Leave it to the folks at Fox to take reality T.V. to a whole new level, and right in time for the holidays, too. The network plans to air an interview with O.J. Simpson in which he plugs, "If I did It, Here's How It Happened," a book which his publisher calls "his confession." The interview, with Simpson, is scheduled for broadcast only days after Thanksgiving, November 27th, and November 29th, and one day before the release of his book. A Fox spokesperson said that O.J. has approved an "unrestricted" primetime talk with book publisher Judith Regan, a curious term causing one to wonder if other interviews they've broadcast are restricted (AP)
If you're wondering how Simpson gets to talk now; he can stand on top of the Empire State Building with a bullhorn, and scream "I killed Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman," and he can't be prosecuted under double jeopardy; one can't be tried for the same crime twice. While he can't be criminally indicted again for those brutal murders, he doesn't deserve another 15 minutes of infamy, instead he deserves to be as anonymous, repulsive, and inconsequential as dead mouse. Just saying his name, let alone printing ,or broadcasting it, gives him more attention than he deserves. I no longer remember the name of the man who murdered John Lennon; I refuse to. Part of the price one pays for living in civilized society is that one must make an effort not to make a cottage industry of those who commit the most dastardly, and heinous crimes. O.J.'s face belongs in Madame Tussaud's wax museum, and not on the flat screen T.V. in my livingroom.
If it doesn't make your blood boil, too, to learn that Simpson not only got away with murder, but he's defaulted on a $33.5 million judgment in the civil case, you must have ice water running through your veins. Worse still, he may end up keeping profits from the book sales, and subsequent movie deals, despite the best efforts of the victims' families to prevent that from happening. Laurie Levenson, attorney and professor of law at Loyola University, who followed the case closely said "Clever lawyering can get you a long way," and indeed it got Simpson to the golf course in Florida.
As one who believed O.J. was innocent, and staunchly (if stubbornly) defended him, right up until the DNA came back, as well as one who is equally nauseated by wrongful convictions, I must say that any television network, or book publisher, that would stoop to promote, or participate in promoting, something as vile as a murderer who laughs in the face of the criminal justice system deserves to rot in the same cubicle in hell where one might expect to find Mr. Simpson teeing off. The good news about damnation, that is, if it exists, is that it's permanent. The bad news is that damnation appears to be as elusive as salvation.
O.J. Simpson walked not only because he had the best defense team money could buy, but because we have a judicial system that puts the burden of proof on the prosecution, as well as insisting on proving that someone is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. How anyone could reasonably doubt DNA evidence, no matter how it was handled, speaks to what a crappy job the prosecutors did. It wasn't that his defense team succeeded; the prosecution failed.
At the time, I argued that it's better to have one guilty man walk, based on reasonable doubt, if it means that one innocent man won't do jail time, or worse be put to death. Unfortunately, I have come to see that my thinking about our justice system was as naive as my original belief in Simpson's innocence. One guilty man walking doesn't ensure that one innnocent man won't be wrongfully convicted. Unfortunately, many more innocents are in our nation's prisons, or sentenced to die for crimes they didn't commit than guilty walk. Fox's statement, by airing the O.J. interview, is that the Simpson crime somehow transcends good and evil, guilt or innocence; it's all about ratings, and feeding the corporate bottom line, after all, isn't it. Something is seriously wrong with a society when greed has usurped human dignity, and someone like O.J. Simpson gets to thumb his nose at the courts, our criminal justice system, and profit from doing that.
Oh, and lest you think that we, the viewing audience, are somehow immune from the toxicity that presents itself as entertainment, It's time to take a long, hard look at the demographics of those of us Fox hopes to engage, as well as who will be waiting in line to buy "If I Did It" when it goes on sale on November 30th. They are your neighbors, your relatives, your colleagues, friends, and maybe even those who teach your children. They are your priests, and rabbis. Not only is O.J. Simpson blessed, but we are all blessed, that he can speak, write, and tell all, thanks to double jeopardy, and because his speech is protected by the First Amendment. This is something parents, and teachers must make it a point to explain to youngsters who will be puzzled by how deranged a country is that rewards celebrity, even when celebrity kills.
First Amendment, and double jeopardy,aside, the decent thing each and every one of us can do is to not to feed the monster of corporate greed, not tune in to the interview, not buy the book, encourage those near and dear to do the same, and remember only the days when O.J. stood for orange juice.
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
"A Nation Deceived: A Work in Progress"
On the eve of Election Day, and one best characterized by the phrase "pinch me," I was invited to attend the staged reading of Craig Barnes' play "A Nation Deceived" at the Pacific Resident Theatre, in Venice, where I got to chat, for a few minutes, with actor, and activist Ed Asner, as well as playwright, Craig Barnes. When I asked Ed, a 7 time Emmy winning actor, who has an inspired history of advocacy for progressive social change, why he decided to play Old Man in this performance, he said the play "is a beautiful indictment-a great amassing of a lot of information in the so-called liberal press."
Long renowned as a vocal, and muscular opponent of U.S. policy in Central America, and Iraq, a great civil libertarian, a crusader to free Mumia Abu-Jamal, as well as one who supports, and contributes to Fresh Start, a program to feed the homeless in Walnut Creek; Ed is no stranger to the struggle for truth and justice.. When asked if he thinks we can expect major change if Pelosi takes over as Speaker of the House, and if he thinks the theatre is empowered to act as a catalyst for much-needed congressional investigations into wrongdoing in Iraq, Ed responded "I don't think it's a play that's going to make Nancy Pelosi come around. The play may motivate people to make bodies of others that will then motivate certain committee chairmen of Congress; only through committee chair can we discover malfeasance and hopefully those committee chairs will energize Pelosi to conduct further investigations and possibly impeachment."
On the couch in the lobby where we sat, Craig nursed a tepid cup of coffee; "My goal is to remind people of the elegance of a society in which the law is above the king," he tells me. Barnes not only wrote "A Nation Deceived," which premiered in Santa Fe in late September, but directed it, and he plays Dick Cheney's lawyer, Samuel Pounder. A trial lawyer, an accomplished environmental law specialist, author, playwright and essayist, he was involved, for more than 13 years, in negotiations with the Soviet Union on issues of war and peace, the environment, and ethnic cleansing. Barnes even ran for Congress, back in 1970, as a Democratic candidate from Colorado.
His play, a self-described "draft," is a work in progress not unlike the concept of democracy itself. It is theatre with a clear-cut objective, which is for the viewer, or reader to share the play with others, as well as participate in re-creating it. One can think of few nights better than this, the night before an historic midterm election, to let one's imagination run wild, and entertain thoughts of what it might be like if Congress were to be in the hands of those folks who ask the hard questions, and are relentless in their pursuit of accountability. What better time, too, to think about what it might be like if the people were, once again, to own the government.
The theme of "A Nation Deceived," the story of a trial that takes place in the Court of Common Opinion, in which the defendants are President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, who are tried as felons, and represented by their respective attorneys, Ranger, Pounder, and Chance is that government belongs to the people who "never rest." The prosecutor, Old Man, a feisty, larger than life country lawyer, played passionately by Ed Asner, represents the will of the people in challenging the big gun Washington defense team. While the entire play takes place in court. it is, as Barnes writes, "one step in a program to spread the arguments and information concerning the buildup to the war, its defenses, its contradictions, and its claimed necessity to the country at large."
The trial is based on tangible, documented evidence which is part of the public record, and especially resonates in light of the recent announcement, by Agence France Presse , that the Center for Constitutional Rights, along with other "civic groups," has initiated a criminal complaint in Germany, this week, against U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, and others, on charges of "war crimes in the context of a war on terror." CCR is requesting that the German Federal Prosecutor do essentially as Old Man has, begin an inquiry, and ultimately criminally prosecute heads of state for conduct unbecoming rules of engagement during wartime.
While there are major differences between a theatrical piece and the real life criminal complaint against Donald Rumsfeld, the resemblance is stunning in that, if nothing else, it shows that life and theatre often inhabit parallel universes ..The world of "A Nation Deceived" has, as its nexus, the discovery of the "Black Gold Exhibit," a national security document, AKA "the Oil Exhibit," a list of 30 countries, excluding the U.S., lined up to benefit from Iraqi oil in the months before 9/11, thus "the motive" for the American invasion of Iraq.. Old Man argues: "If something was not done to remove Saddam Hussein from power every one of those 30 countries was in line ahead of the U.S. for the huge resources of Iraqi oil."Ironically, but aptly, it is Bush's attorney, Ranger, who, in a fit of conscience, hands the Oil Exhibit, a key piece of evidence for the prosecution, over to Old Man who asks: "What did this war accomplish for democracy? Nothing. What did it accomplish for Halliburton? Well, it erased the 30 countries on the Black Gold list, that's what. And these three defendants (Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld) are now in charge of who gets that oil. No failure in Iraq for them. That is a completely successful result, if your purpose, all along, was only oil."
That the tenets and tenacity of these charges, and prosecution, are commonplace to the viewing audience today attests to the potency of the Internet with respect to instant news. That said, anyone who came to this performance expecting traditional theatre was in for a surprise. This piece is about as much like other courtroom dramas as Brigitte Bardot is like Edi Amin; it is not speculative, but exploratory in its insistence upon raising crucial, and compelling questions not only about the chicanery, and incompetence behind the buildup to war, but the culture of intellectual lassitude that went along for the ride.
