lucidity's blog

Sara Robinson, who also writes about the FLDS, has a new article explaining the historical context of Rev. Jeremiah Wright's theology and why conservatives are so eager to take him down. First, you have to understand the evangelical concept of the "prosperity gospel," also called the "Word of Faith." The following explanation is from Sarah Posner:

Another in the series on the FLDS from Sara Robinson, who usually blogs at Orcinus. This article looks at the FLDS from the perspective of a 12-point checklist put out by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service that helps governments determine when religious or political groups have crossed the line and become dangerous (Campaign for America's Future):

7. Crimes of Intimidation — Groups heading toward violent confrontation usually start with threats and petty violence against members and outsiders who dare to cross them. (Occasionally, these people end up dead — which only makes them a useful warning to others.) Knowing that they can intimidate and silence people raises the leader's sense of invincibility and teaches him that violence works. Both lessons raise the odds he'll resort to more violence more quickly in the future. It also makes life much harder for investigators gathering new information on the group as the risk level rises.

For FLDS members, the cultural atmosphere has always been one of dawn-to-dusk intimidation. As noted, men who don't comply will simply lose everything. Women risk being sent away from their families, reassigned to other households or colonies, or committed to mental hospitals. Children have no choices about marriage, work, or education. Whatever the Prophet says, goes — and God have mercy on you if you dare to refuse.

The New Times account strongly suggests that Warren Jeffs was rapidly ratcheting up the overall level of intimidation within the group — and hinting strongly at violence — before he was arrested. His growing paranoia led him to purge dozens of men from the church as suspected enemies, banishing them and seizing their wives on a scale no prophet had dared attempt before. Removing him from the picture may have slowed the group's acceleration toward violent confrontation; but if he comes back — or another leader takes up these same themes — the group could once again move into the danger zone. After all: they live their lives on the edge of that line.

Score: 4 out of 5

Sara Robinson at Orcinus is starting a series about the FLDS that includes reporting from Jon Krakauer's Under the Banner of Heaven and the new book The Secret Lives of Saints by Daphne Bramham. Here's Sara's series so far; check back at Orcinus periodically for more.

• Are FLDS women brainwashed?
• The Secret Lives of Saints
• What We're Not Talking About, Part I: Other Issues With the FLDS

One of the things we need to understand is just how the FLDS managed to stay so far under the radar for so long — and what twisted consequences were allowed to follow from that lack of oversight. Bramham shows that they did a stunningly effective job of building their own self-sufficient infrastructure of community institutions — hospitals, police forces, courts, financial trusts, schools, and employers — that allowed the church to function without interacting with the outside world any more than necessary. Most of the group's institutions were designed to mimic and supplant outside authority well enough to keep the group (and especially its treatment of women and children) hidden from the prying eyes of outsiders. And, for 60 years, those who were responsible for providing higher-level oversight for all these institutions have almost always been somehow induced to look the other way. [...]

Like African-Americans in the slavery era, women who tried to run were captured by these police and returned to their husbands for punishment — or taken to the hospital for the dreaded mental health evaluation. The police force's main job is to be the muscle that enforces the Prophet's control of the entire community. When the Prophet decides that a man no longer deserves his home, these are the cops who enforce the eviction. Appealing to the FLDS judges has been useless: due process as we understand it doesn't even enter into the conversation.

There is progress on this front. The state of Utah began to move against the Hildale police force in 2005, revoking the certification of its polygamous chief. Sam Roundy admitted that he'd investigated over 25 sexual abuse cases in the past decade — including one that involved the rape of an eight-year-old — and never reported it to child protection authorities. (He pleaded ignorance of all mandated reporter laws.) However, Roundy was replaced with another polygamous officer who immediately sent Warren Jeffs a letter pledging his loyalty, and I found no word that he's left office since. Later that year, the Utah Supreme Court also disbarred the local polygamous judge, which paved the way for reform of the local courts.

But the Saints are now in many places besides Utah; and officials in these other states shouldn't be surprised if they try to hijack cops and courts and replicate this system wherever they go. In Utah, decades of failure to attend to this effectively deprived tens of thousands of people of their civil rights. It can't be allowed to happen again.

This is an interesting article from Business Week back in 2005:

Most people travel long distances with the idea that they'll accept the burden for something better, be it a house, salary, or school. They presume the trade-off is worth the agony. But studies show that commuters are on average much less satisfied with their lives than noncommuters. A commuter who travels one hour, one way, would have to make 40% more than his current salary to be as fully satisfied with his life as a noncommuter, say economists Bruno S. Frey and Alois Stutzer of the University of Zurich's Institute for Empirical Research in Economics. People usually overestimate the value of the things they'll obtain by commuting — more money, more material goods, more prestige — and underestimate the benefit of what they are losing: social connections, hobbies, and health. "Commuting is a stress that doesn't pay off," says Stutzer.

