Manifestos from the Decline

Climate Change Deniers Used to Just be Stupid

2010-02-11T11:28:00.000-08:00

Oh boy . . .

Yes, you heard him. Climate change deniers are, in his words, "unpatriotic."

There are a lot of people out there that think the Moon landing was a hoax. I'm sure you can find someone that genuinely thinks that the world is the center of the universe. Global warming/climate change is just one in a plethora of phenomena that science has described in its brief history. Why would anyone deny it?

Simple.

Most people have never seen the evidence. None of us has seen it all: it's taken climatologists, oceanographers, geologists, botanists, meteorologists, etc, working in concert to fully understand it. Most importantly, why not deny it? Has anyone--including Al Gore--given up the instruments that make this "inconvenient truth," so terribly inconvenient?

Scientists aren't prophets. It is incumbent on science to describe the facts in such a way that those who haven't the background to understand a least-squares regression or a p-value, can somehow connect the dots. To be fair, many attempts at this have been thwarted by commercial and religious interests, spending billions on obfuscation campaigns.

Buying into a cigarette company's claim that their product doesn't cause cancer is arguably stupid, but it does not follow that lighting up, against the advice of the Surgeon General, makes you a bad American. Bill Nye undermines the premise of Maddow's entire argument by concluding that a failure to yield to science is unpatriotic. This is as ludicrous as the claim that a week of heavy snow disproves decades of evidence on climate change.

Nye brought a political hack's weapons to a scientist's fight. In science, we win arguments with facts, not hyperbole. Shrouding science in mystery and demonizing its critics--however foolish their arguments--makes it indistinguishable from religion.

Met Him and Everything, have You?

2010-01-13T08:23:00.001-08:00

So tell me, oh knowing one:
What does God look like?
A burning bush
Or a beard of white?

Since you claim to know God
You might tell me
What his favorite
Football team would be?

Why would he hate Muslims
(Since they worship him too)?
Why favor
A Protestant over a Jew?

And what's he got against
The Hindu kids?
Aren't they—like the Buddhists—
Also His?

So answer for God—
Since you know Him so well—
How can there be Heaven
With so many in Hell?

--AJ

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Hume on Woods: where Sport Collides with Sanctimony

2010-01-11T12:26:00.000-08:00

I thought I was done--I really did; I haven't made a post in months. But this is such low-hanging fruit, I have to chime in.

I have to.

My message to Brit Hume is this: where was all of this sanctimony when Mark Sanford not only cheated on his wife, but publicly humiliated her by waxing nostalgic about his lover at a press conference? Where was this call to "forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith" to a brother-in-Christ, whose only hope of recovery appears to be at an asylum for the criminally clueless?

Tiger Woods is a talented and famous athlete, but he's still just an athlete. He did what so many other people have done with their fame and notoriety: he used it to get laid. What he didn't do was try to substitute a public confession for remorse. How is it the duty of an athlete to be "a great example to the world," when adulterous politicians, hypocritical (and often pedophilic) clergy and sensationalistic (i.e. dishonest) pundits, like Hume, have clearly abdicated the role? Brit Hume--and everyone else, for that matter--should accept the game of golf for what it is: a nice way to spend a Sunday that doesn't involve listening to a lecherous douche bag with a collar.

If Woods is to be redeemed, he will do so with his clubs. If he is to find forgiveness, he will find it in himself. The religious product placement from a washed-up talking-head won't have anything to do with either one.

The Profit Mandate: a Futuristic View of the Health Care Debacle

2009-09-25T09:24:00.001-07:00

With everyone running around, either screaming in the town hall meetings or about them, displaying either what looked an awful lot like racism or an outrage against it and leveling the cry of "socialism" or trying to refute it, the duopoly labored tirelessly out of public view and under the watchful eye of special interests. Having won an astonishing majority in the House and Senate, the Democrats then inexplicably reached across the aisle to include Republicans in a spirit of bipartisanship. It seemed obvious from the outset that the Republicans were not interested in cooperating, yet the Democrats continued to be their proverbial lapdog. Concession after concession yielded one Republican "maybe" (Olympia Snow) and a rising cadre of "Nay" threats from within the Democratic Party itself. Though the word "socialism" had widely been circulated by opponents of health care reform, the resulting "Baucus Bill" made the scourge of socialized medicine look tame: mandatory insurance, complete with penalties against those who couldn't afford coverage. At last, the way was cleared to raise insurance profits from bloated to corpulent.

If only Barack Obama was a secret muslim; if only he had been born on foreign soil; if only the death panels were real and the Democrats really intended to force poor, white, Christian mothers to have abortions and take away insurance coverage from Republicans to give it to illegal aliens. Of course, none of it was true. It was so preposterous that we were left scraping our jaws up off the floor. When polls showed that there were people who actually believed such nonsense, a lot of us (myself included) looked away from Washington at the spectacle on television, radio and Internet. We castigated the ignorant as well as the purveyors of this bilge and while we were distracted, the duopoly wrapped up their gift to insurance companies, pharmaceutical corporations and medical groups, decorating it with a glistening bow.

Discussion? There would be no further discussion. The Democrats could point back to the disorderly town hall meetings--Code Pink and the Tea Baggers had performed brilliantly--and remind us that no one seemed willing to debate when they had the chance, they just wanted to disrupt the process. Meanwhile, Fox News and MSNBC would continue as they had before, Fox News inciting the right whenever necessary and MSNBC inciting the left, as circumstances required subterfuge for legislation that would make every man, woman and child a slave to the Medical Triad. Even liberal Hollywood played along. Of course, the Republicans would condemn it at every step; not that they had a problem with mandated profits: they, like the Democrats, were always for sale. Looking back, the political theater leading up to the passage of the Baucus Law, given the overwhelming Democratic majority, was as poorly choreographed as a fight scene from Walker, Texas Ranger.

Since Ross Perot's campaign in 1992, there had been a rising independent and third-party movement afoot that might threaten business as usual in Washington. The outside parties tended to limit their focus on specific issues, whereas the duopoly factions had long held a two-sizes-fit-all approach to the American public: pro-business, anti-abortion and pro-death penalty, among other issues, defined Republicans, who claimed to be to the right on the political spectrum; pro-labor, pro-abortion and welfare, to name only a few, defined the Democrats, who were assigned the left pole. Not surprisingly, due to the broadness of the issues that defined each of the factions, few people were full adherants to either one: pro-choice fiscal conservatives abounded in the Republican Party, as did gun-toting, anti-abortion labor advocates among the Democrats. Two sizes, did not in fact, fit all, one size did, and that size took on one of two names every few years. Still, it was impossible to ignore that the duopoly factions had more in common with one another than at odds. Both factions were seduced by the military and prison-industrial complexes, both received large campaign contributions from monied interests and both supported a corporate welfare system that essentially rendered the tax debate moot.

The purpose for a display of contrast between the duopoly factions became clear after the election of 2000. The election, determined not by voters but by the Supreme Court of the United States, had left Americans all too aware that the distinctions between the two candidates were virutally nill. In 2004, John Kerry (D-MA) literally appeared to throw the presidential race as George W. Bush (R-TX) managed to hold on for another term. Conveniently, details that seemed obvious to the public following 9/11 began trickling out in the press during Bush's final term: disproven claims of WMD in Iraq, Powell's misleading presentation of anthrax at the UN, unwarranted wiretaps against the citizenry and torture of Guantanimo detainees. Given that Nixon was forced to resign over a cover-up of political cheating and Clinton was impeached for lying about sex, one might expect such charges to result in, at the very least an investigation, if not a debate in the House Judiciary Committee over impeachment. Oddly, even in 2007, the then House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), went so far as to publicly oppose impeachment. It did, however, provide the needed contrast between the duopoly factions. It was hardly necessary for John McCain (R-AZ) to "go after the base" by picking Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) as his running mate, but it nonetheless, gave the swing vote an ultimatum: vote duopoly (again) or risk having your worst fears realized. For progressives and the educated, this was the superstitious, gay-bashing and intellectually undisciplined Sarah Palin, who would push the button just to make sure Armageddon happened; for Christians and conservatives, the pro-abortion, commy-nazi, Barack Obama, was going to turn us all into socialists and he was probably the Antichrist: he was awfully good at speaking, after all. Whether it was the boorishness of Palin (McCain's graciousness, notwithstanding) or the cool, articulate excitement invoked by Obama, the duopoly got its way.

Barack Obama was indeed looking ahead when he let Bush and Cheney off the hook for violations to the UN Civil Rights Charter, not to mention violations of U.S. Law: two national elections lie ahead--one of them presidential--and his completion of the transfer of public wealth into private coffers begun under Bush, had left progressives and conservatives alike scratching their heads. As an immensely talented jurist, Mr. Obama was, no doubt, aware of Principles III and IV of the Nuremberg Principles, adopted by the UN in 1950, and hence, knew that the Bush administration and the CIA operatives who tortured the detainees, had all violated international law. Their economic ideology an abyssmal failure, the moral bankruptcy of its imperialist philosophy laid bare before the world, reason and conscience dictated that the Republican Party would go the way of the Whigs and the Federalists.

Within the first year of his term, President Obama had an unparalleled fall in his approval rating, signed the Baucus Bill into law with no bipartisan support and ensured the survival of the Republican Party, and with it, the duopoly. The Afghan War continues. The Taliban forces, so easily defeated in the months following 9/11, continue to mount astonishingly successful attacks against our troops, as disaffected tribesmen, avenging their families and villages destroyed in the drone attacks, pour in to counter the growing number of NATO and U.S. forces. With morale sagging from multiple tours of duty and stop-loss, the military has been unable to keep pace with the need for more soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen through recruitment alone. Selective Services has begun the process of conscription, even as the caskets of our men and women are offloaded from cargo planes like cord wood. Widows and widowers of the fallen struggle to pay their insurance premiums to keep from being fined or having their children taken from them by the state.

With the elevation of insurance corporations to the level of "health landlords"--still unregulated--we dare not complain about the quality of coverage we do have. The class consciousness that arose following the market collapse in 2008 is forgotten by all but a few. Financial corporations once again display their largess conspicously. Their hubris is hardly unwarranted: a bill, expected to pass in both the House and the Senate later in the year, will place 1% of the earnings from every working resident of the United States into a mandatory 401K . . .

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Letter to David Brooks, NYT

2009-09-19T16:51:00.001-07:00

Mr. Brooks,

I read your column regularly and enjoy it. I am writing because I wish to express disagreement with you about your article, "No, it's Not About Race." We most certainly should be reluctant to invoke the specter of racism, which is why Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck throwing the word around frivolously and irresponsibly has required a response from knowledgeable people like Jimmy Carter. You may dismiss him as a bad President, but given his unique perspective, having watched the American South grow from unashamedly segregationist to the point where the Ku Klux Klan had been relegated to isolated pockets in the deep south, his authority on the subject is without peer. You tie Jackson to Jefferson in your article, without also conceding that both men unapologetically held slaves. Finally, you make a salient point at the end of your article:

"One could argue that this country is on the verge of a crisis of legitimacy," the economic blogger Arnold Kling writes. "The progressive elite is starting to dismiss rural WHITE America as illegitimate, and vice versa."

You can't have it both ways, Mr. Brooks. Whether rural or urban, the qualifier, "white" makes this unequivocally about race.

Perhaps what you saw during your run was evidence that we hadn't quite jumped over the precipice, but we are most assuredly standing on it--surely you can see this. You are a man of integrity: why would you prostrate yourself before the alter of demagogues, the likes of Limbaugh and Beck? You are one of the last rational voices on the right. Use it to pull us back into the bosom of reason.

--AJ

The "Martyrdom" of Van Jones

2009-09-10T16:52:00.001-07:00

The left has been all a twitter about the tragically fallen Van Jones. Not knowing much about the man, I have only this to say: He's a quitter, just like Sarah Palin. No, there's not a difference. The right was no worse to him than the left was to her, and even if they had been, only wimps let themselves get punked out. No amount of whitewashing or finger pointing or historical revision can turn the vacancy left by coward into the mutilated body of a martyr to symbolize the opposition's savagery.

Save your tears for the fallen in Iraq, in Afghanistan and soon, the streets of America; for the brothers, Bill and John, will shed each other's blood again over a false dichotomy, too long in the politically fossilized vendetta of binary and too brief in the dawning light of possibility and cohesion. And after Kansas bleeds and Mississippi burns, will they have the wisdom to see the liars who divided this American House through the veil of distraction and sensationalism? Will these grapes of wrath at last be vinted out to those, who, drunk on disharmony and agitation, destroyed the sacred bond of brotherhood?

The veil is rising and providence awaits the guilty

--AJ

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The Silver Lining: John McCain is a Real Maverick

2009-09-09T20:53:00.000-07:00

Following Rep. Joe Wilson's (R-SC) outburst at President Obama's address--the one where he shouted "YOU LIE!" in response to the President's contention that illegal aliens would not be covered under the pending health care bill--John McCain did what we've always been able to count on him to do: be himself. Referring to Wilson's outburst, McCain said it was, "totally disrespectful," and urged the Congressman to apologize. It is worth mentioning that a quick reference into the text of HR 3200 revealed that the liar wasn't Obama:

H.R. 3200: Sec 246 — NO FEDERAL PAYMENT FOR UNDOCUMENTED ALIENS

Nothing in this subtitle shall allow Federal payments for affordability credits on behalf of individuals who are not lawfully present in the United States.

Senator McCain can't help himself: graceful in defeat, honorable in battle, his breeding is a welcome relief in an age when even a Southern man like Wilson has none. How strange to live in a time when a person of honor and decency is a Maverick for (if nothing else) merely having these traits.

(Hint for the GOP: independents are impressed by one of two types, and it's NOT Joe Wilson; manners matter)

Update: I decided that since 'ol "Tell 'em like it ain't" Joe likes calling people liars, even when they're not, he deserves a taste of his own medicine. I tried to write his Dishonor an email, but in true pussy fashion, he ran and hid:

For all his bad-ass bluster, he's not only a liar, but a coward.

Glenn Beck and the Alleged Rape that Went Viral

2009-09-06T15:04:00.001-07:00

The parody on everyone's keyboard today is, did Glenn Beck rape and murder a girl in 1990?

Relax, Glenn Beck's hypnotized army: I'm not here to accuse your messiah, but the fact that there are so many blogs out there running this parody is, in itself a freaking huge story. So far, none of the sites that I have read have actually claimed that the Fox News talking head was guilty of rape or even murder. The general wording seemed to be along the lines of, "This site exists to investigate rumors," etc.

The story has been widely published on Internet Weblogs, with one site acting as a central linking station to all of the others. The site's host, nom de plume Name Withheld, points to the origin of this story: a question on FARK that apparently sent bloggers sniffing for evidence. A scanned image of a document purported to be a Tampa, FL police report has emerged, with Glenn Beck listed as the suspect. The alleged report, however, lists two offenses: rape (listed as both rape and forcible rape) and larceny. I can find no entry on the alleged report for murder, nor any indication that the victim was killed during commission of the alleged crime. The alleged report would appear to be counterfeit, merely an extension of the satire being run at Beck's expense

In general, respondents as well as hosts on the sites have (sarcastically) called for Beck and Fox News to respond the the charges:

Why haven’t we had an official response to the rumor that Glenn Beck raped and murdered a girl in 1990? (According to Hoss)

I just want Glenn Beck to come clean about what he was up to in 1990? Why has he remained silent in the face of these serious accusations. (How Good is That: Free Thinking--Secular Humanism).

In short, they're giving Beck a taste of his own medicine, and all that I have read so far, have stated clearly that this was a satire or a parody. Beck, who's kept the birther controversy alive (even when provided with Barack Obama's Hawaiian birth certificate) by saying much the same thing, has done so hiding behind the first Amendment. Armed with attorneys, Beck and Fox are threatening suit to force the shutdown of the official website of the controversy. We should be surprised? This is the same guy who has said that anyone who says there was a 9-11 conspiracy belongs in jail.

While I think that anyone who believes in a 9-11 conspiracy is stupid, I support their right to ask questions about it. Some people will never be satisfied, of course (e.g., the birthers), but once reasonable evidence is put forth, the media, as a responsible body, should let it drop.

I will be surprised if anyone--even Keith Olbermann--risks their credibility by running with this story, which is frankly a shame. Glenn Beck deserves this. Not because I hate him (full disclosure: I hate Glenn Beck), but because I can't stand anyone who dishes it out with impunity and then whines when it's time for a dose of their own medicine.

Glenn Beck probably isn't a rapist and even the alleged--likely fake--police report doesn't say he's a murderer. He probably didn't have gay sex on a boat--though this is purported to give him an alibi at the time of the alleged rape. But I am concerned that Glenn Beck might be a pussy, first because he hid behind the first amendment to spread lies he knew weren't true, and now, hiding behind Fox News and their lawyers because he's afraid to speak for himself.

I think Mr. Beck should prove that he's not a pussy and agree to address this on his show.

To Clear the Air

2009-08-27T19:39:00.001-07:00

Let me get this straight: the Christian right claims to believe in God--the same God, who let Cain, the first murderer, off with a good, stern talking-to; they also claim to follow Jesus, the same Jesus who defended the adulteress against the self-righteous, said the rich had virtually no chance of getting into heaven, healed the sick, etc. was tortured and finally executed after receiving a mock trial, at best. This is the same "Christian" right who vehemently defends capital punishment and torture, who thinks the wealthy too noble to be burdened with taxation and the poor undeserving of an affordable public health care option. Does that about sum it up?

How could anyone ever doubt the moral consistency of the Christian right?

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Letter to Glenn Beck at Fox News

2009-08-26T14:31:00.001-07:00

Herr Beck,

I heard that your show lost a lot of sponsors. It's too bad that this was merely a PR stunt for advertisers to distance themselves from you, rather than an actual attempt at stopping the kinds of dangerous and irresponsible media that Fox News has become famous for. Since you lack any level of responsibility for yourself, a number of your fellow Americans--many of us white, conservative and gun owners, have attempted to punish you for shouting fire in a crowded theater.

Herr Beck, you are attempting to manipulate forces that you clearly have no understanding of, nor respect for. You are responsible, in part, for the citizens who come armed to events where the President appears. Your name is echoed by those who invoke the words "secession," "revolt" and "I'm a terrorist," not to boos and hisses from their fellow conservatives, but to cheers and applause. Were you a reasonable man, I would ask you to stop this nonsense before it's too late.

Alas, you are not a reasonable man. You fuel the fires of racial mistrust, white entitlement, mass delusion and self-pity for a group that is, as the election results show, decisively in the minority. Indeed, sir, you are a weak man, like so many of the Republican legislators who are goaded by the mobs which make up their constituencies, either too stupid to know or too cynical to care (or both) that all frightened, angry mobs do what all have done before them: destroy people and property and lives to assuage the fears played upon by unscrupulous and immoral demagogues, like yourself.

This mob isn't frightened or angry because of real fears, but because, as would be expected in a nation that touts "all men are created equal," the Presidency is now held by someone who is not white. In case you missed it the first time through, allow me to be crystal clear: your audience, like yourself are white supremacists, cloaking their fear and hatred under ridiculous talk of Nazis in the vain hope that by comparing Barack Obama (AKA "that Arab", or as some of your people have more deliberately called him, "the nigger") to Adolf Hitler, it will prevent the left from calling you and your mob what you are: RACISTS. That you are a German is a fact entirely ignored by the mainstream media, much to their credit. It's a fact not lost on the rest of us, nor on your mob, I assure you.

To be sure, it was the mobs, driven by fear and racial hatred, who perpetrated the "Night of Broken Glass" against the Jews in the German pogrom of 1938. Fear is the tool of tyrants, not of free men. In 1945, the Minister of Propaganda murdered his children and commited suicide. I don't think it was because he was afraid of the Americans or the Russians; like Goering, he would have expected to be treated with respect if he surrendered. But Goebells, like Hitler, had heard about the fate of il Duce; I think they were more afraid of the mob they had created than their American or Russian enemies. Having seen what this mob did, I think they had a good reason to be afraid of them, don't you?

--AJ

Seriously: Enough with the Self-Pity, Already

2009-08-20T14:57:00.001-07:00

I remember the good old days when conservatives were caustic, arrogant and narrow-minded. It wasn't that long ago that you could have an argument with a conservative and he'd drive you nuts--not because he was being deliberately obtuse, but because he had a firm grasp of the facts and wasn't driven by emotion.

How the high and mighty have fallen.

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Onward, Christian Sulkers: Astroturf Radicalism Run Amok

2009-08-18T14:20:00.001-07:00

"Whoever battles with monsters had better see that it does not turn him into a
monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you."

--Friederich Nietzche

There's a frightened, angry mob that seems to be dominating the political discourse with threats of violence, childish outbursts, laughable allegations that our current President is Kenyan by birth or Indonesian (and, "even if he was born in Hawaii, it's not like it's really a state anyway"), as well as propagating irrational fear among the elderly that they will face "death panels" when their health care becomes to expensive.

This frightened, angry mob that I speak of is the Republican base. These were the people that John McCain tried to win over by picking Sarah Palin as his running mate--the ones who could deliver loyalty just short of insurrection, but couldn't persuade swing voters (like me) to put someone as pathetically stupid as Sarah Palin a heartbeat away from the nuclear football.

Independents who did vote for Barack Obama didn't do it because he was black, because this was an historic moment in our nation's history or even because we were swayed by his inspiring life story or exciting rhetoric. We remembered the Clinton years with far too much clarity to let the Lincoln bedroom be turned into a hotel suite-cum-fundraiser for the next Clinton re-election campaign. We trusted the Democrats just about as far as we could fling them. But we'd had eight unapologetic years of conservative rule, which, for all of their talk of liberty and justice, led us into a quagmire of torture, unabashed corporate welfare and blood for oil, not to mention the greatest constitutional crisis in our nation's history. John McCain had the better health care plan. He had proven himself to be a bi-partisan leader in the Senate. He was, it appeared, a moderate. And he would be the President at this very moment, had he not abandoned his real base (i.e. independents) for the frightened, angry mob. The Republicans earned our wrath fair and square--no small thanks to their base--and no amount of Orwellian changes to history or name calling from the right (e.g. "libby") when we didn't get down and kiss their sorry asses was going to win us over.

