Vision

George Orwell Was an Optimist

Dec 08

The NSA is spying on everyone and there is no privacy. The government lies about who it spies on, the things they look at and who has access to all that information. Although the NSA is minimally limited by law in what its spooks can do without a warrant from a FISA court, even then they routinely ignore the requirements of the law and instead spy with impunity on anyone and anything they like. When the NSA does go to court for a warrant, only the government’s case is presented – there is no challenge to its claims – so the FISA court approves NSA requests more than 99% of the time. And there is next to no congressional oversight exercised over the FISA court, much less over the NSA. Nobody is watching the watchers.

We enacted laws to protect whistle blowers, because we want to encourage citizens to call out wrong-doing and wrong-doers. Then we routinely shame and humiliate the whistle blowers, calling them traitors, spies and quite a few other names that would be expected if they came from a 12-year-old brat on a playground. We also end the careers and prosecute those same whistle blowers, this in order to discourage others from blowing whistles, lest actual wrongdoing be cast in sunlight and we expose the nefarious behavior of legislators and bureaucrats.

It may be comforting to say, “I obey the laws so I don’t care about the ubiquitous snooping,” but that myopic and self-focused attitude is, well, myopic and self-focused, even to the point of self-destruction. Today they may be coming for the neighbor whom you don’t care about, but they will be at your door tomorrow and you will be presumed guilty. Not officially, of course. It’s just the way things will happen. Who will stand up for you?

Shift for a moment to something that may seem to be a separate topic. I promise that it is not.

I’ve been saying for years that we still haven’t learned all the lessons of our war in Vietnam. We intruded there on someone else’s civil war, arguably on the wrong side, and stayed involved for almost ten years, leaving the imprint on US history of this being the first war we lost. The stated reason for our intrusion was a lie – fighting the Communists there instead of in Kansas – and we further excused our invasion by claiming an attack on a US Navy ship, but that attack never happened. The war took over 58,000 American lives and well over a million Vietnamese lives.

The one lesson of the war in Vietnam that politicians did learn is that they could not wage dishonest wars by means of a military draft. That was made clear by mass demonstrations during that vastly unpopular war. So, the draft is gone, replaced now by a volunteer military supplemented by civilian “contractors.” That word does not mean plumbers and carpenters. It means mercenary armies and ours are accountable to no one and they kill with impunity.

Fast forward to 2003 when we inserted ourselves into Iraq for two lies – non-existent WMD’s and Saddam’s non-existent ties to al Qaeda – and we stayed there nearly nine years. That took over 4,500 American lives and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives. It also teed up an Iraq civil war that continues today with no end in sight. The killing goes on.

There was just a handful of al Qaeda terrorists who attacked America. In order to bring them to justice “dead or alive” we sent battalions of our troops to Afghanistan to wage war on that entire country in 2001. As of this writing, we’re still making war there, with tens of thousands of people dead – nobody has a clue exactly how many – and over 4,000 “on our side” dead. It is not clear if the US will win this war, since the goals have shifted repeatedly. The original goal was the elimination of al Qaeda. Then it shifted to the removal of the Taliban from power in Afghanistan. Neither of those goals will be fully met. In fact, it is not clear what will be achieved. However, it is clear that we will have a very long term involvement there, well past the oft-declared 2014 “end of combat operations” date.

What these three wars have in common are:

Each was started under false pretenses – i.e., lies. Not mistakes. Lies.
The goal posts were in constant motion.
A lot of troops were wounded or killed without ever knowing what they had served.
A lot of civilian contractors became extremely wealthy.
A lot of politicians won office and stayed there thanks to contributions from wealthy war materiel contractors.

The real question is why all of that happens and that “why” is the connector between unbridled spying and endless war. It is about pills.

We as a people have accepted that the solution to our problems can be found in a pill. The biggest selling pharmaceuticals in America are psychotropics – Zoloft, Ambien and the rest. We are, to some degree, a continent of zombies. We cope by means of decreased sensitivity to what goes on around us. That’s good for Big Pharma. Not so good for the rest of us.