Moreover, among the play's conclusions is the prospect of yet another imminent pre-emptive strike, in Iran, based on the manufacture of selectively deceptive intelligence. So it is, then, that "A Nation Deceived" demands of us that we ask not only who lied, and why, but how we allowed ourselves to be duped; there is an odor not just of "mendacity" here, but of complicity.Importantly, Barnes' attitude toward his work is not proprietary; he welcomes collaboration from the audience, and fellow performers. Sometimes, one feels as if he views history itself as his collaborator; sometimes, we agree, if it can be argued that history, too, takes place inside an imaginary courtroom.
When I asked Craig why he chose to write plays, he told me "Telling stories is more important as a catalyst for change than trying lawsuits." That said, "A Nation Deceived" is, in point of fact, about a lawyer, for the people, who acts as prosecutor against the key deciders in any wartime scenario, the president, vice president, and secretary of defense. The difference is that the courtroom, in question, is "The Court of Common Opinion," not a federal court, and that all proceeds from the these performances go towards spreading the discourse, and developing the Web site, www.anationdeceived.org, where one may also find the play.
Moreover, one of the principal virtues of "A Nation Deceived" is that it is protean, not something static and fixed; a project rather than a finished product. And, as such, it is more than a referendum on the legality of the Iraq war, but is an innovative, interactive approach to theatre. What's more, as should come as no surprise, the dialogue was authentic; the acting dynamic with stellar performances by Ed Asner, Craig Barnes, and Leith Burke. "A Nation Deceived" may be seen as a dramatic investigation of prewar intelligence, an exploration of probative arguments, as well as an indictment of a judicial system that stacks government heavyweights against Everyman.
But, in the final analysis, the play is a clever and conceptually compelling way to obviate the charge, however reasonable, that it is little more than an exercise in political didacticism. Instead, we, in the audience, get to look through a window at a system that is broken, yet still manages to offer up the specter of social justice in lieu of religious redemption. On the long drive back to Ventura from Venice, I found myself thinking about what Ed Asner meant when he said that playing Old Man is one of his "geschrei (screams)," and how many more geschrei it may take before "a nation deceived" becomes a nation relieved.
Long renowned as a vocal, and muscular opponent of U.S. policy in Central America, and Iraq, a great civil libertarian, a crusader to free Mumia Abu-Jamal, as well as one who supports, and contributes to Fresh Start, a program to feed the homeless in Walnut Creek; Ed is no stranger to the struggle for truth and justice.. When asked if he thinks we can expect major change if Pelosi takes over as Speaker of the House, and if he thinks the theatre is empowered to act as a catalyst for much-needed congressional investigations into wrongdoing in Iraq, Ed responded "I don't think it's a play that's going to make Nancy Pelosi come around. The play may motivate people to make bodies of others that will then motivate certain committee chairmen of Congress; only through committee chair can we discover malfeasance and hopefully those committee chairs will energize Pelosi to conduct further investigations and possibly impeachment."
On the couch in the lobby where we sat, Craig nursed a tepid cup of coffee; "My goal is to remind people of the elegance of a society in which the law is above the king," he tells me. Barnes not only wrote "A Nation Deceived," which premiered in Santa Fe in late September, but directed it, and he plays Dick Cheney's lawyer, Samuel Pounder. A trial lawyer, an accomplished environmental law specialist, author, playwright and essayist, he was involved, for more than 13 years, in negotiations with the Soviet Union on issues of war and peace, the environment, and ethnic cleansing. Barnes even ran for Congress, back in 1970, as a Democratic candidate from Colorado.
His play, a self-described "draft," is a work in progress not unlike the concept of democracy itself. It is theatre with a clear-cut objective, which is for the viewer, or reader to share the play with others, as well as participate in re-creating it. One can think of few nights better than this, the night before an historic midterm election, to let one's imagination run wild, and entertain thoughts of what it might be like if Congress were to be in the hands of those folks who ask the hard questions, and are relentless in their pursuit of accountability. What better time, too, to think about what it might be like if the people were, once again, to own the government.
The theme of "A Nation Deceived," the story of a trial that takes place in the Court of Common Opinion, in which the defendants are President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, who are tried as felons, and represented by their respective attorneys, Ranger, Pounder, and Chance is that government belongs to the people who "never rest." The prosecutor, Old Man, a feisty, larger than life country lawyer, played passionately by Ed Asner, represents the will of the people in challenging the big gun Washington defense team. While the entire play takes place in court. it is, as Barnes writes, "one step in a program to spread the arguments and information concerning the buildup to the war, its defenses, its contradictions, and its claimed necessity to the country at large."
The trial is based on tangible, documented evidence which is part of the public record, and especially resonates in light of the recent announcement, by Agence France Presse , that the Center for Constitutional Rights, along with other "civic groups," has initiated a criminal complaint in Germany, this week, against U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, and others, on charges of "war crimes in the context of a war on terror." CCR is requesting that the German Federal Prosecutor do essentially as Old Man has, begin an inquiry, and ultimately criminally prosecute heads of state for conduct unbecoming rules of engagement during wartime.
While there are major differences between a theatrical piece and the real life criminal complaint against Donald Rumsfeld, the resemblance is stunning in that, if nothing else, it shows that life and theatre often inhabit parallel universes ..The world of "A Nation Deceived" has, as its nexus, the discovery of the "Black Gold Exhibit," a national security document, AKA "the Oil Exhibit," a list of 30 countries, excluding the U.S., lined up to benefit from Iraqi oil in the months before 9/11, thus "the motive" for the American invasion of Iraq.. Old Man argues: "If something was not done to remove Saddam Hussein from power every one of those 30 countries was in line ahead of the U.S. for the huge resources of Iraqi oil."Ironically, but aptly, it is Bush's attorney, Ranger, who, in a fit of conscience, hands the Oil Exhibit, a key piece of evidence for the prosecution, over to Old Man who asks: "What did this war accomplish for democracy? Nothing. What did it accomplish for Halliburton? Well, it erased the 30 countries on the Black Gold list, that's what. And these three defendants (Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld) are now in charge of who gets that oil. No failure in Iraq for them. That is a completely successful result, if your purpose, all along, was only oil."
That the tenets and tenacity of these charges, and prosecution, are commonplace to the viewing audience today attests to the potency of the Internet with respect to instant news. That said, anyone who came to this performance expecting traditional theatre was in for a surprise. This piece is about as much like other courtroom dramas as Brigitte Bardot is like Edi Amin; it is not speculative, but exploratory in its insistence upon raising crucial, and compelling questions not only about the chicanery, and incompetence behind the buildup to war, but the culture of intellectual lassitude that went along for the ride.
Moreover, among the play's conclusions is the prospect of yet another imminent pre-emptive strike, in Iran, based on the manufacture of selectively deceptive intelligence. So it is, then, that "A Nation Deceived" demands of us that we ask not only who lied, and why, but how we allowed ourselves to be duped; there is an odor not just of "mendacity" here, but of complicity.Importantly, Barnes' attitude toward his work is not proprietary; he welcomes collaboration from the audience, and fellow performers. Sometimes, one feels as if he views history itself as his collaborator; sometimes, we agree, if it can be argued that history, too, takes place inside an imaginary courtroom.
When I asked Craig why he chose to write plays, he told me "Telling stories is more important as a catalyst for change than trying lawsuits." That said, "A Nation Deceived" is, in point of fact, about a lawyer, for the people, who acts as prosecutor against the key deciders in any wartime scenario, the president, vice president, and secretary of defense. The difference is that the courtroom, in question, is "The Court of Common Opinion," not a federal court, and that all proceeds from the these performances go towards spreading the discourse, and developing the Web site, www.anationdeceived.org, where one may also find the play.
Moreover, one of the principal virtues of "A Nation Deceived" is that it is protean, not something static and fixed; a project rather than a finished product. And, as such, it is more than a referendum on the legality of the Iraq war, but is an innovative, interactive approach to theatre. What's more, as should come as no surprise, the dialogue was authentic; the acting dynamic with stellar performances by Ed Asner, Craig Barnes, and Leith Burke. "A Nation Deceived" may be seen as a dramatic investigation of prewar intelligence, an exploration of probative arguments, as well as an indictment of a judicial system that stacks government heavyweights against Everyman.
But, in the final analysis, the play is a clever and conceptually compelling way to obviate the charge, however reasonable, that it is little more than an exercise in political didacticism. Instead, we, in the audience, get to look through a window at a system that is broken, yet still manages to offer up the specter of social justice in lieu of religious redemption. On the long drive back to Ventura from Venice, I found myself thinking about what Ed Asner meant when he said that playing Old Man is one of his "geschrei (screams)," and how many more geschrei it may take before "a nation deceived" becomes a nation relieved.
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
What Part of the Word Outrage...
don't they understand?
Lawyers for the Bush administration argued today that hundreds still held at Guantanamo Bay, in Cuba, have "no constitutional right to challenge their detention before U.S . federal judges;" moreover, they called for dismissal of hundreds of lawsuits. (Reuters) What curious timing on the part of the Justice Department in light of the filing Tuesday, in German court, of criminal charges against ousted Defense Secretary Donald Rumseld alleging that he was complicit in war crimes, and "sanctioned torture."
The administration claims it has a mandate to hold prisoners at Gitmo, and in secret detention cells around the world, based on the passage of Congress, last month, of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which all but suspends habeas corpus, and due proccess. As you recall, administration counsel worked overtime, this fall, to devise legislation to offset the damage done to a hyperactive executive branch by a recent Supreme Court ruling challenging the president's right to set up a system of military tribunals after the September 11 attacks. The appeals court is expected to decide on the legality of trying to deprive hundreds of those held access to federal courts later this year, and yet another trip to the Supreme Court appears certain.
