The right wing authoritarian Republican Nominee for US Senate in Delaware shown above.

Over the past 40-50 years we have seen American right wing extremism and authoritarianism grow from a tiny, idolated, and reviled but committed faction to a now robust and burgeoning proto-fascist movement.  There is tremendous ironyreagrding this problem in that the traditional powers in the Republican Party are now being threatened and displaced by the very crazy extremism they spawned.  I will cry no tears for the tradtional Republicans when they are snuffed out, but I am highly concerned that the right wing authoritarianism they nurtured is now metastasizing at an alarming rate.  For while the traditional Republicans gave birth to this virulent political tumor neither did the Democrats do anything in order to combat them nor to prepare for the time we will have to go up against them at the ballot box.  Now there's a serious chance that crackpots the like of Rand Paul, Sharon Angle and other genuine loons like Christine O'Donnell are going to become US Senators.  If the right wing authoritarians are to be stopped then they will have to be stopped by the Democrats.  If Democrats have any hope of beating back the authoritarian horde it is necessary to understand right wing authoritarianism. 

Many a pundut has scratched their head wondering aloud how on earth these crackpots could be taken seriously and/or howcould anyone vote these kind of people into office?  They wonder because they are assuming the candidates and the teabaggers in general are normal people.  They are not.  They fit a specific profile that has been extensively and scientifically researched.  Yet few people have had any exposure to this important body of work.  We can no longer afford not to be very well informed about the right wing authoritarian mind and personality. 

If you haven't read John Dean's book "Conservatives Without Conscience" you really should.  In it, Dean describes the evolution of conservatism in America in the modern era.  I will not recap the book in full, but essentially Dean describes how, in the name of conservatism, authoritarian personalities have come to dominate, if not destroy, both the Republican Party in the US and our system of constitutional government right before our very eyes.  I highly recommend the book.  It is not a long book and Dean, as you probably know, is a brilliant observer and superb writer.  Much of the information about authoritarianism in Dean's book is based upon research done by a Professor at the University of Manitoba named Bob Altemeyer. 

Prof. Altemeyer has spent most of his career studying authoritarianism and has conducted extensive, scientific psychological research on the subject that sheds a bright light on who the authoritarians are, what makes them tick, how they think and why they think as they do.  He may well be the foremost expert on authoritarianism in the world. 

Prof. Altemeyer thinks that American democracy is in danger.  I agree. 

It may seem obvious to some that the authoritarian threat has been on the rise for decades, but it clearly is not obvious to many citizens nor is it obvious to many key people in our society such as opinion leaders nationally, those employed by the corporate media, many, if not most, of our political leaders and decision makers and others and that is distressing to say the least.  It isn't because people don't recognize the extremism and radical views espoused by the authoritarian Republicans because they do.  But most people a) do not understand what drives either the leaders or the followers and b) they continue to make the mistake of assuming that underneath it all these people are rational and well meaning but they are not.  One simply cannot reason or work with someone whose psychology is fundamentally and unalterably unreasonable and totally inflexible.

Even though there is plenty of information available about the authoritarian enemies of democracy, few have read much about it, fewer still know anything about it whether they are citizens in the hinterland, the nonauthoritarian elites of Washington DC or the perorters and editors of the media.  This is especially clear regarding the elites when one takes into account some of the amazingly naïve, almost surreal talk emanating from Washington by well meaning Democrats about "bipartisanship" and how important it is to work with the Republicans.  This has been an ongoing lament on the part of Democrats throughout the entire era since the authoritarians first emerged and as they have become the dominant force in the Republican Party.  The Democrats' continued misunderstanding and more importantly mishandling of the authoritarians they are dealing with is central to what leads to the frustration of policymakers who continue to get hoodwinked, outmaneuvered and just plain snookered by the bad faith and underhandedness of the Republicans.  It also leads to the massive frustration on the part of citizens and activists who cannot believe that Democrats are unable to make any real progress on their agenda despite overwhelming Democratic majorities.  Without properly understanding and coming to grips with the authoritarian personalities they face, how such people think and operate, it will be impossible for Democrats to effectively counter their amoral, demagogic, and extremist methods.  What is clear is that it is high time to abandon the naïve and potentially dangerous notion that the authoritarian Republicans are either reasonable or honorable because they are neither of those things.  They are fundamentally unethical and amoral beings.  In other words, the problem is much deeper than a mere ideological problem.

So, what is to be done? 

The first step to understanding the rise of the authoritarian political phenomenon is to understand the authoritarian personalities involved.  So definitely get a hold of Dean's book but also take a look at what Prof. Altemeyer has written.  How can one do that you ask?  Well, there is a very easy and accessible way available to all that doesn't cost a thing.  Prof. Altemeyer, apparently at the request of John Dean, wrote a book for nonscientists explaining in straightforward language the findings of his research and in which he shares his insights and observations of over 40 years.  The book titled "The Authoritarians" is freely available on the web and is easy to download.  I urge you to click on the link below and start reading Altemeyer's important work which, while written several years ago now, remains just as important and timely as it was then.

Following is a brief excerpt from Altemeyer's introduction to the book that will give you an idea about the work and, I hope, convince you to learn as much as you can about the authoritarian personalities we are threatened by so we can effectively counter and neutralize them.

But why should you even bother reading this book? I would offer three reasons. First, if you are concerned about what has happened in America since a radical right-wing segment of the population began taking control of the government about a dozen years ago, I think you'll find a lot in this book that says your fears are well founded. As many have pointed out, the Republic is once again passing through perilous times. The concept of a constitutional democracy has been under attack--and by the American government no less! The mid-term elections of 2006 give hope that the best values and traditions of the country will ultimately prevail. But it could prove a huge mistake to think that the enemies of freedom and equality have lost the war just because they were recently rebuffed at the polls. I'll be very much surprised if their leaders don't frame the setback as a test of the followers' faith, causing them to redouble their efforts. They came so close to getting what they want, they're not likely to pack up and go away without an all-out drive. But even if their leaders cannot find an acceptable presidential candidate for 2008, even if authoritarians play a much diminished role in the next election, even if they temporarily fade from view, they will still be there, aching for a dictatorship that will force their views on everyone. And they will surely be energized again, as they were in 1994, if a new administration infuriates them while carrying out its mandate. The country is not out of danger yet.

The second reason I can offer for reading what follows is that it is not chock full of opinions, but experimental evidence. Liberals have stereotypes about conservatives, and conservatives have stereotypes about liberals.  Moderates have stereotypes about both.  Anyone who has watched, or been a liberal arguing with a conservative (or vice versa) knows that personal opinion and rhetoric can be had a penny a pound.  But all that arguing never seems to get anywhere. Whereas if you set up a fair and square experiment in which people can act nobly, fairly, and with integrity, and you find that most of one group does, and most of another group does not, that's a fact, not an opinion. And if you keep finding the same thing experiment after experiment, and other people do too, then that's a body of facts that demands attention.  Some people, we have seen to our dismay, don't give a hoot what scientific investigation reveals.  But most people do. If the data were fairly gathered and we let them do the talking, we should be on a higher plane than the current, "Sez you!"

The last reason why you might be interested in the hereafter is that you might want more than just facts about authoritarians, but understanding and insight into why they act the way they do.  Which is often mind-boggling. How can they revere those who gave their lives defending freedom and then support moves to take that freedom away? How can they go on believing things that have been disconfirmed over and over again, and disbelieve things that are well established? How can they think they are the best people in the world, when so much of what they do ought to show them they are not? Why do their leaders so often turn out to be crooks and hypocrites? Why do the followers accept the flimsy excuses and even obvious lies that their leaders proclaim, and cling to them so dogmatically? Why are both the followers and the leaders so aggressive that hostility is practically their trademark? Why are both so unaffected by the evil they do?  By the time you have finished this book, I think you will understand the reasons.  All of this, and much more, fit into place once you see what research has uncovered going on in authoritarian minds.

Ready to go exploring?

 

Here is the link to Prof. Altemeyer's book, "The Authoritarians": http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/

 

Teabaggers of 2010 above.

Teabaggers of the past below. 

And no, this is not exaggerating the case at all.  Make no mistake, today's Teabaggers are the direct descendants of the right wing, racist whites of the past.  The only things that have changed are the date on the calendar, clothing and hairstyles.

Any political consultant can tell you that a candidate or party with a strategy (even a poor one sometimes) is almost always at an advantage against an opponent with no strategy.  We are seeing this play out for the umpteenth time on the national stage as once again the sell-outs of the Corporate (Republican) wing of the Democratic Party once again utterly fail to provide any leadership or strategy in the midterm elections against a frenzied, near hysterical Republican base of ignorant racists, bigots of all stripes and woefully uninformed crabby, poorly educated, mostly older white people.

These people who comprise the Teabaggers (modern day Citizen's Councils) see themselves and their disgraceful bigotry and hatred as the sole legitimate heirs of America's founding principles.  Ironically, their know nothingism is literal in that they cling most closely to the portions of the founding principles that have been left by the wayside as America has moved forward into the modern world.  The premier idea they don't publicly proclaim is, of course, that whites like themselves are the "real" Americans and this country is meant for them and everyone else is just being allowed to hang around.

Clearly, the Republicans have their strategy in place.  It's the same one they've used religiously now since the midterms of 1966.  Only the details change of what nonissue will be used to stir up the bile of their fearful, small-minded, racist base.  Over the years it has been welfare mothers (black people), crime (black people), busing (black people), affirmative action (black people), communism (liberals and black people), immigration (Mexicans), border security (Mexicans), the welfare "cutlture" (black people), the panama canal (liberals and non-imperialists), Willie Horton (black people), ending entitlements (black people, but especially old black people), school "choice" (black people), etc...  I could go on for quite a while with this list but you get the idea.  Feel free to add any of your favorites I may not have included. 

