Obsidian Wings

This is not the post I wanted to write

by Doctor Science

I wanted to do a round-up of the recent surge in Republican/conservative attacks on abortion.

• A Catholic hospital de-Catholic-ed for saving a woman's life with an abortion


• An Idaho pharmacist who cited the "conscience clause" in refusing to fill a prescription to control bleeding -- because the Rx was coming from Planned Parenthood, apparently.


• The many-faceted attacks of H.R.3, the "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act.
  
  • HR3 originally included a provision to restrict the "rape exception" of the Hyde Amendment to "forcible rape" (or what Whoopi Goldberg calls "rape rape"), but that has been dropped.
  
  
  • For over a week, Sady Doyle has been blogging, twittering, and organizing against HR3. She was big force behind making it not re-define rape, and she's not stopping. The bill also affirms "conscience" clauses -- now extended to include a hospital's right to refuse to save a woman's life.


• Anti-abortion activists tried to scam Planned Parenthood by pretending to be child traffickers. PP reported them to prosecutors immediately after the visits, but somehow this is supposed to make PP look bad, anyway.


• I would be more surprised that those activists were willing to cynically exploit child sex trafficking (as though it's something that doesn't deserve to be treated seriously), except that Republicans have been blocking the Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking Deterrence and Victims Support Act of 2010. The deeply conservative Concerned Women for America opposed the bill because they think child sex slaves should be arrested as criminals, not supported as victims.


• The return of the back alley

There's lots more, but I'll stop for the moment.

Now, the post I wanted to write was about abortion, sexuality, and women's rights in America -- but I realized that that post and the ensuing discussion would fall apart into derailing flames without *another* post, first. This is my post about some premises.

I can only call a person or organization "anti-abortion" if they are also pro-contraception.

Walk Like An Egyptian

by Gary Farber

Blender:

Robert Fisk:

Exhausted, scared and trapped, protesters put forward plan for future.   [...] Sitting on filthy pavements, amid the garbage and broken stones of a week of street fighting, they have drawn up a list of 25 political personalities to negotiate for a new political leadership and a new constitution to replace Mubarak's crumbling regime.

They include Amr Moussa, the secretary general of the Arab League – himself a trusted Egyptian; the Nobel prize-winner Ahmed Zuwail, an Egyptian-American who has advised President Barack Obama; Mohamed Selim Al-Awa, a professor and author of Islamic studies who is close to the Muslim Brotherhood; and the president of the Wafd party, Said al-Badawi.

Sights:

 

Fisk again:

12 Days and Counting

by Fiddler

I've been watching the coverage of the protests in Egypt on Al Jazeera and CNN the last few days. Throughout this, it's impossible to avoid seeing varying levels of relationship between Egypt and the United States.

I'm glad that the Egyptian Army has refused to fire on protesters. Instead of shooting, army officers are trying to persuade the protesters to go home and resume normal life, on the 12th day of protests. It's not working too well; people keep coming back to the crowd despite the last few days' violence.

For the past two days, while Obama, British Prime Minister David Cameron (whom I saw on Al Jazeera) and others have pushed for an orderly transition of power, the pro-Mubarak forces have done their best to crush protest with clubs, machetes, and any force possible, even while military personnel in the streets have stood aside to let these armed enforcers past. I'm not sure how the army justifies this as non-interference with the protesters.

We Control The Horizontal

by Gary Farber

Appearances matter.  To control information is to control.  "Don't judge a book by its cover" is a popular saying that will cause anyone who sells books or works in publishing to ROFl ("roll on the floor laughing"), because it's exactly what people do, though no one wants to admit to doing it.  It's always someone else.

In Egypt, we're seeing this play out. Mubarak intensifies press attacks with assaults, detentions:

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak unleashed an unprecedented and systematic attack on international media today as his supporters assaulted reporters in the streets while security forces began obstructing and detaining journalists covering the unrest that threatens to topple his government.

Democracy Now!

 

[...]

