Pass This Along to Everyone in the Country. Please.
Letter to the Editor
by Sharon Underwood, Sunday, April 30, 2000
from the Valley News (White River Junction, VT/Hanover, NH)
As the mother of a gay son, I've seen firsthand how cruel and misguided people can be.
Many letters have been sent to the Valley News concerning the homosexual menace in Vermont. I am the mother of a gay son and I've taken enough from you good people.
I'm tired of your foolish rhetoric about the "homosexual agenda" and your allegations that accepting homosexuality is the same thing as advocating sex with children. You are cruel and ignorant. You have been robbing me of the joys of motherhood ever since my children were tiny.
My firstborn son started suffering at the hands of the moral little thugs from your moral, upright families from the time he was in the first grade. He was physically and verbally abused from first grade straight through high school because he was perceived to be gay.
He never professed to be gay or had any association with anything gay, but he had the misfortune not to walk or have gestures like the other boys. He was called "fag" incessantly, starting when he was 6.
In high school, while your children were doing what kids that age should be doing, mine labored over a suicide note, drafting and redrafting it to be sure his family knew how much he loved them. My sobbing 17-year-old tore the heart out of me as he choked out that he just couldn't bear to continue living any longer, that he didn't want to be gay and that he couldn't face a life without dignity.
You have the audacity to talk about protecting families and children from the homosexual menace, while you yourselves tear apart families and drive children to despair. I don't know why my son is gay, but I do know that God didn't put him, and millions like him, on this Earth to give you someone to abuse. God gave you brains so that you could think, and it's about time you started doing that.
At the core of all your misguided beliefs is the belief that this could never happen to you, that there is some kind of subculture out there that people have chosen to join. The fact is that if it can happen to my family, it can happen to yours, and you won't get to choose. Whether it is genetic or whether something occurs during a critical time of fetal development, I don't know. I can only tell you with an absolute certainty that it is inborn.
If you want to tout your own morality, you'd best come up with something more substantive than your heterosexuality. You did nothing to earn it; it was given to you. If you disagree, I would be interested in hearing your story, because my own heterosexuality was a blessing I received with no effort whatsoever on my part. It is so woven into the very soul of me that nothing could ever change it. For those of you who reduce sexual orientation to a simple choice, a character issue, a bad habit or something that can be changed by a 10-step program, I'm puzzled. Are you saying that your own sexual orientation is nothing more than something you have chosen, that you could change it at will? If that's not the case, then why would you suggest that someone else can?
A popular theme in your letters is that Vermont has been infiltrated by outsiders. Both sides of my family have lived in Vermont for generations. I am heart and soul a Vermonter, so I'll thank you to stop saying that you are speaking for "true Vermonters."
You invoke the memory of the brave people who have fought on the battlefield for this great country, saying that they didn't give their lives so that the "homosexual agenda "could tear down the principles they died defending. My 83-year-old father fought in some of the most horrific battles of World War II, was wounded and awarded the Purple Heart.
He shakes his head in sadness at the life his grandson has had to live. He says he fought alongside homosexuals in those battles, that they did their part and bothered no one. One of his best friends in the service was gay, and he never knew it until the end, and when he did find out, it mattered not at all. That wasn't the measure of the man.
You religious folk just can't bear the thought that as my son emerges from the hell that was his childhood he might like to find a lifelong companion and have a measure of happiness. It offends your sensibilities that he should request the right to visit that companion in the hospital, to make medical decisions for him or to benefit from tax laws governing inheritance.
How dare he? you say. These outrageous requests would threaten the very existence of your family, would undermine the sanctity of marriage.
You use religion to abdicate your responsibility to be thinking human beings. There are vast numbers of religious people who find your attitudes repugnant. God is not for the privileged majority, and God knows my son has committed no sin.
The deep-thinking author of a letter to the April 12 Valley News who lectures about homosexual sin and tells us about "those of us who have been blessed with the benefits of a religious upbringing" asks: "What ever happened to the idea of striving...to be better human beings than we are?"
I hope that in fifty years people will look back and think the same way about the people that opposed equal rights for homosexuals in the same light that we now think about opponents of the civil rights movement. Maybe I should repost that letter once a week until human beings somehow become, if not moral creatures, at least something that more closely resembles them.
If you do not read every single post on From the Trenches, well shame on you. Go read them now. Mick has posted off and on about a guy named Larry Paquette that has become his poster child for the I-got-mine-so-fuck-you conservative types.
Here is Mr. Paquettes original editorial from the Boston Globe:
Why should I apologize for making lots of money?
By Larry Paquette, 1/13/2003
I AM A MEMBER of a small, elite group widely vilified by the press and in letters to the editor. I am an easy target.
My sin is that I am in the financial top 10 percent of the country - those making $100,000 or more - the 35 percent tax bracket, a member of the so-called rich. So it is much easier to paint a picture of me with black heart and ice in my veins, cake crumbs all about, as I grow fat on the backs of the downtrodden.
However, I feel no need to defend my position. Over the years I have worked hard and earned every dollar of the obscene wealth I am accused of hoarding.
What is different about my life and how I came to be here compared with those liberals so willing and anxious to separate me from my compensation?
I worked two jobs to put myself through college. While many my age were off to sporting events or dating or cooling off at swim parties on muggy August nights, I was working in a sweltering factory, assembling bicycles until 2 in the morning. I can't say for sure where the bleeding hearts were then, but they were not standing next to me night after night, sweating over that endless assembly line.
I look back over the years of struggle and sacrifice and can't count the number of birthday parties, special events, and family gatherings missed because I had to work or finish a special project. I can't begin to tally the number of empty nights or lonely weekends when, instead of spending time with family and friends, I was on a business trip halfway around the world.
There is no loneliness like being in a strange country for months, struggling with an unfamiliar language while losing contact with those closest to you.
I wonder at how the mind-set of the country has changed, how the work ethic has been corrupted. When I was growing up, the only rule was that success and achievements resulted from, and were directly related to, hard work. You got back in proportion to the effort you put forth. That's the way it has worked for me.
How have we changed, then, to an ethic of redistributing the wealth from those who are economically productive to those who refuse to be?
Few will acknowledge it, but the message is clear. Reading between the lines of editorials and letters in the newspapers, I can almost hear the chant, ''You have it, I want it, and you owe me.''