This cycle it's the manufactured nonissue of the mosque that isn't a mosque that isn't at "ground zero".  The Koch brothers, and the Republican political infrastructure including of course Clusterfox News has been actively engaged in a general whoopin it up agin them thar Muslims who are all crazed, endlssly clever and tricky yet insane mass murderers who intend to conquer the world and make everyone worship Allah, who don't deserve any rights, shouldn't be allowed to be citizens, join the military or enter the USA, who don't value life and so therefore we should kill even more of them over and above the hundreds of thousands we've killed over the past 9 years "to show em who's boss."  They believe this naturally because mass violence for the past 9 years has worked out so well for us and made Muslims the world over respect us and give up terrorism.

Meanwhile, our President, the leader of the Republican Lite faction in the Democratic Party, came out of hiding for several days last week sounding almost like an actual Democrat but then quickly returned to his cocoon at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.  We'll likely be seeing more of him on the campaign trail which would be great if there is an actual strategy involved in what he's doing and what the Democratic candidates running for Congress are campaigning on.  But sadly, as in most past election years for decades, the Democrats are once again, and right on schedule, all befuddled and in shock at what's going on, not really sure what to make of what the Republicans are up to (after all they've only been putting this act on for 45 years so who could expect the DC Dems to have thought of a counter strategy right?), and generally conceding to the Republicans total control of the field of battle for the elections up and down the line. 

The Republicans have been allowed (once again) to set the agenda for issues while DC Democrats grew fat at the trough of the lobbysists who fund their Republican enemies foolishly assuming the corporate teat would provide enough funds for them to withstand the Republican assault in November.  Their unwarranted sense of security is now suddenly upset.  Even after their disgraceful botching of the Senate election in Massachusetts the fools running the show in Washington didn't clue in and start preparing for the midterms at all.  Their irresponsibility and impotence is an embarassment to the party of Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy and Johnson. 

Even as the polls became gloomier by the week the keystone cops in charge of the DLC/corporate centrist leadership remained completely impotent and unable to even feign any competent strategy for the fall elections.  Of course, after the mess they made of healthcare and their almost complete betrayal of the Democratic base on taking action to put people back to work it's understandable that it might be difficult to defend their indefensible and self defeating actions of the past two years.  Still, it's their job and they owe it to the nation to at least try.  Yet they don't try.  Instead, they have now got their back against the wall and are praying at least to hold on to the Senate but one wonders why they care?  Despite their huge majorities since 2008 the President and the Democrats in the Senate handed control of that body to the Republicans instead of running over them as they should have.  Even today I saw a headline that disgusted me saying Obama hopes to get Republican support for his middle class tax cut proposal.  What the hell is wrong with these people?  One wonders if they've ever even considered why the terminology of "campaigning" is all derived from the military?  Hmmm?  Maybe it's about fighting and winning a metaphorical war against an enemy?  Just maybe.

Paul Krugman said it very well when he wrote about Republican Know Nothingism back on August 8, 2008 but neither Obama nor many of his loyalists were willing to acknowledge the truth in what he said about this whole fantasy of attaining bipartisan cooperation from the lunatic authoritarians running the Republican Party:

In any case, remember this the next time someone calls for an end to partisanship, for working together to solve the country's problems. It's not going to happen -- not as long as one of America's two great parties believes that when it comes to politics, stupidity is the best policy.

He was and still is right about this.  But the obvious truth wasn't good enough for our oh so wise corporate centrist leader and his crew in the White House.  He knew better so he just spent two wasted years attemempting to bargain with people who never bargain in good faith, compromising with people who think compromise is having Democrats unconditionally surrender to them on every issue, and whose complete lack of ethics is unrestrained by any hint of a conscience or obligation to act responsibly or for the good of the nation. 

It's almost frightening to see how the President, even now, keeps sliding into that phenomenally naive bipartisan schtick when he ought to be waving the bloody shirt of how the Republicans destroyed our economy and killed 8 million jobs.  He hinted at that last week in his own weak way which was declared an attack by Olberman and Maddow who were trying, I suppose, to put the best face on the tepid pushback that they could.  It's as though the DC corporate Democrats don't understand that they are dealing with a party of sociopathic exploiters whose core belief is that the rules don't apply to them and that the only thing that matters is power, gaining  power, and keeping power.  How you do it matters not one whit to the likes of Gingrich, Armey, Palin, Beck, Limbaugh, Bolton and the rest of the would be fascisti of the American right.  For them, the ends always justifies the means.

"He believes that what he says in public and how he lives don't have to be connected," she says. "If you believe that, then yeah, you can run for president."

Marianne Gingrich, ex wife of Newt Gingrich discussing him in Sep. issue of Esquire

I would again strongly recommend to one and all (as I have previously) reading John W. Dean's book Conservatives Without Conscience that goes into great detail about the data and studies of authoritarian personality and how the Republican Party has been completely captured by the worst sorts of authoritarian exploiters.  It explains precisely what is going on and provides insights on how to deal with these sociopaths. 

Yet despite the decades of this same pattern by the Republicans over and over, our leaders seem completely out to lunch on how to deal with these people and they seem equally determined to do little or nothing to counter them until about maybe 3-4 weeks before the election.  That's about the time Rahm and company typically clue in and suddenly a bright light goes on that we should run as Democrats against the incredibly unpopular Republicans and their rotten ideas and that would actually induce our Democratic voters to have enough energy and enthusiasm to cast a vote for us even though we've done squat for the average American the past two years.

What a concept huh?  Run as Democrats instead of running away from what brought our party to power and what keeps the party popular.  Looks like we have one party of stupid and the other party is run by corrupt, careerist morons.

Here's a list of authoritarian personality traits as described in Dean's book that I found in the archives of the WAWG Blog .  See if you don't recognize some or all of the most prominent right wingers as fitting this profile for leaders and likewise for the followers who comprise the attendees who show up looking like bufoons and sometimes carrying weapons.  Maybe someobdy in charge over in Washington will see this and get enough of a clue to read Dean's book and come up with a strategy to fight these dangerous extremists before it's too late.

Authoritarian Personality Traits
Leaders	Followers
typically men	men and women
dominating*	submissive to authority*
opposes equality*	aggressive on behalf of authority*
desirous of personal power*	respectful of those with power
iconoclastic	conventional*
amoral*	moralistic
manipulative	trust untrustworthy authorities
exploitive	uncritical toward chosen authority
takes advantage of "suckers," tells other what they want to hear	gullible, moderate to little education
fear-mongering	prone to panic easily
specializes in creating false images to sell self	inconsistent and contradictory
may or may not be religious	highly religious
knowingly cheats to win	highly self-righteous but little self-awareness
intimidating and bullying	bullying
vengeful	severely punitive
pitiless	intolerant, narrow-minded
highly prejudiced against race, women, and homosexuals	prejudiced against women, homosexuals, and anyone of a different religion
mean-spirited	mean-spirited
nationalistic	demands loyalty and returns it
militant	strict disciplinarian,  dogmatic
dishonest	hypocritical
faintly hedonistic	zealous

* - Denotes those authoritarian Leader and Follower traits that Double High authoritarians always score high on. Those (and there are some according to John Dean) who score high on more of both sets of traits than just these, "are likely to be the particularly alarming Double Highs."

Let's take a look below at some leaders and some followers shall we?  See if you don't recognize the list of traits above.

The morning of the heinous attacks on New York and Washington I was struck by many things, but beyond the horror of the carnage, what really leapt out at me as I was watching CNN (like everyone else I jumped around all day watching first one station then another) was historian David McCullough announcing earnestly and with great authority that the meaning of the attack was that we would "have to" surrender some of our liberty as a result.  I thought then, and have never changed my thinking on this that such a statement was bullshit.

Why on earth would this mean I or any American would have to surrender any liberty whatsoever?  Yes, it was a terrible attack by terrorists but it was not by any means an existential threat to the USA nor did it hold the potential for being so.  The very idea of surrendering one shred of the liberty given to us by our Creator was and remains anathema to me. 

After McCullough had his say other somber and oh so serious luminaries began a parade of consensus about how we would now have to be prepared to be essentially less free than we were that morning.  I distincly recall thinking to myself that this line of thinking seems almost choreographed, planned, canned... pre-cooked if you will.  They were spouting this hooey on every channel!  I found this thinking not only offensive but cowardly.  I still do.  I also thought these opinions coming from our betters in the chattering classes went along nicely with Bush's cowardice that day.  And yes, I interpreted his going into hiding that day as cowardice and still do.  I also considered the behavior of our congressional leadership that day cowardly as so many of them disappeared in fear into government shelters or bunkers and so on.

I'm a midwesterner who spent a substantial portion of my early adult life in the northeast and it definitely crossed my mind that all these luminaries, government leaders, talking heads, "journalists", rich people, etc... wouldn't be half as concerned if this happened in Omaha or Witchita or Topeka.  Call me cynical but I think the ruling class was a helluva lot more upset about this because they personally felt threatened.  They certainly didn't freak out over Oklahoma City now did they? 

I honestly don't mean to diminish the real and genuine concerns that existed, but the near panic I found among our elite, even under these horrifying circumstances, unbecoming and not very inspiring to say the least.  It was clear Bin Laden had succeeded in scaring them.  Far from being inspirational that night in his speech, Bush looked like a deer caught in the headlights after a day of hiding out.  I found him lacking in the extreme on that day all around. 

I certainly wasn't scared.  Nobody I knew outside of the two cities under attack felt scared.  But I understood why the people in the two cities that were attacked felt as they did.  You'd have to have had a heart of stone not to empathize and feel deeply the trauma experienced by New Yorkers and DC area residents that day. 