I finally got around to reading Naomi Klein's 1999 book No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies. It's a critique of the hypocrisy of strongly branded companies like Nike, Starbucks, and Disney, but also an analysis of corporate power in general. It's comprehensive, startling, and infuriating.

By 1997, it had become clear to Nike's critics that if they were serious about taking on the swoosh in an image war, they would have to get at the source of the brand's cachet — and as Nick Alexander of the multicultural Third Force magazine wrote in the summer of that year, they weren't even close. "Nobody has figured out how to make Nike break down and cry. The reason is that nobody has engaged African Americans in the fight. ... To gain significant support from communities of color, corporate campaigns need to make connections between Nike's overseas operations and conditions here at home."

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Cut and paste from an email that went out today:

In 2007, the Utah Legislature passed on of the "widest-ranging, most poorly regulated" education voucher systems in the country. "The program is projected to cost taxpayers more than $425 million over the next thirteen years, according to legislative fiscal analysts."

WE NEED YOUR HELP IN DEFEATING THIS LEGISLATION!

As you likely know, Utahns for Public Schools are looking for over 90,000 signatures from Utahns who would like to see the bill voted on by the public. This group is VERY CLOSE to reaching their goal! This is the last weekend for signatures.

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The good news: America's science literacy rate is up from a pathetic 10 percent in 1988. The bad news: it's still only 28 percent (MIT Technology Review):

Okay, now let's talk (dare I say rant?) about the 200 million Americans out there who cannot read a simple story in, say, Technology Review or the New York Times science section and understand even the basics of DNA or microchips or global warming.

This level of science illiteracy may explain why over 40 percent of Americans do not believe in evolution and about 20 percent, when asked if the earth orbits the sun or vice versa, say it's the sun that does the orbiting — placing these people in the same camp as the Inquisition that punished Galileo almost 400 years ago. It also explains the extraordinary disconnect between scientists and much of the public over issues the scientists think were settled long ago — never mind newer discoveries and research on topics such as the use of chimeras to study cancer, or pills that may extend life span by 30 or 40 percent.

As Carl Sagan eloquently wrote in The Demon-Haunted World, ignorance reigns in our society at a moment when science is on the cusp of doing amazing and wonderful things, but also dangerous things. Ignorance, said Sagan, is not an option.

In honor of Charles Darwin's birthday (February 12, 1809), here are just a few of the many humorous quotes at The Imminent Demise of Evolution: The Longest-Running Falsehood in Creationism:

1904

"Today, at the dawn of the new century, nothing is more certain than that Darwinism has lost its prestige among men of science. It has seen its day and will soon be reckoned a thing of the past."

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Mayor Rocky Anderson posting at Daily Kos:

Dear Kossacks,

Thank you so much for your feedback and supportive remarks. We can achieve so much through effective, concerted action like we saw in Washington, DC one week ago.

The following are remarks I gave at a public hearing hosted by Utah Governor Jon Huntsman, Jr. on the so-called "Divine Strake" test. This planned detonation of 700 tons of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil on radioactively contaminated land at the Nevada Test Site has received little attention in the national press. The test, however, has the potential to spread radioactivity beyond the bounds of the test site, is being planned in violation of international law, and is widely regarded as the precursor to a renewed US nuclear program.

If you are as concerned about the Divine Strake test as I am, and as many Utah and Nevada residents are, please contact your elected officials and make your voices heard.

Best regards,

Rocky Anderson

Click to read Rocky's remarks.

On the 34th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision, Barbara O'Brien at The Mahablog suggests a better way of framing the abortion debate than "pro-life" vs. "pro-choice":

Of course it's highly inaccurate and inflammatory to frame the debate in terms of being pro-abortion and anti-abortion. The phrase "pro-choice" isn't entirely accurate either, however, because where abortion is illegal women still choose to have them; they just have to go underground to have them. And underground abortions are far more dangerous to women. The real difference is whether one believes abortion, including abortion for medical cause, should be criminalized in all or most circumstances; or whether one believes elective abortion should remain legal for at least part of the pregnancy and abortion for medical cause through all of it. For that reason I'd rather talk about criminalization versus legality rather than pro- or anti-choice.

The framing of the debate as pro-abortion vs. anti-abortion is particularly meaningless because (1) no one is pro-abortion, and (2) the groups that call themselves "anti-abortion" refuse to support policies that would actually reduce the number of abortions. As O'Brien points out, not one "anti-abortion" organization in the United States supports the use of contraception. Their activism extends to making abortion illegal — and that's it.