The Christian right for too long has viewed political power as something that belongs to them, not something they must win or earn. Such an overwhelming sense of entitlement became a powder keg when a white-dominated patriarchal culture awoke to find a black family moving into the White House. Glenn Beck Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh and Fox News in general have lit the fuse, but they didn't pack the charge. Several witless Republican leaders have fanned the flames, illiciting cheers from the mob, but they haven't controlled or even directed its fury. The result has been this frightened, angry mob. I disagree with those on the left who pity the mob as "victims of right-wing propaganda"; no one put a gun to their head and forced them to surrender reason and accept madness. Moreover, there enough self-pity in this mob to more than make up for what they neither want nor need from the bleeding hearts. You don't pity a spoiled child. You just keep your cool long enough to watch them explode all over the people who unleashed them on the world.

In the final analysis, Barack Obama is not blameless. As menacing as they are, the mob is the minority and needs to be told so. We gave our consent for Obama and the Democratically-controlled Congress to pass whatever legislation they chose when we elected them. What we're seeing isn't buyer's remorse, but a bunch of sore losers who needed to be ignored and left to cry themselves hoarse until they accepted that there wouldn't be anymore lollypops, not coddled and told that their opinion still matters. The press that by and large ignored the usurpations of Bush until it was too late, has paid far too much attention to the electronic media-stoked astroturf radicalism, and in so doing, has welcomed the frightened, angry mob to take center stage.

This is not Brooks and Sumner. This is not Burr and Hamilton. Our problems are solved through reason, not violence or threats of violence. I have expressed my disagreement with health care reform, but I have done so in a civil manner, writing my Senators and Congressman to tell them that I didn't want it and why. The failure of the public option is bittersweet; sweet because it never addressed the real culprit, the exponential rise of health care costs, but bitter because the frightened, angry mob has now been emboldened to brandish their firearms and disrupt town hall meetings. They held their breath and the President and the Congress let them eat dessert without first finishing their brussel sprouts.

This has all happened before and it will happen again. The events leading up to Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City bombing were tame by comparison to the kind of political agitation of late. The militias McVeigh and Nichols cut their teeth on existed under a white President, one that was not (to my knowledge) being called the a socialist, a commy, a Nazi, and certainly not the Antichrist.

The assassinations have already begun. The wheels are in motion and will turn until insurrection and/or domestic terror sobers the mob from its fear and anger and self-pity to realize that it has become what it hates most: the Western, Christian equivalent to Hamas, Hezbollah and Al Qaeda. Regardless, I take no pleasure in making the following prediction: the mob will grow angrier and less rational and will start killing those of us who have dared to speak out against them. That is academic. The question is when, who, how many and what sorry excuse the murderous and morally bankrupt right will use afterward.

--AJ

Nazis, Socialists and other Propaganda

2009-08-14T12:54:00.000-07:00

After all these long months of never having a single follower to my blog, I finally have one. It was fun while it lasted, but I'm a muckraker, not a brand name.

I'm not in favor of the current health care bill because I have doubts that forcing everyone with children to buy insurance amounts to anything that could even remotely be called a solution. I'm what you'd call a skeptic. Having been a poor schmoe most of my natural life, I've seen a side of US medicine that more fortunate people might have missed: Doctors, hospitals and nurses screw up. A lot. I wouldn't say they're any worse than Canada or Britain, but having never been treated in either place, I couldn't say they're better, either.

I have a co-worker named Edgar, who has been listening to Rush Limbaugh a lot lately. I would find this less disturbing if Edgar were some bible-thumping white guy, but he's Hispanic. The news was a little disorienting--like the Pope declaring he's pro-choice. He says to me, "Hey Jack, you know, Rush is making a lot of sense about this health care thing." My response? Even Rush Limbaugh can't be wrong about everything. What's funny is if the fat ass Limbaugh weren't so freaking rich just for being a windbag, he'd be on welfare, having been fired for sexual harassment from every job the sorry bastard ever got. And his health would suck from all of the drugs and overeating and, well, he wouldn't think US medicine was all that hot, either.

No, I like my insurance just fine, thank you, but don't confuse me with Limbaugh and Beck. Standing back and watching what's been going on at these town-hall-meetings-cum-shoutfests, I've noticed that most of the people who I agree with are acting like children. Really children. The kind that scream that ungodly shriek that gives you a migraine when all you want to do is enjoy your dinner, but you can't because someone brought their spoiled brat with them. Beat him you attempt to communicate telepathically to his parents. Just take that little brat to the crapper and give him something to cry for. And finally when the kid is dragged from the table kicking and screaming, you have to suppress the urge to follow them in the hope you can watch this kid who ruined your dinner get what's coming to him.

That's how I feel about the town hallers (birthers, deathers, etc.). I thought the whole point of this country we live in was that, at the end of the day, we could still talk to each other. I swear, if I hear the word "Nazi" used in an historically incorrect way one more time, I'm going to beat whoever it is over the head with William L. Shirer's book, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, until they know just what a Nazi really is.

Which brings me to my final point. Where is the media? Not the pundits; this situation SCREAMS (like a bratty kid) for some clarity, for some actual facts: the kind of thing that real journalists are supposed to provide us with, but don't. Here's how this might work (with a little less irony):

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Sadly, this isn't anywhere in the mainstream media. Obviously, it 's not on Fox. CNN? Maybe they didn't want to throw a former colleague under the bus. MSNBC? SERIOUSLY? Not even "liberally biased" MSNBC?

Google it, folks. You won't find it anywhere but Comedy Central and the Guardian.UK blog.

Gee. If only the free market could do for medicine what it's done for journalism.

Letter to Congressman Baca: Vote No on HR 3200

2009-07-15T19:43:00.000-07:00

Congressman Baca,

I think that the current healthcare bill (HR 3200) attempts to solve the problems of uninsured and under-insured by forcing people who can't afford insurance to buy it. Certainly, insurance companies are in favor of it, since the forced patronage that will result from its passage will raise their revenues.

Imagine, Congressman Baca, families having to choose between feeding their children and paying for healthcare, which they might not need. The choice for those of us who have been faced with it, is academic: we take care of our kids, not the lavish bank accounts of hospitals, doctors and insurance companies. Now, imagine if the police came to the home of a struggling family to shake them down for insurance money. It sounds like quite a racket. And it doesn't solve the problem. If anything, it creates new ones. Do parents who can't afford insurance go to jail? Debtor's prison? What happens to their kids? Who insures them (since inmates tend not to have incomes). That would be the state. Do any of the 1000 pages of this bill address any of these issues?

It's terrible that so many people are without health coverage, but HR 3200 would be a cure worse than the disease. Barring a solution that will improve things (other than profit projections for the medical-industrial complex), it's better to leave things as they are.

I find it disturbing that the proposed HR 676 has been summarily dismissed by the bulk of the legislature. I don't know if it would be an improvement over what we currently have, but without a public debate bringing the pros and cons to the fore, how can your constituents decide?

What's the rush? Why is congress trying to push this bill through so fast? After 9-11 I would think that lawmakers would be wary of pushing new legislation through without vigorous debate.

While I think that affordable health coverage would be helpful to most people, I also think that any proposed bill should have one--and ONLY one--agenda: giving people a choice they can afford, not imposing on them and their children a burdensome expense.

Vote no on HR 3200. Facilitate debate on HR 676.

Yours,

Jack

Notes on Chomsky's Hegemony or Survival

2009-06-12T13:18:00.001-07:00

We connect with words so rarely that when it happens, it sends our perceptions careening out of control. Such was my experience today while reading, during a wait for a doctor's appointment.

What remains of democracy is largely the right to choose among commodities. Business leaders have long explained the need to impose on the population a "philosophy of futility" and "lack of purpose in life," to "concentrate human attention on the more superficial things that comprise much of fashionable consumption." Deluged by such propaganda from infancy, people may then accept their meaningless and subordinate lives and forget ridiculous ideas about managing their own affairs. They may abandon their fate to corporate managers and the PR industry and, in the political realm, to the self-described "intelligent minorities" who serve and administer power (Chomsky, 2003, p. 139).

The preceeding paragraph describes the pervasive sense, in which the agency that so many of us hold as sacrosanct only exists in the commercial realm; beyond that, we exist as automata. It is the nightmare realized to awaken in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, wherein the most sober among us are relegated to the role of the savage. Pop culture is relentless in its banal march, through which social illusionists redirect our attention away from the men behind the curtain. Through attrition, our surrender is a given; it doesn't matter how hard we try to filter out the distractions: sooner or later we will succumb, until the wildness has been wrung from our minds. As automata, we awaken drugged and conditioned, quelling the savage again and again, until we indifferently brush past our own dangling corpse of agency.

Rock and Roll is replete with legends of rockers who "sold their souls" to the devil for success. Indeed, struggling musicians often refer to established acts that become wealthy and famous after years of struggle as having "sold out." And so they have; for even as their struggle brought them face to face with a reality that connected deeply with their fans, the success they worked so hard to achieve took them out of the smoke-filled dives and run-down, cockroach-infested flophouses--which inspired the words and music that their audience related to in the first place. How can the millionaire who jet-sets around the world and employs trendy clothing designers relate to their fans--who knew them as poor people, like themselves--through the tinted, bulletproof windows of limousines and the army of security that "protects" them from "the crazies"?

And yet, this very kind of isolation from everyday people, whether they patronize a merchant's store or buy a musician's records, is the very measure of success in a capitalist society. For the rest of us (the patrons), there is a sense of both failure and futility. We drag ourselves to work, make posts related to generally unimportant news and events on Facebook or MySpace, and sound off in the comments segment of online "news" stories.

I am troubled by the notion that dissent for many is a limited resource. At what point does the savage surrender for good to the flickering images, awarding his body and what is left of his mind to the corporate managers, business leaders, propagandists and administrators?

Be Careful what you Ask for

2009-06-11T09:13:00.000-07:00

Below is an AP video of a 72 year-old woman being tasered. As a dissident, I expected to see another out-of-control cop brutalizing an elderly woman. That's sort of what happened:

(Click here for video if you're reading this on Facebook)

The video also shows the woman being abusive, daring the officer to "go ahead and tase me. I'm a seventy two year-old woman." Referencing her age multiple times during the encounter, it seems as though she expects the officer to defer to her age, in spite of the fact that some of her remarks are so explicit that they need to be edited. At the same time, the officer clearly has issues related to his temper. The obvious question here is, why didn't he just let her sign the ticket, once she agreed to do so?

My analysis is this: the taser gun is a wonderful law enforcement device--for sadists. The primary argument for its use is its capacity to non-lethally subdue those who violently resist arrest. That arguement loses ground amid news reports that a 32 year-old Utah man, Brian Cardall was killed by tasering in Hurricane, Utah on Tuesday. According to an article in New Scientist, one study by the University of California, San Francisco, indicated that taser guns were associated with a sixfold increase of sudden deaths of persons being held in police custody during their first year of use.

Perhaps those critical of the liberal nature of University life in general and of San Francisco specifically are unconvinced. The study has been accused of a sampling bias. However, this notion isn't exclusive to the home of hippydom. William Elliot, the Commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police has expressed to ministers in Parliament that the taser is a potentially lethal device and has stated that its use can only "be justified where there is a threat, either to our officers or members of the public." Even in cases of active resisance--as was the case with the cranky 72 year-old in Texas--Mounties are no longer allowed to tase you, bro.

Civilized, free societies should recognize law enforcement as a necessary evil, one that we should only grudgingly endow with just enough power to preserve the rule of law. The propaganda of film and television glamorizes violence in police work, such that there is a perception, among police and the public alike, that it is the duty of cops to punish offenders. This was clearly the case in Texas, since an unarmed, elderly woman, is no match for a brawny, corn-fed bubba with a badge and a gun.

72 year-old Kathryn Winkfein has since hired an attorney and is threatening suit. Given how this thing has gone viral, I'm laying odds on her receiving generous settlement from Travis County, Texas. Whether or not she deserves it is another matter. Obviously, if this were my mother or grandmother, I would take a more absolutist position. But she's not my mother or grandmother. The fact that she dared the cop to shock her should count against her, and I think that the judge, in the event that this suit actually does make it into civil court, should make a point of telling Winkfein to act her age. Regardless of level of dimorphism between Winkfein and the officer (Chris Bieze), her continued challenge for him to "go on and tase" her, places part of the responsibility on her.

In the end, I think that Americans have to change how we think about law enforcement. Dirty Harry and John McLane are great movie characters, but if they tried to pull me over, I'd make them follow me all the way to the ACLU.

Bad cop. No donut.

The Wasteland

2009-06-10T16:34:00.000-07:00

T.S. Eliot, a mild-mannered bank employee and American expatriate in England, wrote some of the 20th century's greatest epic poetry. He was a conservative, a royalist, and had a better public school accent than Winston Churchill. He was also a pessimist. Anyone who's taken an English lit class or two has probably read Eliot's magnum opus, The Wasteland. In navigating the flourishes in German, Latin, French and even Cockney, one quickly gains the sense that Eliot is talking down to us.

That's because he is.

Scholars have argued that the point being made in The Wasteland was that so many people are talking, but no one understands language anymore. Whether this is what Eliot intended or not, the premise is a correct one. Even as English has come to be the dominant language spoken throughout the world, our ability to understand one another has diminished. Educated people once were fluent in multiple languages and almost always were fluent in Greek and Latin. This was because understanding doesn't come from reading a translation. To explain this another way, if you want to understand trigonometry, you'll first have to have a firm grasp of the concepts, methods and mechanisms of algebra. Likewise, if you want to understand class nuances in Lyermontov's Caucasus stories, the English translations will miss the point entirely; you simply can't capture the deference and condescension inherent in the Cossack/Russian dialectic in the same way that ты and вы express so elegantly.

I've thought a lot about The Wasteland of late. It seemed that after the election we were no longer working toward a dialogue. But it's more than that. We no longer understand each other and no longer care to. And it's not just everyone's favorite dichotomy--Democrats and Republicans--the "right" and "left" if you will. The Republican party is besieged from within as the radio entertainers, the religious right, business conservatives and civil libertarians battle among each other and the moderate forces of the party--including those in the press--for the soul of the GOP. The Republican party going the way of the Whigs, perhaps?

Not likely.

Talk on the left is equally tone deaf. Democrats no longer speak to labor or progressives--if they ever did; they certainly don't speak for them. The "liberal" media" (i.e. MSNBC) has a script they're following, not unlike the one followed by the rightist media (i.e. Fox News). Both are looking for knee-jerk reactionists. Both follow the talking points remarkably well.

Will Obama's health care plan make us healthier? Will Republican promises to cut government spending make us more prosperous? In other words, what's the observable difference from up here in the cheap seats?

Abortion? Republican majorities in both houses never tried to pass legislation outlawing it during the 12 years they were in power. Assessment: no one in the GOP cares about abortion. It's simply a wedge issue to help them get elected by people with a genuine ambivalence to the practice. It's worked brilliantly ever since Reagan. Why would they kill their golden goose?

Health care? It's become to liberal rhetoric what 9-11 was for Guiliani's: a verb, a noun and National Health Care. Like most social programs, it has one of two means to be accomplished: levy higher taxes on the middle class or place criminal consequences upon those who can't afford it. Again, it's a Holy Graille; deliberately vague and unachievable, countervailing the Republican promise (with crossed fingers) to outlaw abortion.

The assassination of Dr. Tiller in a Wichita church has been a watershed moment in American politics. Roe v. Wade, though it remains firmly the law of the land, has been virtually nullified through a violent war of attrition that has included the assassination of abortion providers, the bombing of clinics, and any number of other acts that should at once draw howls of laughter at the mere mention of the euphemistically named "pro-life" movement. Those who quickly spoke out to justify his murder as, the victim simply "reap[ing] what he sowed," can no more be labeled as supporting the human right to life than an Antebellum planter could have called himself "anti-slavery."

At the same time, the need for some on the left to have this murder defined as an act of terrorism is disturbing. While it can be argued that demagogues have shown a depraved indifference to human life by lighting the fuses of people that they know to be emotionally unbalanced, this is not the same thing as shouting "fire" in a crowded theater. For my part, O'Reilly's constant repetition of "Tiller the baby killer," in concert with his characterization of him as an unprincipled capitalist (see video below; click the link if you're reading this on facebook) elicited eye rolls the few times I happened to catch it out of the corner of my eye at the gym. There can be no question that O'Reilly and others, who played on the visceral reaction that people naturally have when someone tells them that some maniac is out there slaughtering infants, are responsible for Tiller's murder. Whether or not these reckless demagogues will be held financially responsible is for the civil courts to decide. But as much as I loathe them, I find the idea that they could be legally defined as terrorists horrifying.

At issue isn't what's being said in the media, but why. Why does Bill O'Reilly repeat over and over "Tiller the Baby Killer" like a broken record? Why does Rachel Maddow want the leftist pundits on her show to back up her assertion that the assassination of Dr. Tiller amounts to terrorism (which none of them would)?

Allow me to return to our original discussion about T.S. Eliot's Wasteland. We've lost the ability to communicate. Not just in the languages of the educated; we've lost the ability to accept dissenting opinion from our own. Television and internet has built up an industry that talks at us. And we talk back, even if we know no one is listening. Who reads the comments at the bottom of op-ed pieces on the web, besides the armies of the duopoly, fresh from their latest pep talk by Keith Olbermann or Bill O'Reilly or Rachel Maddow or Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh?

I am convinced that the blogosphere is that Wasteland where there are too many voices and no one can understand one another. Don't like the liberal bent someone is taking? Call him a socialist baby killer. Is she criticizing Obama? The racist bitch!

Our fifteen minutes of fame is coming to an end. The current economy doesn't give a rat's ass which side you're on or what you have to say about it. It might care who's listening.

That is, if everyone else weren't so busy trying to get you to listen to them.

9-11 Wasn't Funny

2009-05-29T08:48:00.001-07:00

Los Angeles has some amazing graffiti. Some of it's really beautiful and some of it not so great. My significant other and I found this outside of a television studio on Vine in Hollywood. Suggestion to TV folks: hire a street writer to paint over this piece of crap. No one, aside from terrorists and the sick asshole who wrote this, thinks 9-11 was funny.

Some of us still want bin Laden to stretch for it.

Poking the (Poppa) Bear: Taking on O'Reilly AND his Detractors

2009-05-19T12:10:00.001-07:00

O'Reilly says everything that the leftists hate. Well, DUH! He works for Fox News--that's his job. He also exercises his first amendment rights, guaranteed under the Constitution, a pursuit I wholeheartedly support. That isn't something we grant only to people who agree with us, it's something that needs to be in place for everyone.

There's a lot good to say about O'Reilly. When the generationally self-aggrandizing media refused to criticize the many sins of President Clinton, O'Reilly became the lone voice in the wilderness, crusading against Slick Willie's excesses. I spent a lot of time rolling my eyes as the media seemed to be working overtime to untangle their man from the web of his own libidinous deceit. I don't care that Monica Lewinsky performed sexual favors for him; I don't care about the cigar or the stained blue dress; I don't even care that his wife had to be humiliated in front of the nation because the President wouldn't come clean (insert joke here). It came down to one simple word: perjury. And the President's army of apologists in the punditry could claim that it didn't matter, that no one had ever gone to jail for lying about sex, that he'd done nothing wrong. But they couldn't say he didn't do it, and O'Reilly was among that small cadre of individuals that refused to let him off the hook, just because all the other kids were doing it.

Messengers have a time and a place. Sometimes, after delivering the all-important, earth-shattering message, the messenger comes to be thought of as a prophet--even a messiah. He was right about x; he must be right about a lot of things. Audiences adopt his philosphy as their own and before long, they stop questioning anything he says, even when it stops making sense. He becomes entrenched, not for his insights that won him audiences, but for his dogma that reassures, even as it incites them.

Becoming the embattled establishment he once fought against doesn't remove his right to speak opine or convey information as he sees it. But O'Reilly, the consumate critic of anything and everything, seems to have forgotten that the same rules that protect his verbal attacks on others also protect his detractors when they choose to level attacks against him.

The Fox News Boycott reports that O'Reilly has taken exception to being called a race-baiter by Syracuse professor, Boyce Watkins. Having failed to compel the University Chancellor, Nancy Cantor, to issue an apology for Watkins, O'Reilly claimed tha Syacuse University didn't have any academic standards. This apparently resulted in Professor Watkins being denied tenure.

Perhaps you noticed the same thing I did: The Fox News Boycott--in name, if nothing else--seeks to silence those (namely, Fox News) who have the temerity to disagree with them. Might it not just as well say, "Silence the dissidents?" I don't understand why it is that audiences obediently tune in to watch and/or listen, hanging on every word of someone that has ceased to be relevant many years ago. I don't have to understand it: caveat emptor--let the buyer beware--says it all. His rightness or wrongness isn't a matter of moral or legal debate. His right to speak is sacrosanct, and rather than O'Reilly trying to silence his critics or other movements trying to return the favor, perhaps the debate needs to end with, "Oh, I hate that guy."

I am not one of O'Reilly's "folks." He does not speak for me. But electronic messengers are a lot like vampires: if you don't want to be at their mercy, don't invite them into your home.

Or at least show them the door, once their message has been delivered.

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Left Wing, Right Wing--what's the Difference when they're all Chicken?

2009-05-19T10:18:00.001-07:00

With the intent of ruffling some feathers, Congress can suck it.

Thanks for posting this one, Rude.

Response to Washington Post Op Ed: 'Stop Scapegoating'

2009-05-08T17:12:00.001-07:00

To David S. Broder, Washington Post Columnist

Mr. Broder,

You needn't worry about President Obama giving in to public pressure. He will very likely, as Peggy Noonan has suggested, "just keep walking."

But many of us who put him into that office would rather he do his job. I find it convenient that when the mechanisms of checks and balances were employed to impeach Bill Clinton for perjuring himself in a civil case, unrelated to the execution of his duties as President, no one wanted to keep walking. I don't disagree with that decision; he did, after all, perjure himself, a fact not in dispute. The damage from this action was limited to the humiliation of his wife and daughter, his loss of credibility with the public, and of course, the tragic events that befell his victim, Paula Jones in her personal life following settlement of her case. All of which was bad enough: he broke the law and deserved to be impeached.

The Democrats won't pursue charges against the Bush Administration. Not because the "enhanced interrogation" techniques that were permitted fall short of the legal definition of torture: drag any police officer that perpetrated the same acts against a suspect in this country into a court of law and see if any judge buys the weak arguments outlined in now famous "torture memos." The Democrats won't press this issue because they don't want their own guilt exposed. And yes-men in the press, like yourself, have no desire to hold them to account for it either. I'm not singling you out, sir: even Sam Donaldson doesn't want the torturers prosecuted. The only real disagreement among your colleages on this issue seems to be if the public had a right to see the memos or not.