I believe in extending a helping hand whenever possible, but I don't believe in lifelong support for those capable but unmotivated.
I look at my bimonthly check stub and occasionally can't help but question myself as to why I am working so hard, when federal and local taxes and deductions for Social Security and Medicare devour 50 percent of my earnings. Is it worth the 50-hour weeks, the personal responsibility, the stress?
The irrefutable fact is that money withheld and spent on welfare by a confiscatory and inefficient government does not create new jobs. Jobs are created from the dividends and investments made by myself and those far wealthier than me. They result from money put at risk, with a chance for an equitable return commensurate with the risk.
New companies, new ventures, new products and new jobs are a direct result of investment exposure. That is the heart of capitalism.
I make no apologies for my financial position. I have worked very hard, earned every dollar and hope to continue earning long into the future. Can the same be said for those standing at the intersection of Hard Work and Success, looking for a handout?
Larry Paquette is a sourcing manager for a manufacturing company in Fresno, Calif.
Please check out Mick's responses to this. We here would also like to add our condolences to the much maligned Mr. Paquette (from charlie):
An open letter to Mr. Paquette:
No, sir, you are not a villain--I don't know who you are or what your ideas
are but if anyone has made you feel bad about making a little money that is
really too bad. Mr. Paquette please do not regret your decision to pursue a
high salaried career. I realize that you suffer. This career has asked so
much of you. It has dragged you to strange countries (presumably on
airlines subsidized and repeatedly bailed out by tax dollars) where you've
had to communicate via email (a function of the internet whose research and
development was paid for by tax dollars).
Do not judge Paquette. This traveling is an enormous sacrifice he is making
and all that he is asking for is that his income not be taxed, and that the
media stop besmirching his character. And can we really blame him? Imagine
his disappointment when after years of college and working in a bicycle
factory (good luck finding a bicycle factory in America today) along side
other conservatives (because liberals don't work in bicycle factories?) he
had to travel in order to make the kind of salary he desired. What's more,
some people wanted to tax him (didn't they know he travelled? Hasn't the
man suffered enough?). Now of course none of these taxes were of the sort
that allowed him any of the opportunities he had taken advantage of in his
life, these were the sort of taxes that went to lazy people content to spend
their August evenings at swim parties doing their crack cocaine purchased
from food stamps. Oh what Paquette would have given to attend just one of
those swanky shindigs, but the bicycles were not going build themselves!
And what kept Paquette going on those hot August nights? What kindled the
fire inside his red blooded American heart? The idea that one day, if he
worked hard and stayed away from swim parties, he could have a job that paid
him an enormous sum of money with no obligation to contribute a damn thing
to society except an honest day's work.
Alas, that was a just dream Paquette. The innocence has long since died.
Paquette grew up fast. He did what the company asked him to, he flew to far
off strange places where the people walked on their hands and spoke in
frenzied gibberish. He stayed in their foreign, upscale hotels, and ate
their exotic attempts at steak. He drank their imported scotch and screwed
their mid-range whores. And did it make him happy ?(well, happier than the
he was at the bicycle factory)--ok for a while it did. But it got old, and
one thing remained true to the end...Paquette had to pay taxes. Oh how this
burned Paquette. It burned and burned there was only one salve to soothe
this burning, it was the salve that had soothed him since he was just a
child whose mother bribed him to be quiet on long car trips with candy (he
was, after all, traveling) and that salve is known as self pitying and
complaining. He spread his self pity and complaints far and wide but it
didn't help. There were still taxes and people who believed that taxes
could help give opportunities to people whose circumstances allowed them
fewer than most. There were still people who wanted to give some of what
they had plenty of so that others could have just enough. I tell you, there
is no salve for such an irritant. Paquette I stand with you against this
great injustice. You, sir are not a villain, no sir. You sir, are a
hero--an example to us all. God be with you on your harrowing stays at the
Hyatt. God be with you sir in your consultations with your accountant. You
are a hero. You are my hero. You are...PAQUETTE THE MIGHTY!!!!
Shedding its "compassionate conservative" veneer, the White House today acknowledged for the first time that it plans massive cuts to domestic programs in 2006, even as it pushes $1 trillion in new tax cuts. Two weeks after President Bush touted his commitment to education funding, the White House leaked plans to slash $1.5 billion out of the Department of Education – virtually eliminating previous small increases. It would also slash $177 million out of Head Start, the early-childhood education program for the poor. Less than a month after the president bragged about his commitment to funding veterans' health care, the White House is ordering a $910 million cut to the existing veterans' health care budget – a budget the Veterans of Foreign Wars has previously deemed "disgraceful" and "deplorable." The $78 million funding increase that Bush pledged for a homeownership program in 2005 "would be nearly reversed in 2006 with a $53 million cut."
SLASHING 197,500 FROM FOOD AID, GIVING $52,000 TO MILLIONAIRES: Bush has held photo-ops depicting him as committed to helping the poorest of the poor. At one event, he said "I hope people around this country realize that agencies such as this food bank need money." But the White House directive would slash $122 million (2.5%) out of the Women, Infants and Children program which provides food aid to 7.9 million Americans who need it. By simple math, the cut would mean 197,500 people could be slashed from the program – at the very same time the President proposes to give the average millionaire a $52,000 tax cut in 2006.
CUTS ARE CONSISTENT WITH RIGHT-WING RHETORIC: While the new White House budget directive may not be consistent with the President's compassionate conservative rhetoric, it is consistent with other rhetoric from his own administration and conservatives in Congress. For instance, last week, HUD Secretary Alfonso Jackson justified massive cuts to low-income housing by saying, "Being poor is a state of mind, not a condition." And Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA), third ranking conservative in the Senate, last year defended cuts to child care and welfare by saying,"Making people struggle a little bit is not necessarily the worst thing." HERITAGE IGNORES THE 800 POUND GORILLA: Heritage Foundation budget analyst Brian Riedl claimed that with the budget deficit exceeding $400 billion, spending cuts must be on the table. What he fails to note is that the president's tax cuts for the wealthy are the single largest factor creating the deficit. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 36% of the budget deterioriation came from tax cuts, while 31% came from spending increases, which were primarily defense and homeland security increases. As an American Progress study shows, non-defense, non-homeland security spending has actually been flat. Riedl says "the public is ready to make sacrifices during the war on terror." What he fails to mention is that every wartime President since the Civil War has asked America to sacrifice by either raising or maintaining tax rates. President Bush, by contrast, is the first commander-in-chief in American history to cut taxes during a war.
