Understanding New Atheism

Having already addressed the factually challenged attacks on Islam from the clergy and laity of the Church of New Atheism, it seems an appropriate time to examine in greater depth the dogma of that sacred institution. Like any good cult, it provides its members with a conveniently prepackaged set of beliefs that they need not take the time to think too critically about; in fact, the less they do so, the better. Let us take a look, then, the doctrines of the Church, starting with its most fundamental.

The Church of New Atheism’s golden rule, the core of its dogma, is that "religion" is the supreme evil to be exterminated; I put religion in quotes because it essentially means whatever the New Atheist wants it to at any given moment (usually Islam or, to a lesser extent, Christianity). The creation of religion is the original sin in the New Atheist scripture, and mankind has suffered throughout history because of this sin. The only way forward is for religion to be eradicated. The New Atheist Sacred Cause is the fight against religion, a fight that trumps all others in its importance.

That this is held as a sacred principle should be evident from both what those from the Church do and say; the Reverend Sam Harris has said that, given the choice to eliminate religion or rape, he would "not hesitate" to choose religion. Archbishop Richard Dawkins has said that he considers faith as "one of the world's great evils, comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to eradicate." The deceased, ever-venerated Saint Christopher Hitchens went so far as to praise Lenin and Trotsky's forcible, murderous "secularization" of Russia, not even acknowledging the obvious inhumanity of the religious persecution that accomplished it.

Furthermore, the Church of New Atheism really must view religion as some kind of almost transcendent evil for it to unite its members as it does; Saint Christopher, for instance, eagerly supported the Iraq War, but even the New Atheists who opposed it (and, accordingly, must see it as the cause of perhaps hundreds of thousands of unneeded civilians deaths) still see him as a holy figure. The New Atheists have substantial differences on political issues, but are all capable of agreeing that religion is so intolerable that not only is it worth it to join arms with those whose views are otherwise horrific, but that those who fight in the name of the Sacred Cause are admirable, almost regardless of whatever else they may do.

The idea of religion as the supreme evil is held, like Holy Truths tend to be, on pure faith; there is no evidence to show that the greatest threat to the world today is religion, and the New Atheists are by and large intelligent enough to understand this if they were so inclined to try. Even if one were to hold that religion truly is the most damaging force today, is it really so much more damaging than the evils of nationalism, militarism, corporatism, authoritarianism, and xenophobia that those topics are far less important than religion? That's hard to imagine, and yet you find Archbishop Dawkins and Reverend Harris devoting a tiny fraction of their attention to subjects like that in comparison with their borderline obsession with the Sacred Cause. Even for those New Atheists who do address such topics, Saint Christopher and Reverend Harris are nonetheless held up as righteous men, despite the fact that they have only contributed to those problems.

As evidenced by Archbishop Dawkins's statement about faith, it is not just religious institutions, but religious belief that is an evil; while the New Atheists often present their objection to religious belief as being that it is irrational or harmful, their relative silence on other widespread irrational or harmful beliefs (nationalism, faith in existing societal institutions such as the government, militarism, etc.) renders these claims implausible. Religion—at least if it's Islam or Christianity—is fundamentally evil. In an instance of amazing intellectual acrobatics, both the Archbishop and Reverend Harris have accused religious moderates of helping to "make the world safe" (the Archbishop’s phrase) for religious extremists, because by being kind and tolerant, they make religious faith seem innocuous or even as if it has something good to offer; for this idea to be coherent, we must assume that religious extremists have correctly interpreted their faiths (an idea which the Church of New Atheism’s members will often eagerly agree with) and moderate Christians and Muslims are not "really" Christian or Muslim. Any more complex interpretation of these religions is, under New Atheist dogma, the propaganda of politically correct apologists for religion, who are, of course, a particularly despicable brand of infidel.

The comparison of religious faith to a mental disorder is also exceedingly common within the Church, from its deacon Bill Maher explicitly referring to religious belief as a "neurological disorder" to Reverend Harris stating that the doctrines of many religious traditions are "suggestive of mental illness" to Archbishop Dawkins naming his book (a New Atheist Sacred Text) The God Delusion. Not only does this hark back to the charming history of any "irrational" or "dangerous" belief being deemed a mental illness and being "treated" accordingly, it once again ignores the prevalence of often-absurdly irrational beliefs among the general populace. Rather than an analysis of the conditions that have allowed religious belief to persist, the Church would rather consider its survival an "accident of history," to use the Reverend’s phrase. Religious belief is to be degraded, not analyzed.

Religious institutions at their worst are not the result of relatively universal human flaws such as greed, ambition, and the like, but rather the inevitable result of religious faith. Whatever good that religious institutions do, on the other hand, has nothing to do with the religion they claim to represent, but rather is representative of relatively universal human virtues, such as generosity, empathy, and compassion. The absurdity of this double standard is, of course, obvious to those who haven't drunk the Church's Kool-Aid, but to the New Atheists it is apparently an entirely reasonable way to view history. Religion is to blame for everything bad committed in its name, but earns credit for nothing good done in its name.

Of course, the blanket statements against "religion" do not keep the New Atheists from singling out the worst religions, which is reasonable enough. Their methodology is where it gets interesting; a religion's fundamental badness is determined by how damaging its extremism is, as long as the damage is obvious to Westerners, as a general rule of thumb. Islam, whose extremism and theocracy we're constantly reminded of, is naturally the worst religion; Christianity is usually the runner-up, which is unsurprising given the prominence of Christian fundamentalism in Western society, particularly the United States. Nonetheless, Christianity is often a fairly distant second, as the ways in which its extremists have caused the most damage—the Iraq War, for instance—are not exceedingly obvious to many Westerners. Religions like Buddhism are often considered relatively benign, in spite of the widespread Buddhist violence in Myanmar against the Muslim minority; as this is not something many Westerners are readily aware of, it merits little consideration.

I've already noted the New Atheist dogma that extremists are the only religious people who interpret their religion correctly, so naturally the Church sees a religion's extremism, insofar as it is visible to Westerners, as indicative of the principles embodied by that religion's sacred texts. As Sister Jaclyn Glenn tells us, "if [Islam] were peaceful then extremists...would simply be extremely peaceful." To state the obvious, this is yet another rule that only applies to religion, according to New Atheist dogma; were it applied to other ideologies, almost every ideology imaginable would be deemed violent, given that extremists representing virtually any ideology you can name have committed violence in the name of their ideology. And, again, it goes without saying that "extremists" includes only those extremists who cause damage readily visible to Westerners.