In the past 24 hours alone, CPJ has recorded 30 detentions, 26 assaults, and eight instances of equipment having been seized. In addition, plainclothes and uniformed agents reportedly entered at least two hotels used by international journalists to confiscate press equipment. On Wednesday, CPJ documented numerous earlier assaults, detentions, and confiscations. Mubarak forces have attacked the very breadth of global journalism: Their targets have included Egyptians and other Arab journalists, Russian and U.S. reporters, Europeans and South Americans.

The Mubarak Moment II: An American Duty

Guest Post by Benjamin Orbach

When I lived in Cairo in 2003, I was in on the ground floor of the protests in Liberation Square at the start of Iraq War. I took pictures, I wrote an oped, and there is a chapter in Live from Jordan about the event. The security forces roughed up some protestors that day, but the whole thing was a sham. Egyptians were upset about the war, but no one cared enough to stop working, to stop eating at McDonalds, or really to alter their lives in any meaningful way.

The opposite is true in Egypt, today. Tunisians showed Egyptians what was possible in 2011, and Egyptians, long the standard-bearer of the Arab World in so many ways, couldn’t bear to live with the shame of the Mubarak regime any longer. Hundreds of thousands of people, if not a couple million people, have taken their lives into their hands to challenge the repressive authority.

At this point in the standoff, it is clear that the regime has made its internal deals and that succession has passed over Mubarak’s son. The military – Egypt’s strongest institution – would have been shamed by the father passing the baton to his son. Egyptians are proud of their history and the turning of their faux-Republic into a Syrian-styled family business would not have been acceptable. This democratic moment preempted that discomfort for the military, and its mission is accomplished. While not securing his son’s throne must surely have been a bitter pill for Mubarak, his redline is undoubtedly a refusal to die in exile as a banished villain, to be sent away like a 21^st Century version of King Farouk.  The regime has dug in, and the brass has little stake in a continued confrontation.

At the same time, these Egyptian everyday heroes have lived a dream this past week. They’ve come together in the power of numbers, bound by common frustrations and propelled by common hopes. When the protests first began, they never could have hoped to gather this type of lasting attention and to win back such dignity. They’ve been kicked for years and they finally stood up and said no more. Their movement has morphed, though, from making a show of pride to changing the reality of their country and the way their government operates.

Egyptians are on the cusp of changing the very premise of what is possible. That’s intoxicating. It is light and fresh air in a teeming, dark basement. This isn’t regime change from the turret of an American tank; rather it could be a renaissance of Egyptians’ own creation.

But it is a fine line between dreams and nightmares. Together, Egyptian demonstrators are safe. Alone, they will suffer. If the plain-clothes thugs who are beating protestors at this very moment succeed in clearing Liberation Square without a formal political transition in place, then it will all end. There will be no promise of that better tomorrow. Instead, there will be the lurking fear of the knock on the door. Bloggers, Facebook posters, and photographed protestors – they’ll all be vulnerable without the strength of numbers.

Egypt has one of the most notorious prison systems in the Arab World. Many contend that the ideology of al Qaeda was spawned in Egypt’s prisons, where Islamist dissidents were tortured and radicalized further. That style of abuse is what falling short of the dream means.

Yesterday, I co-wrote an oped about this moment as an opportunity for Israelis, about how those who live in a democracy need to support those who are willing to die for democracy. This isn’t just about Israelis, though; it is about us as Americans. There is no question that Egypt is an integral strategic partner to the United States, and foreign policy is based upon interests, not sentimentality. As long as Egyptians were content to go about their everyday lives and not to seek change – as was the case in 2003 – then I didn’t have much of a problem with the practicalities of having to deal with a dictator. But people are dying in the streets to remove that dictator, and journalists are being beaten and arrested to clear the scene of witnesses.

Tomorrow, after Friday prayer, will be a big day. Without the protection of the White House, I don’t think the pro-democracy forces will tip the balance.

There are times when we have to ask what side of history do we want to be on? Supporting human rights and governing democratically are pillars of the identity we espouse as a country. You can argue that we risk strategic interests and stability as related to Iraq, the Suez Canal, and Israel by siding with democratic change in this case. I argue that we risk losing the very character of who we are, any claim to American exceptionalism, if we don’t support our friends who are risking their lives, en masse, for their rights.

