Blogcritics Author: Marcus Alexander Gadson

Treat Sarah Palin Fairly

Marcus Alexander Gadson — Sun, 7 Sep 2008 00:51:28 EDT

How the media treatment of Sarah Palin has been unfair thus far.
I have to say, I have been quite taken aback by the way Sarah Palin has been treated in some ways these past few days.Almost as soon as she was introduced, there was the nasty rumor that she was never really pregnant, and was instead covering for her daughter. Aside from the fact that the story was demonstrably false, it is sad to see that people...

Look to Sarajevo, Not Munich

Marcus Alexander Gadson — Sun, 8 Jun 2008 21:13:00 EDT

Foreign policy hawks have the wrong historical paradigm�it�s 1914, not 1938.
It is clear by now that foreign policy will be center stage in this Presidential election, as it should be. Conservatives have made much of the fact that Democratic nominee Barack Obama has pledged to meet with rogue leaders. They have even taken to calling Obama’s foreign policy appeasement.Of course this is ludicrous. The problem in the...

Why I Support Barack Obama

Marcus Alexander Gadson — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 00:35:00 EST

Barack Obama is the man best equipped to lead America going forward in the 21st century.
Very shortly, the Democrats will choose their nominee for the general election. While he has lagged behind for much of the year, Barack Obama is now in real contention to win in Iowa and ride that momentum to victory. In nominating Obama, Democrats have a once in a lifetime change to alter America’s politics.The main criticism against Obama...

To All the Republicans Out There: Chill Out About Giuliani!

Marcus Alexander Gadson — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 19:15:11 EST

Why Rudy Giuliani wouldn�t alter the Republican Party if he were nominated.
The Republican establishment has failed to rally around a candidate in this election. Sam Brownback has endorsed John McCain. Bob Jones III is behind Mitt Romney. The biggest surprise of all came when Pat Robertson announced his support for Rudy Giuliani. Some conservatives were surprised by this, in no small part because they think...

I Never, Ever Want to Hear About Larry Craig or Michael Vick Again

Marcus Alexander Gadson — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 13:35:10 EDT

Why the media focused way too much attention on Larry Craig and Michael Vick.
Since David Petraeus has testified before congress, we're finally getting some substantive news. But for about the past month we haven't. That's because the media was obsessed with two men: Larry Craig and Michael Vick. To be sure, both men are accused of serious crimes. Craig's in hot water for supposedly soliciting sex in a public restroom, while...

Making Soldiers into Propaganda

Marcus Alexander Gadson — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 19:29:38 EDT

How a pro-war group is exploiting brave Iraq-war veterans to advance its agenda
The big news of the summer for those not obsessed with Michael Vick and Larry Craig has been the preliminary results of the "surge" strategy in Iraq. There is a heated argument over whether the surge is working, and if so, how much. It will only intensify as General Petraeus gives his official report to Congress later this month. Supporters and...

Announcement: Short-content feeds

Phillip Winn — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT

Sunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding.

Who's Really Naive and Irresponsible?

Marcus Alexander Gadson — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 18:51:42 EDT