Because of these rules, the West is widely viewed among New Atheists as representing the very concept of civilization; the West is less religious than the Middle East, and the damage caused by religious extremists in the West tends to damage those outside of the West, in ways that are far less visible and obvious to the average Westerner. Thus, by New Atheist logic, the West is superior to the Middle East, QED. The innumerable crimes against humanity committed by Western governments (particularly the US government) are either conveniently overlooked when discussing "Western values" or, by the bolder members of the Church, justified as somehow attempting to fight against jihadism or Islamic fundamentalism. (Reverend Harris is a good example of a New Atheist in the latter category, given his argument that the Iraq War was an instance of "civilized human beings...attempting, at considerable cost to themselves, to improve life for the Iraqi people.")

The New Atheists like to present their Church’s innovation as being its willingness to aggressively take on religion in ways it hasn't been challenged in the past, but this is yet another bit of fraud on their part. Thinkers like Thomas Paine, Voltaire, Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and Friedrich Nietzsche have all been willing to criticize religion, and in spite of what the New Atheists may believe, their twisted, baffling ideology bears little resemblance to the ideas of these men. For the Church of New Atheism and its believers, religion is not simply the result of the ignorance and superstition of the masses, a means of subjugating and controlling the people, a means of escapism for the oppressed, or a way for the weak to enslave the strong, as for the aforementioned philosophers; rather, it is some kind of virus which has mysteriously spread and must be wiped out. It is not part of a larger problem, it is the problem, towering above all others and independent of them. This leads, predictably, to statements like the Reverend’s about eliminating religion, with no comprehension of the fact that if religion were eliminated in the world we live in today, ideologies probably just as bad, if not worse, would quickly spring up to replace it and take over the role it serves as the opium of the masses and the tool for controlling the people.

Of course, being a church, the Church of New Atheism can’t have just a force for evil it battles against—a devil—it also must have a deity to worship, or it wouldn’t be a church at all. It finds its deity in Science; not science as a tool, as a means to an end, but Science as an end itself, as the end, the sacred end, the divinely ordained end, forever and ever, amen. New Atheist dogma includes not just a belief in the usefulness and reliability of science, but rather, a faith in Science as such—scientism, as it is known. Science is, from the New Atheist viewpoint, not simply able to debunk religious superstition, but locked, by its very nature, in a struggle against religion—and, for the good of humanity, Science must win this struggle, and dethrone and replace religion.

Science is, under New Atheist dogma, the diametric opposite of religion—accordingly, whereas religion can only do wrong, Science can only do good. Whereas religion is blamed for all evil actions done in its name and given credit for no good actions done in its name, the opposite is true with science; modern medicine, technology, and the other things that have contributed to human well-being are, of course, here by the grace of Science, and you can count on New Atheists to remind you of what Science has done for the world whenever the opportunity arises; mysteriously, nuclear weapons, environmental pollutants, and increased capability of government surveillance, while undoubtedly enabled by science, don’t seem to enter into the conversation.

Likewise, Science is represented in the Church’s teachings by the Newtons, Einsteins, and Darwins of history, who, the New Atheists say represent what science really is; the Tuskegee scientists and the Nazi scientists who experimented on humans, of course, do not represent science, but rather their evil deeds reflect only on their own personalities; science was merely an excuse. This stands of course in stark contrast to the attitude toward religion, which is exactly the opposite.

Boldest of all is the idea on the part of many New Atheists that Science can even replace religion in determining what our values ought to be; and I refer not even to the soft sciences when I say “Science,” but to the most empirical, objective branches of science. Per the usual, Reverend Harris is the prime example of this principle taken to its extreme, as he claims to be able to scientifically determine the “correct” morality, which is every bit as frivolous as it sounds. This bit of insanity is not limited to the Reverend, though, as Archbishop Dawkins has also dabbled in the field of a “scientific” morality, declaring that anyone with a Down syndrome-afflicted fetus is morally obligated to abort it. One can only imagine the veritable Utopia that would be created under the principles of these men, where whether one should live or die ultimately comes down to what is “scientifically” the most ethical.

To be clear, I don’t intend to draw false equivalencies between religion and science; science is always the rational way to understand how the world works and to gain useful knowledge, and I do not believe religion is necessary to have a set of values; indeed, I wish more people would personally choose their own values rather than blindly accepting those given to them by whatever house of worship they attend. But the Church of New Atheism offers us not an analysis of the dangers and irrationalities of religion or the useful benefits of science, but rather blind vilification of the former and songs of praise to the latter (on occasion literally, as Sister Glenn can testify).

To those unfamiliar with the Church and its doctrines, it must seem amazing that anyone but utter fools could believe in such idiocies, and the New Atheists are not fools. As with any church, the members of the Church of New Atheism believe in such doctrines because of their own psychology; many likely have likely been drawn to it due to their own irreligion and the pervasive influence of religion in society around them. When one feels like an outcast, joining a cult can be easy. But, ultimately, one can hardly imagine that when John Lennon asked us to “Imagine…no religion,” and even when Marx and Engels looked forward to a world where religion was a thing of the past, that they had in mind the demonization of other people’s religious beliefs. The Church of New Atheism, like many a church before it, set out with the goal of uniting mankind under its belief system—but, as usual, the divisions have only been made starker.

An Open Letter to the New Atheist Movement

To the New Atheist Community and their Allies,

The "Four Horsemen" of
New Atheism (Image from
 Wikimedia Commons)

You know, we really should be able to get along. You don't want religion informing public policy? I don't either. You think religious fundamentalists are a bunch of ignorant cretins? So do I. You think we should believe what scientists say over what a book written thousands of years ago says? Me, too. You think atheists are treated unfairly in our society? We're one hundred percent on the same page. But then you have to go and do something to ruin it, and, well, you've done it again.

I can barely believe the ignorant statements I've heard from some voices in your community about the Charlie Hebdo attacks. I've actually heard it said by popular YouTubers that are part of your movement that Islam did the attacks, as if it's some magical entity that possessed the actual perpetrators of the crime and removed any critical thinking skills they had. You do know that Muslims all over the world have condemned the attack, right? Even Hamas condemned the attack. If you want to argue that a lot of Muslims who speak out against terrorism still hold very restrictive, reactionary views on how society should be run, I can't disagree with that. But have your members honestly gotten so lazy that they're going to ignore the numerous Muslims and Muslim organizations that have condemned the Charlie Hebdo attack just to try to make Islam look bad? You're not being bold by doing that. You're not defying politically correct ideas. You're just succumbing to intellectual laziness of the worst stripe.

