Better Than Money

While the screaming about sequestration cuts grows louder, and some of our media colleagues obsesses about the latest developments in the Boston Marathon bombing, another group of media colleagues keep confusing President Obama for the Green Lantern. Those issues might normally frustrate us, since they're all happening at the same moment in time. Yet, we're generally happy and even calm today.

It's not like we've won the lottery, though that would likely improve our happiness. As economists Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers confirmed recently, money really can buy you happiness. Or, as Dylan Matthews more accurately notes, blindness to problems.

For a large number of people around the world, that exchange of a loss of clarity and liberty for a bit of temporary financial security is as common a transaction as buying something with a check card is for most Americans.

In Afghanistan, President Hamid Karzai has been generally enjoying the fruits of that kind of trade for most of the last decade. Karzai recently even felt comfortable enough to admit the CIA has, at times, brought him bags of cash, so he'd be more likely to make the decisions that U.S. interests prefer.

The fact is, Afghan President Hamid Karzai has a pretty good life right now, even considering his position as the President of Afghanistan. Whatever he wants, he can generally buy with large amounts of money given to him by the U.S. government, through the CIA or other channels. We're willing to bet Karzai could even get Jimmy Johns to deliver to the Presidential Palace in Kabul.

What might surprise you is that as much as Americans appear to crave financial security, recent surveys suggest that Americans still prioritize their civil liberties over that security.

As Greg Sargent pointed out Wednesday, after digging through the latest Washington Post/ABC News poll, the liberty/security deals some on the right are trying to push again - like trying the Boston bombing suspects in a military court - are ideas Americans don't seem to be too enthralled with these days.

Sargent also points out that in a different CNN/TIME poll, by a 2-to-1 margin, Americans are currently more worried about losing some of their civil liberties than they are about the government failing to enact anti-terrorism policies that would give them more security.

There are plenty of reasons to be pessimistic today. Ongoing political issues like the hunger strikes at Guantanamo Bay, or the confirmation by Sen. Pat Toomey about the obstructionist extremists in the GOP, or even the simple reality that it snowed in much of the central U.S. yesterday on May 1st - all of these are reasons for frustration, or even anger.

That said, proof that most Americans - all across the political spectrum - appear seriously unwilling to sell out their freedom and liberty for a potential bit of non-guaranteed security gives us hope today, that maybe America isn't a completely lost cause after all.

With that knowledge and piece of mind - and a sandwich - we may just be able to make it to the weekend without losing our cool.

The Real American Divide

Too often, the news stories we cover in the media focus on the many divides in America and around the world. Between the haves and have-nots, Republican and Democratic lawmakers, or political extremists and the rest of us, the reasons to be divided sometimes seem endless. So it's with pride that we watched much of America come together this week as NBA player Jason Collins publicly came out of the closet as gay.

That pride was simply described by one of our favorite writers, Dave Zirin of The Nation, who said that reading Collins' announcement "hit me like a triple-shot of espresso cut with a teaspoon of Adderall" - in a very good way.

There were an incredible number of awesome positive reactions to Collins' coming out, from NBA stars like Kobe Bryant and Charles Barkley, to other well-known LGBT allies like star NFL punter Chris Kluwe and even former President Clinton. President Obama called and tweeted his support for Collins, and even gave a special statement of support for Collins at Tuesday's White House press conference. 

That divide we spoke of did raise its ugly head though, through ignorance on social media outlets by people like NFL wide receiver Mike Wallace, and on the TV screens of millions by ESPN sportscaster Chris Broussard.

Of all the comments and actions that we see and write about every day which divide people around the world, the kind of ignorant bigotry displayed by those like Wallace and Broussard is one of the most destructive - and sadly, the most common.

For all the acceptance of LGBT individuals throughout America over the past few years, the top professional men's sports in America - football, baseball, basketball and hockey - have still had a rainbow wall dividing those who felt they could be honest about their sexuality, and those who've felt they had to lie about it.

As Greg Sargent deftly noted this week, Jason Collins vaulted over that barrier with his announcement - though to us Collins' announcement seems more like when Berliners began tearing down the wall that divided them.