“Pill,” of course, is a placeholder for all the ways we disengage, tune out. It includes the vague assumption that someone else will step up and handle the situation or that our little contribution won’t make a difference, a key rationalization for why only 37% of eligible voters will show up to vote on November 4, 2014.

We as a people have been fed such a torrential river of lies, false innuendo, public stupidity and hollow promises for so long that we no longer believe in our government and we have dropped out. Indeed, public trust in government is at 19% and falling. We don’t engage with the things that fail to poke through the tough barrier of our own narrow vision. That lets those in power get away with making laws that promote terrible things, breaking laws on a whim and without consequences and with waging dishonest wars for decades. We are treated with sleight of hand so that we do not focus on the official unpatriotic actions and instead are exhorted with disingenuous pleas to “support our troops,” as though that is the only worthy test of patriotism.

If you and I don’t all drop back in soon, all of that will continue until you have no privacy, no freedom and no safety at all.

George Orwell was an optimist.

It Is Time

Nov 24

It has been 50 years, so the shock is gone, of course. The grief has passed for some and lingered for others, but the sense of loss remains palpable for most of us who remember. It was a loss of hope and of innocence for an entire generation and the blinding of a dream of something lofty.

All of us of a certain age remember where we were and what we were doing when we learned what had happened. We stayed glued to the the tube for days and our vocabulary was irrevocably altered by that day. Indeed, the term “grassy knoll” now means only one place on Earth. “School book depository” is a term for use solely in Dallas, Texas.

The initial furor ended and we were left with a permanent itch we cannot scratch. We crave the satisfaction of full explanation, of the ascribing of responsibility and of the meting of consequences to all guilty ones. Even after 50 years that simply has not happened.

The Warren Commission was designed to soothe the nation with a simple explanation. And it was a fine investigative body, except for its complete incompetence, its refusal to admit crucial evidence and testimony and the predetermined conclusion it carefully crafted. We Americans know a snow job when we’re in one and we resent being treated as simpletons. We want answers.

There remain so many critical questions. For example, if the whole thing was done by a lone gunman, how did a mediocre marksman manage to accurately fire three shots in four seconds, something even the best marksmen are unable to do with that model rifle?

Here is another. Acoustics engineers have studied audio records of those seconds of American history and developed various theories to explain the contradictory statements from people who were on the scene. They examined echoes from the surrounding buildings and some concluded that all sounds of gunfire came from one place. That is unconvincing to people who were in Dealey Plaza that day and who heard a shot and turned toward the sound by the fence bordering the plaza and saw a puff of smoke as from a firearm.

The result of all the official soothing, disingenuous explanations and denial has been a terrible addition to the loss of innocence of a generation. That addition is a loss of trust in government itself. Even now 61% of Americans distrust official explanations and instead believe there was some sort of conspiracy to kill President Kennedy, that an ideological loser would not have been able to do this on his own. Note that the 61% includes Americans who had not yet been born when the murder happened, so they are immune from the trauma of that moment and in a position to be clearer of mind about this entire chapter of our history.

One of the last actions of the Warren Commission was the sealing of evidence brought to the commission but which was shielded from the public. We were told that it would be unsealed and made public in 50 years. Well, that is where we find ourselves today. It is time to unseal and deliver the rest of the information to us and let the chips fall where they may.

Our distrust of government, borne of the Kennedy assassination whitewash, has been fueled through the intervening years by an ongoing parade of lies and disinformation from our government. Our current DC dysfunction continues that, in part because so many of us have dropped out, wishing a pox on all their houses. That dropping out allows the crazy people to expand the debilitation of government and that actually exacerbates the very thing we loathe.

It is time for we Americans – and especially those who remember – to drop back in.

It is time to end our willful apathy, cynicism and disinterest and take the bold step of reinvesting ourselves in our country.

It is time for us to again be moved as we were that day in 1961, to pick ourselves up and,

“Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.”

If It Isn’t a Perfect 10 . . .