Now, there were some pleasant surprises I got, such as when Bill Maher and Salman Rushdie actually acknowledged just how widely Muslims have condemned the attack, and Maher even went on to argue against the idea that Islam is unique in how it's used to justify violence, citing Israeli settlers as an example of Jewish extremists (the first time I've heard him say anything negative about Israel or any Israelis). But even so, a lot of members of the New Atheist community just have to tell you that, when it gets down to it, Islam really is a uniquely bad religion. After all, look at the polls of Muslims! Look at the laws in Muslim countries! Because, of course, socioeconomic conditions and the fact that many majority-Muslim countries have in the past suffered through Western bullying and interventionism couldn't conceivably have anything to do with increased religious extremism in those areas.

Do you really think that the United States would be as free a country as it is today if the Ottoman Empire had deposed our president and replaced him with a dictator they supported? Do you really think that Christian extremism just as virulent as the Muslim extremism in Iran (where the equivalent of that situation did, indeed, happen) couldn't have sprung up? Are you just unaware of the fact that majority-Christian countries with similar histories of colonialism and imperialism and similarly poor economic conditions are often just as oppressive and unenlightened as their Muslim counterparts (Uganda, anyone)?

Better than that, though, is when you try to say the actual doctrines of Islam endorse terrorism and religious persecution. Inevitably, you end up citing verses from the Qur'an that supposedly endorse killing infidels, often mistranslating words from the original text (for instance "Fitnah," which means persecution, not disbelief, as I've seen claimed a number of times) and removing all context in order to construe them to mean something totally removed from what actual scholars interpret them as meaning. Clearly, though, anyone who points out your intellectual bankruptcy on these points is just some dumb PC liberal.

Oh, and best of all is the "draw Muhammad" bullshit. Yes, because gratuitously mocking the figure held sacred by one of the most despised groups in the Western world is making such a brave, bold statement. I'd love to hear your explanation as to just how insulting Muslims, including those who oppose terrorism and theocracy and support secular democracy, is somehow being heroic. Here's a fun idea: why don't we draw insulting pictures of Christopher Hitchens? I have this vague memory of some of you being angry that people were saying he would burn in hell after he died of cancer. Did it seem like society had no respect for you or your beliefs and was spitting on someone you admire? Gee, I wonder how Muslims feel about you treating them the same way. Oh wait, they're wrong, so it just doesn't matter. I forgot that rule about how if people believe something irrational, it's fine to try to make them feel marginalized and alienated. Because I'm sure none of you believe anything that others might see as irrational.

It truly, really amazes me that people as intelligent as many of your members can be so idiotic as to think tactics like that will somehow make things better. Are you just blissfully unaware of the fact that Islamist groups like al-Qaeda thrive by driving a wedge between Muslims and the "Western world" (and that that may have been a motivation for the Charlie Hebdo attack)? You want to make this conflict between those that think Islam is stupid and dangerous and those that kill in its name, but how can any Muslim take your side when you've defined it as the anti-Islam side? On the other hand, if you would let this conflict be about what it really should be about--those that support individual freedom even for people and views they despise versus those who will kill anyone that doesn't abide by their rules--you could get plenty of Muslims on your side. Right now, we should be talking about how encouraging it is that so many Muslims, even those you would least expect it from, have condemned the attack in Paris, and how this is a sign that just because a person's Muslim doesn't mean they can't be on "our side." Instead, you've drudged up the same tired, ill-founded attacks on Islam that you love to drudge up given any opportunity.

I'd also just like to note your community's total hypocrisy as supposed opponents of religious extremism. I've barely heard a word from many of your prominent members about Israel's treatment of the Palestinians, in spite of the numerous deaths caused by offensives such as last summer's and the fact that Israeli right-wingers routinely cite a God-given right to the land of Israel. Sheldon Adelson, the number one donor to conservative super PACs, said a few months ago that it doesn't matter if Israel is a democratic state because the Torah never endorses democracy. Where was the New Atheist outrage then? How can you expect people to believe you don't harbor some kind of bigotry against Muslims when you use attacks by Muslim extremists to justify disparaging Islam and yet when Jewish extremists support and abet killing far more people, you barely acknowledge it, or even defend them?

In fact, by your crude logic, Judaism should be the religion we're really concerned with; Jews are a mere 0.2% of the world's population, and yet Jewish extremists routinely use their religion to justify and support the oppression and military occupation of the land of millions of people, and the murders of thousands. But, of course, anyone who acknowledges that must just be an antisemite.

I'd like to be abundantly clear on one point: my problem with you has nothing to do with political correctness or the idea that what you say and do is "offensive" or racist. It's that, at least on the issue of Islam, you're intellectually lazy and deliberately disregard anything and everything that could create a more complex picture than the one you want to paint. I don't insist on the idea that all religions are equal, as Bill Maher has accused opponents of his view of pretending. It's that your claims about Islam are ill-founded, and your view on how we should respond to Islamic extremism is counterproductive.

There are plenty of people within the New Atheist community that I agree with on many issues, to be sure. I agree with Bill Maher the vast majority of the time and I enjoy his commentary; I watch videos from The Amazing Atheist, a popular YouTube atheist and a supporter of New Atheism, and I almost always agree with the points he makes (including on feminism, which he's often unfairly criticized for). But these frequently intelligent, insightful voices suddenly start saying things that are at best oversimplifications and at worst completely unfounded when it comes to the issue of Islam. Of course, there are plenty of valid aspects of Islam to criticize, and there are plenty of rules and ideas in the Qur'an that really are antiquated and damaging to modern society; I'm not saying you're not allowed to hold a negative view of Islam, but having a negative view of the religion doesn't justify deliberately alienating and insulting anyone who believes it and making claims about it that really just don't hold up to scrutiny. And if the New Atheist community can't come to terms with that, maybe the New Atheist community's doctrines have a problem worth discussing.