Justice Department lawyers claim that habeas corpus is not a constitutional right "for an enemy alien outside the United States," specious reasoning given that Guantanamo Bay is a naval base, and protectorate of the United States. Further, does the government have the right, under this newfangled legislation, to suspend Fourth Amendment rights to American citizens labelled "enemy combatants," held in Cuba, Iraq, and other undisclosed locations? Now that we have an historic changing of the guard, and the minority, in Congress, has become the majority, one wonders if our newly elected representatives will bother to read future insults to civilization like the so-called "USA Patriot Act" which most of them profess never having read. One wonders, too, if in his remaining two years, Mr. Bush, or Mr. Gonzales, will be able to apply their linguistic, and legal sophistry to the passage of more antediluvian, and medieval acts such as the one that passed in October. Oh, and by the way, the Military Commissions Act of 2006 also grants retroactive immunity from prosecution for war crimes.
Still, attorneys for Bush and Co. contend that detainees receive military review to determine if the term "unlawful enemy combatant," coined by Donald Rumsfeld, can justifiably be applied to them. But, who could have come up with the phrase "Combatant Status Review Tribunal?" It's right out of the Battle of Grunwald.
The stage is now set for our government to slap other American citizens like Jose Padilla with the label "enemy combatant," subject them to cruel and inhuman punishment, hold them indefinitely without charge, without access to counsel, and all but shred their any presumption of innocence. What constitutional remedies they have may be lost just as they were for Padilla when the 4th Circuit Court ruled in favor of the Bush administration.
Moreover, to add insult to outrage, the Bush administration now wants hundreds of lawsuits by detainees who want judicial recourse from detention to be thrown out based on the presumption that the Military Commissions Act of 2006 gave the government the right to pursue them, with impunity, as they would hunted animals, all in the name of a war on terror. One can only hope that when the German Federal Prosecutor prepares to read the criminal complaint on behalf of a dozen victims--11 Iraqis detained at Abu Ghraib, one held at Guantanamo Bay, that attorneys with the Center for Constitutional Rights will prevail, and that those who have held jurisprudence hostage, for the past five years or more, can no longer consider themselves immune from prosecution as war criminals.
If, and when, this administration's attempt to divest hundreds of Guantanamo prisoners of their constitutional rights makes it to the Supreme Court, they will be well-served if reminded of something Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia once said: "The very core of liberty secured by our Anglo-Saxon system of separated powers has been freedom from indefinite imprisonment at the will of the Executive." And, one might add, with the collusion of Congress.
Lawyers for the Bush administration argued today that hundreds still held at Guantanamo Bay, in Cuba, have "no constitutional right to challenge their detention before U.S . federal judges;" moreover, they called for dismissal of hundreds of lawsuits. (Reuters) What curious timing on the part of the Justice Department in light of the filing Tuesday, in German court, of criminal charges against ousted Defense Secretary Donald Rumseld alleging that he was complicit in war crimes, and "sanctioned torture."
The administration claims it has a mandate to hold prisoners at Gitmo, and in secret detention cells around the world, based on the passage of Congress, last month, of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which all but suspends habeas corpus, and due proccess. As you recall, administration counsel worked overtime, this fall, to devise legislation to offset the damage done to a hyperactive executive branch by a recent Supreme Court ruling challenging the president's right to set up a system of military tribunals after the September 11 attacks. The appeals court is expected to decide on the legality of trying to deprive hundreds of those held access to federal courts later this year, and yet another trip to the Supreme Court appears certain.
Justice Department lawyers claim that habeas corpus is not a constitutional right "for an enemy alien outside the United States," specious reasoning given that Guantanamo Bay is a naval base, and protectorate of the United States. Further, does the government have the right, under this newfangled legislation, to suspend Fourth Amendment rights to American citizens labelled "enemy combatants," held in Cuba, Iraq, and other undisclosed locations? Now that we have an historic changing of the guard, and the minority, in Congress, has become the majority, one wonders if our newly elected representatives will bother to read future insults to civilization like the so-called "USA Patriot Act" which most of them profess never having read. One wonders, too, if in his remaining two years, Mr. Bush, or Mr. Gonzales, will be able to apply their linguistic, and legal sophistry to the passage of more antediluvian, and medieval acts such as the one that passed in October. Oh, and by the way, the Military Commissions Act of 2006 also grants retroactive immunity from prosecution for war crimes.
Still, attorneys for Bush and Co. contend that detainees receive military review to determine if the term "unlawful enemy combatant," coined by Donald Rumsfeld, can justifiably be applied to them. But, who could have come up with the phrase "Combatant Status Review Tribunal?" It's right out of the Battle of Grunwald.
The stage is now set for our government to slap other American citizens like Jose Padilla with the label "enemy combatant," subject them to cruel and inhuman punishment, hold them indefinitely without charge, without access to counsel, and all but shred their any presumption of innocence. What constitutional remedies they have may be lost just as they were for Padilla when the 4th Circuit Court ruled in favor of the Bush administration.
Moreover, to add insult to outrage, the Bush administration now wants hundreds of lawsuits by detainees who want judicial recourse from detention to be thrown out based on the presumption that the Military Commissions Act of 2006 gave the government the right to pursue them, with impunity, as they would hunted animals, all in the name of a war on terror. One can only hope that when the German Federal Prosecutor prepares to read the criminal complaint on behalf of a dozen victims--11 Iraqis detained at Abu Ghraib, one held at Guantanamo Bay, that attorneys with the Center for Constitutional Rights will prevail, and that those who have held jurisprudence hostage, for the past five years or more, can no longer consider themselves immune from prosecution as war criminals.
If, and when, this administration's attempt to divest hundreds of Guantanamo prisoners of their constitutional rights makes it to the Supreme Court, they will be well-served if reminded of something Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia once said: "The very core of liberty secured by our Anglo-Saxon system of separated powers has been freedom from indefinite imprisonment at the will of the Executive." And, one might add, with the collusion of Congress.
Saturday, November 11, 2006
Campaign Against Houston Janitors
Bet you weren't surprised, the day after Election Day, when you went to the pump to find the price of gas was higher than it was on Tuesday, and higher still on Thursday. Bet you weren't surprised either when reading that Chevron Oil posted a $14 billion profit last year.
But, for the past several days, there is a story that's been missing in action from the mainstream media: the strike, by Houston janitors for higher wages, as well as medical benefits. Yes, Chevron Corporation that boasts record annual earnings, the company that also controls most of Houston's office space, is working overtime to squeeze every last penny out of those who clean its corporate offices in the largest city of the state most often associated with oil barons, indeed the home state of Oil Baron in Chief, and president, Bush.
What are those who clean Chevron's Texas corporate offices demanding? They want higher wages, yes, they want to earn $8.50 an hour, and they want to be eligible for health care benefits. Lynda Tran, a spokesperson for Service Employees International Union, the union that represents the janitors, says that "There's a worker who tells me every night she has to clean 63 toilets, on top of scrubbing floors and wiping down windows and wiping down tables and the desks and that sort of thing...working their fingers to the bone. And they get paid $20 a night." Moreover, t he strike heated up when a union strike organizer was allegedly punched by a manager. (Worker Independent News) But, even more startling is the firing of 14 workers for speaking out against exploitation of the most egregious kind.
Yes, that's right, the cleaning person at Chevron headquarters responsible for cleaning toilets, scrubbing floors, earns a whopping $20 a night for her labor which is probably less than what David J. O'Reilly, Chevron Chair and CEO, gives to a valet as a tip. And, if she dares to walk out, she's risks losing her job.
We have come a long way, baby, and virtually overnight. But, we have not come far enough if we can accept that one of the world's wealthiest corporations, Chevron, can get away with cheating American workers and their families. Ronald Reagan dealt a blow to the air traffic controllers, and to the concept of unions, when he coerced the end to their strike. When Congress next convenes, it is already on their agenda to discuss raising the minimum wage. It might not be a bad idea, too, to consider some kind of legislation to protect workers from job loss for striking, and/or speaking up for their rights.
The Democratic leadership, which purports to have the best interests of the American worker in mind, must now work to reverse the pro-management, anti-union trend which has broken the backs of the American worker, as well as slowly, but surely eroding the civil rights, and equal opportunities, of those who need those protections the most. It is not a question of stronger unions, by any means, but stronger legislation to protect those workers from harassment, and job loss who find it necessary to take the most desperate measure of walking out from unjustifiable termination.
Whether our elected representatives, in Congress, opt to tackle the contemptible practice of robbing from the poor to feed the rich, as best exemplified by the janitor strike against Chevron headquarters, those of us who care about the plight of those janitors in Houston, as well as others who work for oil giant, Chevron, may feel free to express their concerns, as I have, to Mr. O'Reilly at Chevron Corporation, 6001 Bollinger Canyon Road, San Ramon, California 94583.
But, for the past several days, there is a story that's been missing in action from the mainstream media: the strike, by Houston janitors for higher wages, as well as medical benefits. Yes, Chevron Corporation that boasts record annual earnings, the company that also controls most of Houston's office space, is working overtime to squeeze every last penny out of those who clean its corporate offices in the largest city of the state most often associated with oil barons, indeed the home state of Oil Baron in Chief, and president, Bush.