To live in a democracy is a privilege and a responsibility. As citizens, we have a duty to support others who are actively struggling for that same privilege and responsibility. Contact the White House, post on Facebook, stop what you are doing for five minutes, and do something to support the citizens of Egypt.

Benjamin Orbach is the author of Live from Jordan and the Director of the America’s Unofficial Ambassadors initiative at Creative Learning.

The Mubarak Moment: An Opportunity for Israelis

Guest Post by Benjamin Orbach & Samir I Toubassy

It is hard to believe that Israelis are watching the scenes from Cairo with anything but dread. Yet, the Arab Awakening has presented Israelis with an opportunity to secure their place in the Middle East.

The Arab-Israeli conflict has led many Israelis to believe that armed struggle for their existence is an enduring fact of life. Israel’s wars have evolved from existential to territorial over the last sixty years, but competing narratives and the experience of Jewish history have created a siege mindset. Israel’s peace with Egypt has solidified its security and contributed to an economic boon, but it has not relieved that siege mentality. Though dubbed the “cold peace,” peace with Egypt has enabled Israel to face threats to the north and to curtail weapons smuggling into Gaza. The uncertainty in Egypt is bound to send tremors through Israel.

For decades, America has looked at the governments of the Arab World and seen stability. There have been flare-ups in the form of intifadas and bread riots, but the Arab World’s 20^th Century dictators have enabled access to oil and passage through Suez. They have spoken of peace and cooperated on terrorism, all the while keeping the lid on tight at home. The 9/11 attack was like the first scents of a gas leak; we saw that regimes’ degradation of citizens’ rights, opportunities, and dignity would eventually lead to an explosion.

That explosion occurred in Tunisia and has turned into a mushroom cloud in Egypt. It is inevitable that the mushroom cloud will drive Mubarak from office if not today, than on a soon to come tomorrow. In Damascus, Sanaa, and Amman, people are watching and waiting – there is no tourniquet for the Internet.

The new order that is being tweeted from North Africa is definitive in what it is against – human rights transgressions, corruption, and dictators’ security forces – but not yet clear on the issues that it will coalesce around. It is easier to oppose something than to build it, and today’s protestors will spend years figuring out how they want to build.

As the Arab World works through these issues, where does that leave Israel, its long time foil?

Israel, too, bought into the logic of a pharaoh and his subjects. Israel has claimed the mantle of the region’s lone democracy for decades, but it has done little to speak for the civic and human rights of its neighbors. Rather, Israel has sought peace agreements with its neighbors’ rulers, rulers who would dictate to their people the terms of an Arab-Israeli co-existence.

As the status quo in the Middle East begins to fracture, there is an opportunity for Israel to change its approach. Certainly peace agreements have not lost their value – if there was ever a region that needed to spend more on education and employment and less on defense, it is the Middle East and North Africa. However, Arab democracies are not going to normalize relations with Israel as long as Israel occupies Palestinian lands, enacts human rights abuses, and in effect, sides with Hosni Mubarak over the Egyptian people.

Israelis should seize upon the potential of democratic systems and aspirations to build peace. They should ask themselves whether the occupation of the West Bank is consistent with the principles of the democratic state they have strived so hard to build. The threat of the future is not a land invasion from Iraq that will be slowed by settlement and military outposts, but the human rights hurricane that will come from within, that has brought together one million Egyptians. Israel will face a Mubarak-like quandary when (not if) Palestinians protest non-violently for their own state or for Israeli citizenship. As long as suicide bombers stay home, who believes that South American and European countries won’t recognize the state of Palestine, and the Netanyahu Government won’t be the casualty of this new order?

This is a watershed democratic moment and the time for Israelis to demonstrate their credentials. With placards that call for human rights in Cairo, Beirut, and Ramallah, they should gather in the hundreds of thousands in Rabin Square. They should advocate for a “just peace,” i.e. a peace that works for both parties and not a signed surrender that legitimizes the largest land grab.

Israelis should understand, that as citizens of a democracy, their place in the Middle East is with the demonstrators in Cairo, not the crumbling authoritarian order. Those Egyptians aren’t killers who want to throw them into the Mediterranean. They are oppressed citizens. They want the kind of dignity and a relationship of equals that Israelis expect from their government.