Your Erstwhile Ally,
H.S. Buchanan

LATER NOTE:
 My criticism of the New Atheist movement made here absolutely stands; however, in the last paragraph I said some things that no longer hold true, not because they are too harsh to the New Atheist movement, but because they were not harsh enough. As I've noted now, I no longer enjoy Bill Maher's commentary, and in retrospect I believe he has been saying tasteless and prejudiced things for a long time; perhaps I realized this on some level before, but refused to let myself fully acknowledge it.

As for The Amazing Atheist, my views on him, too, have shifted significantly, and looking back there are many things he's said that I find problematic, including his take on feminism, which I defended at the time. I opted not to change what I'd already written because it would be easier to simply explain the situation and let what I had previously written stay on the record. However, my views have shifted significantly enough that I wanted it to be clear that I no longer stand by my defenses of Bill Maher or The Amazing Atheist, lest anyone stumble on this blog post and get the wrong impression.

EVEN LATER NOTE:
I have removed a reference to The Amazing Atheist as the "number one YouTube atheist" because I have been unable to verify this claim.

Everything is Not Awesome

It's always fun when you find an article so delusional that even its title gives it away as crazed, fantastical ramblings. As soon as I saw that there was an article called "Everything is Awesome!" I had a feeling I knew what I was in for, but I think even then I underestimated just how ludicrous the article would be. I actually had to verify that it wasn't satire--but it's not. Its author, Michael Grunwald, is a serious journalist, whose brilliance is illustrated by his statements that he doesn't care that a US citizen was killed by a drone strike and that he can't wait to defend the drone strike that takes out Julian Assange (in fairness, he admitted that one was dumb). So, sadly, this is all too serious.

The article came out just before Christmas, so my response is coming a bit late, but everything the article discusses is still relevant, and I've heard the same arguments in more places than just this one article. Anyway, here's how it begins:

Good news! The U.S. economy grew at a rollicking 5 percent rate in the third quarter. Oh, and it added 320,000 jobs in November, the best of its unprecedented 57 straight months of private-sector employment growth. Just in time for Christmas, the Dow just hit an all-time high and the uninsured rate is approaching an all-time low. Consumer confidence is soaring, inflation is low, gas prices are plunging, and the budget deficit is shrinking.

Obviously, a lot is being covered here already, so let's pick it apart a bit. The economy is growing, yes, fine. Certainly better for it to be growing than stagnating, so that's all fine and good. However, the fact the Dow is up is not really good news for all of us; it's good for those who have stocks, which means mostly it's good news for the rich. It doesn't do so much for the working class family struggling to pay their bills. The reduced uninsured rate is, again, a good thing (though it largely just means we're finally approaching every other industrialized country in one area we've lagged greatly behind in); consumer confidence is good for the GDP, but it does little to fix the fact that our economy remains excessively reliant on consumer spending. The low gas prices are nice (and helpful for people lower down on the economic ladder), but let's not lose sight of the fact that ideally we should be moving away from being so reliant on gasoline to begin with. As for inflation and the deficit, neither of those have been real problems in the United States the past few years; actually, a bit of inflation would be good, as it would help middle and working class Americans pay back their debts. A larger deficit would be perfectly acceptable, too, depending on what it's spent on. So, already, the picture's quite a bit more complex than Grunwald would have us believe.

You no longer hear much about the Ebola crisis that dominated the headlines in the fall, much less the border crisis that dominated the headlines over the summer.

This is just asinine. There was never an Ebola crisis in the United States, and the problem is still very real in the countries where there is an actual outbreak. The border crisis was another bit of fear-mongering as well; the actual cause of it--violence and poverty in Latin America--has certainly not magically disappeared in the course of six months. 

Crime, abortion, teen pregnancy and oil imports are also way down, while renewable power is way up and the American auto industry is booming again.

Great, except that the biggest threats to the country have little to do with crime, abortion, or teen pregnancy. The bit about oil imports and renewable energy is a bit more relevant, but seeing as potentially devastating environmental issues remain a very real threat, it might be a bit early to start celebrating.

You don’t have to give credit to President Barack Obama for “America’s resurgence,” as he has started calling it, but there’s overwhelming evidence the resurgence is real.

Why? Because we finally have an economy that's growing and we've started taking some basic measures we should have a long time ago? Call me crazy, but that doesn't exactly seem to outweigh the negatives of increasing inequality, a government controlled by corporate interests, militarization of our police forces nationwide, and the erosion of our civil liberties.

The Chicken Littles who predicted a double-dip recession, runaway interest rates, Zimbabwe-style inflation, a Greece-style debt crisis, skyrocketing energy prices, health insurance “death spirals” and other horrors have been reliably wrong.

And? For the most part, no one with any real credibility predicted these things. This is equivalent to saying we're in good shape because the alien invasion your mentally unstable uncle predicted hasn't happened. Most of these were never real threats to begin with, so the fact that they haven't happened means very little. 

Come to think of it, the 62 percent of Americans who described the economy as “poor” in a CNN poll a week before the Republican landslide in the midterm elections were also wrong. I guess that sounds elitist. Second-guessing the wisdom of the public may be the last bastion of political correctness; if ordinary people don’t feel good about the economy, then the recovery isn’t supposed to be real. But aren’t the 11 million Americans who have landed new jobs since 2010 and the 10 million Americans who have gotten health insurance since 2013 ordinary Americans? It’s true that wage growth has remained slow, but the overall economic trends don’t jibe with the public’s lousy mood.

Wage growth being slow is not some minor issue; without wage growth, a growing economy doesn't mean all that much for large numbers of Americans. And wage growth isn't a little slow or something along those lines; it's practically nonexistent. A higher GDP doesn't mean much if most Americans won't see the benefits of it, but apparently that's a minor detail in Michael Grunwald's mind.

Six years ago, the economy was contracting at an 8 percent annual rate and shedding 800,000 jobs a month. Those were Great Depression-type numbers. The government was pouring billions of dollars into busted banks, and experts like MIT’s Simon Johnson were predicting that the bailouts would cost taxpayers as much as $2 trillion. In reality, the bailouts not only quelled the worst financial panic since the Depression, they made money for taxpayers.

They made fifteen billion dollars, which is tiny when you consider the size of the bailouts, and that came at the expense of keeping the banks huge and unaccountable for their actions. So I guess if you're happy with a total lack of accountability in the financial sector and an economy that continues to work for a small elite, all for the government to collect a whopping fifty dollars for every man, woman, and child in America, the bailouts were just awesome, to use Grunwald's favorite word. 