That's some "free" press, Mr. Broder. You and your colleagues couldn't be more in step with our government if they were paying your salaries. Whether the pundits are on the left or the right, there isn't much difference from cheap seats. Simply limit the debate to something that the press should never be in favor of: does the public have the right to know if our officials gave an order that places us in violation of international treaties?

Does the public have the right to know? Are they serious? Isn't that their job?

You have correctly removed this notion from the debate by stating that the memos should have been released. But you are quite wrong wrong with your "criminal vendetta" slippery-slope analogy. I suspect that in addition to fearing their own exposure, the Democrats simply don't want to be accused of using the DOJ to the ends of political warfare, as you have suggested. And they are also wrong. Laws and international treaties were broken, sir. Our entire case against the Nazi war criminals, given that Hitler, Goebells and Himmler took the cowards' way out, rested on the idea that following orders would not stand as a defense for war crimes.

The legal rationale followed an order from the President to find a loophole, not unlike the kind of legal wrangling the Clinton used to claim he had not had sex with Monica Lewinsky. It happened, sir. Men were shackled in stress positions, slammed into walls, deprived of sleep, and waterboarded. I haven't heard anyone come forward to say, "I was fired for refusing to follow that order"--because no one did. These were CIA operatives, educated enough to know about the legal rationale for the prosecutions at Nuremberg, and knowing that mandate, they had a way out and refused to take it anyway. In short, sir, the President is wrong, and so are you. Attorney General Eric Holder has an obligation to pursue indictments against each and every operative who took part in torturing prisoners, to make examples of the Bushist lawyers who provided the legal excuses for such savagery and if it is possible, to hold former President George W. Bush, former Vice President Cheney and anyone else involved, responsible for what they've done.

No one "just keeps walking" when some punks invade a home and terrorize a family, regardless of whether or not deadly force is used. No one worries about accusations of "political warfare" when politicians are indicted for corruption (or impeached for lying). Identifying and punishing the perpetrators isn't simply about deterrence and accountability, it's about keeping a promise we made to the world at a time when the world was fresh out of promise: no one gets a pass on war crimes. One would hope we hold ourselves to that same standard the first time it's put to the test.

But as it appears we're about to go back on that pledge, I'm sure the Goering and Hess families would like to know so they can posthumously appeal Hermann and Rudoph's convictions.

Give them my best.

Jack

"In our time political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible."

--George Orwell

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Dissidents in Action: UC Santa Barbara Professor Challenges Students' Thinking on Gaza

2009-04-30T12:59:00.000-07:00

Duke Helfand of The Los Angeles Times reported today that University of California Santa Barbara sociology professor, William I Robinson sent an email to his students containing "more than two dozen photographs of Jewish victims of the Nazis, including those of dead children, juxtaposed with nearly identical images from the Gaza Strip."

"Gaza is Israel's Warsaw--a vast concentration camp that confined and blockaded Palestinians," wrote Robinson in the email. "We are witness to a slow-motion process of genocide."

Two Jewish students dropped the class and filed a complaint with the UC Santa Barbara, on advice from the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Both the center and the Anti-Defamation League have characterized Robinson as an anti-Semite. Big surprise: that's how they characterize anyone that expresses disapproval over Israeli policy. The first problem with such an accusation is that it's no more anti-Semitic to critique Israeli treatment of Palestinians in Gaza than it is anti-American to criticize the torture of detainees in Guantanimo. The second problem the accusation is that Robinson is a Jew. A self-loathing Jew, perhaps? Hardly. I don't consider myself to be a self-loathing American, and I speak out on Gitmo constantly. Germans are, of course, expected to speak out against the Holocaust; is that anti-German? Are white South Africans who speak out against Apartheid anti-white?

The charge of anti-semitism is damned silly and those who make it against Robinson would do well to remember the words of Hermann Goering, who used the same tool on an unsuspecting Germany:

"[T]he people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."

Although I am not a Jew, I reject the notion that my criticisms of the Israeli policy on the Palestinians is in any way anti-Semitic. It's not even anti-Israel. Like Robinson, I have compared the ethnic cleansing taking place in Gaza right now with the Nazis marginalizing and terrorizing the Jewish people, first in Germany, and then later througout Europe. And while the truth is that the current Israeli Gaza policy is nearer to South African Apartheid than the Holocaust, it seems to be escalating rapidly. Having corralled 1.5 million people in an area that's about 139 square miles (less than 15% the size of California's bustling Orange County, home to just over 3 million people), the Israel has gone beyond its historic treatment of the Palestinians, which more closely paralleled South African Apartheid (Olmert referred to treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank as a "pogrom"), thus justifying Robinson's characterization of Gaza as "Israel's Warsaw." And while Israel has yet to begin a program of rapid extermination, its slow, relentless ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from the population of Israel has been going on for far too long to be dismissed as unintentional or accidental.

This post is written in defense of a Jew; a man of conscience who has the courage to ask his students, Jew and non-Jew alike, to distinguish between what governments claim they do in the name of their people and what a free people must do when polities lead an otherwise well-intentioned people astray. There is a reason Professor Robinson mentions Nazis in the context of the Gaza offensive, written in the blood of his own people: NEVER AGAIN. Not just for Jews. Not just for Russians or Poles or Gypsies or homosexuals who were imprisoned and enslaved and even exterminated by the same hate-fueled Nazi war machine that killed Jews, but for any ethnic group whose culture, religion or very existence presents a challenge to those who hold power.

Professor Robinson is in no wise anti-Semitic, and is, in fact completely innocent of such a baseless and foolish charge. On the contrary, William I. Robinson represents what is best and most admirable about Jewish people: he is a critical thinker and a conscientious individual, one that clearly thinks highly of Israel, else why would he expect better of it? Nazi hunter, Simon Wiesenthal, wasn't a bully, but he hunted them, caught them and brought them back to Israel for something they'd never given their victims: a trial. It is, therefore, a sad accident of history that his name is used to bully a man whose criticisms seek to pull a nation back from the precipice, poised on the edge of the abyss1.

1. "Whoever battles with monsters had better see that it does not turn him into a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you" (Friedrich Nietzche).

When you Find yourself in a Hole, Keep Digging until you Pop your Head through the Floor of the People's Bank of Beijing

2009-04-28T15:56:00.001-07:00

Full disclosure: Dwight, this was too good to leave on your comments page.

In discussing the Iraq war with Dwight from Logic and Politics, I agreed with his assertion that if we're not wanted in Iraq, we should leave them to their mess. Frankly, I said, it never made any sense, other than the cronyistic nature of the no-bid contracts that were going to Blackwater, Halliburton and the like; it was Bush and Cheney's own little Keynesian economics project, which kept the economy from collapsing until . . . well, until it collapsed in spite all the government investment in the private sector.

I don't suppose it had anything to do with the fact that many of the corporations that have profited from the war in Iraq have been outsourcing a sizable portion of their production overseas--a strategy which takes government dollars from our economy and filters it through corporate coffers into reduced payrolls in developing nations, so payroll turnover is spent there, instead of here. Frankly, the the only way they could keep it going here was to convince the Wal-Mart employee that s/he could afford (and deserved) a split-level, five bedroom/three bath house with a Hummer, an Escalade and a pair of snowmobiles/motorcycles in their three car garage.

This is a market correction: in what universe is a cramped, two bedroom, one bath in East LA worth $600,000? A simple rule of macroeconomics is that where supply curves meet demand curves is called "equilibrium." When a market is out of eqilibrium, as it was during every boom we've experienced from George Washington forward, an "invisible hand" (AKA "market forces") has a way of pushing things back into equilibrium. It's not magic, it's just common sense: who's going to spend $600,000, plus interest, for the privelege of fixing their own pipes and paying dues to a home owner's organization, when it costs less to rent, with none of the headaches? So yes, those who appear to be downplaying the economic crises, are correct, this is unequivocally a market correction. The problem with the kind of market correction that we're going through is, how do you stimulate lending when the prime rate is already hovering around zero and most of the potential borrowers are leveraged to the point that they couldn't borrow their best friend's lawnmower? The Keynesian solution, employed during the Great Depression, if used to escape the current economic crisis, will require a level of spending that will make budget deficits under Presidents Reagan, Bush and Bush look like what they never even tried to deliver on: fiscal conservatism.

And capital? What capital? It's all borrowed money--every dime. Remember the good old days when savings accounts would yield 4.1% per annum? It was 3-7 per cent less than inflation, but at least capital was something other than a promissory note. People had savings accounts because they could earn money on them and banks had capital because they didn't expect savings account holders to give their money away.

The solution isn't hard to grasp, but it'll be painful for years to come, because inflation--as bad as it's been--will skyrocket. In order to attract savers, the fed will have to raise the prime rate so that interest rates will pay a reasonable return on savings. All of this will take time and it will cost more just to live than ever before. But when you're in a hole, you have to, at some point, stop digging, even when you're halfway to China and you forgot to bring your trusty ladder. The one thing we have going for us is how many of us wound up in the hole together. It is that "hole unity" shared by all Chrysler employees that made it possible for the company to survive: according to the Los Angles Times, the Union is buying controlling interest of the automaker--not something GM employees could ever dream of doing, even if 21,000 of them weren't losing their jobs.

There appear to be some advantages in being small enough to fail, after all.

Update: so much for an employee-owned Chrysler. According to the Guardian (UK), some hedge fund speculators, such as Oppenheimer Funds, Perella Weinberger Partners and Stairway Capital, whose greed helped to sink the global economy, were holding out for a taxpayer bailout, claiming that taxpayers and unions "were getting preferential treatment." Among banks willing to write off up to 2/3 of the automaker's debts were JP Morgan, Citigroup and, my favorite punching bag of the financial bailout, Goldman Sachs. While Chrysler may survive bankruptcy, their can be no doubt that the hold-outs once again gambled with other people's money and lost--again: by forcing Chrysler into bankruptcy, the holdouts may well be forced to take a smaller settlement than the one they turned down.

WHO is in Denial?

2009-04-27T15:05:00.001-07:00

Below is today's World Health Organization (WHO) update on the Mexican Swine Flu outbreak:

The current situation regarding the outbreak of swine influenza A(H1N1) is evolving rapidly. As of 27 April 2009, the United States Government has reported 40 laboratory confirmed human cases of swine influenza A(H1N1), with no deaths. Mexico has reported 26 confirmed human cases of infection with the same virus, including seven deaths. Canada has reported six cases, with no deaths, while Spain has reported one case, with no deaths.
Further information on the situation will be available on the WHO website on a regular basis.
WHO advises no restriction of regular travel or closure of borders. It is considered prudent for people who are ill to delay international travel and for people developing symptoms following international travel to seek medical attention, in line with guidance from national authorities.
There is also no risk of infection from this virus from consumption of well-cooked pork and pork products. Individuals are advised to wash hands thoroughly with soap and water on a regular basis and should seek medical attention if they develop any symptoms of influenza-like illness (emphasis added, WHO, April 27, 2009).

WHO's report of seven confirmed deaths due to H1N1 in Mexico belies the total of 103 suspected deaths, reported today by the Associated Press, most of which were apparently not laboratory confirmed. It is understandable that WHO might wish to avoid the kind of international panic that might come as a result of reporting the 1,600 suspected cases of Mexican swine flu, but as can be seen from the above update, WHO has failed to report that a greater danger may exist at all. Suspending travel, while economically devastating during the current downturn, would at least prevent the potential for the disease to spread further than it already has.
Rumors exist that the Mexican Government knew of the swine flu, and didn't report on it because of the threat to tourist revenues from spring break. Whether true or not, the hard line taken by WHO, insisting on only reporting confirmed cases and confirmed deaths is one thing; it is quite another to advise "no restriction of regular travel," and it smacks of putting business interests ahead of general health. With the global economy reeling, it is, perhaps, a drastic step to urge people to stay put as the tourist season begins. But if we're caught between a potentially lethal global pandemic and a temporary worsening of the economy, isn't the choice academic?

RE: Supreme Court puts brakes on car searches

2009-04-22T14:08:00.001-07:00

Hell has frozen over, pigs can now fly and the laws of political gravity no longer apply: liberal SCOTUS Justices Stevens, Ginsberg and Souter were joined by (wait for it) conservatives Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. Regardless of political affiliation, Arizona v. Gant was a great decision by SCOTUS and a huge victory for the embattled Fourth Amendment.

With all other immutable laws now in question, does this mean that the Geithner bailout plan will actually work?

More on this after I've had a chance to read the opinion of the court (see Los Angeles Times for the editorial). I admit I'm a little curious as to why Justice Kennedy dissented.

The Handshake the Shook Fox News

2009-04-20T15:00:00.001-07:00

It was an E.D. Hill moment ("A fist bump? A pound? A terrorist fist jab? The gesture everyone seems to interpret differently. We'll show you some interesting body communication and find out what it really says."): yet another knee-jerk reaction by conservative media.

On the cover of Sunday's Los Angeles Times, President Obama was photographed shaking the hand of (gulp) Hugo CHAVEZ!! While this didn't exactly give me the warm and fuzzies for the embattled Democratic President, I didn't see the harm in it either. Yes, there's been a lot of criticism of the United States from Chavez in recent years, much of which I dismissed, considering the source. Of course, Fox News weighed in, making sure to tell their loyal followers what to think:

When President Obama met Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in Trinidad on Friday, he shook hands with a man who only four years ago called the United States the most "murderous empire that has existed in the history of the world." . . . "What he's going to say is that what he has been doing in Venezuela now has the seal of approval of the United States," said Otto Reich, who was ambassador to Venezuela under President Reagan. "He sees it as a green light to continue dismantling democracy in Venezuela."

Those few readers following this blog will note that I have written a piece or two myself that weren't exactly singing the praises of Obama. In fact, I believe I have implied that he (like all Democrats and Republicans) was a bought-off-sonofabitch. Not a socialist or a commy, but a pro-business President, willing to socialize the costs of propping up large American corporations (too big to fail) while privatizing the gains. It's just as wrong now that Barack Obama is doing it as it was when Ronald Reagan did it during his first term. No, dittoheads, I didn't stutter: your bloated, drug-addled leader's fantasy lover, whom he verbally felates daily with such abandon, raised ZERO eyebrows throughout the eighties when subsidized multinational corporations, enabling the corporate raids that would dismantle the industries that had been key to decades of American prosperity. The kleptocracy has been continued through Bush, Clinton and Bush, on up to the present day, in which Timmy Geithner continues funneling Goldman Sachs' now much anticipated profit margin through AIG, as well as direct bailout subsidies to Goldman Sachs itself.

In other words, President Obama is no worse--even from a tax and spend perspective--than any other President we've had since 1981. But the conservative media, needing to prove its omnipotence, having failed to turn out the vast numbers of protesters on tax day, seized on the President's handshake with Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez. As hastily planned as the teabagging venture was, I saw it as a brilliant move by Fox News and other conservative media. While I wouldn't have personally had anything to do with it, being as the "astroturf" (fake grass-roots) movement was sponsored and driven by the media, I thought that the mockery from leftists like Paul Krugman and Rachel Maddow failed to recognize the value of such protests, in terms, not only of galvanizing Americans who see themselves as conservatives, but that it might be attractive to independents, like myself, looking for a place to channel their rage over the bailouts.

But Fox News, having seized on a great opportunity to exploit populist rage, once again showed its tone-deafness. This was apparent when Fox & Friends brought Newt Gingrich on for a little of his sophistry:

"Frankly, this does look a lot like Jimmy Carter. Carter tried weakness, and the world got tougher and tougher, because the predators, the aggressors, the anti-Americans, the dictators – when they sense weakness, they all start pushing ahead. . . . I think it sends a terrible signal to all of Latin America, and a terrible signal about how the new administration regards dictators."

Ah, the favorite Republican straw man, Jimmy Carter. I credit the former Speaker of the House with a good deal more intelligence than he exhibits on behalf of the Fox News viewer. To put it another way, Gingrich's analysis is deliberately obtuse and he knows it. Perhaps historians have different standards for showing cause and effect than other social scientists, particularly when your version of history relies so heavily on the stereotype of Democrats being "weak." To claim the Iran hostage crisis was the result of a weak Presidency, fails every litmus test of cause and effect. It ignores the fact, for example, that the Iranian Revolution was the result of many usurpations by the Shaw against his people, on behalf of the United States; the Iranian Revolution can no more be blamed on Carter than the Chinese Revolution can be blamed on Truman, or the Cuban Revolution can be blamed on Eisenhower, or that the Hatian ousting of the Duvalierists was Reagan's fault. Furthermore, while it scores some KISS (keep it simple, stupid) points, it opens the GOP up to the question of why George W. Bush made such a point of going to war to catch Osama bin Laden, who remains at large to this day. And as for our relationship with dictators: does the former Speaker of the House mean military dictators, like Augusto Pinochet and Pervez Musharraf, or just dictators who act in only our interests, while lining their pockets at the same time, like Ferdinand Marcos1, the Shaw of Iran, "Poppa Doc" Duvalier & Son and Fulgencio Batista (don't even get me started on Nicaragua)?

They freaked out over a First Lady with biceps, for crying out loud. The problem with Fox's histrionics is relevance: they're so busy nit-picking about the little things and parroting the echoes of the late Ronald Reagan as per Rush Limbaugh, that they miss the bigger picture. Fox News became relevant by riding a wave of popular dissent, not for dissent's sake, but because the people watching already knew it was necessary. It's hard to imagine how a handshake between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev could have "legitimized" communism, or shown weakness in a time when many of us went to bed each night wondering if we might awaken to a nuclear winter--or worse, not awaken at all.

I won't bother defending President Obama, as he seems quite capable of doing it for himself:

"It's unlikely that as a consequence of me shaking hands or having a polite conversation with Mr. Chavez that we are endangering the strategic interests of the United States. . . . Even within this imaginative crowd, I think you would be hard-pressed to paint a scenario in which U.S. interests would be damaged as a consequence of us having a more constructive relationship with Venezuela. . . .We had this debate throughout the campaign, and the whole notion was, is that somehow if we showed courtesy or opened up dialogue with governments that had previously been hostile to us, that that somehow would be a sign of weakness – the American People didn't buy it. And there's a good reason the American People didn't buy it — because it doesn't make sense."

So it boils down to this: as long as Barack Obama can so plainly state his point, the conservative media will need a lot more than Newt Gingrich and Jimmy Carter to justify their latest temper tantrum.

1. Having elections only make you a democracy if the ballot boxes aren't stuffed.

Meet the New Boss (Same as the Old Boss): Part II of Ongoing Series

2009-04-16T11:18:00.000-07:00

A comic is worth a thousand rants. Suggestion to cartoonist: an ad with Timothy Geithner's picture on the side of the mailbox might have lacked the subtlety that cartoonists aspire to, but it would have also illuminated the continuity inherent in the transition from the corporatist policies from the Bush regime to the same policies, brought to you by the marketing firm of Obama, Goldman and Sachs, makers of Change you Can't Believe in (Since the Democrats are Bought-off Sonsabitches, Just Like Republicans).

We have only four years, independents, to pull someone from our own ranks, promote them and make them competetive against the Two-Parties that have sold us out, time and again.

We've Been Had

2009-04-14T09:39:00.001-07:00

When Keith Olbermann breaks ranks with the left to take aim at the same guy Limbaugh, O'Reilly and Beck are taking pot shots at, something has gone terribly wrong. As the Department of Justice moves to quash a suit that would repeal the Bushist policy of unwarranted wiretapping (Jewell v. NSA)the Obama Administration opens itself up to attacks, not only from the right, but from every political axis.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

With the GOP virtually leaderless and clinging to a failed ideology and a Democratic Party promising only more of the same, it is time for Americans to abandon the false dichotomy of the Two-Party System. While the President hasn't failed on all of his promises, he's shown where his allegiances lie, and it's not with the American People. But amid all of the flowery rhetoric, Obama touched on something we have badly needed as Americans: that we are not a Nation where identity politics can trump our national and cultural identity. We are all Americans.

I don't care if you're a card-carrying member of the Sierra Club or a dyed-in-the-wool member of the NRA: when our sharpshooters took out the Somali pirates and rescued our American sea captain of Maersk Alabama, it made you proud of what we are. The olive branch having failed (the ship was carrying aid to Kenya) the arrows were swift and retribution was fierce.

I close with a literary reference. An adolescent boy I know just finished reading Orwell's Animal Farm. He told me he was quite disturbed by the ending (SPOILER ALERT:IF YOU HAVEN'T READ ANIMAL FARM, EITHER READ IT NOW, OR STOP READING THIS POST). As the older animals who remembered the revolution peered through the windows and saw the pigs and the humans quarreling over a card game, they realized they couldn't tell the difference between them. While Orwell was referring to oppression under communism being virtually indistinguishable to what many believed they had suffered under capitalism, I refer to this Orwellian twist for another reason. Having decided the Elephants had violated the Constitution, we placed our faith in the Donkeys. For all of the demagoguery regarding "Socialism," there is no difference between the two: Goldman Sachs has bought and paid for both of them.

How can they look any different in the end?

Meet the New Boss (Same as the Old Boss)

2009-04-08T13:36:00.001-07:00

Yes, the title of this thread is aimed at President Obama.

Everyone believed he could do it. Even Pete Townshend, after performing "Won't Get Fooled Again" (Who's Next)said that, given Obama's victory over the conservative political machine, he needed to rethink the meaning of the song. One of the most dynamic and revolutionary songs (literally) in all of rock music, "Won't Get Fooled Again" is the quintessential anthem of the skeptic, pointing out that once the revolution ends and the oppressors are overthrown, the new regime changes little or nothing for the better. I agree with Townshend to some degree: Obama has brought about some much needed changes.

The boos from our troops in Iraq as they were told they will be ceding control of Iraq back to the Iraqis isn't something that would have happened under a McCain Administration (I can understand why they booed him: from a soldier's perspective the place is a mess, and none of the machinery is currently in place to keep Iraq from tearing itself to pieces with civil war; but, I digress). It was a good and necessary step, at least for ability of the United States to move forward. Contrary to what the anti-war "progressives" claim, I agree with the President's decision to stay in Afghanistan--not to take it over or to "stabilize" the region--but to finish what Bush II started in 2001: GET BIN LADEN. Just him, and anyone who protects him. It isn't rocket science: if Bush I can bitch slap Manuel Noriega in his own house and drag him back to the States to try him as a drug runner, I think that these high-tech morons in the CIA ought to be able to sort through the latest stack of Quickbird images from the Af-Pak border and find bin Laden. How will they know it's him? Here's a hint: HE'S THE GUY STANDING OUTSIDE A CAVE TALKING TO A VIDEO CAMERA!