Nov 17

Look, it’s as plain as can be that the Affordable Care Act – Obamacare – was flawed from the start. Whatever your political views, the act focuses on payment, not medical care itself. And it doesn’t cover everyone. Besides, the stupid website doesn’t work. Just de-fund it, already.

And while I’m thinking of it, our interstate highways are pretty beaten up. De-fund those, too.

Education. Now, that’s a mess. Our kids are way behind most of the industrialized world in science and math, so the only sensible thing to do is to just dump the system we’re using. Perhaps funding based on real estate property taxes made sense a long time ago. Maybe, maybe not. But that funding mechanism isn’t preparing kids for today, much less for tomorrow. And we’re not hiring and retaining the best teachers, either, as too many are on the “Three Years and Out” plan. No, this isn’t working well enough to continue to throw money at it, so just pull the plug.

The Postal Service doesn’t get any money from the government, unless some bureaucrat wants to mail a letter, so we don’t have to worry about that. But the people running it ought to be re-thinking their whole model. One stamp sends a letter to the remotest places in the U.S. every day. That’s crazy. Maybe congress should increase the requirement for their pension put-away to cover people who won’t be born for another 50 years. That would put the pressure on them to pull the plug.

And those spiffs to alternative energy companies – what’s up with that? Those technologies only supply 2% of our energy needs, which is way too little to make a real difference. No point in encouraging that, so we should just de-fund those loony subsidies.

What the heck is the government doing in the home mortgage industry? Everyone knows that Reagan was right about government being the problem. We should just let the free market do its magic. The FHA falls well short of doing things right all the time. Adios, FHA. And pay no attention to those too-big-to-fail bank derivatives that nobody understands. Let the free market work there, too, except if those guys crash and burn again and then government will be the safety net. Everything has an exception, right?

Medical R & D – now, that’s a real problem. We keep throwing money that way, but where is that cure for cancer? Have you seen it? Neither have I. Now, that’s a really dark hole into which we throw cash all the time, but that’s a system that never delivers like it should. De-fund that bad boy, too.

Back to Obamacare for a second. The website is so bad that it’s embarrassing. And President Obama did that, “If you like it you can keep it” thing, which turned out not to be true for everyone. Those are two more good reasons for trashing the entire program. Okay, really just one more, since I mentioned the website earlier. But it’s that bad, though, so it should be beaten up twice. Maybe continuously.

There are so many programs that we fund that work at sub-optimal levels. If we are to make good choices about what to do with our scarce resources (i.e. what’s in our collective wallet), then here is the bar that must be cleared: If it isn’t perfect, de-fund it.

There. That was easy.

Are You Ready?

Oct 20

Boomers are the ones who were told, “Don’t trust anyone over 30,” (thank you, Jerry Rubin), the ones who were going to change the world and who most certainly were never going to get old. But now we are past the point where we can refuse to trust anyone over 30, we did change the world but many of us still refuse to get old. That has created a billion dollar industry of erection sustaining drugs for old stud wanna-bees.

The next time you see a Cialis commercial on television take a good look at the happy couples. Of course they are happy, as the commercials imply that they are so hormonal that they are having sex whenever the wind blows.

Notice, too, that everyone is good looking. We viewers subliminally hope that Cialis will deliver that benefit, too. And there is something else. The women are all at least 15 years younger than the men. Little surprise there, since the drug hucksters are selling a return-to-youth fantasy to old guys.

Let’s see, he’s a “senior” who refuses to acknowledge time, wants to be the young stud he never was, so he pairs himself with a young, nubile, willing kitten (yeah, that’ll work) who smiles at him with just a hint of lust in her eyes – and he’s ready! All of this comes at just seven bucks per thrill pill.

Yup, we watch the commercials and we fall for the fantasy. Somehow, the pleasant and desirable images and the smooth sound of the voice-over, go down easily and we accept the whole package. Actually, though, it is nothing but a manipulation of you and me for the profit of the pharmaceutical corporations selling us dreams in a pill.