I had a friend who slept at a hotel at the World Trade Center the night before on a business trip.  He left for JFK early that morning and so was actually on the plane getting ready for takeoff when the attacks occurred.  They could see the smoke and fire, but had no idea what was happening for some time.  I had an old friend who lives in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn who I e-mailed.  He was very somber, his wife literally sick with grief and horror, his children confused.  A dear friend of mine lived in DC and I got in touch with her the moment I heard the Pentagon had been attacked and while she was fine, she was extremely upset as she had friends who worked in both the pentagon and the twin towers.  We talked and watched tv together long distance.  As one of the towers collapsed she was sobbing and I'll never forget her whispering through her tears "all those people".  I was still on the phone with her and we were watching NBC as both towers were now gone they had a camera in a helicopter overlooking the entire southern portion of Manahttan Island and it was then that I saw the most jarring image of that day for me.  The monsterous cloud of smoke and ash and debris billowing out from the site literally enveloped the entire southern tip of Manhattan.  Everything was obscured. You couldn't see anything of the thousands of giant buildings.  There was only smoke expanding and suffocating magnicifcent New York.  I had been there many, many times over the years and know the area very well.  To see the whole Island disappear gave me a sick feeling in my stomach.  It's something etched in my memory.  I remember my friend just kept repeating softly "horrible, horrible... horrible."

It was tragic.  It was a crime of unprecedented proportions, but despite the spectacular nature of the attack and gruesome toll of that day I still refuse to accept that anything took place that day that should "change everything".  Frankly, I find that an absurd over reaction, but sadly one that we allowed to consume our country's governmental policies and we are now clearly seeing the negative effects of that over reaction in many, many ways.  I must re-emphasize that beyond the inconveniences at the airport when traveling and afew other minor annoyances, little or nothing has changed for the average American except the name of "the enemy" that now finally filled the blank space that used to be filled by the words "Soviet Union."  It has seemed all very Orwellian to me the entire time.

Remember please that even then the US spent nearly unimaginable sums more for our military than any other country on earth and more than most countries on earth combined and it didn't do a damn thing to keep us safe on the only day in my life when it really counted and I'm over 50 years old.  We didn't even get a coherent excuse for why not a single one of our mult-million dollar jet fighters was put in the air until it was too late to actually do anything about the planes headed for the twin towers and the pentagon!  Trillions were spent and always on the foundation of never allowing another Pearl Harbor and whamo a sneak attack succeeded just like that.  They knew for over an hour that all those planes had been hijacked and our gold plated military was as usuless as tits on a bull as my grandpa used to say.

The obssessive compulsive and inexcusable increase in military spending since that day 9 years ago is an embarassing, absurd, and immoral sum considering the vast and critical human needs that exist in our country.  But it was "necessary" to throw money at the problem of terrorism since 9/11 "changed everything."  The two wars the government used the 9/11 attacks to justify were not only not what needed to be done but were ill conceived and mismanaged from the start.  I hasten to add the military was not responsible for the mismanagement and the ill conceived wars but the Bush administration was fully responsible for the debacle they spawned in both Afghanistan and Iraq.  And other than deaths of tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians, grotesque amounts of borrowed money spent on unwinnable and pointless wars and a national security state all of which are weakening our economy what have the people of the US gotten out of all of that?  Precious little, if anything at all.  What's for damn sure is that we haven't gotten any safer because of it all and actually there have been a couple of reports out of the Pentagon that have said we are now less safe particularly as a result of the two wars that have no end in sight.

What have we lost by the ill conceived and costly reaction our scared leaders had to the 9/11 attacks?  We've lost a great deal.  Yes, some of our liberty is lost but we have, in large part, lost our Constitutional government.  Both Bush and Obama have made and gotten away with making outrageous and illegitimate claims to authority clearly not granted to the President in the Constitution.  We have seen our government adopt illegal politicies of torture, kidnapping, senseless and unjustified and indefinite "detention" of "suspects" based upon little or no evidence.  We have seen our nation's reputation in the world heavily tarnished.  And we have also seen the rise of ignorant, bigoted citizens foaming at the mouth with hateful, irrational xenophobia and religious bigotry coupled with a mighty unhealthy dose of unmitigated racism.

Everything looks the same and feels the same where I am today as it did prior to the day they used as an excuse to "change everything".  Yet our country is way off track, has officially surrendered some of our most sacred constitutional values and has begun to adopt more and more, policies always previously rejected by America because they were the tools of tyranny favored by despots. 

I will never forget the horrible crime that occured that day, but I will also never forget that the idea that those attacks require me and my fellow citizens to surrender their liberrty or any of their birthright as Americans is a pernicious lie.  We could have long ago defeated and destroyed Al Qaeda, but the same people who ran our ship of state aground again and again during the Cold War are now back in charge with a vengeance.  They are implementing all the old programs and using all the old tactics deployed against our earlier boogey man "communism" and it isn't working this time either.  We cannot afford to let those interests remain in charge of this nation's policies whether in defense, intelligence or otherwise.  Right now they are calling the shots and that means nothing but trouble and continued disasterous military adventures abroad that bring nothing but trouble to our nation.

Instead of being cowed by the propaganda and the maudlin, melodramatic rhetoric I encourage all my fellow citizens to remember how earlier generations of American reacted to adversity and that was with practical resolve, unyielding and fierce courage and never did those Americans who came before us operate out of fear.  Let us never forget the tragedy of 9/11, but lets also never forget that by surrendering any of our liberties or national character we will have allowed a tiny band of miscreants to command our fate.  The time has come when we need to put this tragic day in our history in proper and rational perspective and moved forward fearlessly and with resolve for the first time since that day.  We cannot afford to allow scared leaders to continue to pursue counterproductive policies of extreme violence all over the world and expect terrorism to go away.  That's the way to create more of it: not to defeat it.  Furthermore, the continued insanity in building up the military and police state is depriving the entire nation of critically important investments of all kind both human and otherwise. 

Clearly, our ruling elite continue to be ruled by fear.  The people must reject that and demand that our policies demonstrate not only some backbone but some common sense and put this nation back on track.

John Boehner has always reminded me of the Disney character above name J. Worthington Foulfellow from Pinnochio.  Take a moment to click on the link below and enjoy a video I dedicate to him on the last day of the TPM reader blogs called appropriately: "Honest John"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBLpvlBJtgI

With any luck, the tune will catch on during this election season and stick to (as Keith Olberman calls him) "John of Orange".  Enjoy!

 

 

 

 

I've enjoyed being able to blog here at TPM Cafe.  I hope reader blogs come back here soon.  But in case they don't I want to share a few thoughts with you and I want to say thank you to all those I've run into here for their efforts (even those with whom I strongly disagree). 

I have found the posts and comments here on the whole quite thoughtful, interesting, well written, often very witty, humorous and downright funny.  I have found sustenance in the passion of many of those who have shared of themselves here.  I have felt sorrow for some of those in this community who have been sick, taken ill and in a couple of heartbreaking situations even passed away.  I've learned some new things and come to appreciate some things I hadn't before.  It's been quite a memorable experience.  Thanks to Josh for making the experience possible.  Thanks to the endless good humor and patience of Versha and the others who kept it all operating one way or another.

Following are just some items I want to share as my parting blog here.  I'm sure I'll run into a number of you either at dagblog or one of the other possible TPM refugee sites identified in recent days.

Until then...Pax Vobiscum to you all!

Martin Luther King, III (above)

I thought the message in the excerpted AP article below worth remembering and repeating often:

The eldest surviving child of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King prefers to observe the national holiday in honor of his father as opposed to celebrating it. Martin Luther King III said there is simply too much work to be done around what his father called the "triple evils."

"We can't celebrate when the triple evils of poverty, racism and militarism are still very much existing in our society," said King. "The holiday always gives us an opportunity to begin anew."

Ever since I first learned about the great Frederick Douglass (above) he has been one of my heroes.  I think he was one of the greatest Americans who ever lived.  His words are worth remembering when we hear politicians and pundits talking about compromising with evil.

If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning.

Power concedes nothing without demand. It never has and never will. Show me the exact amount of wrong and injustices that are visited upon a person and you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them.

 Sojourner Truth (above) was an extraordinary woman and on her tombstone is the following question she asked of Frederick Douglass during the Civil War...

Is God Dead?

Mary "Mother" Jones was born in the 1830's and fought hard all her life for working people.  Her famous battle cry should never be fortgotten.

Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living!

The incredible Helen Keller (above) is known far and wide today as the person who overcame multiple disabilities in a time when that was unheard of.  Yet she was also an ardent activist whose politics has been buried in favor of emphasizing her "safer" triumph over her hearing, sight, and verbal disabilities.  Her words in the quote below resonate strongly today as we manage to survive a rerun of the robber baron era and the boom and bust cycle of laissez faire capitalism once again as she did a hundred years ago.

We the people are not free.  Our democracy is but a name.  We vote?  What does that mean?  It means that we choose between Tweedledum and Tweedledee.  We elect expensive masters to do our work for us, and then blame them because they work for themselves and for their class.

The legendary Joe Hill (above) was shot by a firing squad for organizing workers.  He wrote a song called The Preacher and the Slave sung to the tune of the old Christian Hymn "In The Sweet Bye and Bye".  It's worth reading Joe Hill's lyrics even today:

The Preacher And The Slave

by: Joe Hill

Long Haired preachers come out every night,

Try to tell you what's wrong and what's right;

But when asked how 'bout something to eat

They will answer with voices so sweet:

CHORUS:

You will eat, bye and bye,

In that glorious land above the sky;

Work and pray, live on hay,

You'll get pie in the sky when you die. (That's a lie!)

The starvation army they play,

They sing and they clap and they pray,

Till they get all your coin on the drum

Then they'll tell you when you're on the bum:

Holy rollers and jumpers come out,

They holler, they jump and they shout.

Give your money to Jesus they say

He will cure all diseases today.

CHORUS:

If you fight hard for children and wife-

Try to get something good in this life-

You're a sinner and bad man they tell,

When you die you will sure go to hell

CHORUS:

Workingmen of all countries, unite!

Side by side we for freedom will fight!

When the world and its wealth we have gained;

To the grafter we'll sing this refrain:

FINAL CHORUS:

You will eat, bye and bye,

When you've learned how to cook and to fry,

Chop some wood, 'twill do you good,

And you'll eat in the sweet bye and bye.

