Helena Cobbin puts together the resignation of Phiip Zelikow as counsellor to Secretary of State Condi Rice and the visits of high administration officials—including Bush himself—to mideast sunni moslem nations: the administration is planning an attack on Iran and the meetings all over the mideast are to prepare those nations for what is to come. Zelikow, who is intelligent and knowledgeable, and, knowing that the results of such an attack would be disastrous to the U.S., quit.

It's speculation, of course, but given that Bush is a lame duck with no more elections in front of him, he could very well feel emboldened to strike out at Iran with little fear of political retribution. Our soldiers in Iraq will feel the retribution, however, as Iran stirs the boiling pot that is now Iraq. Since the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group are due to be released shortly, and rumors have it that it will recommend bringing Syria and Iran into negotiations, it is entirely conceivable that Bush and Cheney believe that they must strike before those recommendations are released:

... So maybe all the haste with which Olmert and the Bushites are acting these days has to do with them trying to pre-empt the recommendations that the ISG [Iraq Study Group]are expected to come out with? After all, once the relatively sage recommendations of the wise adults of both parties are out there publicly on the table, and framing the national debate, it would be a lot harder for Bush and Olmert to launch a military adventure against Iran, unconstrained by political realities.

(Bush and Olmert would have to create some kind of an immediate "pretext" for the attack. But doing that need not be hard to arrange.)

So maybe all the present visits by Bush and his high-level acolytes to Sunni countries are related not so much to planning regarding Iraq, but to some final advance planning for a military strike against Iran that may be fairly imminent?

Let us hope that Bush and Olmert have not gone completely crazy. Read Cobbin and ponder. I personally believe that the trips are more likely to be for the purpose of preparing U.S. allies, particularly Israel, for the shock that will inevitably accompany the U.S.'s bringing Iran and Syria into the negotiations. Still, it's hard to fit Zelikow's resignation into that scenario.

Helena Cobbin: Zelikow: What does he know?

Cryptography expert Bruce Shneier makes a compelling case for abandoning electronic voting and using only paper ballots, whether filed out by the voter or printed by a touchscreen laptop. His argument: it's just too easy to fix the vote without a paper trail.

Electronic voting is like an iceberg; the real threats are below the waterline where you can't see them. Paperless electronic voting machines bypass that security process, allowing a small group of people -- or even a single hacker -- to affect an election. The problem is software -- programs that are hidden from view and cannot be verified by a team of Republican and Democrat election judges, programs that can drastically change the final tallies. And because all that's left at the end of the day are those electronic tallies, there's no way to verify the results or to perform a recount. Recounts are important.

This isn't theoretical. In the U.S., there have been hundreds of documented cases of electronic voting machines distorting the vote to the detriment of candidates from both political parties: machines losing votes, machines swapping the votes for candidates, machines registering more votes for a candidate than there were voters, machines not registering votes at all. I would like to believe these are all mistakes and not deliberate fraud, but the truth is that we can't tell the difference. And these are just the problems we've caught; it's almost certain that many more problems have escaped detection because no one was paying attention.

This is both new and terrifying. For the most part, and throughout most of history, election fraud on a massive scale has been hard; it requires very public actions or a highly corrupt government -- or both. But electronic voting is different: a lone hacker can affect an election. He can do his work secretly before the machines are shipped to the polling stations. He can affect an entire area's voting machines. And he can cover his tracks completely, writing code that deletes itself after the election.

I voted this fall on a touchscreen voting machine, but it's doubtful my precinct votecount was hijacked, and if it were, it was probably due to incompetence, since the results of the major federal elections in Mississippi were foreordained. There's no point in committing fraud and risking being caught when the election isn't close. When an election is close, however, all it takes is a few changed votes in a number of "safe" precincts, and the result can be changed without anyone being the wiser.
So read Schnier's article; even better, subscribe to his newsletter, the Crypto-Gram, in which he discusses security of all kinds almost always in non-technical language.

The BBC reports that Iran will give inspectors access to records and equipment from two of its nuclear sites, according to the head of the the IAEA, the UN's atomic agency. This is a beginning, and a hopeful one. With our armed forces in desperate shape in Iraq, the utter stupidity of attacking Iran seems to have finally penetrated the saner heads in the Whitehouse. The result of the elections undoubtedly helped, too. There is no solution to the Iraqi mess without Iran's cooperation, so we had better get on with it.

It's hard not to be a little smug when this blog predicted precisely what is now happening.