It works the same way in the political arena. Radicals and rich guys are trying to separate you from your cash and your power with slick commercials, images and slogans, and even a chest-thumping testosterone rush, all for their own benefit, not yours. Maybe instead of mindlessly absorbing the fictions we’re fed we should get in touch reality before the American plutocratic coup is complete.

It is the right moment right now. Are you ready?

WARNING: If you go blind, lose your hearing or die, stop taking Cialis immediately – it will be too late for you. Correspondingly, if you lose your democracy, it will be too late for all of us.

The Continuing Frog Boil

Oct 13

The U.S. budget sequestration went into effect on March 1, 2013. It was designed to reduce defense and certain non-defense discretionary spending by annually declining percentages through 2021. It applies these cuts with the fine precision of a large asteroid smashing into the Earth. It was said to be designed as a pressure on Congress and the White House to hammer out a budget agreement on a timely basis and was not supposed to go into effect because its stupidity was unthinkable. Apparently, some of the major actors in that drama didn’t do enough thinking, because we’re living with the sequester now. Oddly, we are not hearing much of a wail from those affected. There are reasons for that.

First, the impact of the sequester on defense spending is small enough to be a rounding error for the agencies with nearly unlimited spending ability and which buy thousand-dollar toilet seats, tanks for fighting the non-existent Soviet Union in a land war and trillion-dollar airplanes that no one wants. Besides, when the affected contractors are unhappy with the government they don’t march in the streets. Their comments are given behind closed doors, so you don’t hear them.

Second, many of the domestic program cuts only affect poor people and nobody listens to them. For example, study after study has shown that early childhood education is the cornerstone for later success in higher education and for a lifetime. But the sequester cut 57,000 children out of the Head Start program, thus necessarily relegating them to a much dimmer future. Understand, though, that the Head Start victims of the sequester are poor kids whose parents’ voices aren’t heard in Congress because those parents don’t make large campaign contributions, so they don’t have access. And you can’t hear them because the corporate media doesn’t relay their brutal reality.

Here is another example. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office predicted that the sequester would produce a reduction in economic growth of 0.6%, saying that this would affect job retention for 750,000 Americans. “Retention” is not about new jobs. It is about employed people just keeping their jobs. That means three-quarters of a million Americans will lose their jobs because of the unthinkable sequester. Like the parents of kids kicked out of Head Start, the newly unemployed don’t have access, so you don’t hear their voices, either, and it is relatively easy for the rest of us to ignore the change.

Third, we human beings only become aware of change when a big WHUMP! smacks us in the head. Most of the time we tolerate small changes quite easily and don’t even notice them. By the time we at last notice their accumulation into a WHUMP!, it is too late to prevent the adverse consequences that we will live with forever. That is to say, most of us are living with the unrecognized effects of small changes and, like live frogs in a slowly heating pot of water, we fail to recognize that we are being boiled alive.

Yet, metaphorically speaking, that is what is happening to Americans. We are tolerating changes like the sequester, either because each change is very small, as they are for most of us, or we are accommodating them because we are powerless, as it is for the poor, the disenfranchised, the unemployed – the very people who don’t contribute big money to political campaigns.

And the incremental deterioration story gets worse. The current government shutdown engineered by Ted Cruz (R-Psych Ward) and his extremist pals has already kicked another 7,000 kids out of Head Start and 19,000 more are on the way out the door. Those kids will under-perform and we will lose the benefit of their contributions and their genius. Some will drop out and be a weight on society and some will turn to crime for survival. For those who don’t care about those kids, surely even the investment class understands the value of spending a buck today to get a return of two in the future. Yet all they seem to be able to see is that they want everything now.

Head Start is just one example of incremental changes that are absorbed with barely a public whimper – there are many more – but we will all pay the price.

On the other hand, here is a happy thought: we’re saving money today because we’ve cut unemployment compensation for those 750,000 Americans being laid off this year and we won’t have to listen to them complain because they don’t have a voice powered by campaign contributions.

Come to think of it, perhaps you are not donating thousands of dollars to the right legislators every election cycle. If that is the case, you just might want to check the thermometer in your pot. It might be edging up the the WHUMP! mark at the top of the scale.