Robert F. Kennedy shown above talking to a child was an extrardinary inspiration to so many people and remains so today and had a great deal to say that should be remembered.  When I was in grade school he was murdered but I still remember these words of his:

A well-informed, well-educated young America is our country's best hope for the future.

Earlier this year we lost the people's historian, the incomparable Prof. Howard Zinn (above).  His influence continues growing with each passing year.  I doubt that death will slow down the momentum of his message of optimism, hope, defiance, love of humanity, and respect for the dignity and worth of all human beings.  His stature only continues to grow in my eyes and in those of many, many others.  He was a towering source of strength and hope for millions of common people and for me personally.  He is certainly the greatest figure I have ever known well.  For decades now I have had nothing but a growing admiration for his work, his wisdom, his gentle but resolute manner and for his perserverance.  As he grew older he only became more eloquent and moving when he spoke to crowds of people.  His words were and remain particularly important on the topic of war.  As a World War II bombardier he spoke not from an academic point of view but as a participant in war.  His experience of war and the mass violence it visits upon human beings taught him to oppose all war.  His words on this topic are well worth reading over and over again and should never be forgotten.

This is an excerpt of a talk given November 11, 2009 at Boston University where Howard Zinn taught countless students for many years whose lives, like mine, were changed for the better by the experience.

When I was discharged from the army, from the air force, I got a letter from General Marshall.  He was the General of Generals.  He was sending a letter (not a personal letter to me) "Dear Howie..."   No, a letter was sent to 16 million men who had served in the armed forces, some women too, and the letter was something like this.  "We've won the war.  Congratulations for your service!  It will be a new world."   

It wasn't a new world. 

And we know it hasn't been a new world since World War II.

War after war after war after war and 50 million people were dead in that war to end all wars, to end fascism and dictatorship and militarism.  No.  So, yes, I came to the conclusion that war cannot be tolerated no matter what we're told.  And if we think there are good wars and that therefore maybe this is a good war I wanted to examine the so called "good wars", the holy wars yeah, and take a good look at that and think again about the phenomenon of war and come to the conclusion: yes, war cannot be tolerated.

No matter what we're told, what tyrant exists, what border has been crossed, what aggression has taken place.  It's not that we're going to be passive in the face of tyranny or aggression.  No!  But we'll find ways other than... war, to deal with whatever problems we have because war is inevitably, inevitably the indiscriminate massive killing of huge numbers of people and children are a good part of those people.

Every war is a war against children.

So it's not just getting rid of Saddam Hussein if you think about it.  Oh we got rid of Saddam Hussein.  In the course of it we killed huge numbers of people who had been victims of Saddam Hussein.  When you fight a war against a tyrant, who do you kill?  You kill the victims of the tyrant.

Anyway, all this... all this has been simply to make us think again about war and to think.  We're at war now!  Right?  In Iraq.  In Afghanistan.  And sort of in Pakistan since we're sending rockets over there and killing innocent people in Pakistan.  And, uh, so we should not accept that.

We should look for a peace movement to join.  Really!  Look for some peace organization to join.  It will look small at first and pitiful and helpless, but that's how movements start.  That's how the movement against the Vietnam War started.  It started with handfuls of people who thought they were helpless, thought they were powerless.

But remember, the power of the people on top depends on the obedience of the people below.  When people stop obeying: they have no power.  When workers go on strike, huge corporations lose their power.  When consumers boycott, huge business establishments have to give in.  When soldiers refuse to fight, as so many soldiers did in Vietnam, so many deserters, so many fraggings, acts of violence by enlisted men against officers in Vietnam.  B-52 pilots refusing to fly bombing missions anymore.  War can't go on when enough soldiers refuse, the government has to decide we can't continue.

So yes, people have the power if they begin to organize, if they protest, if they create a strong enough movement they can change things.  That's all I want to say.  Thank you.

 

All one has to do is look at the following photographs to know how right Howard Zinn's words above really are.

The children above were killed in Afghanistan

The child above is from Iraq.

War is the enemy of all humanity and all that is decent and good in the world. 

Failure to oppose war is tantamount, in my opinion, to collaborating with evil.  We should do all we can to end the horrific and unwinnable, endless wars our country is currently prosecuting.

I'll end with a reminder about how this post began.  Martin Luther King's struggle was the right one.  He fought against militarism, poverty and racism and so should we.

Like every American with any sense of decency I find the idiot minister in Florida and his hateful and bigoted plan to burn Korans on the anniversary of 9/11 repulsive and sickening.

There's been way too much pointless jaw flapping about this nonentity and how he plans on making a jackass out of himself for all the world to see.  The only reason this is on the radar screen of people around the world is because our media has elevated this caveman and his bigotry because of their own unrestrained desire to peddle freakish, extreme behaviors and events as "news". 

I agree with Josh's point on the front page of TPM that the anti-muslim bile that has been spewed for years by "conservatives" and Republicans helps to generate the shameful conduct of people like the idiot Jones in Florida.  The idiotic bigot Jones has every right to burn Korans if he wishes and none of us have any right to stop him.  So what are decent Americans to do?

It seems that most Americans' response to this is the same as their response to everything else: keep watching tv and going about their business and doing nothing even as a complicit media helps to elevate a single bufoon to worldwide prominence that brings nothing but dishonor and disgrace upon the people of the United States and provides fuel for the fire of the idiotic, bigoted counterparts of Jones in the Islamic world to fan the flames of hatred and violence even more than would otherwise be the case.

I have a suggestion.  It would be nice if it caught hold, but I doubt that it will since this is sort of like being a Who trying to get Horton's attention.  Nonetheless, I want to put it out on TPM and pray that someone in a position to pull something like this off might see it and act.  It could be some variant of this or some other highly visible means of a show of opposition to bigotry and hatred against Muslims everywhere.  So here's my suggestion:

If our leaders (the President would be the ideal one for this) would ask the clergy of every responsible, mainstream religious organization and leader in the nation but especially Christian and Jewish denominations to immediately call for their congregations and nonbelievers who are not bigots and haters to hold demonstrations in every city and town in the United States on Saturday at a given time in opposition to the bigotry and hatred against Muslims we have seen perpetrated in this country for far too long.  The National Council of Churches, The Bishops and Cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church, The Leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Days Saints, and other organizations of a similar nature could easily and quickly respond in support.  I'm not sure what the Jewish counterpart or counterparts to these Christian organizations would be but they should be a part of  it. 

With our instant communications, each pastor, rabbi, priest, Bishop, Cardinal, etc... locally and nationally could easily, quickly and effectively call upon the good people of the country via the local and national media to assemble and demonstrate by their visible presence their opposition to the vile bigotry and hatred of Muslims that has gone on for far too long.  It would catch fire just as instantly as the Koran burning story did and immediately eliminate the idiot Jones from the front pages. 

Lots of preparation would not be necessary nor would lots of speeches.  Just assemble.  Be seen.  Have the religious leaders say a prayer for peace and publicly proclaim their love and affection for our muslim brothers and sisters here at home and abroad and have a minute of silence to mark the end of anti-muslim bigotry in the United States.  That is all that would be necessary.  The silence would be deafening.  Even if only a fraction of the faithful showed up on short notice there would be millions of people involved.

To highlight the point they could call on everyone to wear something green which I understand is the color of Islam.  That way, all the Muslim people around the world could literally see our solidarity with them even if they don't understand our language.

Such a thing would speak volumes and be a powerful, powerful statement on the part of our country.

It is difficult to keep people united and in harmony.  Humans are such a problematic lot.  But if, at this time, we could unite just for a short period of time around one simple idea that allows us all to say to ourselves and our neighbors that in America we reject bigotry in all its forms but specifically and especially on this day we reject religious bigotry against Muslims and will not allow a small band of criminals who attacked all our citizens of every religion to cause us to turn on one another it would be meaningful and send a powerful message around the world.  What better way could American citizens show their resolve, their unity, their committment to a brighter future for all people?

If they chose to, our religious leaders could eaisly pull this off by Saturday.  It doesn't need to be complicated.  It doesn't need to be extremely involved.  But it needs to be done and it can be done literally overnight.  This mobilization against bigotry would be a powerful statement carried around the world to our friends and enemies of just what the attitude of a huge number of Americans really is and it would put the lie to the illlusion that the idiot Jones represents our people in any significant way.

All they have to do is to call for all their members and all the other good people of the nation to go to assemble outside for the world to see them at a designated time (let's say noon on Saturday) to demonstrate to the world that the vast, silent majority of Americans reject bigotry in all it's forms but specifically we reject anti-muslim bigotry and hatred and stand fast on the side of tolerance and acceptance of all beliefs and all people.  It could, but it doesn't have to be held in one big place in each city.  It could be thousands of small places like in front of every church and temple.  It could be a mix of demonstrations large and small in places easy for people to get to where few or no special preparations would need to be made.  Imagine what it would be like if our media were reporting to the world that millions of people at tens of thousands of locations across the United States came together for the purpose of making this one simple statement: we love our muslim brothers and sisters as we love ourselves.

I would add they should invite all the muslims in their communities and honor their presence and hold their hands and put their arms around them and offer prayers of Thanksgiving for them! 

But it would take a spark to light this fire and it would have to be a spark from someone with a platform far more prominent than mine.  And it must happen very quickly.

Are you listening Mr. President? 

How about all you thousands of preachers and Bishops and Cardinals and Rabbis?

 

 

 

 

Like many of my brothers and sister workers I have been thinking a lot lately about how to stop the predator class from feasting further on the workers of the United States and I keep coming back to the same conclusion which is that we have to start organizing to fight back.  The only way workers have ever been able to win anything for themselves is by fighting and winning it on their own.  Politicians won't because they are in the thrall of the predators of the ruling class plain and simple.  They always have been and they always will be except for those times when the people join together and make clear they will not tolerate being treated like serfs and slaves any longer.