MOBILE phones fitted with digital cameras have been banned in US army installations in Iraq on orders from Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, The Business newspaper reported today.
Quoting a Pentagon source, the paper said the US Defence Department believes that some of the damning photos of US soldiers abusing Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad were taken with camera phones.
"Digital cameras, camcorders and cellphones with cameras have been prohibited in military compounds in Iraq," it said, adding that a "total ban throughout the US military" is in the works.
My cancelled debate topic on O'Rilly was a tax proposal by the Democratic governor of New Jersey, so I'm loaded for bear on this one. Here is how InstaPundit favorite Jeff Jarvis describes it:
See Fritz Schrank on McGreevy's plan to raise the tax rate on people who earn over $500k by 29 percent. It's positioned as a "millionaire" surcharge (though it's only halfway to a million) and you may think that everybody else in the state who earns less would say, "F the rich." But no. It's still a tax increase. New Jersey hates tax increases. It hates tax increasers more. And they're smart enough to see that if the rich leave the state, that will have an impact on taxes, jobs, and real estate.
And speaking of real estate, McGreevey is raising the real estate transfer tax 76 percent over two years. So all the real-estate "millionaires" whose homes have gone up in value see themselves having to pay the state when they sell.
"29 percent!" Golly gee willikers. Is the class war upon us? Judge for yourself. The change in question is an increase in the top marginal rate of tax on individual income from 6.37 to 8.97%, or 2.6 percentage points. To get 29 percent, you have to divide 2.6 by 8.97, which is a little weird since the 2.6 is an increase over the base of 6.37. Maybe JJ thought nobody would believe 41 percent, which is the change in rate relative to 6.37.
Incidently, the 2.6 percent rate increase amounts to less because state income taxes are deductible against Federal taxable income. If you're in the top bracket of the Federal tax, likely if you earn over $500,000 a year, your marginal tax rate is 35 percent. Since a dollar of state income tax is deductible, an extra dollar of state tax means 35 cents less of Federal tax, so you're really only out 65 cents. The effective rate increase is not 2.6 percentage points. It is 65 percent of 2.6, or 1.69 percentage points.
If you relied on JJ, you would never know the use for this pitiless tax increase: to reduce property taxes. New Jersey property taxes are the highest in the nation. Moreover, New Jersey's effective tax rate on the poor is third highest in the country (see p. 5). New Jersey has a regressive tax system: lower income persons pay a much higher share of their income in taxes than the wealthy. So what is in question here is a modest shift in tax burden...
continue reading
forgot where I saw this yesterday but thanks to Google...
"We declared war on terror. We declared war on terror—it’s not even a noun, so, good luck. After we defeat it, I’m sure we’ll take on that bastard ennui."
-Jon Stewart
Capt.Spaulding's Adventures in Africa
written by Bert Kalmar, George S. Kaufman, Harry Ruby, & Morrie Ryskind
Captain Spaulding: Friends, I'm going to to tell you of the great mysterious
wonderful continent known as Africa. Africa, God's country. And he can have
it...Well, sir, we left New York drunk and early on the morning of February
second. After fifteen days on the water and six on the boat we finally
arrived on the shores of Africa.
We at once proceded 300 miles into the heart of the jungle where I shot a
polar bear. This bear was 6 foot 7 in his stocking feet and had shoes on.
This bear was anemic and couldn't stand the cold climate. He was a rich bear
and could afford to go away in the winter. From the day of our arrival we
led an active life. The first morning saw us up at six, breakfasted, then
back in bed at seven. This was our routine for the first three months. We
finally got so we were back in bed at six-thirty.
One morning I was sitting in front of the cabin smoking some meat There
wasn't a cigar store in the neighborhood. As I say, I was sitting in front
of the cabin when I bagged six tigers. I bagged them, I bagged them to go
away, but they hung around all afternoon. They were the most persistant
tigers I've ever seen. The principal animals inhabiting the African jungle
are moose, elk and Knights of Pythias.
Of course you all know what a moose is, that's big game. The first day I
shot two bucks that was the biggest game we had. As I say you all know what
a moose is? A moose runs around on the floor, and eats cheese and is chased
by the cats. The elks on the other hand live up in the hills, and in the
spring they come down for their annual convention. It is very interesting to
watch them come down to the water-hole; and you should see them run when
they find it is only water-hole. What they're looking for is a elk-a-hole.
One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas, I'll
never know. But that is entirely irrevent to what I was talking about. We
took some pictures of the native girls, but they weren't developed.But
we're going back again in a couple of weeks...
Muslim mystics attribute to the Imam Ali, the Prophet's son-in-law, the
saying that "And you think that you are a but a tiny body, while in fact an
entire universe is enfolded within you." That's true of each of us.
--taken out of context from juan cole's informed comment.
When you're a world within a world, why would you want any other?
--Elliott Smith
"America," Allen Ginsberg
America I've given you all and now I'm nothing.
America two dollars and twenty-seven cents January 17, 1956.
I can't stand my own mind.
America when will we end the human war?
Go fuck yourself with your atom bomb
I don't feel good don't bother me.
I won't write my poem till I'm in my right mind.
America when will you be angelic?
When will you take off your clothes?
When will you look at yourself through the grave?
When will you be worthy of your million Trotskyites
?
America why are your libraries full of tears?
America when will you send your eggs to India?
I'm sick of your insane demands.
When can I go into the supermarket and buy what I need with my good looks?
America after all it is you and I who are perfect not the next world.
Your machinery is too much for me.
You made me want to be a saint.
There must be some other way to settle this argument.
Burroughs is in Tangiers I don't think he'll come back it's sinister.
Are you being sinister or is this some form of practical joke?
I'm trying to come to the point.
I refuse to give up my obsession.
America stop pushing I know what I'm doing.
America the plum blossoms are falling.
I haven't read the newspapers for months, everyday somebody goes on trial
for murder.
America I feel sentimental about the Wobblies .
America I used to be a communist when I was a kid and I'm not sorry.
I smoke marijuana every chance I get.
I sit in my house for days on end and stare at the roses in the closet.
When I go to Chinatown I get drunk and never get laid.
My mind is made up there's going to be trouble.
You should have seen me reading Marx.