Helena Cobban, a true middle east expert who writes for the Christian Science Monitor, has recently written what must be done to extricate the U.S. from its precarious military posture in Iraq. Her answer: Iran, the U.N. and Iraq's other neighbors, in that order. I guessed previously that former Iranian president Khatami's recent visit to the U.S. was related to obtaining Iran's assistance as a stabilizing influence.

While I am not privy to the details of Khatami's visit, I still find it simply inconceivable that he would be allowed to undertake a speaking tour in the U.S. unless the administration, which routinely denies visas to even its minor foreign critics, was interested in a rapprochement.

As a lawyer who has been involved with the criminal law for 27 years (defense), I have always been interested in what students are taught about the Constitution and how it affects their attitudes towards civil liberties. A recent survey by the Knight Foundation reported in the Clarion-Ledger today found that "[i]n 2006, high school students tend to be more knowledgeable about the First Amendment, and less supportive of the freedoms it promises." In other words, merely teaching kids about the First Amendment won't necessarily create a love of freedom in them. A thorough grounding in the historical background of the Bill of Rights might go a long way towards inculcating such a love of freedom, but if the zeitgeist is blowing the other way, it is doubtful that any such knowledge will make much difference to the average American.

Americans are particularly prone to regard themselves as unique and exempt from the consequences that ordinarily flow from their actions or their inaction, which is why they regard the study of history either as a form of entertainment or simply a waste of time. Historical examples of this myopia are easy to find, but such examples are wasted on a people that don't believe that the past is a guide to the present. Thus the 1990s saw such ahistorical notions as Fukiyama's End of History and the talk about the "new economy" that purported to refute the second law of thermodynamics. That foolishness has already been forgotten and similar snake oil is being sold today, often by the same people and institutions.

Occasionally, during moments of self-questioning, I allow the possibility that perhaps the conservatives are right—that freedom is a privilege reserved for the "better sort of people," who can use their freedom responsibly—but then I remember that the elite idea of "responsibility" has nearly always consisted exclusively of maintaining one's privileged social and economic position, irrespective of the general good. In fact, it is rare that elites do anything to further the general good that would threaten their power or wealth.

The conclusion, which is an historical one: We can appreciate liberty only by neglecting it and finally losing it.

When sensible persons decry the widening income and wealth gap, the rising poverty rate, and the isolation of the privileged class in our country, I invariably think that if they had known how Mississippi worked years ago, they could have easily anticipated our national malady.

The object of elites everywhere is to exploit everyone else as much as possible without stirring up rebellion. Mississippi elites have performed this balancing act for well over a hundred years using techniques of social control that are so familiar as to be almost invisible to its inhabitants, much like water is invisible to fish.

The tried and proven method of the American South has been racism, a con game that sets blacks and whites against each other and causes them to blame each other for their wretched condition. Racism is difficult to deal with rationally, since it contains a strong component of psychological projection coupled with a profound ignorance of how the economic system works, Southern fundamentalist religion facilitates the process of projection by its Manichaean division of humanity into the children of darkness and the children of light and by its hostility towards the intellect. Dispensationalism and creationism have replaced history and science with alternative explanations of reality that are almost impossible to dislodge by evidence and rational argument.

The plantation system has now been spread throughout the United States. Its basic principle, "divide and conquer," has proven to be a flexible, efficient tool of social control far outside the Mason-Dixon line. Rush Limbaugh made a fortune persuading male blue-collar workers that their economic decline was the fault of "liberals." Right-wing politicians have recently demonized Illegal immigrants from Latin America as a danger to the American way of life.

Like a cheap perfume, a subtle racism permeates southern society from top to bottom.

Conservatism, with its emphasis on hierarchies, class, and control of society by the "better sort of people," has frequently encouraged that peculiarly American combination of racism and fundamentalism that keeps the lower classes distracted and docile.

For this reason, it is surprising to see the rabidly right-wing editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal feature a column by Jim Webb, former secretary of the Navy under Reagan and newly-elected Democratic senator from Virginia, warning the nation that if the huge chasm in income and wealth between the elites and the rest of us continues to widen, we risk what he charitably causes "political unrest." Webb has peered into the abyss and doesn't like what he sees.

If it remains unchecked, this bifurcation of opportunities and advantages along class lines has the potential to bring a period of political unrest. Up to now, most American workers have simply been worried about their job prospects. Once they understand that there are (and were) clear alternatives to the policies that have dislocated careers and altered futures, they will demand more accountability from the leaders who have failed to protect their interests. The "Wal-Marting" of cheap consumer products brought in from places like China, and the easy money from low-interest home mortgage refinancing, have softened the blows in recent years. But the balance point is tipping in both cases, away from the consumer and away from our national interest.

