Writer Will Wilkinson deconstructs the notion of a cohesive American identity and American-ness that is consistently used by conservatives to brow beat and divide for socio-political gain:

…Americans certainly aren’t “a people” in the sense that the Japanese, the Kurds, or the Jews are a people. There is no American ethnicity; the U.S. is a resolutely multicultural (and multilingual) country. The usual idea is that American identity is creedal, or organized around a distinctively American set of ideas and values.

[…]

Take the belief in individual freedom. Some Americans have understood individual freedom as freedom from all non-defensive physical force and fraud. Some Americans have understood individual freedom as implying roughly equal voice in the democratic process, which straightforwardly requires the redistribution of resources and state regulation of spending on political speech. Some Americans have understood individual freedom as a condition of robust autonomy or self-governance that requires universal government-financed education and a minimum of material resources necessary to ensure that individuals are able actually to exercise their liberty and are not caged-in by necessity. And none of these are the conception of individual liberty that prevailed among the Founders. Anyway, there was heated disagreement among the Founders, too. Some them took the ideal of individual freedom to be consistent with chattel slavery while others correctly found human bondage obviously at odds with liberty. Some defended a robust conception of freedom of conscience while others wished to ban the practice of certain religions for freedom’s sake. And so on.

Not only do appeals to the values of the Founders fail to settle anything, many such appeals are simply ignorant of what this or that Founder actually believed.

[…]

[I]ts [sic] misguided to appeal to the American creed as the basis of the American identity of the American people. There are multiple conceptions of American creed equally consistent with American history. That’s why movements to glorify, elevate, and honor a particular conception of American identity based on a particular conception of the American creed necessarily marginalize equally or more historically plausible conceptions and therefore tend to suggest that citizens who favor those conceptions are less or even un-American. It seems pretty clear to me that this is exactly how the conservative politics of American identity works.

…I guess I don’t think it’s entirely preposterous for Americans to see themselves as a people. But any conception of the American creed sufficiently general to encompass most widespread American conceptions of individual freedom, equality, tolerance and so on is going to be so general that it will do very little to distinguish American identity from, say, Canadian identity. And that’s clearly not what Glenn Beck or the staff of National Review have in mind when they talk about American values, promote a conception of American identity, or encourage Americans to see themselves as a people…

The conservative conception of American identity is so selective and so specific that it tends to suggest to its adherents that many (maybe even most!) Americans aren’t real Americans, or are Americans who betray real American ideals. Birther and Muslim Obama memes crudely reify the logical upshot of the right’s fixation on its favored version of American identity. Most conservatives don’t need to believe that Obama is literally an un-American non-Christian. They’re just content to nod along with Glenn Beck when he implies, or outright asserts, that a guy who adheres to a mundane version of liberal politics slightly to the right of the typical “This American Life” fan is hell-bent on destroying the special Americaness of America.

(source)

Extraordinary Rendition by Andrew Becraft

Dear President Obama,

Let’s try delivering on that campaign promise to close Guantánamo Bay.

Cheers,
daniel extra

[via:legoexpress]

My Mini Story: Gay 2nd Generation Cambodian American

Suny Um shares his story of struggle to survive and find acceptance as a gay, second generation*, Cambodian American.

[*Note: In Asian American discourse, first generation is the generation who leaves the home country, 1.5 generation are those who were born abroad but came to the United States at a very young age, and second generation are those who were born in the States to parents born abroad.]

[via:allsineed]

Norman Finkelstein, a Jewish American political scientist and author, specializing in Jewish-related issues and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was invited to give a speech at the University of Waterloo in which a Jewish girl threw the Holocaust card to silence criticisms of the Israeli government’s crimes against the Palestinian people. 

And here is what Dr. Finkelstein had to say in response.

[via:bradicalmang]

MAD TV parody “MTV Icon: Whitney Houston”

Laughing so hard, we just got an ab workout! The beginning dance tribute is too much!

[via:theponderingplaidlezz]

Introducing the iPhone 5!* by Bizarro

*Does not contain a phone.

If there’s an app for everything, why bother with the phone, right?

[via:thedailywhat]

by Jeremiah Pride

In anticipation of President Obama’s address to the Nation I had great hopes, but low expectations as to the substance that would be offered within his latest political address. As I sat patiently through President Obama’s 18 minute speech, he proudly announced that the “American combat mission in Iraq was over.” He went on further to say that the Iraqis would basically be left to their own devices; offering them encouragement to drive on without our assistance. In my opinion, the speeches failing was the lack of Obama qualifying and quantifying real troop accomplishments while at war in Iraq; I was left wondering was the mission actually accomplished? And if so, what in fact was the reason for staying after WMDs were not found?

From my understanding many of the Iraqi translators and informants that weren’t killed during the war are now pleading with the State Department for amnesty and political asylum.  Amnesty and safe haven was something promised to most of them around the beginning of the war during the Bush Administration.  Some of them even joined our American military to gain citizenship. Unfortunately many of these Iraqis and foreign nationals, some from neighboring Islamic countries, still live in fear of death and torture for aiding US soldiers in accomplishing “the mission”; yet this wasn’t addressed by the President at all.

