on this would be as follows. If generals disagree with the commander in chief, they should first resign. After said resignation, these now retired generals then can do as they please since they are now a citizens. They cannot disobey the President (in most cases--an order to commit genocide or other "crimes against humanity" would be grounds for disobeying the President) in uniform.

So here is what I think this Congressman and others are saying: if you are given an order or mission to "degrade and destroy" X--and if you deeply believe as a member of the military that this cannot be done in the fashion or within the guidance of the civilian leadership's parameters, you must resign. To carry out a policy you do not believe in is dangerous for a number of tactical and strategic reasons. From what I hear and read, almost nobody among officer corps believes it is possible to carry out the President's goals (as he enumerated them a few weeks ago) without actually using a lot of US military forces in Syria on the ground. So in this sense, generals that do NOT agree with the President must resign. What they cannot do--and if they do they should be relieved of duty and subjected to courts martial ASAP--is to disagree IN UNIFORM or to engage in the subversion of the civilian leadership's orders.

So a benign reading of the congressman's claims can actually be made, and I would support them. But is the Congressman thinking along these line of civil-military relations in a liberal democracy? I have no idea. I think to go war based on AUMF [Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists] passed on October 12, 2001 is illegal. I support the goal of destroying ISIL militarily and with brutal force, and no apologies, but as of now we are, in my view, in an extra-constitutional war that has two parties responsible: The President of the United States and the Congress of the United States. I care more about the Constitution being followed than a supposed existential threat to national security when we go to war. I also believe in a draft, higher taxes to fight such wars, and most important, an official declaration of war. Absent that, no war.

I so agree.  And I'm reminded of President Johnson's presidency.  Of course Barack Obama's presidency won't end like Lyndon Johnson's--a one-term residency due to the justly vilified Vietnam war.  But I truly, truly hope we won't end up with the same tragedy.  As the GOP Eisenhower administration initiated our involvement in Vietnam, with the Demorats Kennedy and Johnson deepening it, so has GOP George W. Bush planted us in a Middle East quagmire, with the Democrat Obama unable or unwilling to extricate us.  Where is Congress on this?  Where are ordinary Americans? Shopping, partying, etc.

Post Inaugural Hangover?

The New York Times today reports that some Republican members in Congress are rethinking the absolutist stands they have been taking.

“We’re too outnumbered to govern, to set policy,” said Representative John Fleming, a Louisiana Republican who has taken confrontational postures in the past. “But we can shape policy as the loyal opposition.”

Even my Tea Party Rep, Justin Amash, is sobered:

“The public is not behind us, and that’s a real problem for our party,” said Representative Justin Amash of Michigan, a Republican who has clashed with his party’s leadership.

It's too bad more GOP Reps didn't come to the same conclusion a few years ago.  If they had, then maybe Congress might have been able to accomplish more, and be viewed more favorably by the public.  According to Public Policy Polling:

Congress is now less popular than root canals, NFL replacement referees, head lice, the rock band Nickelback, colonoscopies, carnies, traffic jams, cockroaches, Donald Trump, France, Genghis Khan, used-car salesmen and Brussel sprouts.

Still, Democrats have contributed to that lack of popularity.  A Gallup poll last August reported that views of their party were slightly worse than that of Republicans.

In short, Democrats had better stay sober, too.

Upset People Produce Brown Upset

Politico.com headlines it's announcement of the Brown win in Massachusetts special election"Forces of change." Seems to me that backers of Brown voted for the status quo--no change in healthcare. And given that Senate procedures now make supermajorities required to get anything done, Massachusetts voters have now made the representation of the majority will moot, along with adding another voice to Congress that will spout the patriotic cant that torture is not torture when Americans do it, the urban legend that global warming is a hoax, and the nativist rhetoric criminalizing low-paid immigrant workers. Imhofe will have a friend.

But, that's what Madison and Hamilton and other founding fathers bequeathed us. A political structure designed to thwart majority will and allow only incremental change--except, curiously, in the area of foreign policy, where our government has engaged in radical imperial ventures, for which our elected representatives have tolerated a drastic expansion of executive powers. And the majority has gone along with those ventures, at least until too many dead start coming home. I wish Madison could see us now; I wonder what he'd say?

Another thing. Check out the sign in the picture: "It's our turn for a change." "Our turn?" Just one year under a Democratic President and Congress and Republican and independent voters act as if they've been marginalized for decades? Since 1980, the first time I was able to cast a vote for president, I've lived under 20 years of GOP presidents (Reagan, Bush Sr., Bush Jr.) and 9 under a centrist Democrat (Clinton) and the current (pragmatic?) Democrat. The GOP either had parity with the Dems or the majority in the Senate from 1999-2008 and in the House the GOP had the majority from 1995-2006. I know, it's the reeling economy that's given voters the jitters about the party in power, and I agree that there are lot of valid concerns about health care, environmental, and immigration reform, but, please, opponents of Obama, stop acting as if you're long-suffering victims of liberal Democratic domination.