What are those who clean Chevron's Texas corporate offices demanding? They want higher wages, yes, they want to earn $8.50 an hour, and they want to be eligible for health care benefits. Lynda Tran, a spokesperson for Service Employees International Union, the union that represents the janitors, says that "There's a worker who tells me every night she has to clean 63 toilets, on top of scrubbing floors and wiping down windows and wiping down tables and the desks and that sort of thing...working their fingers to the bone. And they get paid $20 a night." Moreover, t he strike heated up when a union strike organizer was allegedly punched by a manager. (Worker Independent News) But, even more startling is the firing of 14 workers for speaking out against exploitation of the most egregious kind.
Yes, that's right, the cleaning person at Chevron headquarters responsible for cleaning toilets, scrubbing floors, earns a whopping $20 a night for her labor which is probably less than what David J. O'Reilly, Chevron Chair and CEO, gives to a valet as a tip. And, if she dares to walk out, she's risks losing her job.
We have come a long way, baby, and virtually overnight. But, we have not come far enough if we can accept that one of the world's wealthiest corporations, Chevron, can get away with cheating American workers and their families. Ronald Reagan dealt a blow to the air traffic controllers, and to the concept of unions, when he coerced the end to their strike. When Congress next convenes, it is already on their agenda to discuss raising the minimum wage. It might not be a bad idea, too, to consider some kind of legislation to protect workers from job loss for striking, and/or speaking up for their rights.
The Democratic leadership, which purports to have the best interests of the American worker in mind, must now work to reverse the pro-management, anti-union trend which has broken the backs of the American worker, as well as slowly, but surely eroding the civil rights, and equal opportunities, of those who need those protections the most. It is not a question of stronger unions, by any means, but stronger legislation to protect those workers from harassment, and job loss who find it necessary to take the most desperate measure of walking out from unjustifiable termination.
Whether our elected representatives, in Congress, opt to tackle the contemptible practice of robbing from the poor to feed the rich, as best exemplified by the janitor strike against Chevron headquarters, those of us who care about the plight of those janitors in Houston, as well as others who work for oil giant, Chevron, may feel free to express their concerns, as I have, to Mr. O'Reilly at Chevron Corporation, 6001 Bollinger Canyon Road, San Ramon, California 94583.
Friday, November 10, 2006
From March, 1995: "The November Revolution: A Look Back"
The below piece was written nearly 12 years ago on the heels of the neo-con takeover of Congress...
As we creep up on the close of a century, a time of re-evaluation is in order. Last November, the greatest country on earth witnessed a changing of the guard. No ordinary shift for an extraordinary nation---indeed, a reaction, not unlike a nuclear explosion, that will be felt for many years to come.
If given the chance, in its first hundred days, the Republican majority in Congress will turn the clock back to a time when the privileged enjoyed their privileges unabashedly, and the impoverished, lacking government subsidy, roamed city streets begging for food. If given the chance, the Republican majority in Congress will take us back to the time when women resorted to back alleys for relief from unwanted pregnancies. This insurgency will do more, in its infancy, to destroy any efforts at human decency as well as all strides in social equity made in the past hundred years.
In response to the question "whose revolution is this," one has only to look at the so-called Civil Rights initiative being proposed by two Berkeley professors. This initiative does nothing less than advocate the abolition of affirmative action. It stipulates that employment selection be made based on merit only; without regard to one's race, religion, or gender. It is a proposal created by white males, for white males, springing from a bottomless pit of fear which is the basis for why many who voted in November, voted Republican.
Clearly, in the best of all possible worlds, employers would hire solely on merit. But, in the best of all possible worlds, men wouldn't earn approximately 32% more than women, based on the archaic presumption that the male is the breadwinner. Likewise, in the best of all possible worlds, black and Hispanic unemployment would not be nearly double that of whites. The question, thus, is inescapable—from where does this dread of loss of power derive? Evidently, current statistics don't support such angst.
In November, California, a harbinger of national trends, passed Proposition 187 making life, already difficult, a living hell for anyone who is not a legal immigrant. Approved by a wide margin, it deprives illegal immigrants of health care, and public school programs; and a GOP plan is currently in the works targeting legal immigrants, as well.
The issue is not whether this proposition is right or wrong, but why it met with overwhelming voter approbation; just as with the Civil Rights initiative in northern California, the question is why this egregious climate of apprehension.
An impressive amount of time, energy, and money is being spent to keep power exactly where it is and has been for the past 200 years—squarely in the hands of a tiny percentage of the population.
While a vocal minority of white males are afraid of losing their tenuous grip, the white majority is horrified by the idea that even one tax dollar winds up in the pocket of an illegal immigrant. This is a grave paradox given the fact that America is a nation of immigrants, and our forefathers were about as illegal as an illegal immigrant can be. Indeed, it may be said that the only people who have any legitimate claim to this country are the so-called Indians, a misnomer Native Americans have, until only recently, been forced to endure.
One finds oneself in the awkward position of taking a look back at the future when considering Newt Gingrich's "Contract With America," a contract which supports the politics of exclusion rather than inclusion, and threatens the arts, aid to dependent families as well as a woman's right to choose. By extension, Gingrich's "Contract" all but eliminates the Fourth Amendment. Here, again, it is not the legislation that is ominous, but the thought behind the legislation.
Not insignificantly, the word "reform," which once suggested positive change, has come to be synonymous with rescinds. When the conservative majority talks about reform, it is a euphemism for elimination. Further, if their "reforms" are realized, there won't be an American earning less than $200,000 a year who won't feel the pinch.
An even greater menace than the tangible changes in programs being proposed is the central world view; a world view that reinforces sameness out of dread of difference, conformity, out of fear of social ostracism, and a survival of the fittest mentality. More precarious still is the underlying assumption that one's fitness is predicated more on one's net worth than on one's value as a human being.
America voted in November and, in December, in Massachusetts, a mirror was held up for all who bothered to look to see how demented we, as a nation, have become. A gunman, entering pre-term clinics, randomly targeted clinic workers—the taking of life in the name of the unborn. What monstrous irony to assert the validity of any act of terrorism in an abortive effort to preclude what one considers terrible acts.
If we must go back in order to go forward, then the election may have taken us just far back enough that we can see, from over our shoulder, that the century being presented to us, by proponents of the right, is nowhere near where we should be at this point in Western Civilization.
by: Jayne Lyn Stahl
March 23, 1995
Newton, Massachusetts
(Delighted to say that Congressman Barney Frank was among the first people to read the above piece. Thanks to Barney for his wonderful work on behalf of free speech, and for his lifelong support of progressive change.)
As we creep up on the close of a century, a time of re-evaluation is in order. Last November, the greatest country on earth witnessed a changing of the guard. No ordinary shift for an extraordinary nation---indeed, a reaction, not unlike a nuclear explosion, that will be felt for many years to come.
If given the chance, in its first hundred days, the Republican majority in Congress will turn the clock back to a time when the privileged enjoyed their privileges unabashedly, and the impoverished, lacking government subsidy, roamed city streets begging for food. If given the chance, the Republican majority in Congress will take us back to the time when women resorted to back alleys for relief from unwanted pregnancies. This insurgency will do more, in its infancy, to destroy any efforts at human decency as well as all strides in social equity made in the past hundred years.
In response to the question "whose revolution is this," one has only to look at the so-called Civil Rights initiative being proposed by two Berkeley professors. This initiative does nothing less than advocate the abolition of affirmative action. It stipulates that employment selection be made based on merit only; without regard to one's race, religion, or gender. It is a proposal created by white males, for white males, springing from a bottomless pit of fear which is the basis for why many who voted in November, voted Republican.
Clearly, in the best of all possible worlds, employers would hire solely on merit. But, in the best of all possible worlds, men wouldn't earn approximately 32% more than women, based on the archaic presumption that the male is the breadwinner. Likewise, in the best of all possible worlds, black and Hispanic unemployment would not be nearly double that of whites. The question, thus, is inescapable—from where does this dread of loss of power derive? Evidently, current statistics don't support such angst.
In November, California, a harbinger of national trends, passed Proposition 187 making life, already difficult, a living hell for anyone who is not a legal immigrant. Approved by a wide margin, it deprives illegal immigrants of health care, and public school programs; and a GOP plan is currently in the works targeting legal immigrants, as well.
The issue is not whether this proposition is right or wrong, but why it met with overwhelming voter approbation; just as with the Civil Rights initiative in northern California, the question is why this egregious climate of apprehension.
An impressive amount of time, energy, and money is being spent to keep power exactly where it is and has been for the past 200 years—squarely in the hands of a tiny percentage of the population.
While a vocal minority of white males are afraid of losing their tenuous grip, the white majority is horrified by the idea that even one tax dollar winds up in the pocket of an illegal immigrant. This is a grave paradox given the fact that America is a nation of immigrants, and our forefathers were about as illegal as an illegal immigrant can be. Indeed, it may be said that the only people who have any legitimate claim to this country are the so-called Indians, a misnomer Native Americans have, until only recently, been forced to endure.
One finds oneself in the awkward position of taking a look back at the future when considering Newt Gingrich's "Contract With America," a contract which supports the politics of exclusion rather than inclusion, and threatens the arts, aid to dependent families as well as a woman's right to choose. By extension, Gingrich's "Contract" all but eliminates the Fourth Amendment. Here, again, it is not the legislation that is ominous, but the thought behind the legislation.
Not insignificantly, the word "reform," which once suggested positive change, has come to be synonymous with rescinds. When the conservative majority talks about reform, it is a euphemism for elimination. Further, if their "reforms" are realized, there won't be an American earning less than $200,000 a year who won't feel the pinch.