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Definition: The Republican Caucus – a gathering place for the clueless.

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“Let me just check my talking points, and . . . Why, here’s something flamboyant and hateful I can say to rile up the base and make them cheer for me. And here’s another. Wow! There’s a whole pile of ’em! I’ll never run out of self-serving drivel.” Sen. Ted Cruz in an imaginary and oh-so-brief moment of honesty.

What Do You Want?

Oct 06

A fundamental question in all negotiations is, “What do you want?” Of course, there are other questions each party must answer but everything hinges on knowing what you want. Absent that, all negotiations are just exercises in defeating the other guy for no clear purpose other than the opportunity to do a little chest beating. Not much good happens from that.

Indeed, On Thursday Congressman Marlin Stutzman (R-IN) said of the government shutdown, “We’re not going to be disrespected. We have to get something out of this. And I don’t know what that even is.” And, in fact, nothing good came from that, except for Stutzman’s hand getting slapped by other Tea Party people for making them all look stupid.

The answer to the “What do you want?” question for each side in our ongoing DC dysfunction is “government.” The Democrats want government to be an active agent in society. The Republicans continue to follow the slick campaign quip of Ronald Reagan, “Government is the problem.” That is to say, what Republicans want is to do away with nearly all government. To that point, Grover Norquist has told us that he wants to reduce government in size such that he can “drown it in a bathtub.” And, due to 2010 redistricting, the Republican extremists have managed to shut down much of the federal government and have threatened to default on the nation’s debt in pursuit of their government destruction goal. Apparently, nothing is sacred to them in their quest – not even our national honor nor the world economy.

This is not a situation where each party is equally to blame for the mess we’re in. This is the result of a few dozen radicals holding the United States and the world economy hostage.

The question for all the rest of us is, “What do you want?” If you want to terminate all the things you have come to expect from government, then the extremists’ view and their Machiavellian methods are for you.

On the other hand, what you want might include the protections that only a functioning government can provide, things like meat inspection, careful review of drugs before they’re used on your children, air traffic control so that the airplane on which Granny is riding doesn’t go bump in the night with another airplane, ensuring that our kids get an education for success both today and tomorrow, building and maintaining our bridges and interstate highways, all national security functions, funding the research work at the National Institutes of Health so that when you get sick there is medical help for you and so many other important functions. If that is what you want, then it just might be a good idea to contact your representative and senators in Congress and tell them to shape up, especially if one of them is a Tea Party zealot with his/her gun pointed at Uncle Sam (aka you).

As always, the behavior you tolerate is the behavior you get.

One more time: What do you want?

The Greater Good – Part 2 of 2

Oct 02

Books have been booked and blogs have been blogged. Pundits have pundited and liars have lied. The consensus seems to be that the invasion of Iraq was about oil. Clearly, it wasn’t about WMD’s or Saddam’s non-existent links to al Qaeda. So, let’s play with the oil theory.

We are now in the Situation Room. Seated around the table are President George W. Bush, Vice-President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice and the head of the CIA, George Tenet. The topic is global energy stability and U.S. national security. The concern is that Saddam is a loose cannon with the second largest known reserves of oil on the planet and he could upset world order.

President Bush declares, “This is about Amer-ka and we have to focus on the greater good. Besides, I don’t like that guy.”

Rumsfeld raises his hand. “You’re right, Mr. President. If Saddam gets any more unpredictable the world oil markets could become crazy and force major disruptions to our national well-being and even threaten our future economic and political stability. We must devise a plan to protect us from the ‘known unknown’ outcomes.“

“We’ll invade Iraq,” snarls Cheney. “It’s simple, plus it will be quick and easy. We’ll just apply massive force, topple Saddam’s regime and install a new U.S.-friendly leader.”

Rumsfeld lights up upon hearing Cheney’s idea, “Our soldiers will be greeted by Iraqi citizens tossing flowers to them. Best of all, the war will only last a few weeks and will cost just $300 million. And, get this: we can pay for it with Iraqi oil.” There are big, self-satisfied smiles all around the table.