For those who say that today "the situation is hopeless, the rich have too much power, they have too much influence and we have nothing" I can only point to history and say to them respectfully but forcefully: you are wrong.

Today I was in a very small town in southern Illinois called Mount Olive.  I visited the grave of the legendary and much loved Mother Jones in the Union Miners Cemetery there.  I want to share with you some of what I saw.

 

The sign above is over the entrance to the cemetery out on the edge of town

This is the Mother Jones monument.  The oblong slab in front of it is the grave of Mother Jones herself.  There is a small concret kitten someone left on the grave as well as a couple of other small items.

This small bronze plaque is at the base of the monument at her grave and the following similar plaques are to the left and right of it:

Mother Jones was not from Mount Olive but it was her request to be buried in the Union Miners Cemetery there.  The monument makes it clear why that was her wish and serves as a reminder to us of the unheralded patriots who, by winning their own freedom secured ours as well.  It also reminds us that true freedom may be the wish of the creator for all humans, but as the great Frederick Douglass said:

"I prayed for twenty years but received no answer until I prayed with my legs."

As you look up from the very bottom of the monument's base there is a large column with a bronze relief portrait of Mother Jones and lifesize bronze miners on either side.

There are five granite tiers leading to the column.  On the top tier before the column there are bronze placques on the sides that remind us of how the freedom and dignity of working people was won in this country.  Here they are:

To the left of the monument is a small bulletin board encased in glass.  Here are some of the things in it:

(Mother Jones was a wobbly)

Follwing are some of the memorials and stones in the cemetery:

Noble C. Harry (above) was a union miner who fought in the West Virginia infantry defending the union in the Civil War.

Mr. Milonovic (above) was a union miner, apparently foreign born.  He died in 1917.

Milich Popovich, union miner.  Died in 1925.

The Berutti's a union mining family.

John Banovic, a local and national union leader

There were hundreds of graves of "good union people" in Mount Olive.  Many of them fought bitterly for the right to organize, for decent wages, and decent hours and benefits for their members.  They helped make the United Mine Workers a strong force that had to be contended with and that could not be pushed around.  Their fight was for themselves but also for us.  You can see from the dates of the killings of union people that the struggle took decades before they were recognized and they secured their dignity and freedom from wage slavery.  All of us have benefited from the literal blood, sweat and tears of these union people and their families and the thousands upon thousands of others who fought in the factories, the shipyards, on the trains, and in every workplace in America.  We owe them.  And we owe them more than simply remembering them though that is a start.  We can honor their memory by emulating their courage and their sacrifice and fighting for ourselves and our children as they did. 

They had nothing but themselves, their own courage and fortitude, but they fought and they won and that inspires me.  The time has come again for the common workers of the United States to fight against the predator class that seeks to destroy the hard won gains of our forefathers and mothers.  We cannot accept any further assault on our families whether it comes from Republicans representing the Predators or Democrats doing the same thing with a friendlier demeanor.  We cannot accept cutting social security and medicare. Period.  We must have passage of the EFCA in order to get our unions back on their feet.  Obama said it would be a top priority when he was running for President but once elected he let it die and didn't lift a finger to prevent that from happening.  We must insist on an end to the endless wars being fought for oil and empire abroad that are weakening our governments, our communities, and our economy.  We must also demand that the fruits of our labor be distributed equitably and that means a bigger share for the little people and a smaller share for the rich for the first time in 40 years!  Together, the workers of the country have tremendous power and we can put a stop to all that has gone wrong for the past several decades.  It won't be easy or quick, but each of us has a part to play and should take every opportunity to contribute to the effort to organize working people against the predator class.

"Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living!"

---Mother Jones

Above is a letter sent from Mother Jones to the miners of Mount Olive, Il to be buried with the martyrs of the massacre at Verdin. 

Here are  a couple of links for those who are interested:

About the massacre at Virden:

http://www.kentlaw.edu/ilhs/sanjuan.htm

 

http://www.lib.niu.edu/1997/ihy971202.html

 

"On October 12, 1898, Illinois miners at Virden Illinois confronted armed guards in a battle that became one of the bloodiest class conflicts in American history. This battle, part of the longer struggle to organize miners into an economic and political force, shaped the views of a generation of workers in Illinois and across the nation. It was the reason that "Mother"Jones, the famous labor heroine, is buried in Mt. Olive, along with the "martyrs" who were killed in what became known as the "Virden Massacre." In making the request to be buried with "her boys," Mother Jones sought to acknowledge that their deaths had helped to establish Illinois as one of the "strongest labor states" in the country. The mineworkers of Illinois became known as some of the most radical and contentious unionists in the country. But the heroic struggle also reinforced deep racial divisions."

Mother Jones in Mount Olive:

http://www.idaillinois.org/cgi-bin/ida/specificCollection.pl?url=mopl

 

A brief bio of Mother Jones:

http://www.kentlaw.edu/ilhs/majones.htm

 

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. 

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together. 

The President's speech last night was passable but not one that will long be remembered.  In some respects one has to wonder why he gave the speech at all.  His "for the record" claim of fulfilling his pledge to end the Iraq War by yesterday produced no great fanfare and will reap the President little by way of any political credit or reward because everyone knows that American military involvement in Iraq (a.k.a.: the war) is ongoing.  Who, after all, are they trying to kid?  Leaving 50,000 soldiers and a contingent of at least that many mercenaries and other "contractors" behind plainly means that the war is not over and likewise that the big, multi-year combat effort failed.  No amount of Washington semantic game playing can get around that reality.  Sure the "official" combat forces are gone but the end of the American military mission is not over as long as the American military remains on Iraqi soil.  What we have is a partial withdrawal of American forces from Iraq.  And that's not much to crow about.  Making matters worse, this nation will not be able to sustain decades of US military presence in that country as it has in Korea which is the example many DC types are offering now about how we should proceed in Iraq.

It was an awkwardly written speech which in itself was a disservice to the President, that tried to make a number of points, some fairly complicated, and  few of the details are likely to have much political impact or really sink in with the general public.  The speech just didn't work well either on the policy or the political levels.  As such it did not put the President in a very good light and he doesn't stand to benefit much at all from it which is why it's reasonable to wonder why the White House thought it was a good idea to make this particular Oval Office speech to begin with.

The President obviously continues to be afflicted with a malady that many Washington, DC Democrats have come down with and don't appear to be able to get over and that is trying to serve two masters whose interests are opposed to one another in an attempt to avoid having to clearly favor one over the other.  This is a course often chosen by DC Democratic legislators because in the legislative arena the compromises that often work best for the politicians are those that give at least something to everybody.   Typically the powerful take the lion's share of any "compromise" and the people's interests are thrown a bone or two so it looks like predatory wealth isn't 100% in charge.  It allows the politicians to claim to have made progress whether or not it is real or illusory.  I've often noted that both the President and the congressional Democrats are having an increasingly difficult, if not impossible time, carrying this act off anymore.  Fewer people buy that song and dance with each passing day.  What worked fairly well in more prosperous times no longer works well at all during a time of major crises and watershed events such as those we're experiencing at this time in our history.  "Compromises" wherein the predators get 95% and the people get 5% of the benefits are insulting when 20 million or more cannot find suitable work, and 6 million have lost their homes to foreclosure in the past two years.

It was to some degree heartening to know the President understands that our wildly irresponsible approach to the two wars of the past 10 years is unsustainable.  It was clear from his remarks that he "gets" that the binge of war spending begun so foolishly by Bush and cheered on by many DC Democrats has severely crippled our ability to recover from the economic debacle that was allowed to develop in the Bush years, that we cannot continue to engage in such adventures in the future and hope to recover economically, and that the middle class is threatened by our government's neglect of needs here at home for many years. 

But unfortunately, instead of making a clean break with the failed approach of DC, Bush and his enablers in the mythical war on terror by actually getting our military out of that country for good, Obama chooses to keep one foot in and move one foot out of Iraq whilst simultaneously planning to recreate the very same failed scenario in Afghanistan.  Yes it is true, this is what he indicated in his campaign he would do, but he was wrong then and keeping a large army and a huge number of mercenaries and others in Iraq is wrong now.  The President's attempt at playing King Solomon on every issue is getting old and stale.  You can't split the difference in every situation and get a favorable policy outcome.  You just can't.  In fact, that approach has only limited utility at best.  Every problem and policy isn't the same and it is often necessary to take different approaches to different problems.  Yet on every major policy initiative Obama apparently prefers taking exactly the same plodding, indecisive, compromising approach that gives a little to everyone, satisfies no one, and does nothing to strengthen either the President's political position or actually solve the problem at hand.

This muddled approach is neither the pragmatic approach the cheerleaders of corporate centrist policies claim nor is it effective.  Instead, it is an avoidance of facing the real and difficult issues that must be confronted if the nation is to meet the challenges the President mentioned in his speech.  It's extremely ironic that he should pursue a policy that only prolongs the day of reckoning as opposed to showing some real strength and leadership now.  And because this policy approach is neither in nor out, but somewhere in the middle, there's no political dividend for the President or his party.  His effort at giving credit to Bush only emboldens and energizes his enemies in the Republican Party, something the President appears completely unable to realize.  Why the President continues to do this, what he hopes to gain, after the repeated and very public failure of his conciliatory efforts with the Republicans is difficult to comprehend.  At this juncture, if he still believes this nonstarter of an approach can still work then he's in deep, deep denial.  One wonders how many times a pit bull would have to bite the President in the face before he came to the realization that the dog means him harm, cannot and should not be befriended?

The President would be much better off and needless to say, so would America, if he would admit his split the difference approach is a failure (which it clearly is) and start choosing to lead in a clear direction instead of waiting for his sworn enemies to join him in a national unity effort that exists only in his own mind.