My psychoanalyst thinks I'm perfectly right.
I won't say the Lord's Prayer.
I have mystical visions and cosmic vibrations.
America I still haven't told you what you did to Uncle Max after he came
over from Russia.
I'm addressing you.
Are you going to let our emotional life be run by Time Magazine?
I'm obsessed by Time Magazine.
I read it every week.
Its cover stares at me every time I slink past the corner candystore.
I read it in the basement of the Berkeley Public Library.
It's always telling me about responsibility. Businessmen are serious. Movie
producers are serious. Everybody's serious but me.
It occurs to me that I am America.
I am talking to myself again.
Asia is rising against me.
I haven't got a chinaman's chance.
I'd better consider my national resources.
My national resources consist of two joints of marijuana millions of
genitals
an unpublishable private literature that goes 1400 miles and hour and
twentyfivethousand mental institutions.
I say nothing about my prisons nor the millions of underpriviliged who live
in
my flowerpots under the light of five hundred suns.
I have abolished the whorehouses of France, Tangiers is the next to go.
My ambition is to be President despite the fact that I'm a Catholic.
America how can I write a holy litany in your silly mood?
I will continue like Henry Ford my strophes are as individual as his
automobiles more so they're all different sexes
America I will sell you strophes $2500 apiece $500 down on your old strophe
America free Tom Mooney
America save the Spanish Loyalists
America Sacco &
Vanzetti must not die
America I am the Scottsboro boys
.
America when I was seven momma took me to Communist Cell meetings they
sold us garbanzos a handful per ticket a ticket costs a nickel and
the
speeches were free everybody was angelic and sentimental about the
workers it was all so sincere you have no idea what a good thing
the party
was in 1935 Scott Nearing was a grand old man a real mensch
Mother Bloor
made me cry I
once saw Israel Amter plain. Everybody
must have been a spy.
America you don're really want to go to war.
America it's them bad Russians.
Them Russians them Russians and them Chinamen. And them Russians.
The Russia wants to eat us alive. The Russia's power mad. She wants to take
our cars from out our garages.
Her wants to grab Chicago. Her needs a Red Reader's Digest. her wants our
auto plants in Siberia. Him big bureaucracy running our fillingstations.
That no good. Ugh. Him makes Indians learn read. Him need big black niggers.
Hah. Her make us all work sixteen hours a day. Help.
America this is quite serious.
America this is the impression I get from looking in the television set.
America is this correct?
I'd better get right down to the job.
It's true I don't want to join the Army or turn lathes in precision parts
factories, I'm nearsighted and psychopathic anyway.
America I'm putting my queer shoulder to the wheel.
I'm not one who jumps on every military-operation-gone bad. But, what I can't stand is when they just get up there and lie about it. On the local news radio station yesterday I heard that the US had denied that any bodies of children were found at the site of the wedding party that was bombed -- this was after video footage had been released showing just that. And they're still denying it.
He mentions something that I have been thinking about also. I think it is very possible that some of the neocons don't mind the latest developments with Chilabi. Chilabi's influence had become absolutely nil. The Iraqi people had no confidence in him, the US had cut him off and were looking into his ties with Iran, Brahimi had stated publicly that he should have no place in the new Iraqi government and there were apparantly some complications trying to get info from him on the Saddam-UN oil for food program.
The neocon dream was dead. Chilabi had absolutely no popular support and his neocon friends couldn't lift a finger to help him without damaging themselves. What is the one and only thing that could boost his popularity in Iraq right now? A confrontation with the US where he pulls a Sadr.
How's that for an attention grabber? I've read and heard countless agruments explaining why the slippery slope argument against gay marraige is absurd. The latest one by Dahlia Lithwick from Slate does a pretty good job of it and, unlike others, backs it up with some legal precedents.
Anyone else bored to tears with the "slippery slope" arguments against gay marriage? Since few opponents of homosexual unions are brave enough to admit that gay weddings just freak them out, they hide behind the claim that it's an inexorable slide from legalizing gay marriage to having sex with penguins outside JC Penny's. The problem is it's virtually impossible to debate against a slippery slope. Before you know it you fall down, break your crown, and Rick Santorum comes tumbling after.
Still, as gay marriages started happening in Massachusetts this week, we heard it yet again as James Dobson of Focus on the Family insisted on Hannity & Colmes that "you could have polygamy. You could have incest. You could have marriage between a father and a daughter. You could have two widows, or two sisters or two brothers." (Two widows?) Dobson further warned, "Once you cross that Rubicon, then there's no place to stop. Because if a judge can say two men and two women can marry, there is no reason on Earth why some judge some place is not going to say, this is not fair. Three women or three men, or five and two or five and five."
...
The real problem is that there are really only three arguments against gay marriage: One is rooted in entirely God's preferences—which have little bearing on Equal Protection or Due Process doctrine, as far as I can tell. The second cites inconclusive research on its negative effects on children. The backup is the slippery slope jeremiad, which seems to pass for a legal argument, at least on cable TV. But fear of the slippery slope alone is not a sufficient justification for doing the wrong thing in any individual case. In a superb dialogue on gay marriage in Slate, Andrew Sullivan, responding to David Frum, makes this point eloquently: "The precise challenge for morally serious people is to make rational distinctions between what is arbitrary and what is essential in important social institutions. ... If you want to argue that a lifetime of loving, faithful commitment between two women is equivalent to incest or child abuse, then please argue it. It would make for fascinating reading. But spare us this bizarre point that no new line can be drawn in access to marriage—or else everything is up for grabs and, before we know where we are, men will be marrying their dogs."
Now, slippery slopes are not to be sneezed at. Professor Eugene Volokh of UCLA law school has done some extremely serious thinking on the subject and, while he does not himself oppose gay marriage, he cautions that one ignores slippery slope effects at one's peril. But he also reminds us that slippery slopes are only metaphors. They are not intrinsic principles of law. Each step in the slope must be analyzed, critiqued, and evaluated on its merits. And that is happening only at the very margins of the gay marriage debate.