President Bush is really getting into it now and says, “That’s a great stratergy, Dick. Oil market confidence’ll soar, we’ll have a continuing supply of cheap oil and the Amer-kn way ‘a life and our national secur-ty will be assured. Plus, we can make ’em into a democracy just like us. It’s all ’bout the greater good, get it? And don’t you just love simple solutions to complex problems?” Everyone at the table agrees with the boss.

“But wait,” Rice says. “We can’t just tell the world that we’re going to invade Iraq because we want their oil. We have to come up with a cover story for the invasion.” That is when they begin to craft a lie about the smoking gun being a mushroom cloud. And, because this conversation happens just months after 9/11, the tie between secular Saddam and Islamist al Qaeda is fabricated and, voila! An American hunger for retribution is served by providing the lynch mob with someone to lynch.

George Tenet has been quietly scheming as he listens and can no longer contain himself. “We can get real creative here. We’ll make up a story about yellow cake from Nigeria, telling everyone that Saddam is making the yellow cake into weapons grade uranium. We’ll tell everyone that Joe Wilson is a liar and we’ll out his wife, Valerie Plame. How ’bout you handle that, Dick?” Cheney grunts.

“Oh, wait!” continues Tenet. “I just thought of the best part. You known those flimsy little aluminum tubes we found in that abandoned trailer in the desert?” A few heads nod affirmatively. “This is great. We’ll tell everyone that Saddam’s going to pack his enriched uranium into them. Hey, Colin – how ’bout you spout that one at the UN?” Powell looks at Tenet, then to Bush, his brow furrowed.

“Look, Colin,” continues Tenet, “We’ve got the intel and we can spin it any way we want. We can make it sit up and bark, if that sells the program. It’ll be a slam-dunk.” Powell acquiesces.

Cheney blurts, “We’ll probably take some heat for this, but we can sidetrack criticism by doing some illegal stuff. We’ll call it legal and then we’ll stonewall critics by saying, ‘So?’ This is a no-brainer.” Cheney snarls again.

Let’s leave that imaginary meeting and scratch our own heads about “the greater good” and other paths that might have served it.

If the issue was fossil fuel energy, we could have pursued a path like the one we’re on now, poking more holes into the ground in America and in different ways than ever before. In fact, we are now extracting more fossil fuels domestically than at any time in our history. Our dependence on foreign supplies has dropped from 60% a few years ago to 36% now and none of that domestic extraction cost the life or limb of any military personnel, nor did it cost the U.S. Treasury even a buck. And we didn’t become even more hated throughout the Muslim world as a result of finding our own oil.

If the bigger picture of energy (i.e. beyond just burning more hydrocarbons) and its impact on national welfare and security were the issue, there is far more that we could have done. We could have elected to take some of the billions we spent on war materiel, resources and personnel and instead put that into research and development of alternative, renewable energy sources, as well as a better battery for electric automobiles. Indeed, just imagine what we could have accomplished with 12 years of well-funded research and Yankee ingenuity.

There is a lot of craziness that can be rationalized using the words “the greater good”. Too often the only participants in discussions about the greater good are those with a limited or bizarre imagination, capable only of short-term thinking and with a vested interest in the outcome.

There are wacko-birds in congress right now who think that the greater good will be served by the United States of America, the bedrock upon which the world economy rests, defaulting on its debt. Never mind the global catastrophes that will be visited upon us. Ignore the massive economic depression that will put tens of millions of Americans out of work. Just take it on faith that the crazies wearing the propeller hats of the Tea Party, the new American terrorists, understand “the greater good”.

But once again those controlling power have a limited and bizarre imagination capable only of short-term thinking and with a vested interest in the outcome.

We need better than that.

Sometimes Conspiracy Is The Only Explanation

Sep 15

It is curious that the Republican National Committee decided to hold its own commemoration of the 1963 March On Washington, rather than participate in the national event on the National Mall on the 50th anniversary of the March just two days later. And so it was that on August 26, 2013 Representative James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) spoke at that all-R event. He said, “The first thing we have to do is take the monkey wrench that the court threw in it, out of the Voting Rights Act, and then use that monkey wrench to be able to fix it so that it is alive, well, constitutional and impervious to another challenge that will be filed by the usual suspects.”