An even greater menace than the tangible changes in programs being proposed is the central world view; a world view that reinforces sameness out of dread of difference, conformity, out of fear of social ostracism, and a survival of the fittest mentality. More precarious still is the underlying assumption that one's fitness is predicated more on one's net worth than on one's value as a human being.
America voted in November and, in December, in Massachusetts, a mirror was held up for all who bothered to look to see how demented we, as a nation, have become. A gunman, entering pre-term clinics, randomly targeted clinic workers—the taking of life in the name of the unborn. What monstrous irony to assert the validity of any act of terrorism in an abortive effort to preclude what one considers terrible acts.
If we must go back in order to go forward, then the election may have taken us just far back enough that we can see, from over our shoulder, that the century being presented to us, by proponents of the right, is nowhere near where we should be at this point in Western Civilization.
by: Jayne Lyn Stahl
March 23, 1995
Newton, Massachusetts
(Delighted to say that Congressman Barney Frank was among the first people to read the above piece. Thanks to Barney for his wonderful work on behalf of free speech, and for his lifelong support of progressive change.)
Thursday, November 09, 2006
Farewell to a Friend
Today America, and the world, lost Ed Bradley, a fine human being, an investigative reporter with an uncanny, and unerring sense of purpose, and insight who was gifted not merely in seeing, but in asking the right questions. His was a life, and voice, that won't soon be forgotten. There was only one Ed Bradley; he was a prince among men.
I did not know Ed, but, like you, and the millions of other viewers with whom he shared a living room, every Sunday night, on the news show "Sixty Minutes," I came to see him as a friend. And, this, finally, was his greatest gift, that he could find a way to connect, to stimulate, and to ignite a spark just bright enough to inspire each, and every one, of us to find our own peculiar truth.
I did not know Ed, but, like you, and the millions of other viewers with whom he shared a living room, every Sunday night, on the news show "Sixty Minutes," I came to see him as a friend. And, this, finally, was his greatest gift, that he could find a way to connect, to stimulate, and to ignite a spark just bright enough to inspire each, and every one, of us to find our own peculiar truth.
and now a word from our sponsors...
The below comes from one of the folks who brought you your Declaration of Independence who, could he hear the results of Tuesday's election, would himself join us in dancing down Pennsylvania Avenue....
"A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public debt. . . If the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at stake."
>> -- Thomas Jefferson, 1798, after the passage of the Sedition Act.
wave "bye bye" to the reign of witches, and know that the end of the reign of warlocks, too, is close at hand.
"A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public debt. . . If the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at stake."
>> -- Thomas Jefferson, 1798, after the passage of the Sedition Act.
wave "bye bye" to the reign of witches, and know that the end of the reign of warlocks, too, is close at hand.
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
What Happened in California?
While we celebrate the news that Nancy Pelosi is now the first woman Speaker of the House in history and she, of course, hails from San Francisco, we must also consider that California, the most populous state in the union, gave a decisive thumbs-up to Republican governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, last night. Schwarzenegger won by a more than 2 to 1 margin proving to be the only Republican governor in the country who can say that. For the first time in years, New York now has a Democrat as governor, and an historic number of Dems have won the national gubernatorial race.
Oh, and lest one think that Ah-nold's victory is an anomaly, consider how the state propositions went. What can only be seen as Republican initiatives, Proposition 83, "Jessica's Law," which increases penalties for "violent and habitual sex offenders," as well as proscribing residence near school and parks, a neo-con dream come true, passed by a more than 2 to 1 margin, Proposition 87, alternative energy bill, which would hold large oil companies fiscally accountable for asthma, and other environmental woes failed despite high profile celebrity endorsements from Al Gore, Warren Beatty, and others, Proposition 85, parental notification failed but was uncomfortably close, a bill to provide more funds to education also failed; lobbyists for big tobacco won out, and Proposition 86, to raise cigarette tax, failed. There was some good news---Proposition 84, which provides for parental notification, failed, and California has greater environmental protection now that Proposition 90 was defeated; also, Jerry Brown, a vocal opponent of the death penalty won the race for attorney-general.
Still, one must ask how it is that, when Democrats swept the Northeast defeating even Rick Santorum, in Pennsylvania, making policy change de rigeur for an administration that has proven itself to be obdurate, and unflinching, that California has, with a few exceptions, approved those propositions near and dear to the oil guzzlers, and conservatives? Can it be that Californians were concerned that Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Phil Angelides, was not only soft, but soft on immigration? Is that the subtext of the California vote? As the governor has amply demonstrated his enthusiasm for using the National Guard to patrol the border between California and Mexico, despite the Feinstein victory in the Senate race, and the ascent of Nancy Pelosi to Speaker of the House, one can't help but think that we, in California, are still in Ronald Reagan country while the rest of the world is watching Bill Maher.
Oh, and lest one think that Ah-nold's victory is an anomaly, consider how the state propositions went. What can only be seen as Republican initiatives, Proposition 83, "Jessica's Law," which increases penalties for "violent and habitual sex offenders," as well as proscribing residence near school and parks, a neo-con dream come true, passed by a more than 2 to 1 margin, Proposition 87, alternative energy bill, which would hold large oil companies fiscally accountable for asthma, and other environmental woes failed despite high profile celebrity endorsements from Al Gore, Warren Beatty, and others, Proposition 85, parental notification failed but was uncomfortably close, a bill to provide more funds to education also failed; lobbyists for big tobacco won out, and Proposition 86, to raise cigarette tax, failed. There was some good news---Proposition 84, which provides for parental notification, failed, and California has greater environmental protection now that Proposition 90 was defeated; also, Jerry Brown, a vocal opponent of the death penalty won the race for attorney-general.
Still, one must ask how it is that, when Democrats swept the Northeast defeating even Rick Santorum, in Pennsylvania, making policy change de rigeur for an administration that has proven itself to be obdurate, and unflinching, that California has, with a few exceptions, approved those propositions near and dear to the oil guzzlers, and conservatives? Can it be that Californians were concerned that Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Phil Angelides, was not only soft, but soft on immigration? Is that the subtext of the California vote? As the governor has amply demonstrated his enthusiasm for using the National Guard to patrol the border between California and Mexico, despite the Feinstein victory in the Senate race, and the ascent of Nancy Pelosi to Speaker of the House, one can't help but think that we, in California, are still in Ronald Reagan country while the rest of the world is watching Bill Maher.
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
And Yet A Reminder:...
Now that the American people have spoken, and Congress, once again, will reflect the ideas, and aspirations of everyone, in this country, who is to the left of Atila the Hun, it's time for the champagne bottles to go back in the frig, and the shirtsleeves, stuffed or otherwise, to roll up. While this election is a strong indictment of this administration's war policy, those among us who expect instant miracles, with regard to withdrawal from Iraq, now that Congress has changed hands will be hugely disappointed.
Indeed, you may recall that there was only one member of Congress who voted against the war in Iraq, in the first place, and that was Barbara Lee. But, be that as it may, even if we were to pull our troops out of Baghdad, and environs, Monday morning, we need to campaign as vigilantly against human rights abuses, extraordinary rendition, secret cells, and torture which the neo-conservative jihad is leaving as their noxious legacy. Importantly, vitriole and bombast are what got us into this illegal war, and the poison surely won't be the cure this time around, either.
Moreover, the president's gleeful redundancy that we must "stay the course," in Iraq, takes on an eerie quality, and a new meaning, now that the Democrats are at the helm, and especially in light of news that one of the first American female casualties of the war in Iraq died by her own hand. With recent revelations about the truth of how she died, torture, and how it is defined by this administration, is back on the menu.
As "Editor and Publisher" reported, 27 year old Alyssa Peterson, from Flagstaff, Arizona, was an Army specialist and member of the 101st Airborne. Ms. Peterson enlisted in the military back in July, 2001, and shot herself with own rifle on September 15, 2003, after making it known, to colleagues, that she was unable to comply with interrogation procedures used at the Tal-Afar base in northern Iraq.
Her concerns take on special poignancy in light of revelations in last week's Washington Post of Bush administration arguments that terrorism suspects not be allowed to give descriptive details of "alternative interrogation methods" used by their their captors as part of their defense in federal court citing "national security" as a rationale for keeping these techniques secret.
But, what more do we know about the 27 year old Flagstaff woman? Ms. Peterson had a psychology degree from Northern Arizona University, was fluent in Arabic, and was a devout Mormon. She had received extensive training, from the military, in methods of interrogation. Her suicide was officially described, back in 2003, as having resulted from "non-hostile weapons charge," and local newspapers, at the time, described the Army's account that it was an accidental shooting either from her own weapon, from another service member, or from an Iraqi.
Notably, it was only when a Flagstaff public radio, and newspaper, reporter, Kevin Elston, decided to himself investigate the circumstances surrounding Peterson's death, obtaining official documents, previously withheld by the military, under the Freedom of Information Act, that startling details came to light. Elston recounts that "she refused to participate after only two nights working in the unit known as the cage." Further, the Army spokespersons, for her unit, declined to describe the interrogation methods Peterson witnessed, insisting that "all records of those techniques have now been destroyed."
Given her refusal to be a party to the practices used by her commanding officers to obtain information from prisoners, she was then transferred, and assigned to monitor Iraqi guards. She was also required to enter a suicide prevention training program, an irony not lost on Peterson, in what little is known of her suicide note, observes that it was her suicide prevention training that prepared her to effectively kill herself. Further, the suicide note found on her body, at the time of her death, will also only be made available under an FOIA suit, and Elston has recently filed another lawsuit to obtain its release.
