Author: Alan Bean
Obamacare rollout disaster is nothing new
By Alan Bean
“I’m going to try and download every movie ever made, and you’re going to try to sign up for Obamacare, and we’ll see which happens first.”
This faux challenge from Jon Stewart to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius gets to the essence of public bafflement over the disastrous launch of the Affordable Care website. We have traveled so far down the digital highway, people think, that there’s almost nothing computer technology can’t do . . . like downloading thousands of movies on demand. So, why can’t a simple government website allow people to sign up for medical insurance? How hard can that be?
Here’s our deep suspicion: the Obamacare website failed because everything the federal government touches turns to garbage. While the IT wizards in private industry remake the world, this clanky old government website can’t accomplish simple tasks. Wouldn’t you know it?
But this simplistic analysis is wrongheaded.
The government’s website is an amalgamation of dozens of private companies contributing individual pieces to the larger puzzle. Prior to launch, IT company reps told their congressional inquisitors, our little puzzle piece worked just fine. But when they put the puzzle together nothing worked. The picture on the puzzle box showed a puppy rolling in a green meadow; but the completed puzzle looked like giant robots battling it out in a dystopian moonscape. Our firm can’t be held responsible for a system failure.
This happens all the time. When you download a movie, you are using relatively simple software designed to perform a simple task. Impressive, to be sure; but straightforward. When you create a computer program designed to link dozens of discrete systems into a working whole, things can quickly go south.
The difficulty of integrating a series of very different computer systems came home to me when I was researching the unjust treatment of the IRP-6, a group of IT pioneers from Colorado Springs working to create software for the federal government. The scene is post-9-11 America. Washington officialdom has realized that the attack on the twin towers exploited the fact that American law enforcement agencies lacked the technology to coordinate diverse databases and intelligence systems. Dozens of huge household-name IT companies had been working to fix the problem without success.
IRP, a small, underfunded operation in Colorado, believed it could contribute the puzzle pieces that would make the giant robots look more like a puppy. Some federal officials were interested until the FBI decided to treat the IRP professionals as common criminals and throw them in prison for over a decade. You can read the whole tragic story here.
When I listen to the talking heads lament the egregious failures of the Obamacare rollout, I am reminded of the decade-long failure of the intelligence community to integrate intelligence systems that didn’t speak the same language. It wasn’t just that the FBI couldn’t share intel with the NSA; even the various departments within the FBI functioned as communication silos.
Here is the section of my IRP-6 story that discusses the problem as it relates to the FBI. (more…)
Leaks, lies and hypocrisy: the real meaning of Snowden’s revelations
By Alan Bean
Glenn Greenwald reported this morning that NSA Director General, Keith Alexander is now insisting that newspapers must be forced to stop publishing leaks from the likes of Edward Snowden. Apparently, Mr. Alexander is unfamiliar with the First Amendment.
Greenwald notes that German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, wasn’t perturbed by revelations that the NSA has been spying on millions of German citizens until it was revealed that her own personal communications had been hacked. How very human of her.
The argument against publishing leaks is predicated on national security concerns. In short, Leaks make us vulnerable to terrorist attacks. But the NSA surveillance hasn’t been restricted to terrorists. According to Greenwald, “Our reporting has revealed spying on conferences designed to negotiate economic agreements, the Organization of American States, oil companies, ministries that oversee mines and energy resources, the democratically elected leaders of allied states, and entire populations in those states.”
In other words, American leaders like President Barack Obama have been hypocritical, arguing that their surveillance activities reflect a dedication to international stability while behaving as if nothing matters beyond American self-interest. (more…)
Al Mohler likes Mormon neighbors, but his God doesn’t
By Alan Bean
Speaking to a friendly audience at Brigham Young University, Dr. Albert Mohler tossed out a lede line guaranteed to raise eyebrows:
“I do not believe that we are going to heaven together, but I do believe we may go to jail together.”
It is hard to know which side of the comma in that sentence is the most disconcerting.