The idea of keeping an army in Iraq for decades at permanent bases is just as unsustainable as the idea of continuing the war for decades and illustrates well why he and the Democrats can no longer successfully attempt to serve two masters.   In the case of Iraq the President wants to, but simply cannot have it both ways.  It is particularly difficult for him to try and take this approach when it is quite obvious that the surge "strategy" failed in Iraq.  The government is not stable; there have been few, if any, permanent or sustainable agreements reached between the various factions vying for power and so on.  The political breathing room the surge was intended to create which would then allow bargains to be struck never materialized and looks no closer to becoming a reality anytime soon than it did 5 years ago.  The corrupt and incompetent government we installed in Iraq is unlikely to change its character anytime soon.  The likelihood of a stable, popular government eventually emerging at some distant, unknown point in the future from the havoc we have wreaked upon Iraq is low to say the least.  Clearly we are leaving Iraq and her people in a worse state than when we invaded.  Our ongoing presence, far from helping will keep the pot boiling.

So the bottom line is that despite the official end of combat operations, the armed forces and associated organizations and people we have left behind will continue to engage in battle though less frequently and drain huge amounts of resources from our own urgent national needs for many years to come.  This only ensures that our government's ongoing response to the severe crises we face at home of unemployment, foreclosures, climate change and reducing our dependence on oil just to name a few will be hampered at best. 

Limiting our military involvement in Iraq is, of course, only the tip of the iceberg.  The fact is, America can no longer afford to continue to spend unlimited amounts of money annually on an imperial war machine that is bleeding our economy white, destabilizing whole regions of the world and consequently making our citizenry less safe with each passing day.  Rather than keeping us safe as the President continues to claim, our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan are actually weakening US national security.  Our military interventions in the Islamic world, according the Pentagon itself, fuels the recruiting efforts of groups like Al Qaeda and actually breeds more terrorists.  Thus, our doubling down military strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan is a self defeating one to say the least.

Clearly the way to address the problem of terrorism is the approach the left has been calling for now for decades in response to the ongoing problems we have seen all over the globe for decades.  It always rates an honorable mention in the speeches but is never given enough resources to be credibly implemented anywhere.   That approach is to start addressing the legitimate needs and aspirations of the people all around the world in ways that are meaningful to them.  We know this approach works because it worked so incredibly well with the Marshall Plan in Europe after World War II.  This isn't even debatable.  We know for certain this approach works.  We also know just as certainly what our record of war fighting has been since the end of World War II and that is a record dominated by stalemate, failure, endless expenses for weapons systems that never pay any return on investment and a massive weakening of our civilian economic power.  It is in many ways as simple as this: people who are well clad, well housed, and well fed, that have jobs that pay well enough to support their families, who have the opportunity to educate their children, get medical care when needed, live their lives in peace and worship their Creator (or not) according to their own conscience generally speaking, do not tend to become terrorists.  People whose villages, towns and cities are invaded and wherein the infrastructure of civilization is disabled, wrecked or destroyed, whose families, kinsmen, neighbors and countrymen are being killed, maimed, and menaced by foreign armies are a whole helluva lot more likely to turn to terrorism.  Despite the self evident truth of this, our nation's imperial war machine demands more time, more resources, more lives, more blood whether or not we have enemies that warrant all that and if they don't they will find new enemies for us to fear and for them to fight.   Though this dance long ago became completely unjustifiable our political leaders in the Democratic Party have not the courage to say this must come to a halt as soon as possible because of the fear they may be called weak by a genuinely extremist Republican Party's refusal to act responsibly and in the nation's best interest.  This is the definition of a corrupt system that requires massive, dramatic changes.  That is the campaign promise the President made that the people want to see him keep though it is readily apparent now he will not try to keep it.

It is important to remember that our truly vast and mighty military, with more resources and capability than any nation has ever possessed in the history of the world didn't keep us safe on September 11, 2001.  When the moment of truth came and we actually needed our military to protect us they failed in the most tragic, costly and spectacular way imaginable.  The mass violence of our subsequent military campaigns in Islamic countries and the concomitant destruction of humanity and property that necessarily accompany such actions have done absolutely nothing to protect us since then either. In fact, the opposite it true.  We are worse off today, in terms of our national security as a result of these military blunders.  Instead of destroying the terrorists we have bred more of them.  The invasion and occupation we carried out in Iraq only enhanced the power of Iran in the Middle East and weakened America's strategic position in the entire region.  Neither the American nor the Iraqi people are better off as a result of the reckless, illegal invasion of Iraq.  We have exhausted our military, spent close to a trillion dollars borrowed from foreign lenders in the bargain which we must now repay, had thousands of our soldiers killed, tens of thousands wounded, maimed and permanently traumatized, as well as having killed in excess of 100,000 Iraqis and wounded, maimed and traumatized vast uncounted numbers of them.

After approximately 60 years of being at war or preparing for war, the United States of America's ability to continue to sustain a healthy civilian economy alongside a malignant and metastasizing permanent war economy is over.  The continued growth of the permanent war economy has a direct proportional negative impact on the civilian economy.  This pernicious effect was previously hidden by the fact that our civilian economy was so large.  But now, our civilian economy, already weakened by over half a century of war and preparation for war has collapsed and a significant portion of our production capacity and our jobs have disappeared with little or no hope of a return of their previous vitality.  The consequence today of failing to significantly scale back our imperial war machine with all its exotic (and often useless) weapons is the continued and accelerating deterioration of our civilian economy the health of which our domestic prosperity and stability depend.  The consequences of continuing to neglect the real, productive civilian economy is continued contraction and eventual disappearance of the middle class, continuing deterioration in the quality of life enjoyed by common Americans, an ever expanding gulf between the haves in our society and a rapidly growing ocean of have nots. 

Though the political and business elite do not like to call it by it's true name, the result of Bush's twin military and economic debacles has caused an economic depression for the first time since the 1930's that constitutes a national emergency far more threatening to our people and way of life than the mythical war on terror.  The depression is unlikely to end anytime soon unless dramatic measures are taken to preserve and expand the jobs available to our people.  And that is where it becomes clear why attempting to please two masters will no longer work for our people anymore than it will work politically for the President or the Democrats in DC.  The interests of the military industrial complex are diametrically in opposition to the interests of the vast majority of citizens of the United States.  The continued growth of the military in the future will literally suck the life out of the civilian economy.  As the economy weakens further the military industrial complex will require and ever increasing share of an economic pie that is shrinking.  If this is allowed to occur the nation we become will look nothing like the nation we were and thought we would become.

We know there is no hope of Republican politicians doing the right thing.  They won't.  The time has come for the Democratic Party to demonstrate some courage and leadership.  Our elected officials and candidates must now choose whose interests they will serve: the people's interest or the interests of predatory wealth.  The time has come for us to face the fact that as it was in Lincoln's time so too is it true today that our house cannot long stand divided against itself.  The nation cannot serve the military industrial complex and the needs and aspirations of our people here at home.  The interests of the one are opposed to the other.  It is no longer acceptable to insist on splitting the difference and continuing the orgy of defense spending that has taken place not just in the past 10 years but in the past 60 years!  For too long the nation has delayed addressing the educational, health, employment, infrastructure, environmental and other needs of the people in the name of defending the world first against communism and now for the past 10 years the vastly overhyped threat of terrorism.  We did far more than was necessary to contain communism much to the detriment of our nation and we have gone completely over the edge to defend against the sometimes real but more often imagined threat of terrorism in the present.  We are now spending more on "defense" than we did during World War II as a proportion of our economy*.  Consider how absurd that is when the President's own national security advisor admits there are less than 200 Al Qaeda members in Afghnistan.  Less than 200 and we have deployed nearly 200,000 soldiers and that number again in mercenaries and "contractors."  It is not only unjustifiable it is insane. So long as the President and the Democratic politicians in DC refuse to be decisive on this issue we will continue to see the sort of uninspiring, even disappointing speeches the President gave us last night wherein our own economic prospects continue growing dim for want of investment while our national wealth is squandered on the failed path of military solutions to diplomatic, economic and social problems around the globe.

 

*Correction: This is not what I meant to say.  I should have said we are spending more now on defense than at any time since World War II... not as a proportion of our economy.  Defense spending skyrocketed from $295 Billion in the final budget year of the Clinton administration to $708 Billion as requested by DOD for FY 11.  The US now spends more on defense annually than almost all the other nations on earth combined.  Repeat: we spend more than almost all the other countries on earth COMBINED on defense spending. One might find that a slightly excessive amount given that there is no major threat from any nation on the horizon and the terrorists we are now so obsessively preoccupied with number a few thousand at best.

 

"When facism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross."

                                                                           Sinclair Lewis

 

 

 

 

David Duke (above) circa 1979-80

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once again our dumbass Democratic officials get snookered by the cheapest and most rank tactics GOP strategists can come up with on, of all things, a local zoning matter in New York City.  That's all this really is and all it ever should have been.

Here's what Republican pros know and Dumbass Democratic alleged pros cannot grasp: the best way to make your opponent look bad is to work and rework the oldest cheap tactic in the book which is the time honored "when did you stop beating your wife?" question.  That's all this fake "issue" distracting the media and the dumbass Democrats is.  Everyone knows that if you respond to that false accusation directly there is no good response and you look like a wife beater.  Right?  Right.  So the best way to respond to the tactic is not to get sucked into a discussion of wife beating but by pointing out that your cowardly opponent doesn't want to talk about the real issues so he/she is making this up so people won't be reminded that he/she is for everything the voters are against and so on.

Republicans understand the purpose of this tactic is simply to distract the media and the opposition and thus the voters too by focusing their time and attention on an irelevant topic that is easy for the uninformed and ignorant to form an instant, ignorant and uninformed opinion on.  Truth, facts, religious liberty, motherhood, whatever... none of that is important because this is a tactic and as long as it works to distract then that is all that matters. 