This bah-humbug brand of moral superiority has flourished since the crisis: How dare you celebrate this or that piece of economic data when so many Americans are still hurting? It’s awkward to argue with that view, since many Americans are indeed still hurting. But the economic data keep showing that fewer Americans are hurting every month. No one is satisfied with 5.8 percent unemployment, but it’s way better than the 10 percent we had in 2010 or the 11 percent Europe has today. Declining child poverty and household debt and personal bankruptcies are also worth celebrating. Better is better than worse. Whether or not you think Obamacare had anything to do with the slowdown in medical cost growth, it’s a good thing that Medicare’s finances have improved dramatically, extending the solvency of its trust fund by an estimated 13 years. It’s a good thing that U.S. wind power has tripled and solar power has increased tenfold in five years. And while it’s true that the meteoric rise of the stock market since 2009 has produced windfalls for Wall Street, it has also replenished state pension funds and 401(k) retirement plans and labor union coffers. It definitely beats the alternative.

So, apparently, the only choice is between the current situation or a worse one.  Yes, it would be worse if the things Grunwald mentioned were getting worse instead of better, but isn't it just a tad selective to only look at what's getting better and ignore what's getting worse? You wouldn't celebrate the fact that your Hot Pocket is a delicious golden brown if your house was burned down in the process of making it.

Let’s face it: The press has a problem reporting good news. Two Americans died of Ebola and cable TV flipped out; now we’re Ebola-free and no one seems to care. The same thing happened with the flood of migrant children across the Mexican border, which was a horrific crisis until it suddenly wasn’t.

Yes, the press, being owned by corporations, focuses much more on what will get attention (and thus money) rather than giving us a full picture. Isn't that, you know, sort of a bad thing? That the media is increasingly owned by a smaller and smaller number of corporations? Seems a little contrary to the idea that things are "awesome" in America.

The media keep us in a perpetual state of panic about spectacular threats to our safety — Ebola, sharks, terrorism — but we’re much likelier to die in a car accident. Although, it ought to be said, much less likely than we used to be; highway fatalities are down 25 percent in a decade.

This is just getting farcical. Not even deranged right-wing demagogues tried to convince us that highway fatalities were going to destroy the country. Who cares if they're down? Sure, it's nice, but bringing it up just distracts from any of the threats that the country actually faces.

The other problem in acknowledging good news, not just for the press but for the public, is that it has come to feel partisan, like an endorsement of whoever occupies the White House. Republican leaders have exacerbated this problem by describing everything Obama has done — his 2009 stimulus package, his 2010 Wall Street reforms, his 2013 tax hikes on high earners, his various anti-pollution regulations aimed at coal-fired power plants, and most of all Obamacare — as “job-killing” catastrophes that would obliterate the economy. It’s hard to point out that the economy is humming along nicely without making those doom-and-gloom predictions sound ill-advised and over-the-top. Because they were. Liberals who predicted disaster when Obama refused to nationalize the banking system during the financial crisis and when Republicans insisted on the harsh budget cuts in the 2013 “sequester” were wrong, too. Disaster hasn’t happened.

I don't know of any liberals who predicted "disaster" when Obama didn't nationalize the banking system or when the sequester went into place. I do know of a number of liberals who predicted that bailing out the banks with no strings attached would keep them unaccountable and "too big to fail" (it did) and that the sequester cuts would hurt the economy and lower-income Americans (they did). But why bother with actual facts when you can stoop to lazy false equivalencies and absurd oversimplifications? 

As ideologically inconvenient as that may be for chronic complainers on the left and right — and for pundit types invested in their bad-year-for-Obama narrative — it’s wonderful for the country. You don’t have to endorse Obama’s economic philosophy to realize that it hasn’t wreaked short-term havoc, just as you don’t have to endorse the Obama or George W. Bush anti-terror philosophies to acknowledge that America hasn’t endured a rash of terror attacks since 2001.

Virtually the only people who predicted that "short-term havoc" would come from Obama's economic policies were those on the far right. The left-wing criticisms of them have consistently been more focused on long-term, not short-term, effects, and the long-term outcome is not all that bright. The line about terror attacks sums up this article pretty well, though; let's celebrate the fact that something didn't happen when there was no credible reason to think it would, anyway. And now for the big finish:

The U.S. is still plagued by inadequate public schools, crumbling infrastructure, soaring college tuition costs, stark inequality. Many Americans want accountability for reckless bankers, torturers and fatal choke-holders. Washington is still almost as dysfunctional as everyone says it is. Congress this session really was the second least productive ever. And even though Obama is winding down the U.S. involvement in overseas wars, the world remains a scary place. There’s still plenty to worry about.

But for now be merry! And may the new year be as awesome as this year.

Yeah, we have subpar public schools, subpar infrastructure, above average income inequality, unaccountable bankers, unaccountable cops, unaccountable federal agencies, and a government that doesn't work. But other than that, things are awesome! Oh, and I like how the new Iraq-Syria War we've gotten ourselves involved in still just doesn't count in the minds of people like Grunwald. Seriously, though, how could he not just read that paragraph and realize what a stupid idea this article was? It's fine to want to discuss good news, but you're actually going to say things are looking good in a country with these sorts of problems (many of which are getting worse, not better)?

There's a pretty simple reason that Michael Grunwald would write such a brain-dead article (apart from the fact that he himself is pretty brain-dead): a small amount of research exposes him as yet another Obama defender far more concerned with preserving a good image of the president than actually examining the facts in a meaningful way. His case is much like that of many other Democratic Party loyalists. But the thing is, things aren't awesome in America, and Americans know that. Pretending they are doesn't change anything, and it also doesn't get Democrats elected. It just makes the people who do it look like idiots; but then again, with Grunwald here, if the shoe fits...

John Brennan Gets Orwellian On Us

Photo Credit: Reuters

In light of the newly released Senate report on the CIA's "enhanced interrogation methods" (also known as torture, to us normal folks), documented liar and CIA chief John Brennan gave a rather interesting speech. I mean that not in the sense that it was actually interesting to listen to, because based on what I saw of it, Brennan makes Noam Chomsky's speeches sound bombastic in their energy. No, rather, it was interesting because of how shockingly Orwellian it was. I thought I'd take the opportunity here to look at it bit by bit.