While the entire contents of Peterson's note are not public and, arguably, no one may ever know exactly why this 27 year old Army specialist decided to kill herself with her own service rifle, the Army did conduct an investigation in which several of her associates, and friends, were questioned. As Elston says, it became clear, from the testimonies, that "she objected to the interrogation techniques, without describing what those techniques were." What's more, her father, a Flagstaff postal worker, insists that she also tried "to change assignments with someone who did not want to go to Iraq."
As the military won't release details of specific procedures, one can only wonder what methods could be so terrible as to drive a young Army enlistee to take her own life, and become among the first women casualties of the war in Iraq. Moreover, will the "alternative interrogation methods" the young Army specialist may well have witnessed ever see the light of day in federal court, or will that also be classified as "sensitive compartmented information" as our government now designates anything it deems top secret. In late October, Vice President Dick Cheney called talk about controversial interrogation techniques, such as water boarding, "a little silly." One wonders, too, what the father of this young servicewoman would have to say about that. Victory, in an election, is always sweet; yet it must also serve as a reminder that it's time for the chickens to come home to roost in this country, with respect to high crimes and misdemeanors in Iraq, and for those, in this government, who call for secrecy with respect to interrogation techniques, and torture, to face the light of day.
Hopefully, when it next convenes, the new majority in the House and Senate will roll up their sleeves, get to work on this egregious breach of the Geneva Conventions, and constitutional law, as well as let those who gave us recent legislation, like the Military Commissions Act, that effectively eliminates habeas corpus, and the so-called USA Patriot Act, which violates our First Amendment rights, know that they won't have Congress to kick around anymore.
Monday, November 06, 2006
Bonfire of Inanities
On this the day before the most important midterm election in more than a decade, it seems that the only one not snubbing the president is Barney, his Scottish Terrier. But this, the season of our discontent, unlike any before it, must make room for an unprecedented demand for public apologia, evisceration, and inanity. Indeed, it seems that the only time we have any interest in substance, in this country, is when we're abusing it.
Just when we thought we'd heard enough about Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert, and his alleged cover-up of Florida Rep. Mark Foley's instant messages to a 16 year old congressional page, along comes Brokeback Mountain, evangelical-style, and "disgraced" Colorado minister, Ted Haggard, who denies using methadrine while confessing, to his scandal-starved congregation, that his sensuality got the better of him, and is forced to resign. "We're living this in real time," said Rob Brendle, associate pastor of Haggard's New Life Church, as indeed the Salem Bay trials were in real time, too. (NYT) Consider, too, how one ecclesiastical hypocrite has been forced to his knees for a public spanking, and mea culpa, when, by conservative estimates, hundreds of his Catholic brothers will go unnoticed, and unpunished.
Nobody can say Rep.Mark Foley doesn't lead a charmed life, Jack Abramoff would bribe a boat of Arab hijackers to be that lucky.
Haggard succeeded better than anyone else to take Foley, and Hastert out of the spotlight, but what does this say about this campaign from hell, literally?
While the pundits rant incessantly about how this year might register as a 6.5 on the Richter scale of negative campaigning, there is more that is inane than negative both in the campaign ads, and in the personal attacks on candidates.. If we learned anything from Foley's fall from grace, it is that a cyberspace instant fantasy world between a teenage page and a member of Congress titillates John Q. Public, and sells more newspapers than a real life threat from Kim Jong in North Korea. But, this is nothing new.
What modern technology, the Internet, the digital camera, and the big screen T.V. can take credit for is having the nascent art of the confessional to new levels. If it were possible for Joan of Arc to be interviewed by CNN's Wolf Blitzer, she might not have burned at the stake, after all, but joined the cast of Donald Trump's reality show instead. Yes, we have taken the notion of theater of the absurd to new heights. Consider, for a moment, the apology made by a previous presidential candidate, John Kerry, for an inane joke in light of the fact that the sitting president sees no reason to apologize for the loss of more than 2,800 American service men and women's lives. While Kerry may have denounced what he terms a "campaign of fear and smear" against him, (NYT) if truth be told, there'd be nobody home in the White House, for the past 6 years, without "fear and smear."
In an attempt to force the Senator to his knees, Republicans ran a Web ad, that rivals the Swift Boat debacle, demanding an apology from Kerry, while showing U.S. soldiers in Iraq holding a banner that reads "Halp Us Jon Carry—We R Stuck Hear in Irak." Don't the words "mea culpa" mean anything to anybody anymore? Aren't we glad we now have a one size fits all crucifix.
Moreover, the "Halp Us Jon Carry" ad pales in comparison with the Tennessee advertising blitz in which congressional candidate, Harold Ford, is being fed the bait by a contender for Playmate of the Month. Forget about being racist, I think the ad is an insult to Hugh Hefner and the Playboy Club, and I'm waiting for Mr. Hefner to stand up, and demand an apology from Ford's Republican challenger, Robert Corker.
While we agree with Margaret Carlson that the Tennessee congressional race may be the "basest" campaign of all, let's not forget the inanity of the Senate race in Richmond, Virginia, and Senator George Allen's accusations against his Democratic counterpart, Jim Webb, that he demeans women in his fiction. What's more, one must ask what Allen's positions are on Roe v. Wade, and whether he thinks overturning that constitutional amendment would constitute demeaning women. But, then, that would be something that happens in "real time," and nobody cares about real time, anymore.
You may recall, too, that Jim Webb is a decorated Vietnam veteran who later served as Ronald Reagan's Secretary of the Navy.. Clearly, this is why Senator Allen has tried so vigorously to use the oldest trick in the book, scandal, to deflect attention away from the fact that, by a ratio of nearly 2 to 1, those in Congress who most favored sending troops to Iraq, and "staying the course," are those who were missing in action in previous wars.
Dating back to the days when we tried folks for being witches at Salem Bay to the Commie witch hunts of Joe McCarthy, we Americans have a long, and distinguished history of indulging in practices which must seem to the rest of the world to be inane and, arguably, criminally inane. Even if we didn't invent irrelevancy, we sure as hell mastered it.
Make no mistake, while no one can dispute that, with this election, we've reached a new, and vastly improved, threshold of inanity, there are some pretty potent issues out there, none of which may be said to have taken steroids, and these are the issues to focus on in this election year, as well as in 2008. There is more hunger, more homelessness, more bloodshed, and yet a greater possibility for more violence, including a nuclear holocaust, today than ever before, and there is only one known antidote which is to vote, and to vote early, before voting itself becomes an act of civil disobedience.
We live in an age when even the truth must be fitted for a bullet proof vest, or senior members of our government are likely to take puck shots at it. It's time to show those wunderkinden of spin, the Roves and the Snows, that the media is not the massage; go to the polls tomorrow, and cast your vote for regime change in Washington, while it's still there for the casting.
Just when we thought we'd heard enough about Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert, and his alleged cover-up of Florida Rep. Mark Foley's instant messages to a 16 year old congressional page, along comes Brokeback Mountain, evangelical-style, and "disgraced" Colorado minister, Ted Haggard, who denies using methadrine while confessing, to his scandal-starved congregation, that his sensuality got the better of him, and is forced to resign. "We're living this in real time," said Rob Brendle, associate pastor of Haggard's New Life Church, as indeed the Salem Bay trials were in real time, too. (NYT) Consider, too, how one ecclesiastical hypocrite has been forced to his knees for a public spanking, and mea culpa, when, by conservative estimates, hundreds of his Catholic brothers will go unnoticed, and unpunished.
Nobody can say Rep.Mark Foley doesn't lead a charmed life, Jack Abramoff would bribe a boat of Arab hijackers to be that lucky.
Haggard succeeded better than anyone else to take Foley, and Hastert out of the spotlight, but what does this say about this campaign from hell, literally?
While the pundits rant incessantly about how this year might register as a 6.5 on the Richter scale of negative campaigning, there is more that is inane than negative both in the campaign ads, and in the personal attacks on candidates.. If we learned anything from Foley's fall from grace, it is that a cyberspace instant fantasy world between a teenage page and a member of Congress titillates John Q. Public, and sells more newspapers than a real life threat from Kim Jong in North Korea. But, this is nothing new.
What modern technology, the Internet, the digital camera, and the big screen T.V. can take credit for is having the nascent art of the confessional to new levels. If it were possible for Joan of Arc to be interviewed by CNN's Wolf Blitzer, she might not have burned at the stake, after all, but joined the cast of Donald Trump's reality show instead. Yes, we have taken the notion of theater of the absurd to new heights. Consider, for a moment, the apology made by a previous presidential candidate, John Kerry, for an inane joke in light of the fact that the sitting president sees no reason to apologize for the loss of more than 2,800 American service men and women's lives. While Kerry may have denounced what he terms a "campaign of fear and smear" against him, (NYT) if truth be told, there'd be nobody home in the White House, for the past 6 years, without "fear and smear."
In an attempt to force the Senator to his knees, Republicans ran a Web ad, that rivals the Swift Boat debacle, demanding an apology from Kerry, while showing U.S. soldiers in Iraq holding a banner that reads "Halp Us Jon Carry—We R Stuck Hear in Irak." Don't the words "mea culpa" mean anything to anybody anymore? Aren't we glad we now have a one size fits all crucifix.
Moreover, the "Halp Us Jon Carry" ad pales in comparison with the Tennessee advertising blitz in which congressional candidate, Harold Ford, is being fed the bait by a contender for Playmate of the Month. Forget about being racist, I think the ad is an insult to Hugh Hefner and the Playboy Club, and I'm waiting for Mr. Hefner to stand up, and demand an apology from Ford's Republican challenger, Robert Corker.