When they are able to manufacture such distractions it keeps voters from noticing that the Republican Party continues to support all the policies that destroyed our economy, led to nearly 20 million Americans losing their jobs, that has caused over 6 million families to lose their homes to foreclosure, nearly bankrupted the national treasury with an irresponsible policy of tax cuts for the rich and unlimited spending on war, committed the nation to a pointless, illegal, and extremely costly war in Iraq that is still going on despite the declaration of a formal end to combat there, etc.  That is all this is about folks: creating a diversion.  Republicans understand this quite well.  And once again, this cheap, tawdry "When did you stop beating your wife?" tactic has worked splenidly for them.  If they can keep people talking about nothing... things that don't matter... things that aren't even real... then their chances in the fall are improved because the last thing they want anyone talking about is how the two parties and their candidates compare and what their vision for the country is.

This idiotic nonissue interlude in the campaign season demonstrates very, very clearly that the dumbass national Democrats of DC have learned absolutly nothing over the past 40 years despite the fact that the Republicans do this each and every election cycle.  It's worse than Lucy convincing the gullible and naive Charlie Brown to take one more go at kicking the football.  And it is quintessentially important for everyone to understand that the sole reason the Republicans are so very successful at this is 100% a result of the Democrats' failure to learn how to deal with this, adapt and respond effectively.  It is the Democrats stupidity and incompetent political strategy that continues to enable the electoral success of Republicans even as Republicans continue to grow more and more unpopular with a wider segment of the public.  It isn't because Republicans are particularly smart or even good at this stuff.  They aren't.  But, as this situation has so clearly shown us, Democrats make Republican pros look good by being so ineffective and incompetent and by always reacting and never, ever taking the initiative by forcefully going after the Republicans and making them react.  The miracle of the past 40 years is not that Republicans have dominated a nation that fundamentally disagrees with them on the most important issues, but that Democrats even continue to exist as a viable party given their impotence as campaigners and how ineffective they are in either communicating with the voters or defending their positions.

So if what they do never works, how should Democrats respond to idiotic, non-issue distractions like the Mosque that isn't a Mosque at all but a community center?  Easy.  You come out swinging and you don't allow yourself OR the media to get off track obsessing about a meaningless nonissue.  You relentlessly stick to your position and refuse to take the bait and start talking about wife beating for any reason.  Keep in mind, this isn't about an issue.  It's purely tactical.  It's about obfuscating the important issues and nothing else.  Democrats should be responding by saying very clearly and forcefully something like this or some variation of this kind of tactical response:

"I'm running for Congress in (fill in the state whether NY or IL or MT, whatever) and zoning issues in New York City have nothing to do with my district or putting the people in my district back to work.  My opponenet doesn't want to talk about how the Republican policies during the Bush years nearly destroyed our economy, he doesn't want us to talk about how he supports doing nothing to create jobs other than provide more tax cuts for the rich.  We have 10% unemployment in my district/state.  That's a serious issue we need to address.  I'll let New York City make it's own zoning decisions.  I'm not going to be distracted from the issues that are important to my constituents and my district because the Republicans don't want to answer for the damage they've done to this country with their irresponsible and failed policies."

That is the sort of response that Democrats should have instantly rebutted this cheap tactic with.  It is the response they should be giving to every inquiry about the Mosque that isn't a Mosque and any other variant of this tactic that comes down the pike.  This isn't rocket science of course.  Plenty of people understand political tactics and strategy and what it takes to be effective in that arena.  Apparently though, very few of those people are among the exalted consultant class of the dumbass DC Democrats or Democratic elected officials in DC.

The leadership of the party should have instantly communicated that message discipline is absolutely essential on this matter and that all Democrats from the White House on down should respond with one voice.  They should have literally written it down and handed it to them, distributed it to their staffers, made copies available to everyone in the media and never depart from that message.  That's what Republicans do when (mostly by accident) Democrats stumble upon issues that put them in the undesirable position of having no good response and it has served them well.  Our side could do it too, but our side doesn't like strong leaders willing to instill discipline and courage.  The dumbass DC Democrats like weak leaders who will allow them to do as they please, when they please.  Just look at the people who have led the Democrats in Congress since about 1980 and you'll see what I'm talking about. 

It's a tactic and the response needs to be tactical.  It isn't about freedom of religion folks though we lefties and liberals like to focus on that and go on and on about it.  I'm not saying that the lefty/liberal position on this is wrong at all because it isn't.  My entire point is that this is a tactical and a strategic problem and not one of substance.  Democrats' failure to respond tactically is their downfall time and again.  Despite understanding that the issue is a tactical move designed to distract, too many Democrats insist on responding ineffectively instead of with a tactical response.  Instead they always, always, always seem to get suckered into a perfectly proper, intellectually defensible response that plays right into the hands of the Republicans because it focuses everyone in both parties and the media and consequently the voters too, on a matter of absolutely no consequence in terms of the issues facing the nation and puts the Democrats in the position of making themselves look bad in the eyes of a huge swath of ill-informed and essentially bigoted voters who don't understand the issue.  Yes, those voters are wrong on this issue but Democrats need a large share of those voters in order to win elections and with less than 90 days to go before voting takes place is not the time to try and educate people on freedom of religion.  There's no time for that.  We need to be talking about jobs and putting people back to work and saving their homes from foreclosure and so on.  It is, strategically speaking, foolish and destructively self indulgent for Democrats to respond in such a disunified and ineffective manner.

Republicans, unlike Democrats, understand and accept that campaigns are about voter manipulation and marketing when it's all said and done.  It is not about the high minded, lofty issues of religious freedom or liberty or being liked and accepted or anything else like doing a good job running the government.  It's about convincing more consumers to buy your product on election day. Period.  End of story.  The Republicans are selling a product that looks bad, tastes bad, smells bad and is bad for the country's health.  They know that.  So how do they sell their shitty product?  Simple.  They convince the consumers that even though they don't like the Republican product, the Democrats' product looks worse, tastes worse, smells worse and is worse for the health of the country even though that is a demonstrable lie.  The Republicans have no desire at all to be liked.  They have no respect for and make no effort to hide their contempt for the intelligence of the American people and the average citizen particularly.  They never hesitate to do anything that is to their immediate advantage regardless of the long term prospects for their party or their country.  It's all about who is going to buy Republican on election day in November of this year and nothing else.  Once you get elected you just do as you please and if asked about what you're doing you lie if necessary.  That's their m.o.  I'm not saying Democrats should adopt the Republican approach in toto.  I'm advocating that Democrats learn about how to effectively implement campaign tactics and in that respect they have a whole helluva lot to learn from Republicans and they can do that without adopting the most disgraceful and disreputable Republican characteristics.

If you take a look at how this whole thing has unfolded you can see this nonissue was actually fading out and the last embers were smoldering and about to die when Obama "did the right thing" and came out in defense of religious liberty for all.  I agree with him.  I think his position was correct.  But I also think it was tactically the worst thing he could have done and the evidence is that when he did so he breathed new life into that final dying ember and ever since, the keystone cops of the Democratic Party in Washington have been falling all over themselves helping the Republican effort to distract via their usual failure to have any sort of intelligent, unified, tactical response.  Instead we get a smorgasboard of the usual, embarassing Democratic antics motivated in large part by what appears to be the primary response of Democrats to everything: fear.  Some of them just immediately head for the hills and hide.  Others quickly come out for religious freedom and then pretty soon flip flop saying they think the Mosque that isn't planned and won't happen shouldn't be at ground zero in attempt to protect themselves even at the price of humiliating and debasing themselves.  Still others immediately chicken out and sign up for the Republican distraction program assuming that means the tactic won't hurt them which, of course, will be the case for some but not others depending upon how long the dumbass Democrats let this go on.  Others fuel the Republican wife beating fire by coming out eloquently and at length about our heritage of religious liberty and so on which is correct, just fine as a graduate school seminar topic and totally ineffective at responding to this political move on a tactical and strategic plane with the wider voting public.  They fumble, they stumble, they fail to communicate coherently or decisvely with the public.  All the while the villains profit, bigotry is allowed to puff itself up as righteousness and the Democrats assist the Republicans in selling their stinky, rotten, toxic product to the American people.

America deserves better, but even more so, the countless millions of regular Democrats who pull their hair out every two years over the failure of the dumbass DC Democrats to at least put up a good fight against the Republicans continue to be frustrated and ignored and shut out.

Will they ever learn?  If history is any guide: no. 

You have probably read this document before, but not for a very long time.  Take a few minutes and read it today.  You will be glad you did.

For at least the first 150 years of our nation's independence from the British Empire, the primary means of celebration of the day all over the nation was to gather in a public place and listen to the words of the Declaration of Independence read for all to hear and to contemplate.  They were wise to do it then.  We would be wise to do it now as it reminds us of the basic purpose of government which is not to mediate disputes between powerful interests, nor is it to allocate spoils to one's supporters and to industrial and financial interests aligned with particular political parties. 

The purpose of government is to effect the safety and happiness of THE PEOPLE.  And it is from the consent of the governed alone that all government derives its just powers and legitimacy.  The consent of the governed, not of the corporations, not of the wealthy, not of the powerful: the consent of the people.

hen in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. -- That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, -- That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. -- Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. -- And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

-- John Hancock

New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland:
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

The President delivered a speech tonight.  Perhaps you saw it?

Thud!

He told us all what we already know: that the Deepwater Horizon "spill" is the worst enviornmental disaster in our history.

Thud!

He told us that in this matter he will appoint some people to look into it all and find out why this disaster happened (something just about everyone on earth already knows the answer to) and he'll have the Secretary of the Navy come up with some sort of recovery plan... sometime... soon... I promise. 

Thud!

He told us that we have faced difficulties before and we have somehow survived and moved on to greater things even though we didn't know how the hell we were gonna do it, uh, kinda like in this case...

Thud!

He said he's gonna ask BP to put some money in escrow to take care of "all legitmate claims".

Thud!