There is, of course that patient side to Obama: the one that doesn't bother swatting at Dick Cheney when he flies by on the news. By all signs, the President wants to move forward. And this is where I have to start calling bullshit. Cheney admitted on television that he knew about and approved the use of torture, defined as a war crime under Geneva. I'm no lawyer, but I'm pretty sure that a spontaneous admission of guilt--one that was in nowise coaxed (say, by waterboarding, for example)--is generally accepted as being admissable in court. And given that President Obama once held the prestigious position of president of the Harvard Law Review, it would seem a no brainer that this is a fact not lost on him.

It's been clear for some time that Washington, while willing to pay lip service to the general outrage with the auld populist sound bite, has had Wall Street's back from the beginning, and has no intention of throwing them under the bus. When the sheriff robs you, it’s bad enough: you have to convince a judge and a prosecutor to get off their lazy asses and do their jobs; then you have to find someone willing to take on a paramilitary force, known as "The Sheriff's Department," to have him arrested. That normally requires a larger paramilitary force, such as the State Police or the FBI. But at least they exist.

So this time, our cattle are being rustled by Wall Street bankers. You know, those "genteel" folk that everyone used to be so deferential to? And now, from all appearances, the gate is being held open by one of the Commander-in-Chief’s top deputies, Tim Geithner. It’s hard to imagine that someone sharp as President Obama is blind to how Geithner appears to be operating as primary gate-holder for that infamous gang of financial rustlers, chasing borrowed revenues through AIG’s hidden range of complicated credit-default swaps, out to the financial pastures where the dandies and the gamblers (still disguised as bankers) cash out the missing pot of a poker game, which from all accounts, they lost.

As much as I want the efforts by the Obama Administration to work, I can’t see how paying an insurance company to pay off the architects of this recession will lead to improving our economy. Perhaps I can’t see the forest for the trees. But perhaps I was right to begin with, when I suggested, some time ago, that right and left, Democrat and Republican, liberal and conservative, were a false dichotomy with a purpose. I know a lot of “blue dog” Democrats; most of the self-proclaimed “leftists” that I know don’t favor any kind of gun control. A surprising number of the women I know that identify themselves as “feminists” are ambivalent toward Roe v. Wade and wouldn’t consider abortion for themselves or for their daughters; on the other side of the abortion issue, there seems no shortage of self-proclaimed conservatives that wish everyone would just shut up about it. These are but a few minor examples pointing to the paradox in American political identity: how we align ourselves politically doesn’t so much reflect beliefs, but how appealing we tend to find someone else’s. Hence, left/right and liberal/conservative, but most importantly, Democrat/Republican, are not so much dichotomies as two sides of the same coin. And they have us well trained: when one side can’t fix the problem, we flip the coin over and hope that the other side can. But no matter how many times we turn over that nickel, it’s still just a nickel. Don’t get me wrong: a nickel still has its uses, but you only get so much mileage out of it—particularly when it’s minted the same on either side.

And so we come to it: the two-party system is out of gas. Both sides have given the bankers a free hand to shape financial and economic policy. I’ve given my support, not only in money but in hope to the idea that this time, it could be different. But it can’t, because this time, like last time and the time before that, the moneyed and the well-connected did what they do best: they used our hopes and desperation to steal what little we had left.I didn’t come to this conclusion via the endless right-wing or left-wing demagoguery that fouls the airwaves. I just looked outside after hearing there was a new sheriff in town, and saw for myself that America was still a kleptocracy. It was founded by rich men who couldn’t stomach the thought of paying taxes to cover the cost of a war that their greed and speculation started, and the same people who have sunk us, time and again, remain firmly entrenched.

So Townshend got it right the first time: revolution, election, regime change. The same banners flew in the last war and the new boss is the same as the old.

I love my country, but our so-called leaders all suck. And until we get another Jefferson in the office, who's willing to stand up for the rights of the common man, we're still flipping that two-headed coin from right-to-left and back again.

The Dog and Pony Show: Washington Goes WWF on AIG Largess

2009-03-19T12:15:00.000-07:00

In this corner, weighing in at $170 billion in taxpayer revenue, reporting a 3rd quarter profit of $6 million in 2008 (just before the market meltdown) and $1.6 trillion in losses : the Master of Disaster, the Don of Derivatives, the Jihad on Jobs, the Harbinger of Recession, the Bonus Bitch, and the Credit-default Swap felt 'round the World, American Insurance Group!

AND IN THIS CORNER, weighing in with an annual taxpayer budget of $2.7 billion with pay increases on the way, with wins for multinational corporations, foreign countries, the executive branch and, of course, themselves, having been hoodwinked by Hank Paulson, punked by Karl Rove and made into George Bush's bitch: the Counterfeit Chorus, the Feckless Faction, the Guardian of the Greedy, the Corporate Courtesan, the Strumpet of the Stinking-rich and the Rubberiest of all Rubber Stamps, the United States Congress!

Let the WWF Smackdown begin.

Not. Ed Liddy refused to reveal the names of the employees who took bonuses, due to some threatening mail, including a piece he read aloud, indicating that the writer wanted to garrote bonus recipients with a piano string. I could try to explain to Mr. Liddy and his kind, that the reason horse thieves were hanged, rather than simply receiving long sentences, was because horses in the old West, weren't simply draft/transportation animals, they were livelihood; if your horse was stolen or damaged, you might not be able to provide for your family. That didn't mean selling one of a dozen houses or missing an annual trip to Europe, it meant starvation. He, the members of Congress and the media probably wouldn't know what it means to live paycheck to paycheck (in Liddy's case, another year, another dollar), then to get the news that the cycle you depended on has been broken. Your expenses will continue, but your paychecks will not.

The media has started making fun of the outrage shown by Congress to the insurance giant. Funny that they never mention the reason that it all sounds so disingenuous: Congress will be getting yet another raise this year while the taxpayers that support them continue to lose their jobs and homes.

Bernanke knew about the bonuses, but did nothing to block them. Geithner shrugged his shoulders, accepting the argument that the contracts that agreed to the bonuses--under the auspices that 2007's profits were something other than creative accounting--could in no wise be abrogated.

I'm sure this comes as disappointing news to the UAW.

But the hearing was nothing more than a dog and pony show. As with the situation that led to the financial meltdown, it doesn't take a genius to sniff this one out. Anyone who could look at the price of homes in poor and/or working class neighborhoods could see that we were in for trouble: it simply didn't add up. Here are the facts"

AIG has funneled tens of billions of taxpayer dollars to Goldman Sachs, Deutche Bank, others
Former Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson and current Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner were both once employed by Goldman Sachs
Goldman Sachs and AIG were substantial contributors to Barack Obama's presidential campaign.

Before some nut job starts frothing at the mouth about a Jewish banking conspiracy, I should point out that the only implication I'm trying to make is that Goldman Sachs' fingerprints are all over the crime scene. Watching Congress and the Obama Administration bungle through the financial meltdown would be like watching Car 54, where are you? or Keystone Cops, if it weren't so obvious that they're ignoring all of the clues left behind by the criminals.

GEITHNER: "A contract? Gawrsh! Did they pinky swear on it and everything?" (shrugging) "Well, shucks. It looks like there isn't nothin' we can do, then." (turning to AIG) "Would you super-nice fellers who were so greedy a year ago that you didn't give a crap one way or 'nother that you might destroy the world economy, mind giving them there retention bonuses back? No?" (turning to audience) "Gawrsh. Guess there's nothin' we can do, then."

We needed Elliot Ness and we got Frank Nitti. Obama made a mistake by tapping yet another Goldman Sachs alum to run the Treasury. He walked into a wall, dislodged the scaffolding above him and wound up covered in paint with a bucket over his head. Once makes for good theater. But there reaches a point, after a dozen or so prat falls that you shut it off, because it's obvious they're mugging for the cameras.

We need FDR, not Charlie Chaplin, and for Obama to be taken seriously, he's going to have to fire Geithner before another series of prat falls obviates what we already suspect. We need a Congress that walks the walk instead of just talking the talk. And we need a media that follows evidence instead of trying to quell public outrage with eye-rolling and cynicism. But that's not going to happen as long as we wait around for someone else to do our work.

Obama was right about one thing: we are the change we've been waiting for.

The Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune Caught in Collusion to Aid Israel's Propaganda War

2009-01-21T10:00:00.000-08:00

To the Editors of the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune:

In the story, "Israeli Military Says Gaza Pullout Complete," the Los Angeles Times printed that U.N Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon "called rocket attacks against Israel 'appalling and unacceptable.'" This is not only misleading, it is completely false. The Los Angeles Times further attempted to mislead its readers on the front page article, "UN Chief Tours Gaza Strip, Israeli Town," by repeating Ban's alleged statement. Of course, this goes further, as a story in the Chicago Tribune parrots the UN Chief misquote. A more reliable source has fully quoted Ban as saying:

"Ladies and gentlemen, I have seen only a fraction of the damage. This is shocking and alarming. This is heartbreaking scenes which I have seen, and I am deeply grieved by what I have seen today. I’m just appalled. I’m not able to describe how I’m feeling, having seen this site of the bombing of the United Nations compound. Everyone is now smelling this burning still. It is still burning. This, an outrageous and totally unacceptable attack against the United Nations."

Ban was referring to the destruction of the United Nations headquarters last week, set ablaze when Israel attacked it, destroying hundreds of tons of food and aid, badly needed by the refugees caught between Hamas and Israel. In fact, Ban has called for the attack on the UN headquarters to be investigated as a possible war crime.

But it seems likely that both organizations already knew this.

It is one thing to be Pro-Israel. It is another to omit facts and distort the words of a UN leader to help propagate the notion that Israel has been fully justified in its assault on Gaza. In referring to the New York Times and the London Times, it is clear that the Los Angeles Times and its parent company, the Chicago Tribune, are quite alone in their foray into fiction. The fact that two different writers for two different papers owned by the same company, have misquoted the UN Secretary identically, suggests that the Chigaco Tribune, et. al is not reporting the news as it happens, but rather, is acting on an agenda. All speculation aside, I demand that the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune each print a retraction to include Ban's full statement, as well as an apology to your readers, to UN Secretary General Ban and to the victims of the Gaza massacre, a massacre for which your organizations have offered tacit support through the publication of such misleading stories.

Update: The Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune might have been following an AP feed when they printed their stories. The Associated Press also misrepresented Ban Ki-moon's statement as a condemnation of Hamas' attacks on Israel:

"Ban later visited the rocket-scarred Israeli town of Sderot, where he called the Hamas' attacks over the last eight years against Israeli residents 'appalling and unacceptable.'"

This would be the third time in as many months that the AP has been exposed for mis-stating facts in pursuit of an agenda.

Open Letter: a Call for Israeli and Palestinian Insubordination

2009-01-16T09:15:00.000-08:00

I've written my Senators and representative so many times about Gaza that I swear, I've gone into syndication with them. No response. Is this thing on? Hello-oooooooooo?! Nothing. And did you hear? Over 1100 Palestinians dead--mostly children--and Hillary Clinton says there aren't going to be any talks with Hamas. In other words, meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

Change, my rosey red kiester.

I cannot be silent as these destructive forces--forces that I sponsor with my taxes--continue to massacre innocent people. Between Israel and Hamas, the Jews and Palestinians are just public relations poker chips. And just like Wall Street, what Israel and Hamas gamble with doesn't belong to them in the first place. Most people in Israel aren't soldiers or fighters or guerrillas or spies or terrorists. They're just people getting blown to pieces because the megalomaniacal cowards don't have the balls to stand toe to toe with each other and settle their differences.

And while Hamas fires rockets into populated areas of southern Israel; their aim sucks: they Israeli body count is at thirteen, ten of whom were soldiers, and four of those killed by friendly fire. Israel, with full US backing is using Gaza as a military laboratory, testing out DIME (Dense Inert Metal Explosive) bombs, which has the unique function of dismembering people without leaving any shrapnel in them. Oh, and did I mention it causes cancer? It gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "dropping a DIME," eh?

So smoke 'em if you got 'em, kids! Lung cancer will be a pleasant death by comparison--not that you're gonna live that long. And for those of you that haven't been killed by the bombs, did we mention that the Israelis are unveiling--just in time for the Oscars--the latest and greatest in chemical peels, white phosphorus! Because while most chemical peels only get rid of the epidermis layer, making your skin look fresh and new, white phosphorus burns through all of your skin--and then it keeps going, burning your skin off, right down to the bone! My, won't you be a sight on the red carpet--not the one in Hollywood, of course, but the one stained with the blood of your enemies as well as your friends.

I have some advice for the soldiers, fighters, guerrillas and lieutenants who are carrying out these atrocities: stop. The precedent set at Nuremberg in 1945 gives you the right to refuse to obey orders that make you complicit in war crimes.

I would advise you to use that loophole before it gets used on you.

Update: Since the cease-fire began, the death toll in Gaza has risen to over 1,300. According to the New York Times, that number includes 104 women and 410 children and is expected to continue rising as more bodies are discovered. The Western media has done everything it can to sanitize Israel's ethnic cleansing of Gaza, if not bury it outright.

Israel is not right by virtue of the Holocaust being wrong. I am convinced that Israel's policies of terror and ethnic cleansing in Gaza are not designed to weaken Hamas militarily, but to terrorize the Palestinian people into capitulation with Israel and their puppet, Fatah. The words "Never Again" (referring to the Holocaust) are burned into the minds of every Jewish person. Certainly , we would Never Again want to see the Jewish people subjected to such a fate. It is, perhaps the saddest irony that the state that rose from the near-annihilation of a people, wrought by the Hitlerian Apocalypse, should then go on to do the same thing to another people. The State of Israel has conducted for decades--in full view of the world--a campaign for lebensraum (living space) that the rest of the world stopped the Nazis from achieving. This has been done with the full protection and aid of the United States Government and military, including the provision of advanced weaponry, such as Apache helicopters, DIME bombs and white phosphorus.

Did Never Again mean that, as a people, the Jews would never again allow a power to rise in the world that would bring a people--any people--to the brink of annihilation, or were they simply referring to themselves? Opinion is starkly divided on this, even among the Jews. The Nation of Israel will have to decide for itself, but it will do so with the fingers of a conscientious world pointing back to Auchwitz, Bergen-Belsen and Dachau and then to Gaza; from a Germany at the height of its power under the Third Reich and then back to a 21st Century Israel, standing at the threshold of empire.

Prime Minister Olmert Threatens Gaza with the "Israeli Iron Fist."

2009-01-14T11:23:00.000-08:00

Iron fist? To paraphrase the line from a popular motion picture, I have heard that expression, but never before from Israel. One would think that such a term, referring to the uncompromising way that Hitler dealt with domestic dissent, would be anathema in Israeli rhetoric. But as Niccolo Machiavelli pointed out, conscience runs counter to the aims of rulers, and the State of Israel is no exception. At the State level conscience breaks down and all that was evil when it was done to us becomes necessary when dealing with an occupied people, especially one that has a sense of its own statehood. Hence, their efforts at resistance and punitive attacks on the occupying people are called "terrorism," because "resistance" is reserved for those polities that the West is sympathetic to.

The experimentation of Dense Inert Metal Explosives (DIME) on Gazans and use of white phosphorus is reminiscent of the Hitlerian Guernica massacre, in which a Basque village was used to test the Nazi blitzkrieg (lightning war). These were the sorts of things that the Bushies accused Saddam Hussein of to justify invading a nation (something that nations allegedly never do in the 21st century).

DIME was developed by the U.S. Air Force in 2006. It is a small, powerfull explosive that explodes with such force that it rips the flesh from the body, but allegedly leaves no shrapnel, only particle metals. The Internet Edition of Dawn quoted one Norweigian medic as saying, “We have not seen the casualties affected directly by the bomb because they are normally torn to pieces and do not survive, but we have seen a number of very brutal amputations . . . without shrapnel injuries which we strongly suspect must have been caused by the DIME weapons,”

White phosphorus was developed as an obscurant to prevent enemies from using guided missile systems or tracking troop movements. White phosphorus can burn away human flesh, all the way to the bone. Al Jazeera English has reported that, according to Human Rights watch, white phosphorus is only legal if "all feasible precautions [are taken] to avoid civilian injury and loss of life." Humanitarian Rights watch has said that it believes Israel violated this tenet of international law, because Gaza is such a densely populated area. According to the Los Angeles Times, the "obscurant" destroyed a UN refugee school and more than twenty homes. "Dozens" were injured and one woman was killed; her son watched her die as the home she was in was struck by a projectile and burst into flames.

Israel is using U.S.weaponry to slaughter civilians with full U.S. backing. This isn't the fault of the Jews as the anti-Semites would have you believe, nor does it wash the blood from the hands of Hamas: their guilt for continuing rocket fire into southern Israel amid the rising deaths of Palestinian civilians is monolith. But to excuse Israel's war crimes, far in excess of the cumulative acts of terror committed previously by Hamas, because it has committed these atrocities under the guise of "fighting terrorism"is to say that we will not hold Israel and the United States to the same standard that the United States imposed on Germany at Nuremberg in 1945. But rather than expressing outrage (whether at me or at U.S. complicity in war crimes) write your senators and congressperson and demand the massacre of Gazans be stopped at once. Then paste the text of one of them as a comment.

I leave you with the words of Pastor Martin Niemoller:

In Germany they first came for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.

Then they came for me —
and by that time no one was left to speak up.

We Know Hamas are Terrorists; what About Israel?

2009-01-08T16:28:00.000-08:00

The death toll at the UN School in Gaza city has reached 43 with 150 wounded, according to UN relief workers. Not that it matters; Palestinian parents don't mourn their children as the rest of us do, and since Hamas allegedly violated the cease fire, the Gazan's should suck it up and take their pounding, courtesy of Israel, without complaint, right?

And do we really need to listen to those candy-ass do-gooders at the UN, or, for that matter, the bleeding hearts at Red Cross International, that had to be barred from giving aid and comfort to the Palestinians. Of course, Israel was only looking out for the welfare of the ICRC--nevermind the 12 dead bodies the Israelis were hiding; and, of course, it's hardly worth mentioning that children were found, too weak to stand beside the corpses of their mothers.

And this is where my sarcasm ends. Israel isn't special, and if they are indeed God's chosen people, then they had damned well better start acting like it. The Holocaust doesn't give them a pass to perpetrate what can only be called--in their own words--a pogrom. Nor does it bar the rest of the world from speaking out against this massacre. The excuse given by Israel that their slaughter of civilians is somehow justified because Hamas is firing rockets from civilian areas is a sorry excuse at that. Hamas is a terrorist organization--that is not in doubt. What is, given the massacre of Palestinians in Gaza, is whether or not Israel, its status as a nation notwithstanding, has become a terrorist organization in its own right.

This Week's Winner: The Napoleon of Narcissism Claims Damages of $100 Million

2008-12-22T12:33:00.000-08:00

I probably shouldn't be writing this, since Donald Trump--AKA "The Donald," AKA the litigious lecher, AKA the sue-happy hedonist--has been known to enjoin the rest of us "little people" from committing all manner of infractions against him, real or imagined. And it is entirely within the realm of the possible that such an egotistical imperator actually pays people to go online and hunt up random acts of libel against the him. We are, after all, talking about the guy who, without so much as a smirk of irony, tried to copyright the phrase, "you're fired," so that every time it was uttered, someone would have to pay him a royalty.

So how has the Emperor of Entreaty encountered the wrath of your humble host? In case you missed it in the big lead-up to this paragraph, Trump has sicked his attorneys on the city of Rancho Palos Verdes, charging that a city with an annual budget of $20 million managed to do upwards of $100 million in damages. The Combover King claims (with a completely straight face) that the city has violated his civil rights: "The town does everything possible to stymie everything I do."

Sounds more like a pre-pubescent temper-tantrum to me.

"Everything [he] does," turns out to be demanding the city rename a street after him, planting a row of tall ficus trees that blocked resident's view and suing the school district (which he lost) over some land he leases from them on his golf course.

What a pain.

Trump's response? "We have nothing but trouble with this town. . . . We've been treated very unfairly, very badly and we've been looking forward to this day for years. And we think we are going to win a lot of money."

I'm sure he'll need it. Trump went bankrupt in the 1990s, due, no doubt, to his personal and business largess. In 2004, Trump Hotels and Casinos sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, and Trump Tower Tampa filed for chapter 11 in July of this year. For anyone that's followed the career of this Napoleonic narssicist, you're already aware that he has a habit of biting off more than he can chew, and not just in terms of debt: he played legal chicken with Merv Griffin and lost, he's cheated on both wives, tried unsuccessfully to copyright a phrase he could have never thought up on his own and even lost his lawsuit with the school district in Rancho Palos Verdes. His only success in life appears to be as a reality TV show host.

Here's to Cap'n Combover and the dreadful damage wrought upon his sorry civil rights: may he meet yet another Waterloo in Rancho Palos Verdes.

Cry 'Havock!' and Let Fly the Shoes of Protest at the Dog of War

2008-12-15T12:55:00.000-08:00

President George W. Bush was assailed by flying shoes and insults, courtesy of Iraqi journalist, Muntader al-Zaidi. “This is a gift from the Iraqis; this is the farewell kiss, you dog! This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq!”said Zaidi, to which President Bush replied, "Shoe fly, don't bother me."

President Bush, being the model of calm, cool leadership and heroism, dodged the first shoe, but then as Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Miliki moved to block the second with his hand, Mr. Bush lunged forward, catching the second shoe right in the numbers, thus protecting his teammate from being called out and simultaneously putting Zaidi out of the game--at least until someone from Muntader al-Zaidi's team catches one of Bush's team's shoes.

The security personnel that had been waiting on the sidelines rushed back into the game and pummeled Zaidi with their shoes. But Zaidi, who the referrees had clearly called out, was refusing to leave the game. As per the rules, this gave the security detail permission to drag Zaidi out to the hallway, from where reporters could hear him being kicked, beaten and sodomized. While I have no evidence that Zaidi was actually sodomized, Toby Keith, who was on the security detail, had been heard by literally dozens of witnesses as early as 2002, threatening to "put a boot in [his] ass," as Mr. Keith put it, because "it's the American way." There is no report as to whether Keith's Tony Lamas or W. Axl Rose's Doc Marten's were used in the alleged sodomy, but Mohammed Taher, a reporter for Afaq, an independent television station, owned by Prime Minister Miliki's very own Dawa Party, reported that, “he [Zaidi] was crying like a woman.” A source, close to a source, close to a source, who sits in the stall next to Mahammed Taher during his daily constitutional, said that Taher added under his breath that Zaidi would "be shitting boot polish and decorative stitching for a month of Ramadans."