Why would the mouthpiece of conservative evangelical orthodoxy risk offending an almost exclusively Mormon audience by, in essence, consigning them to conscience eternal torment in the world to come? (more…)
Godly delight: the rock that sends the ripples
By Alan Bean
God delights in all of us, all the time, no matter what.
We have been talking about the silence of “messy middle” churches and the need for a prophetic public theology.
Our silence, I have suggested, is a consequence of ideological diversity. Messy middle pastors can’t address issues like immigration, poverty, homelessness and wealth inequality without sparking a culture war meltdown in the pews. We have nothing to say on the big issues of the day because nothing can be safely said.
Some of my readers agree with my diagnosis of the disease but have suggested, politely and off the record, that nothing can be done. Churches can engage in ministries of charity (food pantries, soup kitchens and the like), or we can focus on issues like payday loans and human trafficking that enjoy wide, bipartisan appeal. But a big-picture prophetic public theology is a non-starter.
I have more sympathy with this counsel of despair than you might imagine. Prophetic preaching often goes wrong because it starts wrong. (more…)
Green religion confronts a blue-orange world
By Alan Bean
In a recent post, I argued that the lack of a clear public theology has deprived “messy middle” congregations of a prophetic voice. Messy middle congregations feature a complex mix of theological and political points of view that cover the range from conservative to liberal. Intimidated by the lack of a cohesive world view within their congregations, I argued, opinion leaders in messy middle churches have a hard time applying the Christian faith to the public policy issues of the day. We can talk about family and personal relationships, grief, prayer, courage and a host of other issues, but we have nothing to say about immigration policy, health care, homelessness, poverty or the criminal justice system. For all practical purposes, we have no public theology.
We can get a better feel for the messy middle problem if we shift from the familiar conservative-liberal divide to a more sociological model. In the late 1950s, on the cusp of the civil rights movement, a psychology professor named Clare Graves devised what he called The Emergent Cyclical Levels of Existence Theory (ECLET). The basic idea was that moral thinking is closely related to the practical problems faced by individuals and the groups to which they belong.
If you are an adolescent living in an impoverished urban neighborhood, the need for physical survival is all-consuming. So you join the toughest gang on the street and play follow the leader. Those for whom survival is the pressing need, in Graves’ system, live in the “purple” zone.
If you are the toughest gang leader on the street (or you aim to be), your big concern is controlling the homies who flock to you for protection. This “red” level of moral reasoning controls our streets and prisons.
Organized religion enters the picture with the “moving away from” orientation Graves associates with the color blue. Here, the pressing need is to distinguish between the anarchy of the streets and law-and-order stability. The emphasis in blue circles is on being right, thinking right and doing right. This means black-and-white, right-and-wrong categories. The big question is who’s in and who’s out; who’s acceptable, and who ain’t. It is also important to know who’s in charge. A stable social order requires taking guidance from a long list of authority figures (God, your parents, your boss, your pastor, or the founding fathers). Blue thinking flourishes in cultures passing from a period of social upheaval into a phase of relative stability. (more…)
When worlds collide: B.J. Smith gets his day in court
By Alan Bean
I have been following the case of B.J. Smith for well over a year now. His plight was brought to my attention by a member of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth where Mr. Smith was once a member. Like George Zimmerman, Smith is accused of using his gun to kill a man; only in this case, the shooting victim was carrying a knife and threatening bodily harm.
B.J. Smith is on trial because the two primary shaping influences in his life, the US Navy and the Christian faith, collided in the moments after Robert Fowler died. The military taught Smith how to use deadly force. Don’t draw your weapon unless you mean to use it, B.J. was told, but if you start firing, don’t stop until the enemy is no longer a threat.
That advice makes sense on the battle field, but in civilian life it can get a military vet into trouble. (more…)
Can American democracy survive the madness?