In this author's opinion, the ultimate outcome of this process, if it is allowed to continue, is a nation of gated communities surrounded by vast slums policed by soldiers, paramilitaries, and probably organized crime. If you don't believe this, drive around southern Madison County, where one one gated community after another lines the main roads.

Both Democrats and Republicans bear the blame for this, having succumbed to the siren call of free trade, deregulation and reliance on a harsh, punitive criminal justice system that sweeps up the entirely predictable army of the dispossessed produced by those policies and imprisons them at a rate that rivals some of the most vicious and repressive regimes in the world.

So read Webb's column and ponder.

Jim Webb: Class Struggle : American workers have a chance to be heard (Via Daily Kos)

Via Talking Points Memo, The Hill reports that Trent Lott is running for minority whip position in the next senate. You have to give him credit for trying.

Update 11/15/2006: Lott is minority whip and the Democrats are singing Hallelujah.

In a nutshell, the deficit has caused Mississippi to lose a significant portion of decent-paying factory jobs to Mexico and parts further east. Because our government has adopted policies that keep the dollar expensive on the currency exchange market, it is more profitable for industrialists to build factories in China, Thailand and Indonesia and ship the good back to the U.S. that to employ Americans and pay them union wages.

Thomas Paley has a new article on his web site, Why the Trade Deficit Matters. For non-experts on economics, this is a good explanation on how a large, persistent trade deficit can harm an economy. During Reagan's administration the dollar was kept very high and the unhappy result was the "Rust Belt" throughout the northeast and middle west. Factory after factory closed down and moved overseas to compete with other companies that had already made the move. Profits went way up and wages went way down. It was a disaster for those areas.

That same policy is hollowing out the rest of our industrial base. It makes for big profits along with the impoverishment of the non-elite. Read the article. Paley's language lacks the intensity of a crusader, but his message is no less serious.

And not a moment too soon.

New York Times: New Democratic Majority Throws Bush’s Judicial Nominations Into Uncertainty

If it wishes to survive, a party out of power usually learns to face the reasons why it is a minority and makes the necessary changes in order to regain power. There is a nagging question in my mind, however, as to whether the leadership of the Democratic Party has actually gone through this process of awakening and reform. Tuesday's victory was at least in part handed to the Democrats by the Bush administration's handling of the war in Iraq and its utter incompetence in responding to the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina. Democrats who based their campaign on Iraq did well, for the most part. Those that did not emphasize the Iraqi disaster did less well. In other words, this is an election in which Americans voted against, rather than for.

I think many Americans still don't know what the Democratic Party stands for. The party leaders in Congress have spent almost their entire careers either under Republican presidents or under Republican majorities in Congress. When Reagan won office in 1980, it appears that many Democrats decided that their political future lay in making themselves indistinguishable from Republicans, a strategy that ultimately cost many of them their jobs and ultimately cost the Democrats control of Congress.

The Republicans won control of all three branches of our government by making themselves over into an aggressive, take-no-hostages, party, preaching an agenda to the American people that sounded good, and did whatever it took to win control and to hold it. To give credit where credit is due, the Democrats assisted them by their own scandals and arrogance. Now the circle has finally come around and the Republicans have been clearly repudiated by the voters for their arrogance and corruption.

The soul of a political party is determined by how it obtains power. In this day of mass media, money has been the key to power, and the Republican Party gets it money from wealthy individuals and large corporations, whose interests it represents to the detriment of almost everyone else. Until recently, the Democrats were getting most of their money from the same or similar contributors, and a huge army of consultants grew fat as intermediaries between Democratic politicians and their powerful donors.

That political model is now under heavy attack from two directions. Most importantly, Howard Dean's 50-State project, designed to build viable state parties in every state, will, if successful, almost certainly make Democratic senators and representatives beholden to their local parties, rather than the beltway consultants that provide access to the big money. The D.C. establishment recognizes Dean as a threat to its gravy train and is fighting him viciously. Just today, Clintonite James Carville advocated replacing Dean with Harold Ford of Tennessee.