Hold on just a second. This is a Republican calling for restoration of the teeth of the Voting Rights Act, insisting on reinvigorating a liberal cause? Well, the story gets even more curious.

Following Sensenbrenner at this event was Reince Pribus, the fire breathing, absolutist chairman of the RNC, who said, “I think Jim just made some news.” He did not counter what Sensenbrenner had said or spout far right wing propaganda about intrusive government, even though Pribus is on the “usual suspects” perps list. This pairing and this behavior are worthy of some head scratching. Indeed, that the RNC convened an event to commemorate the 1963 March on Washington was in and of itself more than unusual.

The Republicans have acknowledged that they have to appeal to minorities if the R’s are to avoid becoming extinct, and have been clear that they believe that to do that they must change their image. The only thing that requires, say leading Republicans, is to craft their messages properly. There has been no acknowledgement that they are the wrong side of nearly every issue that is important to the very people whom they must attract. For the Republicans, it is all about the manipulation they can manage through word-smithing. Modify their positions on issues of importance? Not a chance.

Appropriately, the poor and those who are counted as minorities have overwhelmingly shunned the Republicans.

Now comes Sensenbrenner, committing to deliver substantive value to minorities and, oddly, the far right chair of the RNC doesn’t push back. Very strange, but try this for an explanation.

For decades the Republicans have done everything they could think of to disenfranchise, marginalize and control anyone who isn’t an old white guy. Now they are making noises as though they are going to be the flag bearers for restoration of a key liberal cause. They will claim championship and insist that they are all about supporting the little guys of America, the minorities and the poor. They will proclaim that those people should now flock to the Republican Party, the party that, no-kidding, we-really-mean-it-this-time, is really looking out for the little guys.

Crush ’em for years and then save ’em (at least a little), telling them that you’re their hero.

Brilliant strategy.

Diabolically brilliant.

Sometimes conspiracy is the only explanation.

Why Would They Say Those Things?

Sep 08

This was before Rush Limbaugh’s cruelty toward Sandra Fluke. It was in the midst of his racism, but, of course, he’s always in the midst of racial slurs that are presented in the form of dog whistles, like his song “Barack the Magic Negro.” These appeal to the embedded fear and hatred within his audience, people who long for the good old days when old white guys ruled everything. Of course, the same goes for his misogynistic comments, suggesting a prehistoric view of women, of the days when men were men and women were possessions.

His vitriol flows like a poison river, snaking into the ears of the gullible, but is Limbaugh a true believer? What is the America he believes in?

He gave us a hint a while back in an NBC interview when he was asked why he spouts his outrageous stuff. “It’s all about the ratings,” said Limbaugh. Not a word about American values. Not even a nod to true beliefs. It was the ratings and the advertising money the ratings bring to him. Rush Limbaugh’s true belief is simple and pure: More money for Rush Limbaugh.

Lawrence O’Donnell calls Limbaugh a comedian, this not to suggest that he has comedic skills, but to separate him from people who actually know something. That is to say, Limbaugh is in the entertainment business. And in that spirit, he gives the people in his audience what they want, so they tune in. Advertisers are assured of many ears into which to pour their commercial messages and Limbaugh makes lots of money. That’s it.

And it is likely the same for the rest of the hair-on-fire radio and television crazies who spout sociopathic lies and insinuations. Perhaps some of them are true believers – there is no way to determine that.

Nevertheless, once again the advice of Deep Throat rings true: Follow the money. Then you’ll know why they say those things.

Predicting The Future

Sep 03

* * * Special Tuesday Edition * * *

The word “Anschluss” became well known in 1936 as Hitler’s Germany annexed Austria. Two years later the next newly familiar name was the Sudetenland, the predominantly German speaking part of Czechoslovakia. Hitler’s pact with England’s Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain paved the way for the rest of Czechoslovakia to fall into German hands and in 1939 Poland fell to the Nazis in just a few days. Then in 1940 Hitler incrementally overran Denmark, Norway, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and it wasn’t looking too good for the Brits at that point. All this took place with the world pretty much watching from the sidelines as though people expected something different to happen after each country fell to the German blitzkrieg (another word that became well known then).