A month ago, Hosni Mubarak was securing his son’s succession. Today, he is figuring out how to live out his last years, in freedom, in Egypt. Israel is the strongest country in the Middle East. From a position of strength, it can cast its lot with the people of its region and take a significant step towards building peace. Things can change quickly; Israelis shouldn’t miss the Mubarak moment.

Benjamin Orbach is the author of Live from Jordan, and the Director of the America’s Unofficial Ambassadors initiative at Creative Learning. Samir I Toubassy is a 2010 Senior Fellow at the Advanced Leadership Initiative at Harvard University.

De Nile Truly Is A River

by Gary Farber

There are many expert reporters on Egypt, obviously, and tons of scholars.  But let's start with the excellent generalist on international policy that everyone has, I hope,  been reading for many years -- and if you haven't you should start last year or whenever -- Laura Rozen. Some good news and bad news:

Earlier today, I was on a panel discussing coverage of the Egypt unrest, and someone mentioned that no one had seen it coming.

But that is not the case. Several foreign policy scholars and former officials have been urging the U.S. administration for months to prepare for the end of the Hosni Mubarak era and the instability that would accompany it.

Now that the administration has found itself scrambling the past few days to, first, try to avert a bloodbath in Egypt and more broadly, figure out what to do amid a hugely complicated power transition there with much at stake for the U.S., it's worth noting the people who have been pleading for policy attention on this issue long in advance. Chief among them, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace's Michele Dunne, a former NSC and State Department Policy Planning official, and the Brookings Institution's Robert Kagan, who co-chair a bipartisan working group on Egypt.

I (and others) wrote about their efforts to get the U.S. policy community to pay attention. See "W.H. pressed on Egypt democracy," from September:

Egypt

by Jacob Davies

Let's talk about it. Everyone else is, after all.

Mother Jones has a good recap, obviously there are plenty of other news stories and opinions out there, feel free to link to them in comments.

Do not mistreat or oppress a foreigner, for you were foreigners in Egypt

by Fiddler*

Do not mistreat or oppress a foreigner, for you were foreigners in Egypt. (Exodus 22:21)

In Arizona, where anti-immigration fever appears to be burning hotter among hardline Republicans than the Sonora Desert in August, the state legislature is considering yet another bill targeting illegal immigrants. This one is designed to deny citizenship to the children of illegal aliens. But its purpose reaches beyond state borders.

The 14th Amendment guarantees citizenship to "all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof."

It was adopted in 1868 after the U.S. Civil War to ensure citizenship for former African-American slaves.

The immediate aim of the [Arizona] legislation "is to trigger ... a Supreme Court review of the phrase 'subject to the jurisdiction thereof' in the 14th amendment," [Arizona state representative] Kavanagh told Reuters in a telephone interview.

It ultimately seeks "to deny citizenship to any child born of parents who are not citizens of the United States, be they illegal aliens, or foreigners on business or for tourist purposes," he added.

This bill is being pushed by Kris Kobach, the "anti-immigration architect", who served as chief immigration advisor in the Justice Department during John Ashcroft's tenure.

In the absence of congressional action, Kobach is after what he says is the best alternative: ÒPeople often see federal immigration policy as a dichotomy between amnesty and deportation. But the most rational approach is a third one: you ratchet up the enforcement so that people make their own decisions to start following the law.Ó In other words, take away the reasons people come to America illegallyÑeducation, work, housing, and, yes, citizenship for their kidsÑand, Kobach says, they will Òself-deport.Ó

This isn't just happening in Arizona. Other states where Republicans hold majorities in state government are considering similar bills, but some are finding that it's not as easy, economically beneficial or practical as they thought.

In Indiana, a similar bill has been introduced; along with targeting suspected immigrants for status checks, it requires the use of the English language in state business, eliminating the current use of Spanish as well. It would also shut down businesses that hired illegal immigrants.