Another problem with the slippery slope objections to gay marriage is that they present a moving target. No two opponents of gay marriage seem to agree upon where this parade of horribles begins or ends. You can order your comparisons off the Santorum Menu ("bigamy, polygamy, incest, adultery"), the Scalia Menu ("bigamy, adult incest, prostitution, masturbation, adultery, fornication, bestiality, and obscenity"), or off the James Dobson Menu, in which all of the above evils ensue, plus the demise of heterosexual marriage altogether. Call this argument the horse-and-elephant leavings, smoking on the ground after the parade of horribles has passed by. No one can plausibly explain why the entire institution of marriage is at risk from gay unions. Which raises yet another objection to slippery slope arguments: These are projections into an unknowable future. Asking proponents of gay marriage to prove that these marriages won't be bad for kids or families is asking that they prove a negative. The law cannot know the long-term future social effects of legalizing gay marriage (Stanley Kurtz, who has quite fixed views on gay men and their philandering ways, notwithstanding). We can only determine whether it is fundamentally unfair to bar one whole class of citizens from a privilege constitutionally afforded the rest of us.
The problem with the slippery slope argument is that it depends on inexact, and sometimes hysterical, comparisons. Most of us can agree, for instance, that all the shriekings about gay marriage opening the door to incest with children and pedophilia are inapposite. These things are illegal because they cause irreversible harms. Similarly, adultery, to the extent it's illegal anymore, produces a tangible victim. Let's also agree that we can probably also take the bestiality out of the mix. While Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, the Colorado Republican who authored an amendment to the Constitution that would bar gay marriage, thinks it's a short hop from gay marriage to sex with cats, the rest of us can intuitively understand that there are sound policy and health reasons to ban sex with animals.
...
One of the most persistent complaints of conservative commentators is that liberal activist judges refuse to decide the case before them and instead use the law to reshape the entire legal landscape for years to come. The Massachusetts Supreme Court, in finding that the ban on gay marriage violated the state constitution, did exactly what good judges ought to do: It confined its reasoning to the case before it, rather than addressing the myriad hypothetical future cases that may be affected by the decision. Opponents of gay marriage should consider doing the same.
No one likes us
I don't know why.
We may not be perfect
But heaven knows we try.
But all around even our old friends put us down.
Let's drop the big one and see what happens.
We give them money
But are they grateful?
No they're spiteful
And they're hateful.
They don't respect us so let's surprise them;
We'll drop the big one and pulverize them.
Now Asia's crowded
And Europe's too old.
Africa's far too hot,
And Canada's too cold.
And South America stole our name.
Let's drop the big one; there'll be no one left to blame us.
Bridge:
We'll save Australia;
Don't wanna hurt no kangaroo.
We'll build an all-American amusement park there;
They've got surfing, too.
Well, boom goes London,
And boom Paris.
More room for you
And more room for me.
And every city the whole world round
Will just be another American town.
Oh, how peaceful it'll be;
We'll set everybody free;
You'll have Japanese kimonos, baby,
There'll be Italian shoes for me.
They all hate us anyhow,
So let's drop the big one now.
Let's drop the big one now.
Things are finally falling apart for the clever con man that played the unscrupulous carney barker to the Pentagon's country rube.
BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. soldiers and Iraqi police raided the residence of Iraqi politician Ahmad Chalabi on Thursday, and aides accused the Americans of holding guns to his head and bullying him over his criticism of plans for next month's transfer of sovereignty.
There was no comment from U.S. authorities, but American officials here have complained privately that Chalabi — a longtime Pentagon (news - web sites) favorite — is interfering with a U.S. investigation into allegations that Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s regime skimmed millions in oil revenues during the U.N.-run oil-for-food program.
A Chalabi aide, Haidar Musawi, accused the Americans of trying to pressure Chalabi, who has become openly critical of U.S. plans for how much power to transfer to the Iraqis on June 30.
"The aim is to put political pressure," Musawi told The Associated Press. "Why is this happening at a time when the government is being formed?"
He said the Americans also raided other offices of Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress.
Salem Chalabi, nephew of Ahmad Chalabi and head of the Iraqi war crimes tribunal, said his uncle told him by telephone that Iraqi and American authorities "entered his home and put the guns to his head in a very humiliating way that reminds everyone of the conduct of the former regime."
The younger Chalabi said the reason for the raid was unclear but "they must be afraid of his political movement."
"Afraid of his political movement"! Ha-ha, he-he, ho-ho! This is a guy that has, what, a 2% approval rating from the Iraqi people (it might have been .2%)? The article makes it sound like he is some powerful populist and does not mention allegations that he has been giving US secrets to Iran or his role in convincing the neocons of Saddam's vast WMD program.
I'm guessing part of the reason for this particular raid was to take back Saddam's secret files that the US gave him to help him leverage political power. How will the administration spin this turn of events without admitting they made a mistake by trusting this guy and handing him so much influence in the first place?
NPR also reported that some of his aides and bodyguards have been arrested.
Brutal interrogation techniques by U.S. military personnel are being investigated in connection with the deaths of at least five Iraqi prisoners in war-zone detention camps, Pentagon documents obtained by The Denver Post show.
The deaths include the killing in November of a high-level Iraqi general who was shoved into a sleeping bag and suffocated, according to the Pentagon report. The documents contradict an earlier Defense Department statement that said the general died "of natural causes" during an interrogation. Pentagon officials declined to comment on the new disclosure.
---snip---
Details of the death investigations, involving at least four different detention facilities including the Abu Ghraib prison, provide the clearest view yet into war-zone interrogation rooms, where intelligence soldiers and other personnel have sometimes used lethal tactics to try to coax secrets from prisoners, including choking off detainees' airways. Other abusive strategies involve sitting on prisoners or bending them into uncomfortable positions, records show.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) A U.S. helicopter fired on a wedding party in the remote desert near the border with Syria, killing more than 40 people, most of them women and children, Iraqi officials said. The U.S. military said it was investigating.
Associated Press Television News footage showed a truck containing bloodied bodies, many wrapped in blankets, piled one atop the other. Several were children, one of whom had been decapitated.
The attack occurred about 2:45 a.m. in a desert region near the border with Syria and Jordan, according to Lt. Col. Ziyad al-Jbouri, deputy police chief of the city of Ramadi. He said between 42 and 45 people died, including 15 children and 10 women. Dr. Salah al-Ani, who works at a hospital in Ramadi, put the death toll at 45.
The area, a desolate region populated only by shepherds, is popular with smugglers, including weapons smugglers, and the U.S. military suspects militants use it as a route to slip in from Syria to fight the Americans. It is under constant surveillance by American forces.