On September 8, 1974 newly ascended President Gerald Ford issued a “full, free and absolute pardon” for “ . . . all offenses against the United States which he, Richard Nixon, has committed or may have committed or taken part in . . . ” Many were the conspiracy theories about a supposed pact with the devil that spawned a Ford presidency and a pardon for an American who had not yet even been indicted for a crime but whose guilt was obvious. Nevertheless, the pardon stood and, other than having to resign from office, Nixon got away with his lawbreaking.

1985 was a fine year for labyrinthine presidential dealing, as President Reagan and his team negotiated a three-way swap of arms to Iranians and sent money from the arms transactions to the Contras in Nicaragua. The arms going to the Iranians were supposed to buy goodwill, such that the Iranian government would exert influence to get 7 American hostages released from their imprisonment at the hands of the Army of the Guardians of the Iranian Revolution (Hezbollah). The U.S. sale of arms to the Iranians was a violation of the then-current arms embargo on Iran. Providing money to the Contras in Nicaragua was in direct violation of the Boland Amendment.

Interestingly, of those indicted for their parts in this nefarious scheme, a handful received a sentence of a short term on parole. A few went to prison for a little while and of those, nearly all were pardoned by President George H. W. Bush, himself a key player in the conspiracy but who never had to answer for his lawbreaking. President Reagan was clearly responsible for the entire illegal operation but he was never charged with anything other than poor oversight of his national security team. That is to say, he got away with it.

In the waning days of George W. Bush’s second term the major U.S. financial institutions began to fail under the weight of the house of cards they themselves had allowed to be erected and Bush told us we had to act immediately to rescue them because they were “too big to fail.” We sent trillions of dollars their way and, even as fraud had plainly been committed, no criminal indictments were issued against the perps. Those same financial institutions are now far larger than they were when they were “too big to fail” and their smoke-and-mirrors investment schemes continue.

Bush also lied the U.S. into two wars and compounded his lawlessness by authorizing the torture of hundreds of prisoners, an act that is in violation of the Geneva Conventions and others, as well as a clear violation of United States law. Not a single person involved in that lawbreaking was indicted for anything and the Obama administration has made clear that it will not prosecute. All of the lawbreakers have gotten away with their crimes.

There is an ongoing pattern of crime at the highest levels that continues to go unpunished. What is significant about that is the certainty that bad behavior unpunished is a guarantee of more bad behavior in the future and that is exactly what has happened. Let’s take this knowledge to the present crisis.

It is clear that Bashar al-Assad has no compunction about killing over 100,000 of his countrymen, nor has he any concern over using weapons of mass destruction, like sarin gas (stockpiles pictured above). Failing to punish that behavior will ensure that Bashar al-Assad will do more of the same or worse in the days to come. And the story is even bigger than that.

We are facing an upcoming nuclear arms threat from Iran. So, too, and likely more immediately, is Israel facing that threat, given that the Iranians have sworn to wipe Israel from the map. We have told the Iranians that they must abandon their development of nuclear weapons and comply with international agreements to halt the spread of nuclear weapons. We have been clear that failure on their part to comply will be seen as a threat to the United States, which will compel us to take direct action against that threat.

But are our threats of action against Iran believable if we fail to confront the use of weapons of mass destruction in Syria?

The world sat on its hands as Hitler incrementally annexed most of Europe. In the United States we allowed Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush and Barack Obama to break major laws with impunity or fail to prosecute those who did. Each of those then-current issues and failures to act ensured the next wrongdoing.

The pattern and the message are unmistakable: The behavior we tolerate is the behavior we are certain to get over and over. But now the toleration of bad behavior could lead to worldwide catastrophe.

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JaxPolitix

Disambiguation from the political and social musings of Jack Altschuler