And it is not just the consultants and power brokers that are opposed to Dean. Think for a second: If you were a congressperson, with whom would you rather deal: rich donors in luxurious surroundings or your state Democratic executive committee, meeting in the basement of a church or the private dining room of a local fish house? It is naive to think that members who are to shortly to become part of the majority party are not being courted by the rich and powerful, even as this column is being written. The way to control the average politician is to control the means by which he is nominated and elected. When a politician is dependent on the state party to be elected, that is where his allegiance will lie.

Dean's project is therefore of critical importance, both to democracy and the long-term health of the party. If he goes, the Democratic Party will almost inevitably resume the very practices that caused it to lose in 1994. Given another two years as chairperson of the DNC, however, Dean will have shifted the party's center of gravity from Washington, D.C. to the state and local parties, where it belongs, and away from dependence on the rich and powerful.

The second attack upon the present arrangement is the Internet, and in particular, what the liberal political blogs have been calling the "netroots." Through the support of the blogs for specific candidates, people are donating to candidates and the DNC in numbers and amounts inconceivable just two years ago. That money comes from the grassroots and every dollar raised this way is a dollar that doesn't have to be solicited from a wealthy and powerful donor who will expect special favors. That's the reason that net neutrality is so important; the Internet is the sole mass medium that is not almost completely controlled by large corporations and the freedom of speech that is possible on the Internet is undoubtedly a thorn in the flesh of every politician and CEO whose misdeeds are likely to be discovered and broadcast to the world.

So Howard Dean needs our help. This plain-spoken doctor turned politician, rather conservative in his political beliefs, is radically changing our party for the better. It would be a disaster to lose him now.

Secondly, we can only insure net neutrality by pressuring our representatives in Congress to put it into law.

Two recurring themes of the JP and the JPBlog are the dangers of concentrated public media and uncurbed corporate power. Here, via the Huffington Post, is the latest example of what happens when corporations control the media.

Air America Blackout - ABC Memo

The reward for investigating the rich and powerful is to be blacklisted. Is there any doubt as to why the mainstream media has betrayed democracy over and over again?

Having won control of both houses of Congress, the role of the progressive movement will not only be to consolidate and increase that majority, but—even more importantly—to keep the Democratic majority honest, open, and progressive, lest we awaken someday with the depressing realization that Lord Acton's maxim still holds.

With no public announcement, the EPA closed its principal library used by its experts to research toxic substances. The library is one of the main tools used by EPA technical personnel to determine whether substances should be banned. Apparently, the Bush administration is determined to allow its industrial constituency a free hand in polluting the environment when it is profitable, irrespective of whether the public is poisoned.

According to Public Employees For Environmental Responsibility (PEER):

Unlike its recent closure of its main Headquarters library and despite federal policy (Office of Budget & Management Circular A-130) requiring that the public be notified whenever “terminating significant information dissemination products,” EPA made no public announcement concerning the dismantlement of the OPPTS Library. In addition, the OPPTS Library was not mentioned in the “EPA FY 2007 Framework” as one of the several libraries slated to be shuttered.

“EPA’s hasty, buzz saw slashing at its library network is now interfering with its mission of harnessing the best available science to protect human health and the environment,” commented Ruch [PEER director], noting that Congress has yet to approve EPA’s actions. “Given the tremendous public health risks, this is absolutely the last place EPA should be cutting.”

The tragedy is that once a library is closed, the librarians will leave for other positions and the materials themselves will become inaccessible and outdated in a short time, thus making it nearly impossible to start back. This outcome is obviously intended by Bush and the incompetent ideological hacks he has been appointing to run federal agencies. It's a mindset incomprehensible to anyone with the slightest concern for public welfare, but second nature to those possessed by the right-wing philosophy that pervades our one-party government. That alone should be sufficient reason to vote them out of office tomorrow.

More than two billion dollars will be spent this year on political campaigns, and much of it will be spent on televised political attack ads that poison elections and lead to widespread cynicism.

Via MyDD, here is a list of candidates for federal office that have pledged to support publicly-funded elections.

The Voters First Pledge asks candidates to commit to support legislation to make elections fair through Clean Elections-style public financing, enhance accountability through stricter lobbying and ethics guidelines, and the protect voters' right-to-know with better disclosure.

Being acquainted with a number of candidates, mostly former candidates, I have listened to nearly all of them lamenting the time they had to spend on the phone asking potential donors for money. The universal feeling was that the money chase was demeaning and poisoned the whole process, and this feeling was shared by both Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives.

Unfortunately , none of our Mississippi candidates have taken the pledge, so it's time to start asking why they haven't. Elections should not be decided on the basis of who has the most money.