I noticed that President Obama’s speechwriters did, however, manage to insert a “velvet slap” to the Bush administration for getting us into this whole mess by emphasizing Bush’s dedication to the soldiers and how Bush was sitting president at the beginning of the war. To the trained political ear the opposite political message was projected, which was, Bush got us into this mess, not me! This back and forth covert mudslinging could have best been used to address the translator issues and listing solid accomplishments made in the last eight years we’ve been at war. He only spoke only in generalities, i.e. “Millions of pieces of equipment being moved”, or redeployed and “…thousands of troops were finally coming home.”  This was all great news, but the message had neither substance nor originality. These details had been covered by the mainstream media for at least a week before his Presidential address. Although he did state that a few solders remain in Iraq for training, President Obama never once mentioned that there numbers are still in the thousands.

The mundane references to the Iraqi pull-out did not serve as a motivator or a source of comfort for most Americans and American military troops. Military service men and women are still wondering what we actually accomplished in Iraq and if Bush’s war was worth thousands of American lives and billions of dollars. Nearing November, the focus and the timing of the speech seemed merely to gain political capital. He mentioned that he kept his campaign promise of calling the Iraq war to an end, but what about his other pre-electoral promises made by the President to the military and to the American people at-large?

I was not surprised that he didn’t address the humongous “elephant” in the room which is the unjust perpetuation of discriminatory firings under the Uniformed Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) article117 which is better known as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT). This is a policy prevents LGBT military personnel from serving openly in the military.  We have no domestic rights and/or benefits and are forced to live a lie—less we get fired.  This address would have been a perfect opportunity for President Obama to, at least, recognized and reiterate his devotion to discontinuing this bigoted practice. He could have also used his executive authority to impose a presidential stay on DADT policy until the Pentagon finishes their useless biased surveys. This move would have immediately stopped the firings, which have caused so many lives to be adversely affected.

President Obama could have gained instant political capital from the thousands of LGBT military servicemen and women, and their straight and LGBT supporters by openly recognizing that thousands of LGBT service members have deployed and many LGBT soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen have been killed and wounded during the Iraq war. He could have also mentioned that over 22 Nations, to include NATO countries, UK, Australia, and Canada have openly LGBT military service personnel who are effective, equal and have not adversely affected “unit moral” or “unit cohesiveness.” This “military” issue wasn’t deemed relevant enough to be addressed during the President’s ”military” address to the nation.

Of course you could have argued that this was a war address and not an appropriate venue for politico-domestic address: that’s if, President Obama didn’t speak about jobs, the BP disaster and the general state of the economy. Of course these issues are important but as an LGBT military officer, I was more than a little bit disappointed in the speeches lack of emphasis on military social issues in which we are currently plagued. It would have taken the President just two of his 18 minutes to change everything for us. He should know by now that the DADT is more divisive now than ever. Sensing that impending death of DADT, many religious factions who are embedded amongst our military ranks are using the Pentagon’s stalling as a prime opportunity to maximize the unjust firings and harassment of honorable LGBT war heroes. All we can do now is to hide and hope for Obama’s promise of “Change We Can Believe In.”

Jeremiah Pride is the pen name of an active duty, gay military major in the US Army.

ManCandy Monday: Noah Mills

The interweb seems split over whether or not model Noah Mills was born a Canadian or a Baltimore native, but we guess it doesn’t really matter when you’re so hot, no one wants to photograph you with clothes fully on. Okay, that’s a lie: Mills has been crazy prolific, being featured in campaigns for Dolce & Gabbana, Hilfiger, you name it. And if you saw Sex and the City 2 (and who did?), you might recall he was Samantha’s boy toy. Lucky, bitch.

The first photo of him lifting his sweater is one of most aggressively titillating images ever and we think he should be arrested and immediately brought to daniel extra HQ for detention.

Competition and not personal desires are what drive women and gay men to lose weight, according to a new study published in the Journal of Evolution and Human Behavior.

The study found a natural competitive instinct among individuals of both groups to compare themselves to others who are seen as more successful. The study did not find the same results among lesbian women or heterosexual men.

Norman Li of Singapore Management University, who conducted the study, said the behavior is evolutionary. People in the West tend to gain weight as they age, therefore equating thinness with youth, he said, according to New Scientist magazine.

The constantly piqued competitive nature (thanks to an ever-present media saturated with images of thin models) can lead to psychological issues such as eating disorders, depression, and workaholism.

Photograph by April Maciborka

“This portrait was taken in a city called Bundi in Rajasthan, India. This man shone in the setting sun, his skin glistening, his eyes vibrant and his turban matching the color of the old painted wall behind him. I just couldn’t let the photographic opportunity pass me by.”—April Maciborka