He admitted the information he got along the way upon which he based his ill advised decision to allow more offshore drilling along the east coast was inadequate and that we're gonna keep studying until we know we can do this safely (something in truth we really cannot do).

Thud!

He rehashed the now familiar point that our oil addiction is what is behind this disaster and that unless and until we do what we have failed to for 30 years we invite even more disaster.  He said that it was not only oil lobbyists but a lack of political will and courage that have kept us from taking any real and effective action to move toward alternative fuels and sustainable energy.

Thud!

He told us that the House passed an energy bill that was not passed in the senate and that his alternative energy intiatives will "someday" help us.

Thud!

He said, as he always says about every subject, that he was all ears and would listen to proposals from both sides of the aisle on what we should do about all this.

Thud!

And finally, after weeks of a nation's desperate and frustrated cries for action, action, action and with a cacophony of calls for real leadership on moving us away from oil and toward wind, solar, and water energy, the President proposed nothing new.  Nothing new.  No urgent initiative.  No bold plan.  The President of the United States didn't ask for any immediate action from the Congress on anything.  Our President, the head of state of the greatest nation on earth, Commander in Chief of a military and economic collosus unparalleled in human history, and Chief Executive of the Federal Government of the United States failed utterly to rise to the occasion and lead at the very moment strong, visionary leadership is most desperately needed.

Thud!

 

A recent secret decision by a federal judge to grant a petition for habeus corpus was declassified and made public for all to see.  The decision makes clear what an aberrant and odious policy the United States continues to pursue in it's entirely misguided efforts to circumvent our centuries old legal traditions by denying any sort of due process or honest legal proceedings to those alleged to have any kind of tie to the all powerful bogey man that has replaced communism in our national life: Al Qaeda.

The young man whose petition was granted was held at Gitmo for 8 years without charges or any recourse until finally he got a hearing before a judge.  Turns out the government had no case at all for holding this young man.  No case at all.  Not even a plausible excuse of a case.  And our President supports this sort of banana republic style process of indefinite detainment and maintains this policy.  Before the usurpations of the Bush years, Americans were always previously taught that only tyrants and despots would detain people without charges indefinitely.  We were pointedly taught that in nations like ours that believe in the rule of law and not of men, everyone, regardless of who they are or the crime they've been accused of, is granted the due process of law like anyone else.  It sickens me to think that in Obama's America that is no longer true.  One can see that an arrogant dunce like Bush would attempt to usurp despotic power, but Obama promised he would reverse those actions and restore the rule of law and put an end to indefinite detention with charges.

To the chagrin of every citizen who believes in the rule of law and the Constitution, President Obama reversed himself and instead has kept the odious and unAmerican policies in place from the Bush years virtually unchanged.  He has adopted them as his own, binding not only himself, but also the Democratic Party to the lawlessness and despotism first declared by the criminal Bush/Cheney regime for 2001-2009. 

The Constitution could not be clearer on the question of habeus corpus:

 

The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.

 

It is long past the time when this President should apologize for flip flopping on the issue of the rule of law and to start obeying the Constitution which states very plainly that habeus corpus will NOT be suspended except in time of insurrection or invasion.  There are no exceptions.  There is no other way to interpret the law.  There is no insurrection in the United States and there has been no invasion.  The policy of holding persons without charges and denying them right to habeus corpus is illegal and flatly unConstituional.

Here's is the unambigious and frankly, embarassing conclusion of the decision by Judge Henry H. Kennedy, Jr. which ought to be damning enough for this President to reverse his foolish and illegal policy of holding people without charges indefinitely:

C. Conclusion

Respondents have kept a young man from Yemen in detention in Cuba from age eighteen to age twenty-six. They have prevented him from seeing his family and denied him the opportunity to complete his studies and embark on a career. The evidence before the Court shows that holding Odaini in custody at such great cost to him has done nothing to make the United States more secure. There is no evidence that Odaini has any connection to Al Qaeda. Consequently, his detention is not authorized by the AUMF. The Court therefore emphatically concludes that Odaini's motion must be granted.

III. CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, Odaini's petition for a writ ofhabeas corpus shall be granted. An appropriate order accompanies this memorandum opinion.

May 26, 2010

 You can read the full decision by going here:

http://static1.firedoglake.com/28/files/2010/06/100526-Odaini.pdf

 

Of all the bullshit lies we've seen justifying our unjustifiable imperialist wars in the Muslim world the latest lie being trotted out is, in my opinion, the most absurd and transparently lacking in any credibility whatsoever.  Every lie and deception from the Viet Nam era has now been tried again only this time with an Iranian or other Muslim face instead of being the fault of the nefarious and endlessly powerful and tricky communists of old.  Nowadays we have a new lie to contend with: the endlessly nefarious, powerful and tricky Muslims!  They've just taken the old anti-commie template of lies and propaganda and placed it over the Islamic world so they can forever continue their bloodletting, death and destruction.  How sick!  How criminal!  And all those who do not make an open stand against such criminal behavior by our government are, via their passivity, approving it.

It is time for people to rise up and openly oppose these outrageous lies and provocations the government and our military are cranking up against Iran to get us into yet another disasterous war against the Islamic world.  There simply is no excuse, no reason and no cause for US military action against Iran.  None. 

The bullshit lie that Iran is now training and supplying the Taliban has to be one of the more desperate and idiotic lies the military has trotted out for the consumption of the stenography corps, oh, uh, I mean the media. Let's see now if the corporate US media will shill for the drumbeat of war against Iran as they did for the other two assinine and pointless Bush wars.  How ironic that Obama would be such a weakling that he would allow himself to become so manipulated as to become the President who finally attacked Iran. 

If the militarists and other desperate imperialists get their way and we go to war with Iran it will be the death knell for the United States and the republic our forefathers fought so long and hard to establish and maintain.  It is our obligation to do all in our power to fight to preserve it.  The first step is to oppose any further wars against the Muslim world based upon the sort of lies we see McChrystal so boldly asserting in the media.  At least when they were cooking up excuses for war during the Cold War there was a plausible threat in the form of the Soviet Union.  But Iran?  The Muslim world?  What unconscionable and obvious lies!

Here is the lede of the piece running on Yahoo news right now:

General McChrystal Says Afghan Insurgents Trained In Iran

KABUL (Reuters) - Afghan insurgents are being trained inside Iran and given weapons to fight security forces, the commander of U.S. and NATO forces said on Sunday, joining a rising drumbeat of criticism of Iran's role in the country.

General Stanley McChrystal said coalition forces were working to stop Iran from giving material help to the Taliban who have stepped up the campaign to force foreign forces out of Afghanistan in a nine-year conflict.

"The training that we have seen occurs inside Iran with fighters moving inside Iran," he said at a news conference in response to a question on Iran's influence. "The weapons that we have received come from Iran into Afghanistan."

You can find the rest of this pack of lies here:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/us_afghanistan_iran

 

 

Climate change threatens the very existence of the human civilization it has taken 5,000 years for us and our ancestors to build.  We have already gone beyond the point where any "easy" fixes are out of the question.  If we began doing right this instant, today, what we need to do to halt and reverse global warming and the climate change it brings, we would not see the effects for a hundred or more years.  The corrosion and destruction of our environment will continue apace as the glaciers melt, oceans rise, the wildlife on land in the sea and the air perishes, species go extinct, the weather changes, the deserts grow and the forests disappear all over the world.

I have written more than once that if we choose not to do what is necessary today to reverse the climate change problem that all other issues become merely academic questions.  The very possibility that we might kill all future generations of humanity and the magnificent other life forms we share this planet with, including the planet itself as a living organism is the greatest imaginable sin.  Though it may be that other life exists "out there" in the universe we are only sure that life exists here on this impossibly beautiful blue ball sailing guiltlessly through the cosmos.

The universe has bestowed upon humanity the greatest possible gift in this planet's environment upon which all our existence, that of our ancestors and that of our posterity depend each and every moment and forever.  How is it that we continue to rape and destroy it?  The ongoing cataclysm in the gulf demonstrates quite clearly how the madness of the ruling classes in pursuit of wealth are risking more and more life on earth to obtain profits.  Is there any sicker, more perverted reason for destruction of the planet than that?

The source of life on our planet is the environment made possible through the energy provided by the Sun and the conditions it makes possible.  By poisoning the atmosphere, the water and the land we are also eliminating the protections our environment has provided for countless eons from the Sun itself.  The same life giving energy the Sun provides can also bake our planet and all life on earth to a crisp.

It is our generation's responsibility to raise the alarm, to demand action, to make sacrifices if necessary but to act as quickly as possible to stop the sacrificing of the future of the world and that of our own descendants on the altar of greater profit for a tiny few.  Alternatives to fossil fuels exist.  If need be, the capitalist imperative of ever accelerating profits must be reigned in, our lives will have to change, our expectation of convenience and luxury must change.  We must ensure this happens.  If we do not, we are, in effect, reaching out into the future, grabbing the future of humanity by the throat and killing it.  We cannot allow this to be so.  If the oil spill teaches us anything it is that our dependence upon fossil fuels is not worth the destruction it causes and that we must do whatever is necessary to turn our backs on it for the sake of our planet.

Think of what will be lost in the future if we fail in our obligation.  And make no mistake: we will lose much of what we have taken for granted and that we inherited from our ancestors but we will be among the last to pass on.  I think of this every time I go outside and observe the beauty of nature even in the city I call home where nature is long subdued.  When I am in the countryside and see the natural beauty of the land and life on the land I am in awe.  I traveled to Ohio recently and took some pictures of some of the beauty I observed along the way.  Following are a few of the photos I took.  Look at them and think about how in a century these scenes will no longer exist if we fail to act and what a crime it would be to rob our descendants of this natural beauty and bounty through our failure to focus and act on this supremely important issue.

Rural Illinois

Rural Illinois

Rural Ohio

rural Ohio

rural Ohio

A gorgeous lake in rural Ohio

rural Ohio

rural Ohio

 

 

 

IT IS TIME TO ACT!