I have no idea how long that is.

It is considered an insult to hit people with your shoes by Arabic people. According to tradition, this places them lower than your feet, down in the dirt, crawling in the sand, wrestling in the mud with 40 impure women, all of whom refuse to wear a head covering. It is the quintessential mid-eastern atomic wedgie, being pantsed in front of the cheerleading squad and being refused a bailout that was less than one-tenth of what AIG asked for and got, no questions asked, all rolled into one. In short, it is one heavy-duty insult.

And you thought Imelda Marcos took her shoes seriously.

This Week's Winner: David Brooks

2008-11-14T09:02:00.000-08:00

Would someone please explain to me what the position of business and political conservatives (as opposed to social conservatives) is on evolution? On anarchy? Mr. Brooks seems to adopt a Darwinian model for the markets (Darwin called in "natural selection," Brooks calls it "creative destruction") as well subscribing to the notion of economic anarchism (AKA laissez faire).

Regardless of the logical flaws in being both a conservative and a Darwinist, Brooks told Detroit it could collectively fuck itself, positing that the $50 billion dollars needed to bailout Ford, Chrysler and GM would "grant immortality" to the Big Three. He asserted that, "This is a different sort of endeavor than the $750 billion bailout of Wall Street. That money was used to save the financial system itself. It was used to save the capital markets on which the process of creative destruction depends."

Apart from being a weak, transparent argument, his Op Ed piece lacks a substantial element: integrity. Why has he not decried how the $700 billion bailout has prevented the "creative destruction" of AIG, much less how Paulson's (possibly illegal) changes to Section 382 of the Tax code have turned BofA, Wells Fargo and JPMorgan&Chase monopolistic behemoths, even bigger than the banks that were, supposedly, "too big to fail."

The failure of GM isn't creative destruction any more than the failure of JPMorgan&Chase would be right now. The failure of either would make space for new industries, but, according to economist and Nobel Lauriat Paul Krugman, it would also prolong the recession, and possibly even sink us deeper into depression. What many social Darwinists, like Brooks, fail to understand about the economy is that it is no more of an example of natural selection than domestic livestock; rather, it is the opposite: artificial selection. The economy is a product of culture, and as with domesticated plants and animals, there are consequences for poor stewardship.

Paulson and the $140 Billion Bait and Switch

2008-11-12T12:08:00.000-08:00

This is old news, but it wasn't in the paper until yesterday.

As AIG c ontinues to spend taxpayer bailout money (in the same fashion that put them on the dole with all the other Wall Street welfare bitches), yet another under-reported story of the exploits of one Henry M. Paulson has come to the fore. While the U.S. Congress was responding to yet another dose of Bush Administration shock doctrine--give us $700 billion, no questions asked, or risk a financial Chernobyl--Treasury Secretary Paulson was altering tax code section 382, which prohibits the purchase of failing businesses as a tax shelter. The result is yet another tax break for the wealthy, once again sticking taxpayers with the check. Even as our current lender, China, is failing industri ally and the ability to round up what remains of the $700 billion bailout package is in question, Paulson has removed $140 billion from next year's Federal kitty.

If this doesn't piss you off, it's either because you're a Wall Street welfare bitch, or it's time to stop taking your Prozac. Write your Senators and Representative and demand they put Paulson in prison.

While you're at it, tell them to hold AIG's feet to the fire about their spending habits. So far, AIG has spent $869,000 (that we know about) on luxury retreats alone: almost immediately after receiving $85 billion in bailout assistance, $440,000 was spent on a week-long retreat at St. Regis Resort in Monarch Beach, CA; then, after receiving an additional 37.8 billion in aid, they spent an additional $86,000 on a hunting trip in England; their latest junket at Pho enix's Pointe Hilton Squaw Peak Resort cost us $343,000.

Mormons in Glass Houses and the Consequences of Throwing Stones

2008-11-07T09:31:00.000-08:00

For those of you that are a little behind on your Territories History, Mormons, at one time, were not allowed to vote in the Territory of Idaho. A Republican named Dubois (pronounced doo-boyss) was able to define marriage as "between one man and one woman," making polygyny and polyandry illegal. For the mass of people within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS) faith, this law was not an issue; the rules for polygamy in Church scripture required men who engaged in plural marriages to house secondary wives and children in separate homes, a financial burden that few could afford. But the law required Mormons who wanted to vote to renounce their faith, which many did--much to the chagrin of the Salt Lake City Herald. It is worth mentioning that, at that time, Mormons were, by and large, Democrats, which was the real reason Dubois and his fellow Republicans wanted to deny them the right to vote. In spite of taking the "test oath" and publicly denouncing their faith, Dubois, in a desperate attempt to defeat his opponent, Hawley, sent Republican county officers to arrest the former Church members for perjury. Many were released after a judge, satisfied that they were sincere in there oaths. Some were successful in voting, and others were successfully prevented. But the damage was done. Dubois won re-election.

The preceding narrative might explain why Mormons are now disproportionately Republicans. It might describe part of the history of voter suppression, as per the Republican Party. But its real purpose is how one group of people was singled out by men in power, preying on the fears and prejudices of an uninformed electorate to serve a political agenda.

Were Mormons aware that the definition of marriage as being "between one man and one woman," could be used against them? Clearly they've forgotten how the Evangelicals rejected Mitt Romney, though he was the best and most logical candidate to run for President on the GOP ticket. Clearly they've forgotten their own history of persecution and disenfranchisement.

Or perhaps they haven't. What's the saying? if you can't beat 'em, join 'em? Well, they should be proud of themselves--for now:

Think this is harsh? Think again:

There's not much we can do about a Constitutional Amendment, but there are existing laws--including the Amendment most Californians just voted for--to make California a very unwelcome place for a church of division. By using the pulpit to urge their members to contribute to this discriminatory campaign, they have used their tax-exempt status for political purposes, and hence, they have forfeited that status. With a liberally-controlled executive branch, the new Attorney General could easily decide to push the issue. I will be lobbying the new Attorney General to do so.

Perhaps more disturbing than the narrow margin by which Proposition 8 passed was the comfortable margin by which Propostion 2 passed--meaning that the California electorate is willing to extend rights to animals, while taking them away from some people.

I was allowed to marry the person I loved. I cannot, in good conscience, deny that right to others.

The Best and Worst of Election 2008

2008-11-04T22:59:00.000-08:00

Best

McCain admonished his party toward their better instincts, saying "We are the party that came to Washington to reform it, but were corrupted by it." I think if anyone could have cleaned up the 'pubs, it was McCain.

McCain's story of how he was broken in Hanoi, ashamed, but not alone, how he found strength through his brothers in arms, and was nursed through this trial by his love for his country.

Obama talking to us about race like we were grown-ups.

Obama's epic of 106 years through the eyes of a black woman and his challenge to us to advance our country as our nation advanced through the lifetime of Ann Nixon Cooper.

Ben Affleck's impression of Olbermann.

Tina Fey's amazing impression of Palin.

Screwing wiith the dudes who follow talking points online. After a while, they won't even talk to you.

Worst
Rachel Maddow suffering from Election post-traumatic stress disorder--she drove me nuts!

Olbermann's nightly comments during the last two weeks leading up to the Election.

The Chaffey Community Republican Women's racist "Obama Bucks" graphic.

The constant allusions to John McCain's age and melanoma.

Sarah Palin--EVERYTHING!

California Prop 8 passing. Do the Mormons know the people they were funding hate them, too?

Mitt Romney prostrating himself before the Evangelicals, who didn't support him anyway.

TALKING POINTS!

What were your best and worst of Election 2008?

The Day Before the Election: Obama Dominates the Polls, But Will it Matter?

2008-11-03T12:17:00.000-08:00

There is a guarded optimism among progressives that, provided individuals brave the long lines, combat the electronic voting machines until their vote stops flipping from Obama to McCain (or McKinney) and take video of their voting experience, Obama might actually win. Cue voter suppression efforts: get any emails or phone calls telling you to change polling locations? Changing your voting day from November 4th to November 5th? Seen any fliers warning you that you'll be arrested for unpaid parking tickets, etc, if you turn out to vote?

It's all stock-in-trade for suppressing the vote in minority and poor neighborhoods. The logic goes that poor whites and minorities are likely to vote Democrat, so these dirty tricks advantage the Republicans. But if the long lines for early voting are any kind of barometer, it doesn't appear to be working this time. And Gallup's Tracking Poll indicates Obama widening the gap among registered voters (53-40), expanded likely voters and traditional likely voters (53-42). Curiously, Senator Obama remains vigilant, refusing to let up in his efforts to persuade people to vote; conversely, Senator McCain is not only optimistic, but incredibly, he has enthusiastically assured his supporters that he will come from behind and win the Presidential election. It's not surprising that McCain would say he'll make a comeback, but it's quite another for him to believe it.

Does John McCain know something that we don't?

That depends on who you ask. According to a post in Brad Blog by Stephen Heller, Michael Connell, Republican IT Guru is being deposed today, regarding allegations of electronic election fraud in Ohio in 2004:

Confidential sources indicate that Connell has been blackmailed by Karl Rove to take the fall under threats that Connell's wife, Heather, will be prosecuted for alleged violations of lobby law. If Connell confirms this story, Karl Rove can forget about hiding behind Executive Privelege.

Regardless of who goes to jail, this is the biggest political scandal since Watergate. Will the mainstream media pick it up? Something tells me this is highly unlikely, even if Senator McCain makes an inexplicable, eleventh-hour comeback. That's why we're going to need to get off our asses and do something about it.

NOW.

I've said it before: in hard times, the patriots aren't ones with their hands out, but with their fists up. No one is going to give you your vote back, you're going to have to take it. Click the link, pledge your support and take a stand for democracy.

Real Women Respond to Palin: Watch the Webathon, LIVE Now

2008-10-30T13:33:00.000-07:00

I came across this live program on Twitter. Women are expressing their views, right now on Sarah Palin as Vice President. What do you think?

Women should weigh in on this issue at the source, http://womenrespondtopalin.com/

When an Election Jumps the Shark into the Politics of Hate: An Open Letter to the Chaffey Community Republican Women, Federated

2008-10-16T20:11:00.001-07:00

If I started off a joke about someone eating ribs, fried chicken and watermelon, who was on food stamps, you would know that I was about to tell an inappropriate ethnic joke about an African American. If you were a decent person, you might tell me to watch my mouth before I said anything. If you were morally upright and I told the joke anyway, you might knock me on my ass. And if I had a conscience, instead of calling the cops, I'd do what was decent and feel ashamed. While I wouldn't want to admit to full-on bigotry, I would feel compelled to say I was sorry--again, if I had a conscience.

On the other hand if I were a jerk who wanted to insult your intelligence, I would try to tell you that I didn't know that eating fried chicken, watermelon and barbecued ribs were a stereotype for black people, or that being on welfare was an unfair and negative sterotype of black people.

Diane Fedele, president of the Chaffey Community Republican Women, Federated of Upland, California, is the lowest form of life that has ever existed in our great country: Diane Fedele is a bigot. That's not playing the race card, that is a statement Diane Fedele invited when she composed such an image. This was not "poor judgement," it wasn't innocent, and her garbage apology "to anyone who was offended" is not accepted, because it isn't sincere. She has allowed her enthusiasm in this historic presidential campaign to sour into something so ugly that we have to go back nearly four decades for a reference on such an overt and mainstream display of hate. In an election plagued by members of people yelling "Kill him," in reference to Senator Obama, after being whipped into a violent frenzy by the Republican candidate's running mate, not to mention the Sacramento County Republican's call to "waterboard Obama," there been a clear lack of leadership within the your party, but that does not excuse Diane Fedele's actions. Her portrayal of Barack Obama's face on a food stamp, complete with watermelon, barbecued ribs and KFC fried chicken was a clear and deliberate usage of negative, racist stereotypes directed at African American people. Were there any question that this was anything but a deliberate and vulgar display of ethnic stereotyping, Diane Fedele tipped her hand at symbolism with the Kool-Aid character; your bloggers have stuck to their talking points a little too well.

Drinking the Kool-Aid.

It is a reference to people who followed a white cult leader, Jim Jones, ingesting poisoned punch in Guyana, committing mass suicide. This has been a talking point that Republicans have stuck to religiously, referring to Obama supporters as "drinking the Kool-Aid." Diane Fedele, President of the Chaffey Community Republican Women tipped her hand at symbolism. This was no innocent error. She knowingly and with malice of forethought, in a County that is home over 187,000 African Americans, created such a divisive and hateful image, and in targeting a political campaign, unleashed an unexcuseable attack on, not on 187,000 people, but an entire nation of them.

An entire nation of us--black, brown, red, yellow and white.

Is this who you want leading you, Chaffey Community Republican Women, Federated? Are you honestly okay with this? Because it's not Diane Fedele's name on it, it's your name. Do you hate your African American neighbors, as she clearly does? Or your Hispanic neighbors? Or your Asian neighbors? Or your Native American Neighbors? Or your poor, white neighbors? Because this kind of hate rarely stops at one group of people--at least it never has before; not with the Nazis or the Ku Klux Klan or the Neo-Nazis or the Aryan Nations. Those groups never stopped at just one group of people, either. And you can say that you're not racists, but you clearly appear willing to tolerate racism when it suits you. Diane Fedele, as your club president, speaks for you, unless you dencounce this disgusting and racist image--unless you denounce her.

Does Diane Fedele speak for you, Chaffey Community Republican Women, Federated?

Are you "drinking the Kool-Aid" of hate for her?

Monday: After the Fall

2008-10-13T09:09:00.000-07:00

Someone prayed for Barack Obama to lose. I think the minister, Arnold Conrad said it best:

There are millions of people around this world praying to their god -- whether it's Hindu, Buddha, Allah -- that his [McCain's] opponent wins, for a variety of reasons . . . And Lord, I pray that you would guard your own reputation because they're going to think that their god is bigger than you if that happens. So I pray that you will step forward and honor your own name in all that happens between now and Election Day.

Perhaps prayed isn't the right word for it. Pastor Conrad challenged God to prove Himself. Let me give the right-wingnuts here a little refresher course on their favorite book, The Holy Bible, when their so-called "Lord and Saviour" was told the same thing by the Devil himself. His response--since so many of the right-wing "Christians" are loathe to look such things up for themselves--can be found in both Matthew 4:7 and Luke 4:12. His response was to remind Lucifer of the passage in Deuteronomy 6--"Thou shalt not tempt the lord thy God."

Hence, Pastor Conrad commits blasphemy in the name of politics. Does he think he's the Prophet Elijah? And what will he say if, in a moment, reminiscent of the Priests of Baal, he's had Christians running around the alter, mutilating themselves in the vain hope of provoking their god to action, and fire descends from on high and strikes the other guy's alter (i.e. Obama wins)? Does this mean that Allah is superior to God? Hardly.

I despise ignorance, but I am disgusted by the kind of cynicism shown by the Religious Right. Like me, they know that the God of Abraham from the Torah is also "the Father" of Jesus Christ. They also know enough about Islam to know that Allah and God are one and the same. It breaks down something like this: God has his chosen people--the Hebrews. Later, he sent Jesus for all mankind. In Islamic theology, Jesus isn't the son of God, he's God's prophet--the last prophet before the Prophet Mohammed. And the Jews believe that Jesus was a real person, too, they just don't believe he was the Messiah; I dunno, maybe they think he was a nutty, rogue rabbi--which he might have been. It doesn't weaken his whole "good neighbor" schtick as far as I'm concerned. The point is that every monotheist, whether Jew, Muslim or Christian, prays to the same god.

So whose prayers does God answer?

It's that kind of question that leads me to tell Christians I'm an atheist, which is mostly true: I don't believe in God and I've become increasingly ambivalent toward religion in the recent past; as a person of reason and science, however, God and religion are not associated with empirical evidence, whereby can neither be proven true or false, so I am an agnostic. But from my perspective, the Religious Right is filled with the same kind of nutcases as extreme Islam. They have a thirst for blood, as evidenced by the fact that most so-called "Christians" favor the death penalty--even though Christ's own execution was a stark indictment of such a barbaric practice. Islamic theocracies, such as Iran, also favor the death penalty. And the Religious Right's defiance of laws against using tax-exempt funds for furthing a political agenda shows a clear intent on the part of the Christian Right to convert America into a theocracy. Further, the type of outbursts we've seen from audiences at McCain-Palin rallies, many indicative of a tendency violent behavior, show minds which are both angry and malleable--a lethal combination when it is directed by a toxic message. What little difference that existed between the consequences of Christianity and those of Islam is rapidly eroding.

The Religious Right has a vision of America that is dark, dangerous and none too Christian.

Germany, 1933: How to Survive Madness and Remain Human

2008-10-12T16:09:00.000-07:00

It's Sunday afternoon. I've dusted off my recession skills today and baked my own bread. Not that bread machine crap that's roughly the consistency of half-dried cement and tastes like hungarian hogwash; the kind your mother or grandmother used to bake. It had a smell that could drag you in from outside, even when you were having fun, for a slice of that fresh, home-baked lovin' from the oven. It was so tender that you had to cut it with an electric knife. Peanut butter and Jelly? Not on your life. That's for day-old balloon bread made in a factory. To paraphrase Steinbeck, uniform loaves--and uniformly tasteless. Spread it with butter that's been sitting out ever since this morning to make it soft, so it wouldn't tear the bread. Then watch it melt and fill the sponge-like interior.

Yes. Home-baked perfection.

Here's the recipe. In fact, here's two of them--depending on how big your mixer or your oven is.

* * *

Once there was a man who ran for President. Things were going well. He was ahead in the polls and by all appearances, he was going to win. He had served his country in the armed forces and won distinction for his services. His choice of running mate was a little hasty, but he was a gambler.

At some point he started falling behind. The economy soured and he, being a member of the incumbent party, had some of the blame land on him. Realizing that he couldn't win by discussing how he planned to fix the economy, the Presidential candidate began raising questions about his opponent's character. This was not abnormal: it had been done many times successfully. It had been done once to the Presidential candidate during his party's primaries by the current President; the President had sandbagged the candidate by convincing people that he'd fathered an illigitimate black daughter. The truth was that he had adopted a daughter who was black, but the lie worked.

The economy continued to get worse, and the candidate slipped farther in the polls. He became desperate--so desperate that he began accusing his opponent of things that he knew were false. Again, this was nothing new. But his rallies took on a mob environment. People yelled epithets at members of the press who shared the opponent's ethnicity. As his running mate spoke about the opponent's questionable associations, they yelled, "Terrorist," and "Treason," and someone even yelled "Kill him!"

Things had gone too far, and a responsible candidate would have reigned the crowd in. And the Presidential candidate appeared to be trying. At a rally, a man told him that he was afraid of what his opponenet might do to the country. The candidate assurred them that they had nothing to fear from his oppenent. A woman referred to his opponent as an "Arab terrorist." He corrected her and said his opponent was a decent family man. The woman seemed confused. Everyone was.

They were confused because they were repeating what the candidate's campaign had been telling them. These were not random strangers, but people who had volunteered for his campaign. Furthermore, the candidate was continuing the tactics that had whipped his crowds into a violent frenzy. A tracking poll showed that his mob was growing; he gained three percent, even after his running mate was found guilty of ethics violations. . . .

* * *

Bad things happen to great nations. Germany was in the beginning stages of democracy when National Socialism used an underlying German ambivalence toward Jews and Bolshevism to gain undisputed power in the Reichstag. The Reichstag fire of 1933, blamed on the communists, and which resulted in the outlawing of all parties, except National Socialism gave way to the Night of the Long Knives in 1934, in which the Nazi Party purged the S.A. of its homosexuals, which gave way to the Night of Broken Glass in 1938, in which an entire nation of Germans on the Jewish population. It took a five years for Germany to fully embrace the National Socialist's agenda of hate, but the people were completely against the Jews before the war started, before the death camps, before genocide.

I keep repeating Germany's story because they have proven to be an innovative, intelligent, thoughtful, and conscientious people, who had their worst instincts brought out by people willing to take advantage of their weaknesses, their ignorance and their underlying ambivalence toward a group of people they had marginalized. The right has been openly scapegoating, "Minorities and risky folks," as the cause of the mortgage meltdown. McCain's campaign has distributed fliers which refer to Senator Obama as a Muslim terrorist. This is a deliberate play on their ignorance and underlying racism, since many of McCain's supporters do not distinguish between "Arab" or "Muslim." His campaign is aware, as I am, that many evangelicals are (falsely) told by their ministers that the Q'uran has commanded the Muslims to kill for Allah. And his campaign uses this with the knowledge that Senator Obama is neither "Arab" nor "Muslim," and certainly not a terrorist. Somewhere between their attempts at forcing an association with Barack Obama and William Ayers, added to constant references to "Hussein" Obama by uniformed peace officers (which is illegal), and finally, asking the question, "Who is this guy?" implying that he is a dubious character, what conclusions are faithful conservatives supposed to come to?

McCain has placed a powder keg of fear, hate and ignorance at the feet of his opponent, and has done little to discourage the disturbing outbursts by his followers. Ideas have consequences, said Richard M. Weaver. And so, McCain's ideas or Steve Schmidts ideas, or whoever decided that they would take this next step in lowering the polticial bar, has set something in motion that they cannot hope to control.

The last eight years have already taken us places that we never dreamed we would go; who would have dreamed that our President would ever think of trying to justify torture? The dangers inherent in the precedent set by giving one's political campaign over to mob rage, ethnic and religious prejudice have well documented historic consequences: innocent people get killed.

The Presidential candidate who said he would rather lose an election than lose a war, has decided he would rather win an election than lose with honor. I hope--for Senator McCain's sake--that the American people reject these ideas, reject this campaign and reject him. The Ku Klux Klan, the neo-Nazis and Aryan Nations had been relegated to the farthest fringes and we are a better society for it. A victory for McCain, won on his present platform, would only serve to embolden such people.

Is this What a Stock Market Crash Looks Like?

2008-10-10T08:05:00.000-07:00

If you just started following this blog, go back a couple of entries to October 8, 2008, and read them in chronological order.