"It was 8:46 a.m. on the morning of September 11^th, 2001, when the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City was struck by an aircraft commandeered by al-Qa’ida terrorists. Seventeen minutes later, the clear blue skies over Manhattan were pierced yet again by another hijacked aircraft, this one tearing into the adjacent South Tower." Ah, good. Glad to see we're still using 9/11 to excuse everything we've done wrong for the last thirteen years. It hasn't gotten old or tired at all yet. And--no exaggeration--the first five paragraphs of Brennan's speech are basically just recounting 9/11. I'm not trying to be insensitive; I realize that, for every American old* enough to remember it (myself included), it's not something that will be forgotten, nor should it be. But it's downright disgusting to use it as a distraction from the wrongdoings of our own government, as Brennan does here.

These first five paragraphs expose a great deal already, as Brennan prattles on about how the Pentagon is "the proud symbol and heart of our Nation's military" and how the terrorist attacks would "plunge us into a seemingly never-ending war." Because, you know, it wasn't our choice to invade countries, or bomb them, or use drone strikes--we had to. The terrorists made us do it, so don't blame us.

Throughout the first dozen paragraphs of Brennan's speech, he goes to great pain to reinforce the simple, black-and-white narrative that al-Qaeda are the bad guys and the CIA are the good guys, going so far as to call al-Qaeda "an evil we couldn't fathom." It's amazing that any public official can use this sort of hyperbole without being laughed at. Killing innocent civilians as a means of achieving your goals? Oh, yeah, God knows the US, and the CIA in particular, could never fathom that level of evil.

Finally launching into the discussion of the detention program and the torture employed against some of the detainees, Brennan states that "EITs" (quite the cozy little acronym, isn't it?) were "determined at the time to be lawful [by the Department of Justice] and...duly authorized by the Bush Administration." Yes, "determined" to be lawful. Because, of course, the DOJ doesn't just "determine" anything lawful whenever it's convenient for it. Oh, and the Bush administration authorized it. So don't blame us, guys.

Brennan, while claiming to agree with Obama's stance against torture, argues that "the previous administration faced agonizing choices about how to pursue al Qa’ida and prevent additional terrorist attacks" and that "whatever your views are on EITs, our Nation – and in particular this Agency – did a lot of things right during this difficult time to keep the country strong and secure." Sure. That's it. That's why we're so safe now, right? Oh wait, I forgot, we're supposedly in grave danger of a terrorist attack at any time, which is why we need those NSA programs, and the PATRIOT Act, and the new war against ISIS. Funny how that works, isn't it?

Finally arriving at the point in his speech where he addresses the report he's supposedly responding to, Brennan states that "we gave the effort our full support, providing an unprecedented amount of sensitive CIA documents to the [Senate] Committee and devoting considerable resources to help it with its review." Right, and, you know, spying on their computers, but why mention that ugly little detail? Claiming that the Committee's methods were "flawed," Brennan nonetheless says much of it is line with what the CIA itself has concluded, and that "[a]cknowledging our mistakes and absorbing the lessons of the past is fundamental to our ability to succeed in our mission and is one of the great strengths of our organization." Right. "Mistakes." The CIA doesn't commit crimes against humanity or act with utter disregard to human life, it just makes "mistakes" every once in a while.

The use of this euphemism becomes particularly comical right after, as Brennan tells us that "[i]n a limited number of cases, Agency officers used interrogation techniques that had not been authorized, were abhorrent, and rightly should be repudiated by all. And we fell short when it came to holding some officers accountable for their mistakes." Even when CIA officers take unauthorized and "abhorrent" actions, they're still just mistakes. This is like if the pope gave a speech about the "mistakes" some priests made when they were alone with little boys.

Brennan goes on, "It is vitally important to recognize, however, that the overwhelming majority of officers involved in the program carried out their responsibilities faithfully and in accordance with the legal and policy guidance they were provided. They did what they were asked to do in the service of our Nation...those officers’ actions should neither be criticized nor conflated with the actions of the few who did not follow the guidance issued." That's right, CIA officers are now beyond criticism as long as their following the agency's "guidance." Hey, who can blame ya when you're just following orders, after all?

And, again, when "representations about the program that were used or approved by Agency officers were inaccurate, imprecise, or fell short of our tradecraft standards" that was just another instance of "mistakes" the CIA made--certainly not deliberately misleading the public, as the Senate report concluded the CIA had done. In any case, "[w]e have acknowledged such mistakes, and I have been firm in declaring that they were unacceptable for an Agency whose reputation and value to the policymaker rests on the precision of the language it uses every day in intelligence reporting and analysis." Right. The agency whose head refers to torture as "enhanced interrogation techniques" relies on precision of language.

"One of the most frustrating aspects of the Study," says Brennan, "is that it conveys a broader view of the CIA and its officers as untrustworthy." Yeah, geez, guys, how could you portray a secretive agency that recently spied on members of Congress and has supported numerous dictators and human rights violations as being untrustworthy? What's next--we'll be accusing the KKK of being racist?

After a few final paragraphs of sickeningly self-laudatory statements about the CIA ("Most CIA successes will never be known, as we are an intelligence service that carries out its mission without fanfare and without seeking praise." Riiiiiggght, that's why the agency is so unwillingly to talk about its "accomplishments."), Brennan's speech finally comes to a close. Never have I read a better example of the way in which public officials lie, distort the truth,  and cloak the most despicable policies with sophisticated language and euphemisms. As George Orwell himself put it, "Political language...is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind." I'll close on that note, as I don't think any quote could better respond to this speech.



*NOTE: This post originally said "everyone American enough" where it was intended to say "every American old enough;" the first version was a typo.

Wilson's Non-Indictment: An Engineered Failure

I guess I’m a bit late in talking about Ferguson, but it doesn’t seem to be an issue that’s disappearing in any hurry (nor should it), so I’ll address it, or at least one aspect of it. Darren Wilson, as we all know by now, was not indicted for his killing of Michael Brown. I don’t think this came as a surprise for too many people (it didn’t for me), nor should it have. It’s the result that’s entirely predictable—the system protected one of its own. Darren Wilson’s resigned now—can’t keep around someone who causes that sort of controversy—but we’ll have no criminal trial, at least not by the state of Missouri. He walks away a free man, albeit one who’ll have to look over his shoulder for a long time.