Iraqis interviewed on the videotape said revelers had fired volleys of gunfire into the air in a traditional wedding celebration before the attack took place. American troops have sometimes mistaken celebratory gunfire for hostile fire.
Lt. Col. Dan Williams, a U.S. military spokesman, said the military was investigating.
I should start putting these first hand accounts from soldiers and people on the ground in one place. Here is the most recent: sacbee opinion piece from ex-marine
Q: What does the public need to know about your experiences as a Marine?
A: The cause of the Iraqi revolt against the American occupation. What they need to know is we killed a lot of innocent people. I think at first the Iraqis had the understanding that casualties are a part of war. But over the course of time, the occupation hurt the Iraqis. And I didn't see any humanitarian support.
---snip---
x - close Recent Stories By Paul Rockwell
Atrocities in Iraq: 'I killed innocent people for our government'
By Paul Rockwell -- Special to The Bee
Published 2:15 am PDT Sunday, May 16, 2004
"We forget what war is about, what it does to those who wage it and those who suffer from it. Those who hate war the most, I have often found, are veterans who know it."
- Chris Hedges, New York Times reporter and author of "War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning"
For nearly 12 years, Staff Sgt. Jimmy Massey was a hard-core, some say gung-ho, Marine. For three years he trained fellow Marines in one of the most grueling indoctrination rituals in military life - Marine boot camp.
The Iraq war changed Massey. The brutality, the sheer carnage of the U.S. invasion, touched his conscience and transformed him forever. He was honorably discharged with full severance last Dec. 31 and is now back in his hometown, Waynsville, N.C.
When I talked with Massey last week, he expressed his remorse at the civilian loss of life in incidents in which he himself was involved.
Q: You spent 12 years in the Marines. When were you sent to Iraq?
A: I went to Kuwait around Jan. 17. I was in Iraq from the get-go. And I was involved in the initial invasion.
Q: What does the public need to know about your experiences as a Marine?
A: The cause of the Iraqi revolt against the American occupation. What they need to know is we killed a lot of innocent people. I think at first the Iraqis had the understanding that casualties are a part of war. But over the course of time, the occupation hurt the Iraqis. And I didn't see any humanitarian support.
Q: What experiences turned you against the war and made you leave the Marines?
A: I was in charge of a platoon that consists of machine gunners and missile men. Our job was to go into certain areas of the towns and secure the roadways. There was this one particular incident - and there's many more - the one that really pushed me over the edge. It involved a car with Iraqi civilians. From all the intelligence reports we were getting, the cars were loaded down with suicide bombs or material. That's the rhetoric we received from intelligence. They came upon our checkpoint. We fired some warning shots. They didn't slow down. So we lit them up.
Q: Lit up? You mean you fired machine guns?
A: Right. Every car that we lit up we were expecting ammunition to go off. But we never heard any. Well, this particular vehicle we didn't destroy completely, and one gentleman looked up at me and said: "Why did you kill my brother? We didn't do anything wrong." That hit me like a ton of bricks.
Q: He spoke English?
A: Oh, yeah.
Q: Baghdad was being bombed. The civilians were trying to get out, right?
A: Yes. They received pamphlets, propaganda we dropped on them. It said, "Just throw up your hands, lay down weapons." That's what they were doing, but we were still lighting them up. They weren't in uniform. We never found any weapons.
Q: You got to see the bodies and casualties?
A: Yeah, firsthand. I helped throw them in a ditch.
Bush and Social Darwinism
If Elizabeth Bumiller is too busy noting the length and strength of the standing ovations President Junior gets from his Rovian hand-picked audiences to inform us that virtually everything he says in the speech itself is a lie, the NY Times' Robert Pear has done a little more of his homework.
WASHINGTON, May 18 — Like many of its predecessors, the Bush White House has used the machinery of government to promote the re-election of the president by awarding federal grants to strategically important states. But in a twist this election season, many administration officials are taking credit for spreading largess through programs that President Bush tried to eliminate or to cut sharply.
Nice to know somebody at the Times has caught up at last. Just so you know, Robert, what you stumbled onto is called a 'BushCon'--a bait-and-switch shell game when you praise a program in public that you know people like just before you destroy it in private. Oh, and by the way? They've been doing it for three years, Bob. Three years. But better late than never, I suppose. (Seems like I've been saying that a lot lately.)
Nice as it was of you to notice after three years, though, I have to say that 'cut sharply' is a leetle understated. See, Bob, a 10-20% cut is 'sharp'; a 30% cut is usually 'devastating'; 80 and 90% cuts are elimination in everything but name.
Justice Department officials recently announced that they were awarding $47 million to scores of local law enforcement agencies for the hiring of police officers. Mr. Bush had just proposed cutting the budget for the program, known as Community Oriented Policing Services, by 87 percent, to $97 million next year, from $756 million.
Those are salaries, Bob. The Law 'n Order President is cutting $650MIL$ worth of police officers from the nation's streets. It wasn't enough as it was; $100Mil is a drop in the bucket, the virtual elimination of the program. But you gotta admit, it's a neat trick: people will hear your announcement and think you're boosting programs when what you're actually doing is taking away $650Mil and then making a big deal about giving less than $50M of it back. The people get bamboozled into thinking they've gained $50M when in fact they've lost $600M. Cute.
The story about the dangerous air and water problems in post-9/11 Manhattan is still unfolding, and Newsweek has published more troubling info in a web exclusive.
But first, lets take a look back...
One week after the WTC towers fell, Christie Whitman (then Chief of the EPA) declared that the air and water in New York were safe, and residents were urged to return to their homes and jobs in Manhattan. Two years later, Nikki Tinsley (the EPA's Inspector General) told NBC News that the EPA press release that sent New Yorkers back to those homes and offices "was surely not telling all of the truth."
From NBC News
CHANGED PRESS RELEASES
So what happened? Tinsley's report charges, in the crucial days after 9/11, the White House changed EPA press releases to "add reassuring statements and delete cautionary ones."
*Sept. 13: The EPA draft release -- never released to the public -- said: EPA "testing terrorized sites for environmental hazards." The White House changed that to EPA "reassures public about environmental hazards."
*Sept. 16: The EPA draft said: "Recent samples of dust ... on Water Street show higher levels of asbestos."
The White House version: "New samples confirm ... ambient air quality meets OSHA [government] standards" ... and "is not a cause for public concern."
