public affairs

MoveOn.org and the Christian Coalition are joining forces in the cause of internet freedom! In fact, they’re taking out an ad together, with the headline:

When it comes to protecting the Internet, the Christian Coalition and MoveOn respectfully agree.

Wow, if that doesn’t make you think the world’s shaking at its foundations, nothing will.

In case you haven’t been following (or live outside the U.S., where it might not be in the news), forces in Congress are pushing hard for a law that will allow the big Internet companies like AT&T and Verizon to decide “which websites open most easily for you based on which site pays…more…. Many members of Congress take campaign contributions from these companies, and they don’t think the public are paying attention to this issue.” (Quotes from MoveOn.org.)

Opponents of this law are working hard to keep the Internet free and neutral, “So Amazon doesn’t have to outbid Barnes & Noble for the right to work more properly on your computer.”

The coalition SavetheInternet.com includes the Christian Coalition, MoveOn, Gun Owners of America, the ACLU, Craig from Craigslist, Free Press, small businesses, consumer advocates and musicians including Moby, R.E.M., the Indigo Girls, and the Dixie Chicks. (List of the coalition members.)

Update: a news flash on SavetheInternet’s web site says that “a bipartisan majority of the House Judiciary Committee passed the ‘Internet Freedom and Nondiscrimination Act of 2006’ — a bill that offers meaningful protections for Network Neutrality,” just today. Good news!

In a turn of events that I can only call bizarre, I find myself siding with the Bush administration against Senator Ted Kennedy on an issue involving energy policy and the environment. How weird is that? The issue is Cape Wind, a proposal to build a large farm of electricity-generating windmills in Nantucket Sound, off the coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Nantucket Sound is a windy place, and also part of New England, which badly needs new sources of clean, renewable energy. The problem, at least in some people’s minds, is that Nantucket Sound is a big tourist attraction. It’s also a place where a lot of wealthy people live, people who tend to own really nice sailboats. And a lot of those people don’t want a bunch of windmills messing up their view, even if they’ll be so far offshore as to be barely noticeable. I’m afraid Senator Kennedy is one of them. (Walter Cronkite was, too, for a while. Then he reversed his position and came out in favor of the project.)

Along comes Senator Stevens from Alaska who, as a political favor to Kennedy, slips a clause into the Coast Guard authorization bill, a clause that would give the governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney, also an opponent of Cape Wind, the right to veto the project. This is political hackwork, and it is unbecoming of Senator Kennedy to engage in it. It is also very bad energy policy. The project should stand or fall on its merits, not on political sleight of hand.

There are numerous environmental reasons to support the Cape Wind project, and even the Audubon Society, which initially expressed reservations due to possible hazard to birds, completed a study suggesting that the danger was not nearly as great as feared.

Usually a champion of environmental causes, and almost always a defender of the working class and the poor, Senator Kennedy has turned against the common good on this one. It breaks my heart, not only because I think this windmill farm is a good idea, but also because I have long trusted Ted Kennedy to defend the values of justice and fair play that I hold dear. But I fear he has left us on this one.

And who shows up to defend the project? The Bush administration! Have I landed on the Bizzaro Planet, or what? Are they getting involved in this just because they hate Kennedy? (They haven’t done anything else good for the environment that I can think of.) Well, whatever the reason, I have to stand with the Bush people on this one. They’re right.

I didn’t think I would ever hear those words coming out of my mouth. Aaaiiieeeee! Stop me before I say it again!

(I was planning to write next about an issue that is causing me to sharply criticize my Democratic senators, whom I have been supporting for years. That will have to wait.)

A couple of days ago, a friend asked me if I had heard anything in the news about President Bush planning to attack Iran. I said I hadn’t, and that I didn’t think even Bush was crazy enough to launch a new preemptive war while we were still trying to get out of the quagmire of Iraq. In the back of my mind, though, I remembered that Bush is controlled by aliens. (Scroll down for the entry on that, if you haven’t been following.) I meant that as a joke, at the time. Now, I’m not so sure. I was alerted to the following by an email from moveon.org.

Writing in this week’s New Yorker, Seymour Hersh asserts that the Bush administration is seriously planning for a massive bombing attack on Iran, allegedly to prevent Iran from enriching uranium, but as much as anything, to instigate regime change. Hersh writes:

One former defense official, who still deals with sensitive issues for the Bush Administration, told me that the military planning was premised on a belief that “a sustained bombing campaign in Iran will humiliate the religious leadership and lead the public to rise up and overthrow the government.” He added, “I was shocked when I heard it, and asked myself, ‘What are they smoking?'”

Among the options the civilian planners are seriously considering is the use of tactical nuclear weapons. Bunker busters. Nuke ’em before they can get nukes. Rummy and friends are no doubt planning to “minimize civilian casualties”—maybe by handing out umbrellas to keep the radioactive fallout off people’s heads?

Israel took out Iraq’s nuclear reactor, years ago, before it could be started up. They did it in a single air strike, and no nuclear materials were involved. Iran, on the other hand, has many of their facilities underground, and widely dispersed. If they’re already processing uranium, then attacking those facilities with nukes would probably result in significant fallout—both radioactive and political.

Again, here’s Hersh:

The Pentagon adviser questioned the value of air strikes. “The Iranians have distributed their nuclear activity very well, and we have no clue where some of the key stuff is. It could even be out of the country,” he said. He warned, as did many others, that bombing Iran could provoke “a chain reaction” of attacks on American facilities and citizens throughout the world: “What will 1.2 billion Muslims think the day we attack Iran?”

According to Hersh, it is the civilian planners, not the career military leaders, who are providing the impetus to this.

The attention given to the nuclear option has created serious misgivings inside the offices of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he added, and some officers have talked about resigning. Late this winter, the Joint Chiefs of Staff sought to remove the nuclear option from the evolving war plans for Iran—without success, the former intelligence official said….

The Pentagon adviser on the war on terror confirmed that some in the Administration were looking seriously at this option, which he linked to a resurgence of interest in tactical nuclear weapons among Pentagon civilians and in policy circles. He called it “a juggernaut that has to be stopped.” He also confirmed that some senior officers and officials were considering resigning over the issue. “There are very strong sentiments within the military against brandishing nuclear weapons against other countries,” the adviser told me. “This goes to high levels.”

I’ll stop trying to summarize the article, because you should all go read it. Read it, and when you’re finished banging your head against a wall, contact your Congress people.

The really scary thing is, I’m afraid Bush really believes he has been anointed by God to take charge in the Middle East. And if he continues to carry out a messianic crusade, Armageddon might not be so far behind. Or at least, a much more dangerous world.