While we agree with Margaret Carlson that the Tennessee congressional race may be the "basest" campaign of all, let's not forget the inanity of the Senate race in Richmond, Virginia, and Senator George Allen's accusations against his Democratic counterpart, Jim Webb, that he demeans women in his fiction. What's more, one must ask what Allen's positions are on Roe v. Wade, and whether he thinks overturning that constitutional amendment would constitute demeaning women. But, then, that would be something that happens in "real time," and nobody cares about real time, anymore.
You may recall, too, that Jim Webb is a decorated Vietnam veteran who later served as Ronald Reagan's Secretary of the Navy.. Clearly, this is why Senator Allen has tried so vigorously to use the oldest trick in the book, scandal, to deflect attention away from the fact that, by a ratio of nearly 2 to 1, those in Congress who most favored sending troops to Iraq, and "staying the course," are those who were missing in action in previous wars.
Dating back to the days when we tried folks for being witches at Salem Bay to the Commie witch hunts of Joe McCarthy, we Americans have a long, and distinguished history of indulging in practices which must seem to the rest of the world to be inane and, arguably, criminally inane. Even if we didn't invent irrelevancy, we sure as hell mastered it.
Make no mistake, while no one can dispute that, with this election, we've reached a new, and vastly improved, threshold of inanity, there are some pretty potent issues out there, none of which may be said to have taken steroids, and these are the issues to focus on in this election year, as well as in 2008. There is more hunger, more homelessness, more bloodshed, and yet a greater possibility for more violence, including a nuclear holocaust, today than ever before, and there is only one known antidote which is to vote, and to vote early, before voting itself becomes an act of civil disobedience.
We live in an age when even the truth must be fitted for a bullet proof vest, or senior members of our government are likely to take puck shots at it. It's time to show those wunderkinden of spin, the Roves and the Snows, that the media is not the massage; go to the polls tomorrow, and cast your vote for regime change in Washington, while it's still there for the casting.
for regime change...
Had enough of bloodshed in Iraq as a result of irrelevant war, corruption, greed, secrecy, evangelical hypocrisy, congressional stalemates; want to see justice served, along with truth, for the next 2 years? Go to the polls tomorrow; encourage your friends, family, and associates to go to the polls tomorrow, and vote for Democrats!
Sunday, November 05, 2006
Full Moon Over Baghdad
Am glad to see I'm not the only one having a bad day. Saddam Hussein was just convicted, and sentenced to hang for the execution of 148 men and boys, back in 1982, who were alleged to have been involved in an assassination attempt against him. Oh, and yes, this is just the tip of the iceberg.
While we, a culture of narcissists, sit and ponder whether the timing of the verdict was arranged to coincide with the midterm elections, press secretary for the Occupier in Chief, suggests that those who think that must be "smoking rope." Well, Saddam's days of smoking rope may just be over; he may soon be hanging from one. That is, of course, unless the verdict and sentence meet their end under the appeals process. Still, even if the appellate court in Iraq, such as it is, overrules this verdict and sentence, he faces a second trial in which he is charged with killing as many as 100,000 Kurds twenty years ago. One way or another, Bush is determined to make this guy pay.
We agree that the whole judicial process which tried and sentenced the former dictator of Iraq is " mockery of justice," (Washington Post) but so is giving the death sentence to someone who gave the death sentence to others. After all, what is a "crime against humanity?" Is killing Saddam the "Christian" thing to do? Moreover, is this not why the trial had to take place in Iraq and not in the U.S., so our hands could remain clean, but clean in whose eyes?
Is giving death to a ruler for his crimes against humanity itself not a crime against humanity? What's more, what does one do about the leaders of scores of Shiite death squads who are killing at least as many Sunnis, each day, as Saddam was just sentenced for having executed, some of whose leaders are "working as the head of political blocs" in Iraqi government today? (WaPo) So it is then that capital crimes require capital punishment. It would be naive, of course, but one can only hope that the same rule of law applies regardless of who's standing trial, their nation of origin, as well as their stature.
Once again, the U.S. can declare victory as purveyors of freedom, and justice, and saviors from torture, and cruel and inhuman punishment inflicted on the Iraqi people by that barbarian Saddam Hussein. Yet again, our government can claim that we've helped that country to establish a judicial infrastructure such that it can try and punish its own renegade leaders. Indeed, we can make such claims, but not with a straight face, not in light of our government's efforts to keep detainees from testifying about our own interrogation techniques in federal court, not in light of Abu Ghraib, and the shooting of innocent Iraqi civilians, not insofar as we have outsourced the death penalty in the name of exporting democracy.
But, death by hanging? That's so medieval. Surely Dick Cheney, and his buddies at Halliburton, can come up with a new, and improved way for state sanctioned murder, like lethal injection, if for no other reason than to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that, if nothing else, we've exported modernity to Iraq. I'm sure if there's a buck to be made, Cheney and his boys will be on the next flight. After all, the least we can do is modernize how the Iraqis execute people. Is it not a crime against humanity to hang a man? any man? Or, are some murders more justified than others? And whose sophistry is this? Anyone in the religious right who says that it's okay to let the Shiites do our killing for us will answer to that "higher power" if, and when, He ever decides to call collect.
Oh, and if we, in this country, can pull ourselves away from the mirror long enough, we may just see this sham of a trial, apart from being a "mockery of justice," will show the world that death by Shiite is no better than death by Saddam is no better than death by Marine, and that a death squad is a death squad just as a "dunk in the water is a dunk in the water."
While we, a culture of narcissists, sit and ponder whether the timing of the verdict was arranged to coincide with the midterm elections, press secretary for the Occupier in Chief, suggests that those who think that must be "smoking rope." Well, Saddam's days of smoking rope may just be over; he may soon be hanging from one. That is, of course, unless the verdict and sentence meet their end under the appeals process. Still, even if the appellate court in Iraq, such as it is, overrules this verdict and sentence, he faces a second trial in which he is charged with killing as many as 100,000 Kurds twenty years ago. One way or another, Bush is determined to make this guy pay.
We agree that the whole judicial process which tried and sentenced the former dictator of Iraq is " mockery of justice," (Washington Post) but so is giving the death sentence to someone who gave the death sentence to others. After all, what is a "crime against humanity?" Is killing Saddam the "Christian" thing to do? Moreover, is this not why the trial had to take place in Iraq and not in the U.S., so our hands could remain clean, but clean in whose eyes?
Is giving death to a ruler for his crimes against humanity itself not a crime against humanity? What's more, what does one do about the leaders of scores of Shiite death squads who are killing at least as many Sunnis, each day, as Saddam was just sentenced for having executed, some of whose leaders are "working as the head of political blocs" in Iraqi government today? (WaPo) So it is then that capital crimes require capital punishment. It would be naive, of course, but one can only hope that the same rule of law applies regardless of who's standing trial, their nation of origin, as well as their stature.
Once again, the U.S. can declare victory as purveyors of freedom, and justice, and saviors from torture, and cruel and inhuman punishment inflicted on the Iraqi people by that barbarian Saddam Hussein. Yet again, our government can claim that we've helped that country to establish a judicial infrastructure such that it can try and punish its own renegade leaders. Indeed, we can make such claims, but not with a straight face, not in light of our government's efforts to keep detainees from testifying about our own interrogation techniques in federal court, not in light of Abu Ghraib, and the shooting of innocent Iraqi civilians, not insofar as we have outsourced the death penalty in the name of exporting democracy.
But, death by hanging? That's so medieval. Surely Dick Cheney, and his buddies at Halliburton, can come up with a new, and improved way for state sanctioned murder, like lethal injection, if for no other reason than to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that, if nothing else, we've exported modernity to Iraq. I'm sure if there's a buck to be made, Cheney and his boys will be on the next flight. After all, the least we can do is modernize how the Iraqis execute people. Is it not a crime against humanity to hang a man? any man? Or, are some murders more justified than others? And whose sophistry is this? Anyone in the religious right who says that it's okay to let the Shiites do our killing for us will answer to that "higher power" if, and when, He ever decides to call collect.
Oh, and if we, in this country, can pull ourselves away from the mirror long enough, we may just see this sham of a trial, apart from being a "mockery of justice," will show the world that death by Shiite is no better than death by Saddam is no better than death by Marine, and that a death squad is a death squad just as a "dunk in the water is a dunk in the water."
Saturday, November 04, 2006
Live from "Mile High Coffee:" Bush Unplugged
Maybe what it takes to be even half-way successful in politics now, more than ever, is not only proficiency with the fine art of spin, and aptitude for damage control, but one has to be a bullshit fetishist, as well. Witness the weekly address given at Mile High Coffee, a suburban cafe in Denver, where the president spoke about how peachy the economy is "our growing economy ...has left more money in the hands of families and workers and small business owners." But, what can one expect from a government so far in denial that, less than 10 days ago, the vice president himself had the unmitigated chutzpah to declare our mission in Iraq a success.
Yes, at "Mile High" today, Mr. Bush engaged in his administration's signature mixed messages when pointing out that employers are cooperating with an economy that has "lost momentum" and, at the same time, arguing that economic growth will be compromised by a Democratic victory at the polls on Election Day. (AP) He spoke of making his infamous "tax relief" plan permanent; you know the plan, the one that provides the biggest tax breaks to those who earn $200,000 a year plus, and leaves the rest of us with nickels and dimes. I f one didn't know better, one might ask what has Mr. Bush been smoking, but that would mean implying that the president, in addition to being an "economist," is an evangelist, too.