By Alan Bean
Last Tuesday night, David Dewhurst called for Barack Obama’s impeachment. Like most politicians on the right, the Lieutenant Governor of Texas sees Obamacare as a kind of socialist overreach, but the “high crime” topping his syllabus of errors is the president’s handling of the Benghazi affair. Contacted by reporters, Dewhurst elaborated on his outrage:
I’m very concerned about Benghazi, in which all of the national news reporting indicated that live video was streaming into the White House. That means that there was an overhead platform, probably a drone in the area. At least that’s what it tells me. And for not mobilizing some response to protect the ambassador and those three Americans is just outrageous to me. Just outrageous.”
It probably wouldn’t interest the Lieutenant Governor to learn that the “live feed theory” was debunked months ago. Calling for Obama’s impeachment has become an article of faith in southern state politics. When you’ve got Tea Party candidates running for your job you can’t afford to be out-outraged. If it takes false facts to gin up the required level of vitriol, Dewhurst will pay the price. (more…)
Tucson activists close down Operation Streamline
By Alan Bean
Tucson immigration rights activists in Tucson successfully shut down Operation Streamline. It’s only in one courthouse in one community, but it is just another indication that concern about Streamline is growing. It takes courage, and a measure of desperation, to undertake this kind of protest.
Activists block Tucson courthouse, immigration hearings canceled for the day
October 11, 2013 8:12 am •
Perla Trevizo Arizona Daily Star
A protest today by immigration rights activists continued in Tucson for more than four hours, prompting the federal court to shutdown a deportation process known as Operation Streamline for the day.
About 80 immigrant rights activists are protesting at the federal courthouse downtown, blocking entrances as well as buses carrying people to hearing that could result in their deportation. By noon police had used power saws to remove two of about 10 protesters who had used chains to attach themselves to the wheels of one of two buses. By 12:30 one of the buses was back on the road and officers worked on removing protesters from the second one. About 30 minutes later that bus was also able to leave.
The group stopped the buses on the Interstate 10 frontage road as they approached the courthouse, and some of the activists chained themselves to the wheels while others hung banners critical of the fast-track immigration deportation court process called Operation Streamline. (more…)
Expedited Indian Removal
By Alan Bean
I have written a number of posts about Operation Streamline, a dreadful and dehumanizing process of “expedited removal” that unfolds daily, primarily in border town courtrooms in Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. To be honest, these posts don’t get a lot of attention. I’m hoping this opinion piece by Roberto Rodriguez, an assistant professor in Mexican-American studies at the University of Arizona, will be different.
Rodriguez draws attention to the stark racial undercurrents that most observers are too polite to notice. On a dozen occasions, he has taken college classes to witness these “cattle call” proceedings and they always come away sickened:
When my students leave the courtroom, they say they feel defiled, dirty … as if they have just witnessed something abominable, something that should not be taking place, something contrary to the US Constitution, something amoral. And all of it takes place compliments of our tax dollars.
Then there’s this:
There was a time when being apprehended on the border simply meant returning the migrants across the border … until someone decided that criminalization and incarceration could be profitable – literally, a big business. The more bodies, the more beds, the more money for the private prison industry.
And this:
I remember the first time I went to this operation, President George W. Bush was in office. When Sen. Barack Obama ran for and won the presidency, we all thought that this kangaroo court procedure finally would be shut down, something akin to the fall of the Berlin Wall. Instead, as written into the current comprehensive immigration reform proposal, this Expedited Indian Removal program will become three times bigger than its current form.
Operation Streamline: Expedited Indian Removal
Wednesday, 09 October 2013
By Roberto Cintli Rodriguez, Truthout
On the left side of the courtroom, 60 to 70 short, dark-brown men and a few women are seated, handcuffed and shackled from the wrists, waist and ankles. All are silent. They take up about 20 rows, including the two corresponding to the jury box. The scene is surreal. Their chains, their color and height are very pronounced – yet in this courtroom, are hardly noticed by the lawyers and other court officials, including the judge.
This kangaroo court called Operation Streamline is America’s modern version of Expedited Indian Removal; chase, capture, pseudo-judicial proceeding, incarceration and deport. It convenes daily at 1:30 PM in Tucson, Arizona. (more…)
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