In the past couple of weeks, anyone watching the news now knows exactly what Hillary Clinton (and some of her fellow candidates) thinks of her main rival for the Democratic nomination, Barack Obama. According to her, the man from Illinois is "irresponsible and frankly na�ve."The incident that prompted Clinton to go negative this early into the campaign was the recent YouTube/CNN debate where Obama stated that he was willing to meet with America's enemies in the first year of his Presidency. His other competitors piled on after he said that he was willing to order troops into the mountains of Pakistan to fight the real war against Al Qaeda.What is shocking about Clinton's criticism of Obama is that she used to agree with him. In February Clinton said, "You don't refuse to talk to bad people. I think life is filled with uncomfortable situations where you have to deal with people you might not like. I'm sort of an expert on that. I have consistently urged the president to talk to Iran and talk to Syria. I think it's a sign of strength, not weakness." Now however, Clinton wants to ridicule Obama for following exactly that policy. Who knew that Clinton had taken on Mitt Romney as a campaign advisor?As Obama pointed out after the debate, he "didn't say these guys were going to come for a cup of coffee some afternoon." But he is right about the need for meetings with these leaders. In the past six years, the Bush administration's approach of not talking with foreign leaders has done nothing to help the war on terror, or bolster America's image in the world. This sort of policy is how middle schoolers deal with each other, not how the world's last remaining superpower, and its greatest democracy should conduct foreign affairs. America should never fear to negotiate with its adversaries. And at some point, regardless of whether we want to or not, we will have to negotiate with our enemies. This is especially true in Iraq, where we will have to engage with Iran and Syria, so we can leave at least a somewhat stable country behind. And as Hillary Clinton observed before she changed her position, negotiating with our enemies is not a sign of weakness. Ronald Reagan knew this when he talked with the Soviet Union at the same time he called it an evil empire. Richard Nixon knew it when he went to China. But somehow we're supposed to believe that Clinton's answer was more nuanced and seasoned. I guess it is by the standards of the Washington foreign policy establishment--the same establishment that was gung ho about the war in Iraq. This is not to discount these thinkers entirely. Rather, it is to suggest that we shouldn't value the views of a handful of the Washington elite more than we do basic common sense or historical precedent. Clinton obviously thought she could gain some advantage by attacking Obama's remarks in the debate. To her chagrin, most Democrats agree with Obama. A recent Rasmussen poll found that a full 55% of Democrats think we should negotiate with our enemies, while only 22% agree with Clinton's current position. The general electorate is more divided, but a plurality still favors such relations.While Clinton and the other candidates are trying to demonstrate how tough they'll be on terrorism, Obama is the only one who has given us a clear plan of how he intends to win the war on terror. He was criticized for indicating that he would send soldiers into Pakistan if he had to. But with terrorists in the mountains plotting another strike, we may have no other option. Before he is labeled inexperienced again, I would like to see a coherent strategy from his opponents about how to fight Islamic extremists.At the end of the day, I find it incredible that Clinton (and others) has the chutzpah to make the charges she has about Obama. If she is so wise, and so clever, and so infinitively more experienced, then how could she have authorized George Bush to go to war without asking for an exit strategy, or at least bothering to read the National Intelligence Estimate? Now that is irresponsible and frankly naive. Obama however, demonstrated a prescience and a political courage sorely missing from political leaders in Washington in the lead-up to the war in Iraq. In a 2002 speech Obama said, "I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences." That sure doesn't sound na�ve to me.

Marcus Alexander Gadson is a freelance journalist and commentator on political and social issues.

Does Equal Protection Under The Law Exist in Louisiana?

Marcus Alexander Gadson — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 12:05:03 EDT

In the past months, the story of the "Jena six" has received fleeting national attention. These six Louisiana black boys have spent months trapped in a nightmare that has gotten progressively worse. One boy faces a possible sentence of 22 years of prison, while the others face 100 years in prison for attempted murder. Their crime, if it can be called that, was defending themselves in what amounts to a schoolyard fight. This tragic story began last September, in the small town of Jena, Louisiana when a lone black student asked the school if he could sit underneath a tree in the schoolyard that had been the exclusive domain of white students. The next day, three nooses were hanging from the tree's branches as a warning to the black students not to encroach on this territory. When the black students ignored the threat and sat under the tree, they were greeted not by white students, but by a surly district attorney who ordered them to leave.In the next months, the black students became the targets of intimidation and violence. The most harrowing incident involved a white man threatening three black boys with a sawed-off shotgun. The kids were able to wrestle the shotgun away, and flee from the scene. The tensions between the black and white students boiled over on December 4 when a fight broke out at the high school. One white student was injured, and six black students were arrested and charged with second degree attempted murder. The first student tried, Mychal Bell had the charge dropped to aggravated battery, which requires a dangerous weapon. The weapon in question was not a gun or a knife, but a tennis shoe. Bell's lawyer called no witnesses on his behalf, and he was convicted by an all-white jury on charges that are charitably described as specious. This farce of a trial is something you'd expect in To Kill a Mocking Bird. It's eerily reminiscent of Stalin's show trials where the defendant never really had a chance at acquittal, and the notion of a fair proceeding was laughable. The Prosecutor was far from an even-handed officer of the court. From day one, he was on an inexplicable vendetta against those black students. While the black students were exercising their right to sit where they wanted, the prosecutor bragged that he could, "end your lives with the stroke of a pen." At the trial, he seemed determined to mete out the most draconian sentence possible on his hapless victims. Somehow, I doubt that the prosecutor would have tried to lock a white kid away for life if it had been a black student who had been injured. It is profoundly troubling that this David Duke brand of justice is still alive in the 21st century.The implications of this racially-tinged episode are just as disconcerting. It is a stark reminder that our justice system is still far from color-blind. A kid from an inner city who's caught with the "wrong" kind of cocaine faces a mandatory sentence of five years in prison and the prospect of a ruined life afterwards. Meanwhile, a kid in the suburbs who does the "right" type of cocaine probably won't be caught in the first place, but if he is, can usually count on probation or some other slap on the wrist. It all means that blacks are 80% of those prosecuted for drug offenses even though 2/3 of all cocaine users are white or Hispanic. We live in an era when Scooter Libby, who was convicted of perjuring himself and hindering a federal investigation gets no jail time, while a young black man, Marcus Dixon, was consigned to rot in prison for 10 years because he had consensual sex with his white girlfriend.The Senate is in the midst of investigating the sentences imposed on two border patrol guards convicted of shooting a drug dealer as he fled. If it is right to free two men who are demonstrably guilty, circumstances notwithstanding, of the crime for which they were convicted, then it is only just for someone in power, either in Louisiana, or in the federal government to help restore the lives of six boys whose lives have been hijacked by an arbitrary and capricious justice process. I'm not holding my breath.