It's 8:09 AM and the stockmarket continues its downward trend. The Dow Jones Industrial Averages have lost 3.4% of their value since opening this morning.

Once, there was an honest man. I know what you're thinking--yeah, right; once, there was SANTA CLAUSE!--but it's a true story. This man grew up amid the dark, despair of the Great Depression, started a family in the dawning hours of the Big War, served his country in the United States Navy and operated a farming/ranching business in the sunshine years that followed his honorable discharge. He was the poster-boy of American conservatism, with strong ties to his church and community, never taking a dime of government subsidies, avoiding debt whenever possible, working hard, paying his bills on time, providing for his family, helping his friends and being an all-around decent human being. He was well-respected in his community--so well-respected that he was asked to be on an FHA board. But being an intelligent, as well as an honorable man, he knew they were using him to gain the confidence of his friends and neighbors, on whom they intended to foreclose, so he turned this prestigious offer down.

There were hard times. There were the years of drought and the continuous struggle over water rights. He went head-to-head with Father Time: elevation and Northern latitude made for a short growing season. His son, who was preparing to take over the ranch, lost a daughter in a tragic accident. The hope had been that the Big War vet and his wife might be able to retire once Junior was able to take control of the operation. But Junior and his wife were, understandably, stricken with grief, and staying on the land that had claimed their daughter's life was simply not an option for them. The Big War vet suffered multiple injuries to his knees and back, his eye was damaged by a small piece of metal and he was continuously dogged by a hearing loss, caused by the Naval guns. His wife nearly died while giving birth to a daughter, who also nearly died; the doctors had, in fact, declared her "stillborn"--until she started breathing. A cloudburst in 1977 washed out an irrigation system that had been in use since the 1910s. And the market was none too kind, either: after buying seed for $8 per bushel, diesel fuel, tractor and equipment parts, paying for labor, not to mention all of his own hard work, he hoped for $6 per bushel, and needed $5 just to break even; he managed to get $4. But through it all, he never gave up, never lost faith, never felt sorry for himself. . . .

It's 9:00 AM PST, and the Dow has lost 4.5% of its value today. . . .

* * *

It's 1:00 PM, PST, and the market will close in half an hour. The market has gained half a percent since opening.

The Big War vet had many sons, but none that took over the operation. So, he and his wife struggled through the years, surviving the cyclical drought, raising their children, paying their bills and helping their kids through college. They both turned 65, and since they had never paid much into Social Security, they didn't get much out. They were both too old to work the land, and finally, they managed to sell the farm and the cattle. Half a century of honest, hard work had yielded them $440,000 ($672,702, adjusted for inflation), and though they had already paid income and property taxes their entire lives, the sale of the farm was also taxed. But he and his wife were able to retire in relative comfort. They invested wisely and lived frugally to ensure that their money would last.

His wife suffered a stroke and died. He was lonely, so he remarried. His second wife was not so frugal or wise as he had been. She liked to travel and had expensive tastes. Before long, he found himself needing to make riskier investments in the hope of higher returns. . . .

The market is closed at 8,451.19 with the Dow losing another 128 points today, about 1 1/2 percent of its remaining value. It was a 1,803 point loss for this week, shaving away 17.58% of the Dow Jones Industrial Averages. It is the lowest the market has been since November, 2002.

* * *

The Big War vet didn't call his stock broker screaming at him/her to sell on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, yesterday, or today. He stays in his investments, hoping they will rebound someday. His children love him very much, and won't let their father--their hero--do without. But this hurts him more than losing the fruits of his years of hard work in the stock market: he's never taken a handout in his life. He's one of the good guys, like the ones our grandparents used to tell us about--the ones we thought only existed in stories. You know the stories I'm talking about: work hard, play by the rules and you, too, will prosper.

You know, the American dream.

At the age of 86, the Big War vet just woke up from that dream. He's not bitter or angry, even though he knows how the crooks at AIG panhandled Uncle Sam for $82 billion, then blew as much money as he had to work for half a century to see on a weekend retreat. He's not even outraged that, only days after AIG was exposed misusing half a million of taxpayer dollars, the Fed was fool enough to lend them another $38 billion. Why? because he's one of the good guys.

What happens in the corporate world where CEOs draw nine-figure salaries isn't capitalism, it's kleptocracy. No one who who cares about their company--much less their investors--puts that kind of financial strain on them in the good times, and certainly not in bad times. And it's somehow become unpatriotic to attack these robber barons for their greed and selfishness; somehow, being angered when you see this kind of injustice perpetrated against someone like our Big War vet attracts the label of "commy."

Well, the real patriots aren't the ones with their hands out in the hard times, but those with their fists up. If we weren't sure that class warfare was upon us, the first shots rang out this week when the Fed loaned AIG another $38 billion, knowing they would likely spend more taxpayer money on another "retreat." It is time to break the mental shackles that bind us to a definition of what it means to be "American," which serves only the opulent minority. It was they who avoided service and conscription when their country needed soldiers. It was they who sent American jobs overseas to fund their overly generous salaries and golden parachutes. And it was they who eased credit terms to cook the books so that quarterly reports would yield the bonuses they hadn't earned.

There is capitalism and then there is thievery. When people don't go to jail for the latter, it is because the law no longer distinguishes between the two. And when that happens, this is no longer America.

In Case you Missed it, the Rules have Changed

2008-10-09T07:26:00.000-07:00

I begin at 7:27 AM Pacific Standard Time. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is up nearly 6/10% from yesterday's close. Ye-haw. Can't wait for that quarterly report on my 401K to see how much retirement I don't have anymore. "Comrade" Paulson defended this week's continuous losses, with nearly 1,000 additional points shaved from the Dow's average, arguing that it's, "too early to look for encouraging signs." He might consider having the new temporary head of his bailout, a 35-year old from--you guessed it--Goldman Sachs, to look into getting some of that $85 billion back from AIG. Oh wait, the Fed's lending them another $38 billion.

It's 8:15 PST and the Dow is down over half a percent. . . .

I'm halfway through my lunch and the Dow has slid almost 3% since opening today. The Senate sweetened up the bailout (AKA "rescue") bill with tax cuts to get the House Republicans on board. How do they think we're going to pay for all of this? The "debt clock" near Times Square in New York had the dollar sign removed from it as another digit was added to our National debt--now over $10 trillion. The debt clock was first installed in 1987 when the debt was still just $2.7 trillion and when Reagan was still in office. Ah, the good old days of "don't tax and spend anyway" Republicanism.

In an oft quoted statement by Michael Hudson, Adam Smith said that no government had ever repaid its debts, and the same can be said of the private sector." For many, the free market system is more than just an economic strategy: it is the American ideal. The idea of the public seizing ownership of these banks which managed to fail--in spite of the hallowed doctrine of Milton Friedman, as espoused by Reagan, Bush and Bush--has the free market purists going insane right now. Most of them would like to let the market select which companies survive and which ones die out. The only problem is that, through a protracted war of attrition by the deregulationists, they managed to get what they wanted. And so, anti-trust violations went uninvestigated. Banks grew in size and dwindled in number. Suddenly we were faced with an ultimatum: rescue the banks--the ones that were allegedly too big to fail--or face a catastrophic economic collapse, the likes of which have not been seen for almost 80 years.

My lunchbreak is over. The market has fallen by nearly seven percent since this morning. My folks lived through the Great Depression. From the way the stock market keeps falling, it looks their kids get to live through one, too. I sure am glad we managed to save the banks though. . . .

It's 5:17 PM PST and I just finished working. The market dropped another 678.91 points (7.3%) today, closing at 8,579.19. An economist who was a clerk/pickup driver for the rental car agency told me that the market doesn't fall usually below the peak of the previous boom. I'm not sure, but I think the rules may have changed. The Dow last peaked at 11,723 in January of 2000 just before the Dot-Com bubble burst. Maybe I misunderstood him and he meant that it never dropped below the previous trough; if that's the case, we've still got another 344 points to go.

I'm optimistic. Those 344 points might just last me through lunch tomorrow.

The Bailout: Another Day Older and Deeper in Debt

2008-10-08T07:56:00.001-07:00

I'm sitting at work right now. I have a meeting in two minutes. I've been watching the stock market since 7:15 AM Pacific Standard Time. The ticker tape on the lower right tray on my computer screen was up over a percent when I arrived; now it's down over 3/10%. Monday, the Dow declined over 300 points from Friday's close; yesterday it slid another 508.

When I started this blog, I named it according to where it looked like our country was going - long term. But here it is. Last Tuesday, the German magazine, Der Spiegel, published an article about the United States, entitled "The End of Arrogance: America Loses its Dominant Economic Role. In it, George W. Bush is described as a mere shell of his former self.

The ticker tape shows the Dow is down over half of a percent as I leave for my meeting. . . .

The meeting is in recess, and I'm taking a break. The ticker tape has the market down 1.6% for the day. My bank was seized and a quick sale was arranged to keep it from failing. I should breathe easy and go back to having my paycheck direct deposited, but there's really no barometer for knowing if or when your bank will fail like going in on Friday to deposit your check. Sometimes, when it looks unusually busy, I leave and go to a check-cashing place, where I forfeit a huge chunk of my earnings for the security of knowing I have access to my own money - unless someone steals it. The teller is safe behind the bullet-proof glass. The sun penetrates the plate glass windows, making the air stale in a place that already smells of cigarette ash. She counts out the bills so that the person in line behind me, who's fidgeting because he can't smoke indoors, knows how much money I'm leaving with. I put the cash in my wallet, slide the wallet into my hip pocket and walk swiftly out the door. I wait to unlock the door of my car until I'm just a few feet away, get in and immediately lock the door.

My meeting starts in two minutes. The Dow is up 3/10% so far for the day. . . .

It's lunchtime on the West Coast and the Dow is up over a percent. The debate last night was a poor showing for both candidates, though you wouldn't have known by its appearance on the front page. The big news of the day was in the Business section of the Los Angeles Times, "AIG Fiddles while Wall Street Burns." I understand that Nicholas II and Alexandra were similarly clueless as to the plight of the starving minions outside the Palace in the last days of the Romanov dynasty. Their opulent lifestyle, paid for by the struggle, sweat, blood and starvation of the many must have seemed outrageous to the people who saw them from afar. A failed insurance company that went panhandling to the people to the tune of, "Brother can you spare 82 billion dollars," may have a slightly different perspective of a $440,000 expenditure on such frivolity that those of us whose labors never yield the kind of posh lifestyle these folks appear to take for granted. Then again, when your salary is 300 times that of the average laborer - regardless of whether you win or lose - there would be a bit of a disconnect. What AIG's mishandling of nearly half a million dollars in taxpayer money shows, however, is perhaps the most salient factor in this culture of opulence: their appetite for luxury is not mitigated by their personal finances; rather, it is only constrained by their ability to acquire and dispense with, other people's money. When your accountant does that, s/he goes to jail for embezzlement. It was upon Milton Friedman's ideology of unfettered capitalism that such neoliberal kleptocracy was born.

My lunch is over. According to the ticker tape, the Dow down over 3/10% from yesterday's close. . . .

It's my afternoon break, and the Big Board closed an hour ago, with the Dow having lost another 2%, or 189 points, closing at 9,258.1 for the day. Our retirement plans have lost two trillion dollars over the last 15 months. It's okay. I've been steeling myself against this for years: there's no way a generation of 40 million can support one of 70 million in retirement - not when that generation hopes to retire at 65 and live until they're 110. Social Security, the promise made by FDR in the 1930s and kept by Tip O'Neil for the WWII generation, appears elusive. Perhaps the first wave of Baby-Boomers will get it, maybe even the second; anyone who can claim to have worn bell-bottoms in Junior High or earlier may want to consult their 401K.

Oh, wait. We lost our 401Ks in the stock market. The same stock market the free market fundamentalists wanted us to put our Social Security into. . . .

It's 5:01 PM, Pacific Standard Time, and my workday has ended. For now, at least, I'm one of the lucky ones: I still have a job and a home.

Who won the first debate?

2008-09-28T05:54:00.000-07:00

IMO there's a general consensus that when determining who "won" a debate you must first consider expectations. With the current economic meltdown, all polls reflect a moderate Obama lead of between 3-7 points. The Palin bounce is gone, the Iraq war is no longer front page news, and all trends are pointing in Obama's direction.

Given this, the two candidates' goals for the debate were:
A. Obama: to make no major gaffes, to convince voters he's sober and competent at foreign affairs, and to appear presidential.
B. McCain: to convince voters Obama is too risky both on economics and as Commander in Chief during time of war. McCain needed a knock-down (if not a knock-out) punch in this debate.

Given these preconditions, I can only believe that Obama "won" this debate. Here's a breakdown of how I saw each candidate's strengths/weaknesses:

Obama strengths:
-Best debate yet in terms of eliminating stammering, avoiding "you know", and making his answers more decisive and concise.
-Hammered home his tax cut proposals and displayed understanding of middle class woes.
-Excellent command of foreign policy issues. His positions are debatable, but he had the detail.
Obama weaknesses:
- His economic promises are absurd in view of the current economic meltdown. He wouldn't back off on a single major program and still promised tax cuts to 95% of Americans.
-Explanation of previous gaffes (invading Pakistan to get Bin Laden, and sitting down with Korea/Iran/Cuba without preconditions) was unconvincing.

McCain strengths:
-Decent job of linking explaining how previous Obama foreign policy gaffes make Obama unduly risky in time of war.
-Had one of his better debates in terms of displaying passion and making clear, concise statements.
McCain weaknesses:
-Looked twitchy and agitated. Couldn't stand still while Obama was talking. Failure to look at, and talk directly to Obama made him seem petulant.
-Incomprehensibly he did not drive home the pandering and unrealistic nature of Obama's tax cut promises, and the devastating effect Obama's tax hike proposals will have on an already reeling economy.
-Surprisingly, he said he'd vote for the economic bailout plan. Missed a major opportunity in not rejecting the plan and tagging Obama with supporting "welfare" of $700B for Wall Street incompetents/hucksters.

So, if things stay the same, I predict Obama will win a fairly easy victory in November. McCain must hope for some fundamental change in the equation, must hope that young voters and all the newly registered Dems stay home, hope his Base remains energized and turns out in record numbers, and hope for the "black tax" (those white voters who, at the last minute, simply won't vote for a black).

And Obama? All he needs to do is avoid major gaffes, continue to provide specifics on policy, and continue to present himself as a pleasant, intelligent, safe choice.

Hank "in the Tank" Paulson and the Last Great Bushist Power Grab

2008-09-17T09:58:00.000-07:00

The similarities to 9/11 are stark: pass the bill, now! This is not a time for thinking, it is a time for acting! Sadly, we fell for this line twice already. In the House, a meager 66 Representatives opposed HR 3162 (62 Democrats, 3 Republicans, 1 Independent; 9 didn't vote), what would become known as the USA Patriot Act of 2001. In the Senate, Russ Feingold (D-Iowa) stood alone in his opposition to the bill. The whole thing was pushed through Congress by 1:54 PM Eastern Standard Time, on October 25, 2001. Those who opposed the measure were branded "unpatriotic," "bleeding-hearts," or accused outright of being traitors. In doing so, the Bush Administration silenced those who saw this as a cynical power grab. A year later, having failed to capture Osama bin Laden, but with a new interloper to divert the attention of voters, Congress voted 296 to 133 to invade Iraq (81 Democrats helped; 6 Republicans and one Independent didn't). Russ Feingold was no longer alone in his opposition, as 25 other Democrats joined him in voting against the invasion of Iraq in the Senate, which has since been proven to be an unnecessary and costly war: over 4,000 dead, hundreds of billions spent, the United States' international reputation in tatters and the removal of military capital from the threat of a emerging belligerent powers, such as Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Bolivia and Russia.

Then, starting last Monday, the failure of several key financial institutions, resulting , at least in part, from deregulation, including the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933. As with 9/11, people were hoping for someone to step forward to save the day. Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson's solution sounded a lot like a trick played by Dark Age mystics on a superstitious and ignorant populous during a total solar eclipse: "Grant me power without oversight, and I will bring back the economic sunshine." His proposal consisted of three pages - three pages, stark in their simplicity, horrifying in their cynicism and arrogance, summed up in the now infamous "Section 8" of the proposal:

Sec. 8. Review.
Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.

It is perhaps an unintentional coincidence that Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman, Benjamin Bernanke picked "Section 8," which was, at one time, the rule cited for discharging mentally unfit soldiers from the army. Indeed, the suggestion that the systemic collapse caused by deregulation could somehow be cured by an individual demanding more deregulation, is madness. It has even less rationale when one considers that this is the same, former CEO of Goldman Sachs who raised his company's debt from $20 billion to $100 billion in his 6-year tenure there. Finally, it has been reported that Paulson and Bernanke drafted this astonishingly elegant proposal six months ago, and hence, saw this collapse coming. Their concern, clearly, was not for the taxpayer or for how many innocent people would be hurt through this nightmare, but themselves and their friends and colleagues on Wall Street.

Well, I have a six point plan for what we can do about this mess. Review this, Bushies:

1) By purchasing bad debts, the United States taxpayer gains controlling interest in these firms. Those CEOs who opt out, risking the collapse of their firms will be required to surrender their passports, will undergo a criminal investigation, and may be subject to criminal prosecution and seizure of their personal assets; we do the same thing to drug dealers, embezzlers and child pornographers, and while I wouldn't place what they've done on the same plane as kiddie porn, I personally find it equal to embezzlement and worse than selling drugs. Those who opt in would be given immunity from criminal prosecution. That's their incentive for helping to keep the economy from crashing: they won't go to jail.

2) All executives suspected of having a role in the banking collapse must surrender their passports until they are cleared; those who opt in that are found to be instrumental in the banking collapse will be terminated with no additional compensation (no golden parachutes). Because the taxpayer has essentially enacted a hostile takeover, any contracts between executives and the firms they were employed by are null and void. They get nothing; they can stand in the unemployment line next to the people they sold out.

3) Absolutely no quarter should be given to the housing speculators who drove the housing bubble. If there were a cost-effective way to do so, I would ask for a mandate making them wear a scarlet letter ("A" for asshole).

4) A moratorium should be declared and defaulted home loans should be evaluated. Those home buyers who clearly have no visible means of paying for their homes, or whose homes are clearly beyond their means, should be foreclosed upon. Those who are in affordable homes should have their loans refinanced so that as much money as possible can be recovered. The United States will recover money from the sale of foreclosed homes at fair market value, only. These properties should not be auctioned off or sold at any discounted rate. This will prevent further damage from speculators.

5) All firms participating in the bailout agree to a similar, best-effort financing agreement offered to responsible, but troubled home buyers. In other words, the companies that caused this mess will ultimately have to pay for their mistakes in the years to come. They will be responsible for paying back the amounts of money that the government is short from housing sales and loan payments. There is no reason that the United States should give away the store without getting something back. Agreement to such terms - along with contractual obligations of transparency - could be offered as a condition for some executives to continue their employment in certain cases.

6) The regulatory boards that were gutted by the Reagan, Bush and Bush Administrations will be funded by the payments from the firms participating in the bailouts. There should be additional oversight by Congress to make sure that the regulatory agencies don't wind up in the pocket of the firms they regulate.

If my plan sounds punitive, good: it's humane, compared to what I would do, were I not an employee in a large firm with payroll expenses exceeding $100,000. Were that the case, I would say, let the banks fail and put their CEOs in prison next to rapists, murderers and drug dealers. Secretary Paulson's proposal was a naked power grab by an administration already grotesquely bloated on them. Once again, the Bushists have presented us with a crisis and told us that if we do not act against our own best interests, we are doomed. Fool us once, shame on you; fool us twice, shame on us; fool us a third time and clearly, we are too stupid for the responsibilities necessary to be a citizen of this, or any other Republic.

The EU Concedes to Russia

2008-09-13T19:06:00.001-07:00

I take no pride in being right about Russia, at least not today. European Union French President M. Nicholas Sarkozy said in a statement to Moscow on Friday that Russia must withdraw its troops from Georgia proper and Georgia must withdraw its troops to military bases no later than October 1, 2008. Russian peacekeeping (his words, emphasis added) troops would be replaced by 200 UNOMIG (United Nations Observer Missions in Georgia) and OSCE (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe) international observers. The UNOMIG and OSCE observers will investigate in Georgia proper only and Russian troops will be allowed to remain in South Ossetia and Abkhazia as per the September 12, 2008 agreement reached between Sarkozy and Russian President Dmitri Medvedev.

It was a deferential move for the economic superpower to cede these sizeable regions of the Georgian State to Russia. It is frankly, reminiscent of Neville Chamberlain's concession of Czechoslovakia to Germany in 1938. Except that, to Paraphrase Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, if Russia had meant to capture Tbilisi, their forces could have done so in as little as four hours (given how they steamrolled over them in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, I doubt he was exaggerating).

Clearly, taking over Georgia proper was not one of their aims. Had this been the case, it is unlikely that the Russian strategy would have focused so heavily on expelling Georgian troops from the breakaway regions with such intensity - if at all. Given their air superiority over Georgia, they could have easily razed Tbilisi to the ground in a matter of hours and had Georgian President Mikheil Sakaashvili in custody in a matter of days.

Why did the EU not define Georgian territorial integrity to include the breakaway regions? If my more conservative readers can stomach it, I would like to indulge in some educated speculation. Surely, the EU watched the United States, as did Russia, when their friend and ally, Mikheil Sakaashvili, called for their military assistance and received only weak reprimands aimed at Russia from President Bush and Senator McCain, and most recently, either an inadvertent or a veiled threat from Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. Sakaashvili, clearly unimpressed with Senator McCain's empty threats, called him out. Though aid has been sent to Georgia, American sabres - though rattled - remain firmly in their scabbards.

There was a very good reason that the French and the English engaged in a policy of appeasement with Germany in the 1930s: they didn't want a Second World War. The first had been horrible. The machine age had unleased horrible weaponry, munitions that disfigured soldiers so profoundly that it found its expression in a new genre of feature-length films in the twenties: horror. But if the thought of another mechanized war with Germany was horrifying to England and France, staring down the business end of the Russian nuclear arsenal must have them in a solid state of panic.