In Florida, a similar proposal has been scaled back, so that status checks on legal citizenship could only be done if the person in question is being investigated for criminal wrongdoing. However, Florida's businesses are lobbying against the bill, citing damage to the state's tourist industry and business climate. Quoting from the second link:

...During a special Senate committee meeting in Tallahassee on Monday, representatives from the Florida Chamber of Commerce shared a report examining the impact of immigration on the state's economy.

Among the key points:

Immigration boosts productivity, improves the economy and has a small positive impact on the wages of native-born workers.

Despite the perception that the United States is being overwhelmed by immigrants, the inflow of legal and illegal immigrants "is well within historical norms," data shows.

Though unauthorized immigrants cost the state money in terms of education and criminal justice, many studies demonstrate a net positive impact on the economy and tax revenues.

"The immigrants that come to the United States come to work," said Dale Brill, president of the Florida Chamber Foundation and co-author of the report.

The numbers tend to ebb and flow with the economy. He pointed to research that shows the 10 states with the highest concentration of immigrants between 1960 and 1990 had a median unemployment rate that was lower than the 10 states with the fewest immigrants....

In Kentucky, questions arise as to where illegal immigrants would be jailed, since the state has approximately 30,000 or more illegal immigrants and an estimated 250 empty spaces in jails.

In Virginia, the more conservative portions of the Commonwealth are taking aim at Arlington County to prevent local jurisdictions from restricting enforcement of the entire federal immigration law. Arlington County, where I used to work, is multi-ethnic, multilingual and multicultural. Business is conducted at the county level in more than 70 languages; people who worked in the county office building and were fluent in more than one language might be called to help with translation in court or in another office in the building, if necessary. It's been a while since I worked there, but I have not heard that that had changed.

In South Dakota, three bills are being sponsored, including one that penalizes anyone who knowingly transports, employs or conceals an illegal immigrant.

...The bill dealing with citizenship seeks to require that a child born in the U.S. is a citizen only if at least one parent is a U.S. citizen or a legal immigrant. It would create a compact with other states to issue different birth certificates for those who are citizens and those who are not. Such compacts would have to be approved by Congress, but do not require the president's signature...

Much of the proposed South Dakota legislation appears to have been sparked by the murder convictions of two illegal immigrants there last year; the state is estimated to have about 2,000 illegal immigrants.

In Nebraska, hundreds of people turned out for a protest in Lincoln, the state capitol, and talked about concerns about harassment and appearance-based profiling of citizens and legal residents.

In Tennessee, state legislators approved an Arizona-style bill; however, they put the cost of some enforcement on businesses, which would be required to conduct citizenship status checks on employees, to reduce government spending.

I'm a bit surprised by the emphasis on requiring employers to verify citizenship for their employees -- because they've been doing that for more than 20 years. This was mentioned, back when it was started, as a barrier to getting able-bodied and mentally fit homeless people off the streets, because one of the first things that gets stolen when someone is homeless is personal ID, and it takes money to replace it. Are lawmakers now thinking that employers shouldn't just look at someone's birth certificate, green card or passport, but conduct a detailed analysis of the paperwork to determine if it's genuine?

In Mississippi, city and county officials are concerned the new law might open them up to expensive lawsuits by citizens who think they're not enforcing the law sufficiently. And an editorial in the Clarion-Ledger calls the bill 'election pandering'. Quoting the editorial:

...Illegal immigration is a complex and difficult issue. It is a national issue to which the president and Congress should seek a solution. It is not a major issue for Mississippi nor one in which the Mississippi Legislature should be getting involved.

It is an issue that clearly is popular with some voters. That is why the Senate passed it and most likely why the House allowed representatives to record a "yes" vote.

But a state immigration enforcement bill is bad policy. It would increase costs to local governments and, even worse, could lead to profiling and harassment of American citizens.

Immigration reform is a job for members of Congress, not the Mississippi Legislature.

The Arizona law this one is modeled after is being challenged and should be overturned. It is as un-American as any illegal immigrant could ever be.

Mississippi legislators shouldn't be wasting time with such political pandering.

*posted on her behalf by Doctor Science, while the ObiWiTariat tries to evade offspring, infectious diseases, and this week's meteorological armageddon long enough to get her a login code.