Zirin, Sargent, and Collins himself noted that he never could have reached this point on his own. With the fall of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and the near certain death of DOMA, the political winds in the U.S. have been very favorable for Collins' vault to freedom. Kate Sheppard of Mother Jones also pointed out that American women have already been tearing down the rainbow wall in the U.S. in pro sports - a fact we've proudly noted for many years now.

In some ways, the ultimate irony of the media frenzy surrounding Collins' announcement this week is that who he's attracted to sexually doesn't matter to us one bit. 

What does matter is that Collins' future now seems much more clear. We hope, as Amanda Terkel notes, that Collins finds his own 'Branch Rickey', just as Jackie Robinson did so many years ago. We hope Collins remains happy and healthy and keeps playing as long as his talent allows. We also hope the kind of ignorant bigotry Collins stood up to this week is finally beginning its own long and permanent retirement from all professional sports in America.

Ignorance and bigotry never make a group of people stronger, something that anyone who's ever played team sports - or been a part of any successful team - already knows. 

What unites us is stronger than what divides us. It's what makes the difference between the winners and the losers in the game of life.

Uncle Sam Is Not Your Janitor

America may be on the verge of yet another war - something the American people don't want - but you wouldn't know it if you checked the U.S. news media. Monitoring America's major legitimate news sources, only a few are even talking about that uneasy feeling we're having about Syria, that the ghosts of pre-war eras of the past are walking among us again.

The stories our colleagues are covering do include some important topics, like the announcement by NBA player Jason Collins that he's gay - the first out and active player in the NBA, or any major professional men's sport in the U.S. That's a topic we'll likely revisit ourselves later this week.

The continued cowardly actions of Congress in dealing with the effects of sequestration also grabbed some of the headlines, as did the Elizabeth Colbert-Busch smackdown of Mark Sanford at the debate in South Carolina, and the story of Justice Sandra Day O'Conner finally admitting the Supreme Court's 2000 Bush v. Gore decision seriously harmed the legitimacy of the Court.

Still, of all the major U.S. newspapers and other legitimate news organizations, not a single one over the last ten hours prominently featured the fact that the world once again appears to be waiting on the U.S. to clean up the ongoing mess in Syria.

That wasn't the case last weekend, when some of the same Republicans who got us into the mess in Iraq were again banging the war drums on the Sunday shows.

On Fox, several guests made it clear how they think America needs to get involved in Syria militarily. Loyal conservative Bill Kristol even called President Obama 'irresponsible' for not wanting to rush into war. Republican Rep. Mike Rogers insisted on ABC that some action be taken by the U.S. to help cleanup the situation in Syria. Sen. John McCain tried to have it both ways, saying that putting U.S. troops in Syria would be the "worst thing the United States could do," but also insisting that Syrians would "take revenge" on America if we didn't invade.

Meanwhile, the Syrian elite remain mostly unaffected by the civil war raging in their own country. All this while the leader of last nation we've been trying to help for over a decade - Afghanistan - admitted the U.S. has been wasting millions trying and failing to bribe their way to peace in his country.

We're aware of America's place as a world leader, but as we've pointed out previously, more than once, America can no longer be counted upon to be the world's sole policeman. What's more, America has already been supporting the rebels in Syria for some time - just without putting U.S. soldiers on the ground there, in harm's way.

The rest of the world needs to learn that they cannot scream at America to clean up every mess around the world - and then scream at America when and if we do intervene to try and clean up the mess in question.

There are many nations that are competent and have more of a stake in conflicts going on near them. Israel, Iran, Turkey, Jordan, and Egypt all have far more to lose if Syria remains a war-torn nation for years. What's more, some of those nations could earn international praise if they successfully attempt to help Syrians clean up the mess the Assad regime has left there.

The days of America as getting dirty up to our proverbial elbows as worldwide political janitor and supercop are ending. We'll still help, sure.

But it's time everyone else learned to grab a political mop and bucket, and do a bit more political cleanup themselves.