If the EU has any grasp of the history of the past two decades, a few facts are doubtlessly, not lost on them. First, the United States military doesn't move at lightning speed. That's not a bad thing. Operation Desert Shield prepared our troops well for Operation Desert Storm - it only took them four months. But Russia was able to mobilize within hours, and defeat American and Israeli-trained (and armed) Georgian troops within five days. Further, in his candidacy for President, John McCain (who is ahead according to Gallup Polls, as of Sunday) has resisted talk of withdrawing from Iraq. George Bush's drawdown is still 8,000 troops heavier than pre-surge levels. And even Barack Obama's strategy for withdrawal ties up our forces in Iraq until 2010. There simply is no plan on the table that allows the United States the ability to spare the military personnel necessary to honor NATO in the event of a Russian invasion, no matter what.

That leaves the threat of American interceptor missiles, one that has Putin aiming nukes at Europe (again) and negotiating for Western real estate with Castro (again) and Chavez to park ICBMs closer to the US (again). It is also a threat that makes it in Russia's best interests to take advantage of Europe while the United States is busy elsewhere.

So who in NATO will stand up to Russia, should they decide to play rough? The British are still strong, but they can't take on Russia alone. Their greatest advantage - naval power - would do little against a nation that is (and whose neighbors are) mostly landlocked. US troops in Europe have been cut by half (to around 25,000) since 2006. The French haven't had a strong military since Napoleon, and Sarkozy's concessions to Russia speak volumes about the EU's attitudes toward Russia. Finally, Georgia already had been promised membership with the EU at the time of the conflict; clearly Sakaashvili was counting on that when he rolled the dice on forcing South Ossetia and Abkazia back into the fold. But no one came to his rescue.

Whether this was because the EU recognized they were being used in his game with Russia or simply realized that Georgia simply wasn't worth the risks inherent in going to war with a re-vitalized Russia, no one in NATO - outside the United States - even breathed the word war. And if it were simply a matter of the United States being busy elsewhere, it would have been enough for the EU to flinch. But there is a lot more going on in the United States than two foreign occupations.

The U.S. banking system, which has been built up primarily through an assembly-line mortgage system, drove housing values to inflate as much as 300%. The bubble, of course, burst. Indy Mac in California suffered a 1929-style run-on-a-bank: the Fed took over. Bear Sterns Cos. collapsed: the Fed loaned JPMorgan and Chase the money to buy them out at a bargain basement interest rate. Then Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae had to be bailed out. Friday, Lehman wanted the same deal Bear Sterns got; the Fed told them they were on their own.

Which tells us the well is running dry. What we know of modern warfare is that it requires a strong economy. The Big War turned the United States - temporarily - into a socialist country. We mobilized for war: women went to work in munitions factories and young men joined, or were drafted, into the military. Rationing was imposed. By the end of it, soldiers came home, dreading the poverty of the Great Depression, and were shocked to find a revitalized economy.

Times have changed. War doesn't create new jobs anymore; corporations, beholden to their investors to maximize profits, either outsource or build outside of the United States. The Keynesian economic policies that hauled us out of the Great Depression required government investment into the economy, and while the movement to "privatize" as much of the government as possible is certainly attractive to the free market purists, the long term evidence isn't promising.

Certainly the EU is aware of the US's economic woes. The bailout of Freddie and Fannie is little more than band-aid on a compound fracture. At least one economist (Michael Hudson) has indicated that the bailout exists solely to prevent the two mortgage giants from collapsing - and taking the economy with it - prior to the elections in November. Further, Michael Hudson alleges that these bailouts will protect Bush supporters from something that anyone responsible for a fraction of this destruction would inevitably face: prison. So if Angela Merkel (who, incidentally, is opposed to Ukraine and Georgia obtaining NATO membership) and Nicholas Sarkozy are at all forward thinking and aware in the present, the US isn't looking so healthy. And given the EU's dependency on Russia for oil and natural gas, the old NATO alliance may not seem so important to them lately.

Was McCain's selection of Palin cycnical or legitimate?

2008-09-10T07:43:00.000-07:00

Cynical of legitimate? Well, I think it was both.

All VP picks are a combination of two things: a candidate who can take over as President in an emergency, and a candidate who can help win the election. IMO it's fair to say that a pick with too much of the latter and too little of the former is cyncial and less legitimate.

Although a McCain/Palin supporter, I must concede that Palin is not ready to take over for McCain on day-one. My initial impression is that after 1-2 years in the VP slot she'll be ready...but I can't be sure of this until she's been vetted by the media and has her debate (surely there should be more than one!) with Biden. So, yeah, it's a cynical pick.

However, I think it's also legit for two reasons:

1. She does have adequate (not great) qualificatons: She's got excellent Executive experience which is the most valuable type to have for the Presidency. She's also got a stong record of reform, has shown real "balls", and based on what we've seen appears to be very smart. Also, I'll paraphrase from Obama's primary campaign here...experience is only one of many important criteria; character, judgement, and intelligence are just as important.

2. I've been saying for months that McCain MUST pick a female if he was to have any chance of winning. Every statistic/metric/trend is in the Dem's favor this election. McCain's only shot at winning was to peel off a large group of voters from Obama. IMO the only two big groups really in play were Hispanics and blue collar white women over 30. In picking Palin, he was going for the latter group. My first pick was Kay Baily Hutchison (nat'l name recognition, lots of experience, decent creds with the base); rumor has it she wasn't interested. I liked Condi Rice too, but whoa! She's a neocon and linked to Bush at the hip. A non-starter for sure. So...through process of elimination that left Palin.

And guess what? The pollos on 09Sep indicate it's working. There has been a huge shift in blue collar white women over 30 from the "undecided" block to McCain. We'll see if it holds up. We'll also see if Palin holds up through the barrage of vetting that's headed her way.

And finally, give me credit for not pointing out that if lack of experience in sufficient reason to torpedo Palin, the same must be said of Obama (oops! I just pointed it out!).

The Patriot Act and the Jackboots of St. Paul: We Saw it Coming

2008-09-07T18:25:00.000-07:00

Poland started World War II.

That was the National Socialists story, and they were sticking to it. It went along with other stories, like the Reichstag fire, Anschluss and German nationals at the mercy of anti-German Czechoslovakia. And each of them were in equal measure, bullshit. And not calling bullshit lead to more bullshit, which lead to still further bullshit, which . . . you get the idea. The bullshit kept snowballing, until Germany was in some deep shit. At some point, calling bullshit was impossible - not that it was ever easy. Someone would have had to risk their comforts, their freedom, perhaps their families, even their lives. Finally, after it was too late to call bullshit, some of them did exactly that. The attempt on Hitler's life failed. The conspirators were caught and executed. Even the great Fieldmarschal, Rommel who had no involvment, died mysteriously. It is understood by historians that the Nazis had him killed.

Those who do not learn from their history are doomed to repeat it.

Which is why I'm calling bullshit, now, in America, on the UNPATRIOTIC, UNAMERICAN, ANTI-DEMOCRATIC meatheads that call themselves police in St. Paul, Minnesota. Buried behind all of the sensationalism which was bound to follow a woman Governor, extremist Republican, mother of five with a Down syndrome baby and pregnant daughter, cum-Vice Presidential nominee, was another story that I likely wouldnt have heard about until I was on my way to work Monday morning . . . except that I tried getting ahold of one of our members the only way that I know how - through his email on YouTube. Oddly, someone had emailed me some videos about the riots at the RNC.

Though I remember hearing about them peripherally, I blocked them out. It was just a bunch of jerks from the left trying to stir up trouble, I had decided. Why not let the GOP have their convention in peace, the way that the Democrats had been allowed to have their convention? It was just a bunch of rabble rousers, stirring up trouble, and I wanted no part of it.

Some of these so-called rabble rousers, it turned out, were my morning fix. I listen to Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman during my morning commute. Somehow, like everyone else, I became distracted from the important issues by the shiny, new running mate, Sarah Palin. I'd stopped listening to the alternative news sources that had been a source of strength to me. Then, I found out that Amy Goodman had been arrested while questioning police about the arrests of Democracy Now! producers Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar.

This is how it happened. The riot police descended on the crowd where Kouddous and Salazar were filiming. As the police approached her position, Nicole Salazar displayed her press credentials and asked the police for an avenue for retreat. This was their response:

Koudous and Salazar were arrested and faced felony charges for "Probable Cause" Inciting a Riot and Salazar was handcuffed and dragged by her feet, causing her face to be scraped on the asphalt and her nose to bleed. Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman was on the floor of the Republican National Convention, when she received a call on her cell phone that Koudous and Salazar had been arrested. Concerned for the safety and health of her associates, Goodman left the convention and went outside to confront the police, demanding to speak to a police supervisor:

Goodman was arrested and cited with misdemeanor obstruction of a legal process and interference with a peace office (emphasis added).

To say that I am angered by this would be a gross understatement. That Salazar's brutal arrest failed to provoke a firestorm of media outrage against this kind of monopolistic abuse is evidence that the mainstream press - once fairly labeled liberally-biased - is firmly in the pocket of the corporations which fund and promote both parties. Days after starting her new program on MSNBC, Rachel Maddow, host of The Rachel Maddow Show on both MSNBC and Air America, mentioned this story briefly, but has not discussed it since. The bombastic and wry-humored Keith Olbermann, host of MSNBC's Countdown has yet to make so much as a cursory reference to the fact that his journalistic colleagues were arrested.

The silence is deafening.

It has taken me over a week to find a way to place this outrage into a written format that doesn't include expletives. It would be easy enough to indict a police force, whether caught up in the excitement of the crowds, or acting on specific orders to satisfy specific political aims. It would be easy to call the St. Paul riot police "Jackbooted thugs," denouncing their actions as draconian and as undermining the first amendment. But the responsibility has passed beyond the scope of the St. Paul Police, or City Attorney John Choi, or Ramsey County Attorney Susan Gaertner. As a people, we did not inherit this Republic as a trust of bottomless plunder, but as a responsibility to ourselves and our posterity to maintain and defend. It was through that spirit of responsibility that we became a nation, and it is in that spirit that I offer the following reminder of history to a complicit and dangerously inane media:

In Germany, they first came for the communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me -- and by that time there was nobody left to speak up.

In other words, Pastor Neimoller warned us that silence not only gives consent, it invites your own destruction. Dangerous things have happened since 9/11; things which the Democrats and the Media have quietly pretended not to notice. And now we face a government that wishes to silence not only the voices of protest and dissent, but those that would hold them accountable. You would think that the media would respond with outrage, making the collective fates of Amy Goodman, Nicole Salazar and Abdel Koudous the same historical indictment on silence that The Diary of Anne Frank became on Fascism. Yet regardless of the monopolistic style of government, the use (and defense) of torture and cronyism apparent in the Bush Administration, the abuses of power and the cronyism apparent in Governor Palin's record, and regardless of the fact that journalists have been, and are being arrested for doing their jobs, only Dr. Maddow dared mention this attack on free speech.

Amy Goodman does what no other journalist has the strength or courage to do: her sacred duty as a member of that little-valued people's branch of government, fourth estate. That her colleagues who sold us out for million-dollar salaries, six-figure wardrobe budgets and overwhelming fame, have not stepped forward in her defense, is hardly surprising, but it does expose their legitimacy - or rather, lack thereof. So it is up to us, the people of the United States, to fight for our inheritance: this Republic.

UPDATE, 9/16/08: When I called the Ramsey County Attorney's Office today, the individual I spoke with said that no felony charges were going to be filed. Whether or not these two journalists will face lesser charges, it is clear that Ramsey County Attorney and gubernatorial candidate Susan Gaertner, at some point conceded that these charges were excessive and false.

UPDATE, 9/22/08: Charges have been dropped against Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman and producers Nicole Salazar and Sharif Abdel Koudous. This was not reported by mainstream news, and all letters protesting these arrests came about as a result of a savvy internet community getting involved and demanding justice. A further investigation into the excessive force used by police is pending.

There are 10 Kinds of People in the World: those that Understand Binary and those that Don't

2008-09-06T09:07:00.000-07:00

I begin this entry by welcoming John and Lord (of Logic) to the discussion. Both have points of view that will make the discussion interesting, and both offer well reasoned arguments.

Today's subject is the Great American Political dichotomy, left/right, liberal/conservative, or Democrat/Republican, if you prefer. At it's narrowest definition, politics is binary: either you're one of us or you're one of them; either you're with us or you're against us; you're either a liberal or a conservative. The broader, mainstream definition has politics as a continuum with the Democratic party at one extreme, the GOP at the other and independents in the middle. But go on any third party website, and you'll see for yourself and the two-party system actually shares the center, with non-partisans and Reagan Democrats making up the middle .

First, I think the more important question is what is conservative and what is liberal?

A wise, pragmatic conservative once told me that the core purpose of any government is to defend wealth. This goes along with the the concept of laissez faire, per Adam Smith: the strongest economy is maintained when the government does not intervene to regulate it. So political conservatives have an interest, at their core, in defending wealth, by preventing the Government from squandering it or interfering in the market process. But if this is true, how do conservatives explain the Great Depression, or the more recent energy crisis and housing crunch? Had the market not experienced periods of unabashed freedom from regulation - and in all cases, were, in Reaganomics terms, poised to create a "trickle down" of wealth - would it have still collapsed? At the same time, does anyone deny that wealth was generated in those years leading up to collapse?

At the same time, liberal is exactly what it sounds like - the liberal application of government. For example, a social program was started by Franklin D. Roosevelt to assist the elderly during a time when many of them literally starved to death. Lyndon Johnson made the next major step by offering assistance to non-working families - generally single mothers with children. In the first case, social security prior to FDR was the family, and in fact, the architecture of the American home reflected a more corporate than immediate structure. I knew a man once who was fired from his job because he couldn't work as many hours as they needed him to without having it effect his social security. In the second case, the Johnson Administration created nearly three generations of families dependent on government assistance, who did not and would not work. And though It was, ironically, through Bill Clinton that aid for dependent families would hear its swan song, social security disability has been re-defined to further burden the tax payer while drug addicts, alcoholics and those claiming to suffer from mental illnesses (e.g. bipolar disorder, depression, etc.) wallow in a sea of self-inflicted misery, and are never required to "get well."

But that's where the appropriateness of the labels appears to end. Republicans may not want government intervention in business, but the religious right sees no contradiction in having the government deciding the appropriateness of what is read, watched or listened to, what goes on in the bedroom between consenting adults, and a woman's right to choose responsibly. The party in general sees no contradiction between it's view of the second amendment (the right to have and bear arms) and it's apparent contempt for the first amendment (guaranteeing both protection of religion and freedom of the press), its prolonged attack on the fourth amendment (guaranteeing an individual's right to general privacy, without proper warrants) and its end run around the sixth-through-tenth amendments (guaranteeing the right to due process). As a bar chart of the budget deficit from the last 20 years shows (see below), the party of "fiscal responsibility," which decries the "tax and spend" policies of the Democrats, have driven up the budget deficit to record highs. Finally, as yet another bar chart of the trade deficit shows, this notion of "trickle down" economics has hardly made the United States more competitive in the global economy (see right). Simply put, we're in debt up to our eyeballs, and the Repub-licans who've spent us there seem to be asking us not to believe our lying eyes.

But if the Democrats thought they were getting a pass today, keep dreaming. Rupert Murdock gained a toehold on the media for doing what no one else at the time had the guts to do -report the news. "The folks" as O'Reilly affectionately calls them, were frankly sick of the generationally monopolistic, self-aggrandizing, baby boomer-run media's head up Bill Clinton's ass. His first hundred days in office, attacking an entrenched system of military discrimination against gays were a wasted first hundred days. Not that gays should have been discriminated against in the first place, but pick your battles, for crying out loud. The single issue on which the Clintons stood out was health care. Unwilling to compromise, the Clintons wasted four years of Democratic majority in which some kind of health care bill could have been passed to help working families. They literally rented out the Lincoln bedroom as a re-election fundraising gimmick then stole the White House china on their way out.

And if the Dems were hoping to cast themselves as the party preserving the Constitution, they shouldn't brag so much. Senator Biden's bill that resulted in the Violence Against Women Act undermines a vital part of the fifth amendment, which protects individuals from being forced to testify against their spouse; it further assumes that women are incapable of saying what they mean under oath, and prosecuting attorney's often threaten victims of domestic violence with perjury (and sometimes prosecute them). Bill Clinton's highly publicized "land grab" also violated the Third Amendment for many, and Hillary Clinton voted to allow FEMA to take privately owned firearms in the event of a natural disaster (which actually happened after Katrina) leaving decent citizens unarmed and at the mercy of looters. Barack Obama's vote in favor of the FISA bill mocked his previous stances against the Bush Administration.

So how do we define the Bill of Rights? Is it liberal or conservative, since both sides both protect and abuse it equally? I'll go out on a limb here and suggest that neither party has the Bill of Rights in mind when pushing an agenda. The so-called Constitution Party seeks to redefine the Constitution as a document that defends only the right of Christians. The Independent party has its own definition of the Constitution, and picks and chooses its "favorites" from the first ten, discarding the others as either unimportant or unintended. The Libertarians, who share the absolutist economic philosophies of the GOP, have an equally absolutist attitude with regard to individual rights - it is unequivocally NOT to be screwed with.

Whether we agree that the "hands-off" approach to the economy is best, it's hard to make the case that it actually works., given the recent economic downturns. Mitt Romney, a prime example of extreme conservatism, if ever there was one, had the following to say during the RNC:

"Is Government spending, putting aside inflation, liberal or conservative if it doubles since 1980?"

The answer, of course is "liberal," but the question sidesteps the fact that most of that spending occurred under Presidents Reagan, Bush and Bush; deficit spending actually went down to $18 billion the last year Bill Clinton held office. And particularly in the case of Dubya, in which the Republicans controlled both houses, the notion of government largess being a product of liberal politicians is hard sell to anyone except low information voters. But Romney goes one further by lying outright:

"Democrats want to use the [economic] slow down as an excuse to do what their special interests are always begging for: higher taxes, bigger government and less trade with other nations. It's the same path Europe took a few decades ago; it leads to moribund growth and double digit unemployment."

Since Romney's a business man, I'm sure he's taken a gander at charts and graphs, and knows what he's talking about. So either he's seen this same chart and is lying, or he hasn't and he's trying to pass himself off as more knowledgeable than he claims. Either way, he's full of bunk. You don't have to be a business man with international trade experience to see that in terms of trade deficit, the practice of supply-side economics hasn't helped us to be competitive, and the former Massachusetts Governor is full of it. Romney went on to attack the same Supreme Court that helped the current President win a controversial election, as "liberal."

"Is a Supreme Court Decision liberal or conservative that awards Guantanamo terrorists with Constitutional rights?"

I dunno, Mitt. Why don't you ask Al-Jazeera cameraman, Sami al-Hajj, who was subjected to "enhanced interrogation" - not to find out what he knew about terrorist networks, but to press him about the news organization that he worked for. Romney's statement also pretends that the recent conservative victory in the United States Supreme Court decision of District of Columbia v. Heller, in which gun rights were upheld as absolute, simply didn't happen. I find it fascinating that a man just this year was struggling to sell himself as a mainstream Christian, has the audacity to take exception to the notion that people have a right not to be held indefinitely without having charges brought against them; that such people, whether enemy combatants or innocent civilians, should be subjected torture - just as Senator John McCain was - is frankly an extremist view. Romney can call this "political correctness" if he chooses, but if he fails to see the contradiction inherent in his statement, he is both foolish and immoral. Then he insults anyone who's been watching FISA:

"It's time for the party of big ideas, not the party of Big Brother."

Since Mitt brought it up, FISA had the complete support of Senate Republicans - including John McCain - with the exception for Phil Graham, who didn't vote on the measure. The votes in opposition were Democrats, with Sens. Clinton and Obama joining Graham in pretending that it didn't matter.

I pick on Romney because he is an extremist - supposedly farther to the right than any other politician in this race. But he once said that we should "double Guantanamo" - which will require more government spending on holding more people who may not even be terrorists. He blames big government on "liberals," though most of the "growing [of] government" that he talks about happened on the Republican watch. And then, there's his record of being pro-choice: I know he's a Mormon and is in no-wise in favor of abortion; but he found it politically expedient to hold a "leftist" view for the sake of winning an election. Let the record show, however, that Clinton and Obama, both of whom repudiated John McCain for not voting on the new GI Bill, didn't vote on FISA either; that Clinton (and all Senate Democrats, except Russ Feingold) voted to invade Iraq; and that Obama voted against FEMA being allowed to take personal firearms in the event of a natural disaster.

There is no right, no left. It is an arbitrary label upon which political careers are hung and ideologies are fought over. We see conservatives who favor liberal government when it suits their ends and liberals who favor a return to constitutional conservatism when it means creating contrast between themselves and an unpopular President. But the liberal/conservative dichotomy really reflects the limitations of a political landscape written in the binary language of for/against, yea/nay - 1/0. We have the language and the capacity to evolve into a multi-party system, in which multiple opposing views can be expressed. But Romney's speech is salient for one other reason: it brings to bear extreme notions deeply embedded in his religious psyche: good and evil. And to him, Muslims - not just terrorists - are evil, and Christians are good. And it is this kind of absolutist thinking that keeps the American political structure firmly in the grasp of binary.

McCain, Palin and Gustav: The GOP Faces the Perfect Storm

2008-09-01T10:09:00.000-07:00

If you're still scratching your head about Republican Presumptive Presidential Nominee, John McCain's Vice Presidential pick, Alaska Governor, Sarah Palin, you might also be asking why he's rushed headlong into a hurricane. After literally eating cake while Katrina destroyed New Orleans, Senator McCain appears to be seeking redemption through the destructive force of the category 2 Gustav.

Independents: are you honestly buying this?

I know that the once liberal mass media has closed ranks around McCain, stifling giggles as well as outrage at McCain's choice of running mate, then scrambling desperately as one after another of her scandals have trickled out - despite the GOPedia's best efforts to stem the tide. First, her ethics violations came out. Then, we're expected not to believe our eyes when we see an allegedly third-trimester pregnancy looking as lean as she did seven months earlier; not to mention the miraculous story of her water breaking in Texas - which, conveniently, no one knew about - and then a woman having her allegedly fifth child managed to somehow hold it until the plane reached Alaska, some eight hours later, without complaining about contractions. Even if she's telling the truth, any other woman would be in jail for child endangerment. Further, how does a parent with a Downs baby make time for a political career? Who's taking care of this kid? Oh, that's right, she has a seventeen year old daughter at home, who's conveniently five months pregnant to dispell the dreaded "internet rumours."