I’ll be blunt: based on what I’ve heard and seen, I think Wilson should have been indicted. Of course, that doesn’t mean an intelligent couldn’t disagree with my assessment, and it’s certainly true that I haven’t gone through every bit of evidence that was presented to the grand jury, but from the substantial amount I have heard, it seems like there should have been an indictment unless there was some piece of evidence that clearly exonerates Wilson (and I think we would have heard about it if there were). But that’s not really the point. The point, this whole process was obviously engineered to get Wilson off the hook while everyone else pretended they did their job.

Bob McCulloch, the prosecutor, defied the norm of how to handle a grand jury in numerous ways. Instead of just making the case for a certain charge and presenting the relevant evidence—you know, like you’re supposed to do—he allowed a huge evidence dump and essentially told the grand jury to make their own decision. He barely did anything to insinuate the idea that Wilson could be a murderer (thus failing completely to do his job as a prosecutor), and basically let Wilson get away with a story that was inconsistent with what he’d originally claimed, and not very believable to begin with.

And why not? McCulloch was a local prosecutor. As the attorney for Michael Brown’s family puts it, his relationship with the police department is “symbiotic,” not adversarial. Why would he want to expose wrongdoing on the part of a criminal justice system he was part of? McCulloch was never on the side of Michael Brown’s family, or those who wanted justice. His speech after the grand jury’s decision largely complained about how much the media focused on the case.

Why was someone like McCulloch allowed to be prosecutor for this case, rather than being replaced by a special prosecutor, as one might expect he should be? Because Governor Jay Nixon decided not to do so. This is the same governor who was blatantly more concerned with the violence of the protestors rather than the violence of the police, yet another shameless servant of the blatantly corrupt establishment. What would Nixon have had to gain from Wilson’s indictment? A police officer who served in an area where the police are infamously disproportionately white, while the residents are largely black, being charged with manslaughter, or even murder? It would just be another mess he would be expected to take care of as governor. Why not just sweep it under the rug?

And should we be surprised at all that the grand jury was seventy-five percent white? Indictment already requires nine votes in favor, and, in a racially charged case, even if all the black jurors and a majority of white had voted in favor, that still wouldn’t have been sufficient. And these are jurors selected from St. Louis county, home of a major city almost half of whose population is black. Could a more even balance really not have been achieved? I’m not by any means trying to say you can’t be white and have an unbiased view of this case (I’m white myself, so that would be pretty absurd), but nearly half of white Missourians voted for Todd “Legitimate Rape” Akin in 2012 (based on exit polling); it’s hard for me to believe, given the complete (and probably deliberate) incompetence of the prosecution, that at least a few backwoods, cop-worshipping people (the type who also tend to associate young black men with being dangerous and violent) didn’t end up on the grand jury, and a few is really all it would take.

One question remains: why would McCulloch release all the evidence shown to the grand jury? It basically shows what an awful job he did, and what a joke the proceedings were, and it’s not standard to released that evidence, so why do it? Admittedly, this is pure speculation on my part, but maybe he hoped it would provoke a reaction. If we can hear about angry, violent, frequently black protestors, it makes it all the easier to distract from the issue of corruption in police forces across the country, and the continuing unfairness of police toward blacks in America. As long as Middle America feels uneasy, questions about police brutality and militarization can be pushed aside for the time being.

The entire proceeding was a joke, and was designed not to indict Darren Wilson. Wilson has been forced to resign; McCulloch and Nixon should be, too. Their disgusting and almost certainly deliberate mishandling of this case should earn them ostracization by the rest of the country. In a fairer country, it would. But we’ve just been reminded that our country is nothing resembling fair. Too bad the only people who believed it was are too deluded to change their mind at this point.

The Limits of Discussion

An interesting thing happened to me recently. In one of my classes (a philosophy class), as part of the curriculum, we were having a discussion on illegal immigration. This is an issue that I think I’m pretty moderate on; I basically support patrolling the border more effectively and giving some kind of visa to the illegal immigrants already here, as long they aren’t guilty of any serious crimes, then creating a pathway to having a green card and, in time, citizenship—essentially, the provisions of a bill the passed the Senate with bipartisan support last year.  But in this discussion, I quickly got myself deemed “extreme” by no less than the professor himself. My “extremism” was stating the well-established fact that policies the US has adopted have damaged Mexico and Latin America, and thus increased illegal immigration to the US. And my professor even seemed to agree that I had a point; but, somehow, my point of view was still “extreme.”

This is a good illustration of how narrow the parameters are when it comes to “acceptable” viewpoints within the United States. We have been trained as a society to immediately consider someone an extremist if they promote a certain idea—even if it’s an idea that has all the evidence in the world to back it up. Take the idea that Dick Cheney is a worse criminal than Osama bin Laden; it’s a view that shouldn’t even be controversial. Bin Laden never invaded a country needlessly and took the lives of perhaps hundreds of thousands of civilians; and yet, it’s just a fact that we’re expected not to acknowledge. If you do acknowledge it, you’re immediately considered to be a radical and an extremist.

Conveniently, we also embrace the idea, as a society, that radicalism and extremism are inherently bad. This, of course, makes absolutely no sense on a historical level, considering the people we venerate were frequently considered radicals in their time (we’re a nation founded by a bunch of guys who decided it was appropriate to commit treason against the government they lived under at the time, which is a pretty radical idea by any definition). The end result is that, by just stating facts, you can essentially discredit yourself and end up being completely marginalized by society. Take Noam Chomsky; has the average American even heard of him? He’s one of the most well-known left-wing figures across the world. Hugo Chavez recommended one of his books at the UN (of course, being recommended by the evil Chavez would discredit him in many Americans’ eyes), and yet the mainstream American media would rather have on people like Newt Gingrich and Ann Coulter, who have absolutely no interest in basing any of their arguments on facts, as opposed to Chomsky’s consistent reliance on well-established facts sources for his arguments.

How is it that America has gotten to point where acknowledging certain facts makes you an extremist, and yet you can hold up Ronald Reagan (apartheid-supporter, race-baiter, financial backer of terrorist groups) and still have mainstream credibility? A little thing called the corporate elite. Notice how a lot of the “extreme” views we shun would lead to positions inconvenient for big business, the military-industrial complex, and all their oligarch pals. The state-corporate establishment has succeeded in turning “socialist” into a dirty word, and vilifying anyone who challenges the idea that capitalism is at least a necessary evil, if not a positive good. Figures like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, who hold views that would be considered center-left in a lot of European countries, are viewed as part of some hard-left fringe in the United States. Anyone more radical than them is pretty much insane, ipso facto, and not worth trusting about anything.