Marcus Alexander Gadson is a freelance journalist and commentator on political and social issues.

Misplaced Outrage

Marcus Alexander Gadson — Sun, 5 Aug 2007 20:55:44 EDT

Recently, I happened to be watching Fox's "Hannity and Colmes." To no surprise, Sean Hannity was doing what he does best: complaining about liberals and political correctness. The trigger for this tirade was an incident at Pace University where a young a man was arrested on hate crime charges because he flushed a Quran down the toilet. To make matters worse, the putative perpetrator, Stanislav Shmulevich is accused of flushing the Quran down the toilet not once, but twice in separate incidents. This came amid other occurrences of intolerance towards Muslim students at Pace, including racial slurs scrawled on a bathroom wall, and another Quran flushed down the toilet. Hannity and his ilk missed an easy opportunity to demonstrate a little bit of decency by substantively denouncing these acts.Surely any reasonable person would conclude that these acts were awful. For a Muslim, the Quran is the inerrant word of God. To desecrate it in any way is to commit an unspeakable offense against Islam. This sentiment shouldn't surprise Americans; after all, a majority describe themselves as religious Christians. How would Jerry Falwell have reacted to stories about a Bible being flushed down a toilet? I can hear his ominous warnings from the pulpit, citing such an incident as evidence that the country is steadily becoming like Sodom and Gomorrah. However, vocal right-wingers had only de rigueur condemnations of the episodes. The most Mark Steyn, a guest on the show could muster was that "I'm opposed to the desecration of books," while arguing that it was okay for someone else to do so, an odd pro-choice position for a conservative to take. Steyn then went on for most of the rest of the interview about how arresting people for hate crimes against Muslims would lead to "something called creeping sharia in the west." Just how such a tiny minority would ever manage to impose that on the United States was not explained by the alarmist commentator. Of course, such a statement is laughable, but hardly surprising from a man who, when asked if there was hostility towards Muslims, replied that "there is none."However much some want to deny it, there is hostility towards Muslims in the west. In fact, part of the problem with incidents like this is that it heightens tension between Muslims and members of broader society. Moreover, this comes at a time, when cooperation between Muslims and western governments is critical to prosecute the war on terrorism successfully. While conservatives had little to offer in the way of outrage over these incidents, most of them went absolutely ballistic when reports surfaced that a cross had been dunked in urine. They were right to do so. As a Christian myself, I was offended that anyone would ever turn a holy object into a tasteless art project. By my question is: why can't conservatives attack people who desecrate Qurans with the same vehemence they attack people who desecrate the cross? To do so seems only fair to me.I should say that I am not sure about the hate crimes charges the suspect is facing. Should he really go to prison for this? What exactly constitutes a hate crime, and when should they be prosecuted? I don't know the answer to these questions. Being a huge fan of the first amendment, I am uncomfortable with the idea that any form of speech, no matter how vulgar or offensive could be punished with jail time.Conservatives or anyone else for that matter are right to raise such questions. But it simply does not make sense that a Quran desecration should have been a jumping off point for a vitriolic attack on the "liberal media" or on the Council of American-Islamic Relations, or on political correctness, particularly when these same conservatives were aflame with passion when it was a Christian object involved. The logical thing to do is to condemn such desecrations and argue why they violate American ideals, not use it to launch into standard victimist conservative talking points. In short, the outrage I saw on Hannity's show, and from his fellow conservatives last week badly misplaced.