Five months? Of course it's conveniently five months. Six months would raise the Republican's favorite tool of campaigning, the auld October Surprise - as in, "SURPRISE! No baby, and she's still not showing (just like mom)!" And four months pregnant wouldn't work either, since Trig was born in April. Pardon me, former Miss Congeniality, Alaska, but would you mind releasing your medical records - and a certified ultrasound for your daughter? Oh, and a DNA test of yourself, your daughter and your "son" for comparative purposes, if that's not too much trouble.

But Sarah Palin aside, why is Senator McCain going to Mississippi? Come on, Independents; don't tell me you think McCain isn't politicizing Gustav. I know that the GOPedia, including Time magazine, CNN and the major networks have their talking points in hand (and aren't ashamed to use them), but we're Independents! We're smart enough to read between the lines, believe our eyes, and not fall for the magic bullets that history is heir to. Senator McCain couldn't show more cynicism toward the city of New Orleans if he were to say, "Category 2 - that's not so bad. When I was a POW in the Hanoi Hilton, we had a real hurricane . . ." (Joe Lieberman pulls him aside, whispering in his ear, McCain nods, then returns to the mic), "Excuse me, it was a tsunami."

By going there, Senator McCain diverts law enforcement personnel from their vital tasks, such as controlling looting and rescuing people who aren't there for photo-ops. Yet the mainstream media unashamedly praise him for his choice to go to the Gulf of Mexico, just as they've managed to put on straight faces to rescue him from his self-inflicted disaster of choosing Sarah Palin as his running mate. Why haven't they asked him if he's seeking political redemption for Katrina? Why haven't they asked him why he's diverting these key personnel during a crisis? And why haven't they asked him if this isn't just more cynical politicking?

People died in Katrina. Died while Senator McCain and his beloved George W. Bush ate cake together. And now, as a means of distracting us from the sea of scandal swirling around his choice of running mate - whose only real qualifications seem to be a wealth of experience in the type of cronyism we, as a nation, have been forced to endure these last eight years - uses real tragedy as yet another Rovian weapon from the "permanent campaign" arsenal of distraction, fear and misinformation.

We're smarter than this, Independents. John McCain, who we have revered for his maverick legislative style, his straight talk and his forthrightness, for whatever reason, is no longer that person. His judgement on selecting Sarah Palin as his running mate without vetting her - arguably the most important decision he will make before entering the White House - was not sound. His decision to go to the Gulf of Mexico during a time of crisis and potential tragedy was both political and self-serving. No matter what the mainstream press tells us, we have eyes, ears, memories and minds. We read between the lines because the media are unwilling to print the facts without spinning them. We seek alternative news sources to find the pieces that the corporate press has left out all together. And then, somewhere in the garble of spin, misinformation and non-information, we converge to expose a corrupt and unreliable "Fourth Arm of Government."

AKA, John McCain's base.

Update: Hurricane Gustav has been downgraded to a category 1 as it moves inland toward the Louisiana-Texas border. It is thought that little damage occured, and due to the evacutions, the casualties are expected to be low. We can breathe a sigh of relief that this time, at least, tragedy wasn't in the cards. It also shows that we can learn from the lessons of history: evacuation saves lives.

Just Because you're Paranoid (Part II)

2008-08-23T15:24:00.000-07:00

Who in his right mind would broker a highly-publicized arms deal that is so obviously an about-face from our 17-year long policy of diplomacy with Russia?

Following their PR disaster in Georgia, Russia is finally ready to pull back their forces. This all comes on the heels of Condoleeza Rice's diplomatic mission to Poland and the Czech Republic, in which she secured Poland's agreement to host American intercepter missiles, as well as other American arms. Russia has warned the United States that such a step will retard Washington's relationship with Moscow.

While Western press sources have reported that the Georgian army was equipped and trained by the United States, there has been no report about the weapons and training provided by Israel. Though Tel Aviv has denied direct government sponsorship of the Georgian Military, it has admitted to approval by the Ministry of Defense for private businesses to sell arms and provide training to the Georgian military. This makes Syria's offer to buy Russian arms and sponsor Russian defense missiles particularly tempting for Moscow. And Syria isn't alone. Venezuela is also courting Russia for arms and Putin would like nothing better than a prime Western-hemisphere real estate upon which to station defense missiles: welcome to the Cuban Missile Crises, Part Deux.

It is, sadly, deja vu all over again.

That George Walker Bush's presidency has been characterized by his patent unwilling-ness to learn from history should come as news to no one who has read William L. Shirer's The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich; we have been able to do little more than stand on the sidelines, shaking our heads, as the Bushies led us down the same, horrifying path of extreme nationalistism that Hitler took Germany. What no one needs book reference to understand is the idea that, with the Presidential elections rapidly approaching, America now runs the risk of repeating the Cuban Missile Crisis - this time with George W. Bush and (arguably) Vladimir Putin at the helm instead of Kennedy and Khruzchev.

It is important to remember that, while Kennedy is remembered a hero in the U.S. because of his actions during the Cuban Missile Crisis, it was a nail in the coffin of Khruzchev's political carreer. Agreeing to pull the missiles out of Cuba, only to find out later that the missiles America pulled out of Turkey were obsolete, made a fool of Russia. While it is clear that America under George Walker Bush seems incapable of learning from its history, isn't it too much to hope that Vladimir Putin, former KGB chief, did not learn from the fall of Nikita Khruzchev?

It is unthinkable that, with the clock ticking on his Presidency, George W. Bush would begin an escalation against a newly-elected Dmitri Medvedev and a politically-entrenched Putin. Does he really mean to place the new American President in the type of position that Kennedy was in, or is this simply the latest move in the Bush "Permanent Campain," having seized on means for the GOP - or himself - to stay in power?

Yes, I'm afraid I am raising the phantom of a Bush dictatorship. It is not the first time in our history that a leader has used a crisis, such as the one that appears to be eminent with Russia, to stay in power. And though it is possible that the purpose of this escalation with Russia is to strengthen John McCain's appeal, it is unlikely that McCain's inability to manage the press has been lost on Mr. Bush. Senator McCain often becomes flustered when asked difficult questions by the press (e.g. how many houses he has, which side of an issue he is on, etc.). As foolish as Bush has been throughout his tenure in the White House, would he honestly put THE BUTTON the hands of someone who needs "to consult [his] staff" to find out how many houses he owns?

The escalation toward a new arms-race with Russia, therefore, is evidence of one of two things: either Bush aims to be the first American dictator or he's even dumber than we thought.

A Letter to Prime Minister Kaczinski of Poland

2008-08-20T14:36:00.000-07:00

Dear Prime Minister Kazcinski,

I understand that the meeting between yourself and Dr. Rice was productive - in a manner of speaking.

About that; Dr. Rice is currently serving a President that won't be in office for much longer (we hope). You see, a lot of us are happy to see Mr. Bush's backside - and it's not because he's wearing sweatpants with the word "juicy" stitched on the seat. After stripping us of most of our civil rights, failing to provide any kind of aid to the city of New Orleans and getting us entrenched in Iraq, there's not many of us willing to give him a favorable job reference.

Come to think of it, we probably should have guessed that a C-student from Yale with two failed businesses under his belt might not be the safest bet for POTUS. Then there was all of that time he spent on vacation his first year in office. You might have heard we're at war on two fronts, and, well . . . he's taken a sum-total of a year off during that time. I don't want to speak ill of him or anything, but Mr. Bush is what we here in the States call lazy.

I'll say this for him though: he does tend to get his way. With three simple letters (WMD) he managed to convince the House, the Senate and the American People to take complete leave of their senses. It's my understanding that one of your contemporaries, one Mr. Mikheil Saakashvili, took pot-shots at South Ossetia with assurances that if Mr. Medvedev shoved, Mr. Bush would give him sound thrashing he deserved. Only it didn't quite work out that way.

What happened was that Mevedev gave Saakashvili what amounted to a political wedgie; and not just any political wedgie: to put things in perspective, he had Saakashvili's briefs over the poor bastard's head, yelling at him, "Govorish' dyadya, Misha! Govorish' dyadya!" After the proctologist was finished picking the last of the double-weave cotton from Mr. Saakashvili's rectum, your Georgian associate called Mr. Bush and his good friend Senator McCain out on their promises for that "sound thrashing" of Russia.

Long story short, their response was to send a woman. Now, Dr. Rice is a smart woman, she's an expert on Russia . . . and this where I have to ask you, Prime Minister Kazcinski, do you have a good sense of humor? See, over here in America, sometimes when bullies are bored, they convince guys who normally get sand kicked in their faces to pick a fight with a rival bully. I have to tell you, having done this myself, it's a hoot. Hey . . . yeah you. You see that jerk over there? He thinks he's tough. You should go mess with him. Hurt you? Oh, no. He won't hurt you. Besides, if he does start thumping on you, don't worry: I have your back.

I gotta tell you, it just never gets old.

Anyway, we were talking about Dr. Rice. Yeah . . . um, as a smart woman who knows Russia, she kind of left a few things out. First, there's that whole, he thinks he's tough thing: the guy we're talking about is Russia; the bear doesn't have to think he's tough, he just is. If you want to find out just how tough, be my guest - it's your anus. Then there's that whole missile defense system: see, that's kinda like the you should go mess with him thing; It's gonna piss Russia off, and Russia's not exactly known for pulling their punches. Finally, there's that don't worry, I have your back thing: come on, dude! You don't actually believe that, right? Not after they left ol' Mikey's butt flapping in the wind (I mean, 'cause if you do, there's this bridge in New York - a so-weet investment for a nation like yours that needs a little extra income).

Anyway, good luck with Russia.

You're going to need it.

Update: (8-23-08) I don't mean to say I told you so, Prime minister, but . . . you get the idea. Following your highly publicized deal with Dr. Rice, Russia began talks of its own with Syria. The Western Media is, of course, trying to spin this (or simply not report it) so that Russia winds up being the bad guy. But can we possibly expect them to "lie supinely upon [their] backs, clinging to the delusive phantom of hope" that the U.S, with the aid of you hosting these interceptor missiles, might not achieve nuclear hegemony over them for the first time since Russia detonation its own atomic bomb?

Congratulations, sir. You may go down in history one day as the stooge who helped America start World War III.

The West's Side Story: an Analysis of how Russia was Blamed for Georgia's Invasion of South Ossetia and Abkhazia

2008-08-13T12:54:00.001-07:00

When I first heard the news, I tried to make sense of it. Why would Russia just invade Georgia out of the blue? Georgia is energy rich, but a the contest of petrobucks between Russia and Georgia, it's Megarubles to millikopeks, far in Russia's favor. And just as the Russian Army had overwhelmed Georgia to the point where a belicose President Saakashvili and his security detail were literally jumping at shadows, Medvedev offered his Southern neighbor terms for a cease fire.

Until this week, I had only heard one side of the story - the West's side. The story of how this conflict started was slow to ooze out. On the BBC Radio World Service's World Have Your Say, Chloe Tilly and Co. dedicated a progamme on Friday, August 8 (On Air: Can Anyone Stand up to Russia?) to blaming the entire event on Russia. Tilly didn't mention one word in the blog accompanying the radio programme about Georgia's aggression toward Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Nonetheless, she did indulge a National Enquirer-worthy narrative about Russian-backed gas supply disruptions and political assassinations.

It wasn't until Tuesday, August 12 that The Los Angeles Times dedicated an entire story to Saakashvili's role in the conflict. Marjorie Miller and Geraldine Baum broke a story which was not, by that time, news to anyone with a brain: "Brash Georgian President May have Gambled and Lost" (print title), finally revealed Saakashvili's plot to invade the breakaway republics while the world's eyes were on Beijing. Later that same day (August 13, Russia/Georgia time) beside French President Nicholas Sarkozy, a soft-spoken Medvedev made public his terms for a cease fire. Russia Today reported that President Sarkozy stated that Russia had acted appropriately under the circumstances. A humiliated Saakashvili accepted the terms, but defiantly vowed that "one day Georgia would beat Russia."

Not letting the facts get in the way of politics, the U.S. President and even the Presidential candidates weighed in against Russia, calling their defense of Russian nationals in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, as " . . . a brutal escalation" (Bush), "Moscow's violent path of aggression" (McCain) and just plain "aggressive" (Obama). And indeed, Russia is aggressive and was clearly ready for trouble the moment Georgia moved to invade the breakaway republics. They didn't spend six months building up to it like George Herbert Walker Bush did in Desert Storm in 1991, nor did they use it as a distraction from a sex scandal as Bill Clinton did in 1998, nor did they make false claims of WMDs like George Walker Bush did to invade Iraq in 2002. They simply secured the borders of the republics who asked them for help, sacking a military base in Gori, not destroying a civilian airport, as John McCain has claimed That's called strategy, and as with the naval blockade the Russians employed, it wins wars and gets soldiers home to their families. Bush, McCain and Obama may consider taking note of this.

So to answer Chloe Tilly's question, after eight years of usurpations of our civil liberties under the guise of "security" and outright lies by the Bush Administration, not to mention complicity to these high crimes by the UK and the Western press in general (including the BBC), why on earth would we concern ourselves with Russia? Don't we in the West have enough of our own despots to contend with?

The Russian Phoenix

2008-08-11T09:14:00.001-07:00

Their economy was in tatters. Proud soldiers of the once mighty Russian Army were forced to beg in the streets because the emerging democratic State could not pay them. But the sleeping giant has awakened. Mother Russia, thought to be in a permanently weakened state following the fall of the Soviet Empire, has risen dangerously from the ashes of communism, its military having regained much of its cold war potency.

But what of South Ossetia? Discussion turns away from whether or not the breakaway republic might have a moral right to secede from the Georgian State. Indeed, under Soviet rule, South Ossetia enjoyed a great deal of autonomy. Having suffered at the hands of Czarist Russia, is it any better that the Caucasus should now be at the mercy of Georgia? And what of the West's role in the unfolding epic in the East?

After the US's unjustifiable invasion of Iraq - with Tony Blair's blessing - the West has neither the moral high-ground, nor the military resources to keep the re-emerging Russian State in check. It's not a matter of right or wrong, but as with the US invasion of Iraq, might becomes the criterion for what is right. Sadly, having exhausted both diplomatic and military capital in trade for Iraqi oil, the US and its allies have painted themselves into a corner. Beyond public denouncements, the West has little choice but to abandon its Eastern friends to their fate, leaving them to the mercy of a reinvigorated and increasingly belligerent Russia.

Just Because You're Paranoid . . .

2008-08-08T12:14:00.001-07:00

As the Justice Department tries to sell us the late Bruce Ivins as the sole perpetrator of the Anthrax scare that rocked the Nation immediately following 9-11, another, more clearly evident conspiracy theory looms on the horizon: is George Walker Bush going to leave The Oval Office on January 19, 2009?

Of course he will, you answer.

Really?

Salim Ahmed Hamdan, Osama bin Laden's driver was convicted by military tribunal yesterday of - enjoy the irony here - being Osama bin Laden's driver. He was sentenced to five and a half years and is expected to be released no later than January with time served.

Not so, says Bush II: we can hold him as an enemy combatant as long as this "war on terror" lags on. And since defeating terrorism is an impossibility, that could be a heckuva lot longer than Hamdan has left before dying of natural causes in Gitmo. What's so disturbing about this declaration by the Bush Administration, is that for all of their bluster, even they know that they have no authority to hold Mr. Hamdan beyond January 19, 2008. So why bother making such an immensely stupid statement?

It could be that Bush really is that dumb - at least, that is what we hope. Or perhaps he knows something that the rest of us do not. Will the despot who turned the 21st Century United States into a horrifying police regime that would make Machiavelli wince, actually try to stay in office? Or has he concocted yet another means of rigging the elections to make sure that John McCain picks up where he left off?

Add your comments.

200,000 Can Eat Cake; 10,000 Just Can't Eat

2008-08-01T22:17:00.000-07:00

The 31st of July came and went without the California legislature passing a budget. Good to his word, the Governator pulled the trigger: 10,000 workers were pink slipped and another 200,000 are staring down the barrel of $6.55 an hour, with no overtime, in California. As much as I would love to blame this on Schwarzenegger's penchant for drama, he is not soleley, nor is he even mostly responsible for the current crisis the State of California finds itself in.

July-August budget crises are an annual event. Certain circumstances plot to make this time of year the perfect storm, such as a tanking economy, a struggling Republican executive, and a pork-hungry Democratic majority in the legislature. It one of many factors in the perfect storm that helped George H. W. Bush's pronouncement, "Read my lips: no new taxes!" go down in history beside Dan Quayle's Book of "Stupid S*** I Said as the Veep." Love him or hate him, Arnold Schwarzenegger is about to be the latest victim of pork-barrel legislation.

It's not that it bothers me; the GOP "swiftboats" its Democratic victims; the liberals . . . "pork" the conservatives to death (I know, I know, they must feel so violated). And it wouldn't be so funny if, in either case, it didn't work every time! What isn't funny - no matter how you spin it - is that 10,000 Californians were pink-slipped on July 31st and right now, a further 200,000 are looking at having their pay cut dramatically until the legislature churns out a budget.

The legislature does have motive to git'r'done: elected officials and their appointees won't be paid at all until the budget is passed. But unlike the state workers that fall into that unfortunate group the legislators qualify for low-interest or no-interest bank loans to keep their personal budgets solvent. But the promise to reimburse workers after the budget is passed - whenever that is - doesn't repay them the penalties and late fees that will inevitably result from "taking one for the team." And it won't end forclosure proceedings against those who were barely hanging on before their elected officials decided to play Monopoly with their livelihoods.

Seriously, Dems: why go to all this trouble to "bring home the bacon" when your base starves, waiting for you to do your jobs?

The Beijing Olympics: Can we Separate Sport from Politics?

2008-08-01T10:25:00.001-07:00

The BBC World Service programme, World Have your Say, asks, Are we Turning a Blind Eye to China. I responded with the following blog entry:

The games date back to warring tribes of Greece. "Citizens" of the Athenian City-State were exclusively male property owners. Slavery was legal throughout Greece, and the concept of human rights was virtually non-existent at that time. The games, in which athletes from a variety of military states competed, were about Greek solidarity.

The Olympic games are a worldwide event. There are terrible human rights violations that happen all over the world. The United States, for example, has held alleged terrorists for years without trial, subjecting them to what Geneva defines as torture. Yet I doubt that there would be this kind of human rights discussion if the games were being held in New York this year. While it is true that China is guilty of human rights violations, this travesty of justice is outside the scope of the games. The Chinese deserve our criticism, but if we want to take political action for their policies in Tibet, we need to hit them where it hurts - in the pocketbook: we simply boycott companies that manufacture their products in China.

Peace.

Schwarzenegger: "Let them Eat Cake"

2008-07-25T11:30:00.001-07:00

He didn't stutter. Even with that Austrian brogue of his, The Governator's words were understood all too well by panic-stricken state employees, who are now staring down the barrel of drastic cuts in their pay. In an attempt to force the Democratic majority in the California State Legislature to pass a budget, Governor Schwarzenegger now threatens to hold the incomes of 200,000 state workers hostage.

So it's come to this: the people who provide vital services that the state can't live without are being told that their mortgages, their auto loans, and their stomachs will have to wait until the end of August to see another paycheck - and then they will be paid at the Federal minimum wage rate of $6.55 an hour, in a state where all employers are require to abide by the state minimum wage of $8.00 per hour - even for tipped employees. This means that, during the month when families are already pinching pennies for school clothes and supplies, Junior and Juniette will have to squeeze into last year's wardrobe - the one with the jeans so fashionably accented with a ragged tear across both knees, not to mention the pending scorn from their peers about "talking to Noah."

No, Junior, we can't afford for you to play football this year. Sorry, Juniette, we can't afford the deductible for your braces right now; you'll get used to the kids (whose parents don't work for the state) calling you "snaggletooth." But here's the good news: we're all going on a crash diet!

No one can expect Governor Schwarzenegger to understand. He has a motorcade and a private jet. His wife is a Kennedy. And he still thinks he can be the President. Clearly the man is clueless - but not blameless; neither are the Democrats in the California State legislature who've failed to pass the budget.

State Controller John Chiang has stated that there is enough money to keep the state solvent for the next few months. He has also stated point-blank that he won't comply with the Governor's order. Of course, if Schwarzenegger decides he's the same kind of "compassionate conservative" that the President is, the fate of Controller Chiang is academic.

Governor Schwarzenegger, don't take this the wrong way, but your solution really sucks. Democrats have a nasty tendency toward fiscal filibusting to push through pork barrel budgets - which is nonsense. It does not, however, offset your threat to financially kill the poor as a proxy for your adversaries in the legislature.

Is it just me, or is this subprime-mortgage-induced public financial crisis starting to really freak people out?

UPDATE - GOING PUBLIC, IF NOT POSTAL: The story, as it appears in The Los Angeles Times Online has attracted a strange contrast of upset public employees and gloating private workers. State employees are threatening to strike and their privately employed critics, claim that State workers wouldn't last five minutes at jobs in the private sector. The public workers, insulted by this, charge the company men and women with being less educated, and hence, it is they who wouldn't last five minutes in the public sector. The argument simply goes downhill from there. But interestingly, both parties appear to be able - amid all of the horrifying demand - to blog during their paid working hours.

Of course, the xenophobes have weighed in as well, blaming our budget shortfall on - you guessed it - the "Illegals." Not surprisingly, they don't have much opposition.

Critiquing the Critics

2008-07-24T12:13:00.000-07:00

I read The Huffington Post from time to time. Today, I think I decided why it is that I've never fully bought into Arriana Huffington's pet project. Jacob Heilbrunn reminded us that people who work in the Bush State Department are not free to pursue politics on their own time - as though this is something new. In his pithy posting on , "Bush Bans State Department from Obama Rally" Heilbrun misses a point that I think the political structure and the media will need to face at some point down the road, if not very soon.

Does Heilbrun think this is somehow an "extreme" position for the Bushies to take? Does anyone sincerely believe that Nancy Pelosi or any of the other majority WIMPS in the legislature will take a stand on this, when they won't even vote to impeach our despot/President for High Crimes, that only Karl Rove and Fixed News can deny with a straight face?

There are a list of offenses against the despot, George W. Bush, so grievous as to demand redress by an informed and concerned electorate, to say nothing of bringing the full and proper weight of checks and balances down on him by a Legislature and Judiciary WHO FAILED US, and continues to fail us to this day.

And what about the press - that fourth branch of the government we've all heard so much about? Why were they silent for so long, only now summoning the courage to shout at the bully when his back is to you, on his way out of the room?

Don't do us any favors, Heilbrun. The two party system needs to go. The existing press needs to go with them.