And the White House left out entirely the warning "that air samples raise concerns for cleanup workers and office workers near Water St."
Now it turns out that the dust from the WTC attacks was even more toxic than researchers initially realized, and that a wide range of health problems have developed because of exposure to it.
John Graham is a carpenter with emergency medical technician training, and he was only a few blocks from the World Trade Center when the first plane hit. He immediately went down to Ground Zero, and his unique combination of carpentry and medical skills made him an asset there for more than nine months, where he continued to help in spite of his own mounting health problems.
John Graham was rarely ill before 9/11.
From Newsweek
Now Graham carries a bag full of medications around with him each day. He takes 17 different drugs for ailments ranging from asthma to chronic infections, and sees his doctor so often that he's had to ask the receptionist to call and remind him of upcoming appointments so he can keep track.
---snip---
Doctors and researchers now believe that Graham is one of tens of thousands who suffer debilitating health problems stemming from their exposure to contaminants in the air around the World Trade Center site--and it's not just rescue and recovery workers who are affected. A report published this month in the journal "Environmental Health Perspectives" found that pregnant women who were inside the Twin Towers or within a 10-block radius at the time of the attacks showed a two-fold increase in the incidence of smaller-than-average infants compared to pregnant women in a demographically similar population who weren't in Manhattan on September 11.
...
Click the link above and read the whole goddamn thing. Evil, lying bastards.
Christopher Hitchens, wagging his finger at anti-war liberals in Slate, December 31, 2002:
"...many countries maintain secret police forces and inflict torture on those who disagree.... [R]elatively few states will take photographs or videos of the gang-rape and torture of a young woman in a cellar and then deposit this evidence on the family's doorstep. This eagerness to go the extra mile, as is manifested in Saddam Hussein's regime, probably requires an extra degree of condemnation. And if we are willing to say, as we are, that the devil is in the details, then it may not be an exaggeration to detect a tincture of evil in the excess. We could have a stab at making a clinical definition and define evil as the surplus value of the psychopathic -- an irrational delight in flouting every customary norm of civilization."
I haven't read the whole thing yet, but 27? I'm sure the corporate media will jump on this and we will have headlines tommorow in all the major papers stating "Bush is a Flip-flop,Flip-flop,Flip-flop,Flip-flop,Flip-flop,Flip-flop,Flip-flop,Flip-flop,Flip-flop,Flip-flop,Flip-flop,Flip-flop,Flip-flop,Flip-flop,Flip-flop,Flip-flop,Flip-flop,Flip-flop,Flip-flop,Flip-flop,Flip-flop,Flip-flop,Flip-flop,Flip-flop,Flip-flop,Flip-flop,Flip-flopper"
[holds breath]
had just about convinced myself that Iran is not a police state — and then the authorities detained me for a second time.
...
"Are you working for the American government?" I tried to explain that my views make me unemployable by either the Bush or Sharon administrations, but the interrogators were weak on both subtlety and humor.
...
That episode crystallized an impression that had been forming during my trip through Iran: if it were an efficient police state, it might survive. But it's not. It cracks down episodically, tossing dissidents in prison and occasionally even murdering them (like a Canadian-Iranian journalist last year). But Iran doesn't control information — partly because satellite television is ubiquitous, if illegal — and people mostly get away with scathing criticism as long as they do not organize against the government.
The embarrassing point for us is that while Iran is no democracy, it has a much freer society than many of our allies in the Middle East. In contrast with Saudi Arabia, for example, Iran has (rigged) elections, and two of its vice presidents are women. The Iranian press is not as free as it was a few years ago, but it is now bolstered by blogs (Web logs) and satellite TV, which offer real scrutiny of government officials.
I was astonished that everywhere I went in Iran, people would immediately tell me their names and agree to be photographed — and then say something like, "There is no freedom here."
...
Young people constantly told me how they scolded their parents for backing the Islamic Revolution in 1979. As a young woman, Sogand Tayebi, put it, "Those who backed the revolution are now sorry about that."
In the end, I find Iran a hopeful place. Ordinary people are proving themselves irrepressible, and they will triumph someday and forge a glistening example of a Muslim country that is a pro-American democracy in the Middle East.
I treasure a memory from the airport: after I was detained, a security goon X-rayed my bags for the second time and puzzled over my computer equipment. He snarled at me, "American reporters — bad!" The X-ray operator, who perhaps didn't know quite what was going on, beamed at me and piped up, "Americans — very good!"
...
I've developed an interest in Iran over the years because every news story I find has the same theme. Every story seems to be about government hardliners trying to crack down and the defiant people of Iran working through legitimate means to change their system for the better (and suceeding, but very slowly).
That is part of the reason that I bristle everytime I hear the Bush adminstration and their "axis of evil" or right-wing cowboy pundits talking about invading or destroying Iran. The worst thing we could do is alienate Iran with talk of invasion, thereby allowing the hardliners in Iran to gain support with anti-American distractions. So, of course, this is precisely how the Bush Administration handles it. Idiots.
Juan Cole on Barbarity as Policy and the Fate of Rumsfeld
Rumsfeld Plays "M", Gives License to Kill
Sy Hersh's expose of an ultra-secret 00 unit of two hundred inside the Pentagon is probably the nail in the coffin of Rumsfeld's tenure at the Department of Defense, and may well be a factor in the presidential elections.
Disturbingly, Sen. Joe Lieberman endorsed torture as an information extraction mechanism on Wolf Blitzer's show on Sunday. He gave the tired example of whether, if one of the 9/11 hijackers had fallen into US hands, one wouldn't have wanted all means used to extract information about the coming attack? There are several things wrong with this stance. First, torture does not work, and there is no evidence that it worked at Abu Ghuraib. Second, the argument that the ends justify the means always turns human beings into monsters. If something is morally wrong, you don't do it if you hope to remain a moral society. Society would be a lot safer if all known heads of identified criminal organizations were taken out by police snipers. We don't do that. Why? Sen. Lieberman should think about it. That way lies a descent into barbarity before which September 11 would pale.
Third (as a reader reminded me) there were no terrorist suspects at Abu Ghuraib, only persons suspected of knowing something about the insurgency or being involved in it (and apparently from what the Red Cross says, a lot of them were picked up in error anyway).
