Apparently, defending Israeli sovereignty with tacit support of blowing up Palestinian children is an issue pertinent to the Metro Council

In 2003, I wrote my council member at the time, Mike Jameson, asking him to work on legislation with the purpose of taking on the Bush Administration, more specifically, creating local civil liberties zones against John Ashcroft's Patriot Act II. CM Jameson gave me a call and told me that he could attempt to do so, but the initiative would go down in flames given the conservative lean of the council and the local political climate that was not supportive of Nashville challenging DC. It was an early lesson on civics in Nashville.

Unlike other cities, the council here is constrained in what it can do outside of planning and zoning for the county. I've learned to accept that, as hard as it is for someone who admires the histories of other cities that passed initiatives fighting apartheid and the nuclear arms race.

Ever since then I have to sit back and watch conservatives like Eric Crafton and Jim Gotto posture on immigration policies and English Only, and I remember what CM Jameson told me 11 years ago: it does not matter within the political scheme (other than to advance the careers of aspiring politicians who use red meat strategically in order to further their careers on larger stages).

The latest council conservative attempting to stir the pot on policy larger than that of Metropolitan government is Josh Stites, who uses social media to portray his views to constituents.

CM Stites has two Twitter accounts. One is @VoteStites in which he identifies himself as a member of "Nashville Metro Council". Besides the explicit reference to being a CM, the qualifer "Vote" suggests that this is how he expresses himself in his de facto capacity as an elected official. The other Twitter account, just as public, is also more personal, focused on inspiration, family, culture and faith.

In recent days, CM Stites has taken to tweeting on the Israeli attacks on Gaza on the more political @VoteStites. I'm not blaming him for having an opinion on Palestine, but why is he using his "Nashville Metro Council" twitter feed rather than his personal one to rationalize incessant drone attacks on civilians in Gaza by Israel? Someone said one time that the only significant thing Metro Council members do is pass zoning initiatives. Why his council-oriented twitter stream filled with apologies and PR for Israel? 

"Nashville Metro Council"

The personal one.

In the interests of disclosure, I completely disagree with CM Stites' views of the Middle East, which strike me as exclusively theological and Christianocentric rather than realistic and just.

Sole survivor of family of eight.

But the bigger question for me is, why is CM Stites choosing his council-oriented Twitter feed rather than his personal account to convey his uncritically pro-Israeli views of Palestine? His preferential option for Israel seems more consistent with a personal theology than a foreign policy (which council can't control anyway), so why not express it at the more devotional @JoshStites feed? Do his constituents uniformly agree that we can ignore the killing of innocent Arab children and defend Israeli sovereignty by any means necessary? And if they do what does that have to do with any business conducted in Metro Council? That's not a rhetorical question. I want to know what council mechanism I need to engage to encourage the end of the wonton slaughter of Palestinian children who are invisible to some.

Lost her entire family.

UPDATE: What about genocide? Does council business include dealing with genocide?


UPDATE: One of Josh Stites' own constituents says that she has asked him a few of the questions I have above and he has not responded to her. Is he accountable to Muslim constituents or just pro-Israel/Christian voters? Remziya is not your run-of-the-mill Nashville constituent either; she is a community leader.

Occupy locality

While Occupy Nashville is having little or no effect on Metro politics, in other cities other occupy groups are at least motivating local officials to express municipal opposition to controversial federal issues:

Portland City Council chambers overflowed this afternoon with supporters of two resolutions that grew out of the Occupy Wall Street and anti-war movements.

Both are largely symbolic.

The first measure takes aim at military spending and responds to a call from local peace activists in October ....

A second resolution, piggybacking on efforts in Los Angeles and elsewhere, establishes "that corporations should not receive the same legal rights as natural persons do, that money is not speech and that independent expenditures should be regulated" in political campaigns. It takes aim at the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Citizens United, which allows unlimited corporate spending in elections.

Mayor Sam Adams, the sponsor for both measures, introduced the second rule by noting that not all corporations act the same. And, he said, "the world would be a better place," if more corporations in the world behaved like Portland corporations.

"This is about what kind of electoral system we want to devise for ourselves," Adams said.

Both resolutions passed 3-0.

20-30 years ago a number of cities not only made symbolic efforts to counter Republican policies of appeasement of apartheid in South Africa, they also made substantive efforts to divest themselves from companies that did business with the Afrikaners in power. Symbolic efforts like these by Portland are an important first step, which is more than Nashville is taking.

Parsimony on GITMO

Armchair Generalist paraphrases a 5-page WaPo story in less than 5 lines:

"We're going to focus on the 10 percent of Gitmo detainees who decided they can't forget what the US government did to them, instead of the 90 percent who quietly went home after spending years in confinement without trial or access to their families."

Vandy Prof Sends Letter to Condi Criticizing State Department "Demoralization" and "Crawl" of Historical Records

Historian Robert Thomas Schwartz maintains that future of historical record in foreign policy "in serious jeopardy." Sounds like the absence of intellectual rigor that will characterize the Bush Library is going through its paces early at the State Department.

Divide and Conquer

WSJ op-ed argues that Obama is right to seize the moment that Georgia provided to wean Iran off the Russian sphere of influence.

The Princess Diaries

Tacit acknowledgement by the McCain Campaign that Sarah Palin is in this way over her head:

At the insistence of the McCain campaign, the Oct. 2 debate between the Republican nominee for vice president, Gov. Sarah Palin, and her Democratic rival, Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., will have shorter question-and-answer segments than those for the presidential nominees, the advisers said. There will also be much less opportunity for free-wheeling, direct exchanges between the running mates.

McCain advisers said they had been concerned that a loose format could leave Ms. Palin, a relatively inexperienced debater, at a disadvantage and largely on the defensive.

Maybe they could also demand an oversized velvet pillow to recline on and a servant with a large pink ostrich feather fan to keep her cool.

If she is not prepared to free-wheel with a U.S. Senator, should we assume that she would also beg shorter question-and-answer segments when negotiating with the Russian President or the North Korea's "Eternal President of the Republic"?

Why Does a Governor with No Foreign Policy Experience Assume that a Protest Ahmadinejad Rally is about Her?

Sarah Palin blamed Democrats for a Jewish group disinviting her to speak at a rally to protest Mahamoud Ahmadinejad's appearance at a United Nations assembly next week. Why would she take attention away from the cause of checking Iran's nuclear ambitions in order to put it on her absence? Has her new-found celebrity, her 15 minutes of fame gone to her head?

And If They Ask A Question You Can't Really Answer, Just Say, "Energy"

Oh. Okay, then.