Corporations own the US media; they have enough money to exert enormous influence over who will and who won’t get elected. It only stands to reason that what we end up hearing from the media, and from many political figures, conveniently supports the agenda that is backed by these corporations. And, over the past decades, as corporations have become more powerful and more concentrated, the “acceptable” viewpoints to hold have shifted farther and farther to the right. Perhaps that’s not a coincidence.

We live in a society where viewpoints can generally not be punished by sheer violence, unlike, say North Korea, or the old Soviet Union. Subtler, more insidious ways have to be found to reinforce the parameters of acceptable thought. That means that, rather than refuting inconvenient views with facts—which they can’t do—the corporate elite just assassinates the character of anyone who holds them, and propagates the idea that anyone who thinks like that must be crazy.

In a Foucaultvian sort of effect, people internalize the parameters of acceptable viewpoints and discussion, and, naturally, avoid saying things or taking views that would be seen as extreme. After all, the people who have those views are crazy—you’re not crazy, are you? Surely, you can’t agree with them.

We may, however, be witnessing a serious challenge to that. Polls over the years have shown surprisingly high numbers of people in the 18-29 age group have a positive view of socialism. They also deviate strongly from the “acceptable” positions when it comes to issues like Israel, as when 18-29-year-olds viewed the recent attack on Gaza as unjustified by 2-1 margin. My “extreme” position in my class managed to get the support of maybe ten or so people, for that matter (out of a class of roughly thirty). This is a potentially hopeful sign. Let’s just hope we’re not at a point where it’s not too late to change course.

The Democrats Deserved to Lose

So the great farce that passes for an election season in the United States is now over, and it’s clear that Tuesday night was not a good night for the Democrats, who lost their Senate majority, were pushed further into the minority in the House, and failed to unseat some of the governors they most despise (Scott Walker, Rick Scott, et al). So the fanatical, terroristic extremists of the Republican Party have gained more power, in a piece of bad news for both the country and everyone outside of the corporate elite. But, you know what? I’m not exactly feeling too bad for the Democrats, because, to be honest, they completely brought this on themselves.

I’ve heard it said before that the Republicans don’t give any vision in terms of what they want America to be, but I think that’s wrong. The Republicans do give a vision—it’s a land where the economy is booming, the government is off everyone’s back, the deficit is gone, and everyone holds the values laid out in the Bible as the central tenets of our society. It’s a vision that’s an utter fraud, but it’s still a vision. The Democrats, on the other hand, on the ones not providing any vision whatsoever.

Just think about it—Obama’s had six years in office now, and the Senate has been in Democratic hands the whole time. What bold, visionary pieces of legislation have been put forward? We have a watered-down healthcare bill and a practically toothless Wall Street reform bill. That’s pretty much it. And I’m not just talking about what’s been passed—what’s even been proposed? I’m not some great admirer of the Democrats of days past, but people used to actually hear about a Great Society or a New Deal or something along those lines. That presented a vision. What do we have now that’s comparable?

And for those who want to defend Obama, don’t just tell me, “well, he couldn’t get anything passed because of the Republicans.” True, but that’s not an excuse not to try. Back in the 1940’s, with the Republicans in control of Congress, Harry Truman (not a president I’m a big fan of, for quite a few reasons, but often a politically competent one) proposed a whole slew of bills just to see pretty much all of them get rejected, not really to anyone’s surprise. And he used that fact against the Republicans successfully, to win reelection in 1948 and sweep the Democrats back into power. Now, midterms are generally bad for the president’s party, particularly when the president is six years into his time in office, but maybe if Obama had done something like Truman did, these midterms could have turned out at least a little differently.

Instead, what we’ve gotten is capitulation and compromise from a President who won a pretty decisive reelection in 2012, and whose party made gains in both houses of Congress, against a lot of early predictions. Like it or not (and I’ll be the first person to say I absolutely hate it), American elections are basically about PR—they’re largely about selling a product. Imagine a series of ads for a product that say something along the lines of, “Well, no one really likes our product, but we’re putting it out there to address a real problem, and we think it’ll do at least a little good.” Who would buy that, exactly? But when, with the Senate and presidency under their control, all the Democrats have done is offer weak, uninspiring compromises in lieu of any actual agenda, that’s the only message they have to run on.

But their ineptness in terms of PR is not at all the only reason, or even the main one, that Democrats deserved to lose this election. Rather, it’s the fact that they’ve broken every promise they made to average Americans. Remember how homeowners were supposed to be bailed out, and not just big banks? Why is it that never happened? Why is it that the national security state put into place under Bush has expanded instead of being rolled back? Why is it that the president that decried Bush’s Iraq War now has us getting entangled in a mess in Iraq and Syria by arming rebels that are fighting against a regime that’s enemies with the group we’re supposed to fighting? Where is the economy that works for everyone? And yes, I know that Republicans have stood in the way of solving some of these problems, but even when Obama’s had the power to act on his own in relation to these issues, his actions have usually made things worse, if anything.

I think that Franklin D. Roosevelt’s legacy is far more flawed than a lot of people realize, but there’s no doubting that he presented a vision, and, in a lot of ways, he enacted it successfully; the New Deal’s legacy lasted for decades, and it was a great time for the middle class in America. He legitimately did do a good deal to help middle- and lower-class Americans and curb corporate power, and programs in that same vein were at least proposed, if not always enacted, by the Democratic presidents that followed him. Now it seems that the Democrats have just given up standing for anything, and still somehow hope to get elected. As Frank Zappa said, “Republicans stand for evil, corruption, manipulation, greed…The Democrats have no agenda, and when they speak on any topic, they want to sound as Republican as possible.” And, as Truman noted, “The people don't want a phony Democrat. If it's a choice between a genuine Republican, and a Republican in Democratic clothing, the people will choose the genuine article, every time.”

Of course, this isn’t to say I’m happy that the Republicans won. I wish the Democrats could have won every seat that was up for election, just because I’d prefer a bunch of lousy corporate hacks be in power rather than the vile not-so-crypto-fascists that comprise the Republican Party. But the fact that the Republicans didn’t deserve to win doesn’t mean the Democrats did—they didn’t, either, and, while the vision the Republicans have for the country is loathsome and disgusting, the Democrats have themselves to blame for not presenting any vision whatsoever. So, to everyone in power in the Democratic Party, have fun with your defeat. You really did earn it.