We Americans either stand for something or we don't. What I always assumed we stood for was the US Constitution. Our State Department annually rates other countries by how well their record stacks up against the US Bill of Rights. That custom seems an implicit admission that we hold these rights and values to be universal, not limited to US soil or only a privilege of citizens. And here is what the founding generation of Americans thought about Abu Ghuraib and torture:
Article 8:
"Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted."
I have no idea why he thinks this would end Rumsfeld's tenure, though. Aren't the reasons that he hasn't been sacked for other fuck-ups the same reasons he won't be discarded now?
In-depth examination of the Taguba report and the most recent Hersch report:
daily war news
It really does appear so far that the media and this administration will just continue to push this as a "few bad apples", we might get somewhere if they asked questions like the ones in the link above.
If you do not already obsessively check billmonfourteen times a day looking for updates, you will want to start now with this post:
billmon goes to Jordan
Exactly. Exactly my point! This is no different than what happens at the Skull and Bones initiation and we're going to ruin people's lives over it and we're going to hamper our military effort, and then we are going to really hammer them because they had a good time. You know, these people are being fired at every day. I'm talking about people having a good time, these people, you ever heard of emotional release? You of heard of need to blow some steam off?
I cannot help but say, however, that those who were responsible for killing 3,000 Americans on September 11th, 2001, never apologized. Those who have killed hundreds of Americans in uniform in Iraq working to liberate Iraq and protect our security have never apologized.
And those who murdered and burned and humiliated four Americans in Fallujah a while ago never received an apology from anybody.
Senator Inhofe:
(from his own damn Senate website)
SEN. INHOFE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I -- well, first of all, I regret I wasn't here on Friday. I was unable to be here. But maybe it's better that I wasn't, because as I watched the -- this outrage, this outrage everyone seems to have about the treatment of these prisoners, I was, I have to say -- and I'm probably not the only one up at this table that is more outraged by the outrage than we are by the treatment. The idea that these prisoners -- you know, they're not there for traffic violations. If they're in cell block 1-A or 1-B, these prisoners, they're murderers, they're terrorists, they're insurgents. Many of them probably have American blood on their hands. And here we're so concerned about the treatment of those individuals. And I hasten to say yeah, there are seven bad guys and gals that didn't do what they should have done. They were misguided, I think maybe even perverted, and the things that they did have to be punished. And they're being punished. They're being tried right now, and that's all taking place. But I'm also outraged by the press and the politicians and the political agendas that are being served by this, and I say political agendas because that's actually what is happening. I would share with my colleagues a solicitation that was made. I'm going to read the first two sentences. "Over the past week, we've all been shocked by the pictures from Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. But we have also been appalled at the slow and inept response by President Bush, which has further undermined America's credibility." And it goes on to demand that George Bush fire Donald Rumsfeld. And then it goes on to a timeline, a chronology, and at the very last it makes a solicitation for contributions. I don't recall this ever having happened before in history. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that this solicitation be made a part of the record at this point.
SEN. WARNER: Without objection.
SEN. INHOFE: Mr. Chairman, I also am -- and have to say, when we talk about the treatment of these prisoners, that I would guess that these prisoners wake up every morning thanking Allah that Saddam Hussein is not in charge of these prisoners. When he was in charge they would take electric drills and drill holes through hands, they would cut their tongues out, they would cut their ears off. We've seen accounts of lowering their bodies into vats of acid. All these things were taking place. This was the type of treatment that they had. And I would want everyone to get this and read it. This is a documentary of the Iraq special report. It talks about the unspeakable acts of mass murder, unspeakable acts of torture, unspeakable acts of mutilation, the murdering of kids -- lining up 312 little kids under 12 years old and executing them, and then of course what they do to Americans, too. There's one story in here that was in the I think it was The New York Times, yes, on June 2nd. I suggest everyone take that -- get that and read it. It's about one of the prisoners who did escape as they were marched out there, blindfolded and put before mass graves, and they mowed them down and they buried them. This man was buried alive and he clawed his way out and was able to tell his story. And I ask, Mr. Chairman, at this point in the record that this account of the brutality of Saddam Hussein be entered into the record, made a part of the record.
SEN. WARNER: Without objection, so ordered.
SEN. INHOFE: I am also outraged that we have so many humanitarian do-gooders right now crawling all over these prisons, looking for human rights violations while our troops, our heroes, are fighting and dying.
There should really be no need for me to explain to anyone that we should not be lowering the morality bar to a point where we have to compare ourselves to Saddam Hussain in order to appear "good". I just wanted to put some of the more outrageous quotes in one place.
Not to be outdone by the cretins above, the aptly named Mr. Savage goes for the gold.
Right now, even people sitting on the fence would like George Bush to drop a nuclear weapon on an Arab country. They don't even care which one it would be. I can guarantee you -- I don't need to go to Mr. Schmuck [pollster John] Zogby and ask him his opinion. I don't need anyone's opinion. I'll give you my opinion, because I got a better stethoscope than those fools. It's one man's opinion based upon my own analysis. The most -- I tell you right now -- the largest percentage of Americans would like to see a nuclear weapon dropped on a major Arab capital. They don't even care which one. They'd like an indiscriminate use of a nuclear weapon. They want this over with. One thing people cannot live with, which is an undefined, limitless conflict, which is what we have now. They can't take it. They want this war over with, and they want it ended like the war against Japan. They'd like Big Boy dropped on one of the little cities over there. They don't care where. They don't care any more. The American people have had it up to here with this garbage.
In fact, Christianity has been one of the great salvations on planet Earth. It's what's necessary in the Middle East. Others have written about it, I think these people need to be forcibly converted to Christianity but I'll get here a little later, I'll move up to that. It's the only thing that can probably turn them into human beings.
I'm going to give you one further example from my background as an anthropologist just so that you -- I'm trying to put context on this because you can go crazy if you don't have the context on this, because I'm going to lead up to something of what we must do to these primitives. Because these primitives can only be treated in one way, and I don't think smallpox and a blanket is good enough incidentally. Just before -- I'm going to give you a little precursor to where I'm going. Smallpox in a blanket, which the U.S. Army gave to the Cherokee Indians on their long march to the West, was nothing compared to what I'd like to see done to these people, just so you understand that I'm not going to be too intellectual about my analysis here in terms of what I would recommend, what Doc Savage recommends as an antidote to this kind of poison coming out of the Middle East from these non-humans.