Marcus Alexander Gadson is a freelance journalist and commentator on political and social issues.

A GI bill for the 21st Century

Marcus Alexander Gadson — Wed, 1 Aug 2007 21:40:34 EDT

Only in the past few months has the American public become fully aware of the huge improprieties in the student loan industry. Financial aid officers at various colleges and universities held stock in the very companies they claimed to objectively recommend to student borrowers. The companies that gave such lavish benefits to college employees then mysteriously appeared on preferred lender lists. Depressingly, taxpayers spend billions of dollars a year enabling these companies. Of course this shouldn't come as a surprise in a Bush administration where taxpayer subsidized corruption--look at Halliburton's no bid contracts in Iraq--is the norm.While financial aid officers have been taking trips and receiving kickbacks-- at one point, David Charlow of Columbia University owned 7,500 shares worth over $72,000 of the company Student Loan Xpress-- ordinary students are left holding the bag. In return for generous government subsidies, lenders are charging students record breaking interest rates. If that weren't bad enough, rising tuition at America's colleges have required students to take on ever greater debt. The average student graduates with close to $20,000 in loans to repay. Debt burdens of $40,000 or $50,000 are not uncommon, and there are plenty of students today who leave college with the equivalent of a mortgage to pay off. One example is Lucia DiPoi, a graduate of Tufts University. In addition to $19,000 in federal loans, DiPoi, is also on the hooks for $65,000 in loans from Sallie Mae. The interest rates on her loans top 13%, and she faces monthly payments of $900. She had to forego her dream to work in an overseas refugee camp because the salary "would have been enough for me but not for Sallie Mae." Imagining the decades-long struggle DiPoi and other borrowers will have to pay back their loans conjures up images of Sisyphus trying in vain to push that gigantic boulder up the hill. Fortunately, Congress took a positive step recently, when it voted to cut subsidies to student loan companies by billions of dollars. Congress will use the savings to cut interest rates on student loans, and increase Pell grant funding. This is a welcome development. In the 1990s, the direct loan program saved students money in the form of lower interest loans. Better yet, taxpayer dollars weren't being used on what has essentially become a form of corporate welfare. Yet Republicans in Congress object to this overhaul. Representative Howard P. McKeon of California, the ranking Republican on the Education Committee, went so far as to claim that the bill approved on Wednesday "overreaches by creating new entitlement spending for every conceivable constituency in higher education." Apparently student loan companies are the only constituents that these Republicans have any concern for. After all, students don't make campaign contributions.Ironically, Mr. McKeon and his fellow Republican didn't object to creating new entitlement spending for the student loan companies that have spent so much money lobbying them. Opponents of the bill have also demonstrated a sudden concern about the size of the budget deficit. But before the 2006 midterm elections, the Republican led congress raised scarcely a whisper about the billions spent on Iraq every year, or the supply side tax cuts which helped turn a surplus from the Clinton years into a deficit.The reasons lobbyists for lending companies gave for opposing the legislation were even more specious. Now Sallie Mae is concerned about students being able to afford college without the usurious loans it provides. Best of all, the company went to great lengths to convince historically black colleges that cuts in the subsidies it receives will somehow make it harder for black students to borrow. Never mind that the money the government saves will be used on Pell grants and low interest loans that black students disproportionately benefit from. The bill is not perfect--I would like to see some more aid for middle class students struggling with the cost of college. And it faces some hurdles, namely getting President Bush's signature. But in the meantime, I say three cheers to Congress for its most significant piece of legislation yet.

Marcus Alexander Gadson is a freelance journalist and commentator on political and social issues.