Leaving the ranch for a moment, and heading to Ca-LEE-forn--ya, one finds Republican rising star, Arnold Schwarzenegger, spouting the same mantra, and leading his Democratic opponent by 16 percentage points statewide. In fact, the Governeggor is so far ahead that he's no longer trying to sway voters, in that state, to cast their ballots for him, but is instead focusing on ballot initiatives. An excellent way to resolve the same sex marriage issue, since this president is so fond of the notion of permanence, as evidenced by his insistence upon making the USA Patriot Act permanent, as well as his tax cuts, given that the governor of the most populous state in the union and the president of the 3rd most populous nation in the world share the same delusion about robust economic growth, why not consider theirs the wedding of the season?
Joking aside, the most amazing factor in this surreal equation is that the president's approval rating with respect to the economy is a staggering 40%, according to a recent Associated Press poll, despite the fact that Ford has plans to slash one-third of its workforce, newspapers are cutting jobs left and right, housing sales are at a dangerously low level, furniture and retail sales are in the tank, but this president continues to sing that old, but haunting refrain "Happy days are here again," and think he can pass this manure on, so folks will go to the polls on Tuesday and invite him and his economic clones like Ah-nold back for another round at demolition derby.
Democratic Party Chair Howard Dean's response to the president's address was that the rich are getting richer on the backs of the rest of us. But, how it is that the masterminds of economic manipulation, and deception have managed to hold the reins for a decade or more, and do so with such efficacy is beyond a mere mortal's powers of comprehension.
Consider this, from the president who doesn't know how to paint, but rule by numbers....
en route today to celebrate his wife's birthday, when asked about Laura's age, the president replied: "I'm not going to tell you her age. But, we were both born in the same year, and I turned 60 this year." Mr. Bush, and his party, must be doing something right--the fact that nearly half of the American people respond positively to the way he handles the economy is even scarier than the state of the economy itself.
The only thing more frightening is the thought that, try as we might, we still don't believe that, even after a Democratic landslide on Tuesday, we get to shake the distortionists and spin masters completely for at least another generation. There are little Bushes, and Bush-lites, popping up across the nation, like our friend Ah-nold, and virtually guaranteeing the age of the neo-con will see its way to syndication.
Yes, at "Mile High" today, Mr. Bush engaged in his administration's signature mixed messages when pointing out that employers are cooperating with an economy that has "lost momentum" and, at the same time, arguing that economic growth will be compromised by a Democratic victory at the polls on Election Day. (AP) He spoke of making his infamous "tax relief" plan permanent; you know the plan, the one that provides the biggest tax breaks to those who earn $200,000 a year plus, and leaves the rest of us with nickels and dimes. I f one didn't know better, one might ask what has Mr. Bush been smoking, but that would mean implying that the president, in addition to being an "economist," is an evangelist, too.
Leaving the ranch for a moment, and heading to Ca-LEE-forn--ya, one finds Republican rising star, Arnold Schwarzenegger, spouting the same mantra, and leading his Democratic opponent by 16 percentage points statewide. In fact, the Governeggor is so far ahead that he's no longer trying to sway voters, in that state, to cast their ballots for him, but is instead focusing on ballot initiatives. An excellent way to resolve the same sex marriage issue, since this president is so fond of the notion of permanence, as evidenced by his insistence upon making the USA Patriot Act permanent, as well as his tax cuts, given that the governor of the most populous state in the union and the president of the 3rd most populous nation in the world share the same delusion about robust economic growth, why not consider theirs the wedding of the season?
Joking aside, the most amazing factor in this surreal equation is that the president's approval rating with respect to the economy is a staggering 40%, according to a recent Associated Press poll, despite the fact that Ford has plans to slash one-third of its workforce, newspapers are cutting jobs left and right, housing sales are at a dangerously low level, furniture and retail sales are in the tank, but this president continues to sing that old, but haunting refrain "Happy days are here again," and think he can pass this manure on, so folks will go to the polls on Tuesday and invite him and his economic clones like Ah-nold back for another round at demolition derby.
Democratic Party Chair Howard Dean's response to the president's address was that the rich are getting richer on the backs of the rest of us. But, how it is that the masterminds of economic manipulation, and deception have managed to hold the reins for a decade or more, and do so with such efficacy is beyond a mere mortal's powers of comprehension.
Consider this, from the president who doesn't know how to paint, but rule by numbers....
en route today to celebrate his wife's birthday, when asked about Laura's age, the president replied: "I'm not going to tell you her age. But, we were both born in the same year, and I turned 60 this year." Mr. Bush, and his party, must be doing something right--the fact that nearly half of the American people respond positively to the way he handles the economy is even scarier than the state of the economy itself.
The only thing more frightening is the thought that, try as we might, we still don't believe that, even after a Democratic landslide on Tuesday, we get to shake the distortionists and spin masters completely for at least another generation. There are little Bushes, and Bush-lites, popping up across the nation, like our friend Ah-nold, and virtually guaranteeing the age of the neo-con will see its way to syndication.
Friday, November 03, 2006
At Stake: Choice in South Dakota
Earlier this year, the city fathers (and mothers) in South Dakota unanimously passed a bill that would ban abortion with the only exception being those few cases where the mother's life is in danger. Additionally, if passed the law will criminalize not merely the procedure itself, but those health care providers who perform abortions.
Amidst the scramble to keep up with charges from this camp or that, stay on top of election results in key races, as well as speculate about which candidate will have to pass the endurance test for humiliation next, it appears the mainstream media, and blogosphere, has lost sight of what may be the most important vote of all, a battle of wills now taking place in Sioux Falls, South Dakota where people will go to the polls, on Tuesday, to decide whether or not to make the most draconian, and prohibitive anti-abortion legislation ever proposed law in that state. If the ban passes, Planned Parenthood, and others, have already promised a lawsuit which would, no doubt, go to the Supreme Court, and give the Court a long-awaited opportunity to challenge Roe v. Wade.
But what's different about this debate about abortion is not the objective, but that both sides are using the same argument, namely, that their position "protects women's health." One prominent campaign Web site, "Support Women's Health," posts ads in which women describe how having an abortion ruined their physical, and mental health. By way of contrast, The South Dakota Campaign for Healthy Families, which opposes the ban, also claims that prohibiting abortion in cases of incest, and rape would also jeopardize women's health. (AP)
"Abortion hurts women," a slogan one repeatedly sees in the South Dakota abolitionist campaign, followed by a litany of medical, and psychological horror stories from women who underwent the procedure which signals a national trend in which groups like Operation Outcry present women who had abortions, and now "confess" that it hasn't helped, but hurt them. My experience, personally and with thousands of other women, is that abortion under any circumstances doesn't typically leave you a better woman," says Georgette Forney, the Pennsylvania leader of the group called "Silent No More." (AP)
And, undoubtedly, Forney is right; "abortion under any circumstances" may not leave one a better person, but will coercing a woman to follow through with a pregnancy that resulted from rape, or incest leave her "a better woman?" Moreover, will handcuffing, and taking the nurse and doctor who performed her procedure make us a better society?
The good news out of South Dakota yesterday is that, according to an independent poll reported by the Associated Press, 52% of those surveyed oppose the ban while only 42% are in favor of the law, the most stringent of its kind, which would all but prohibit abortion in that state. The bad news is that 36% of those surveyed believe the ban doesn't apply in the case of rape and incest. So, while they're on opposing sides of the argument, both the pro-choice and anti-abortion camps in South Dakota are doing a disservice to their constituency when they use medical spin to their advantage, and not as a tool to educate voters, and the nation at large, about the real risk here, which is not a woman's health, but a human right to self-determination.
With their vote on this restrictive law, South Dakota may well be handing the Supreme Court a lightning rod, and it's time those of us who want to protect, and preserve affirmative action, and choice, to now turn our attention away from the Playmate of the Month ad in the Tennessee campaign, and focus instead on what is happening in this small midwest town. While Sioux Falls may seem light years away from Washington, D.C., as goes Rome so goes Pompeii
Amidst the scramble to keep up with charges from this camp or that, stay on top of election results in key races, as well as speculate about which candidate will have to pass the endurance test for humiliation next, it appears the mainstream media, and blogosphere, has lost sight of what may be the most important vote of all, a battle of wills now taking place in Sioux Falls, South Dakota where people will go to the polls, on Tuesday, to decide whether or not to make the most draconian, and prohibitive anti-abortion legislation ever proposed law in that state. If the ban passes, Planned Parenthood, and others, have already promised a lawsuit which would, no doubt, go to the Supreme Court, and give the Court a long-awaited opportunity to challenge Roe v. Wade.
But what's different about this debate about abortion is not the objective, but that both sides are using the same argument, namely, that their position "protects women's health." One prominent campaign Web site, "Support Women's Health," posts ads in which women describe how having an abortion ruined their physical, and mental health. By way of contrast, The South Dakota Campaign for Healthy Families, which opposes the ban, also claims that prohibiting abortion in cases of incest, and rape would also jeopardize women's health. (AP)
"Abortion hurts women," a slogan one repeatedly sees in the South Dakota abolitionist campaign, followed by a litany of medical, and psychological horror stories from women who underwent the procedure which signals a national trend in which groups like Operation Outcry present women who had abortions, and now "confess" that it hasn't helped, but hurt them. My experience, personally and with thousands of other women, is that abortion under any circumstances doesn't typically leave you a better woman," says Georgette Forney, the Pennsylvania leader of the group called "Silent No More." (AP)
And, undoubtedly, Forney is right; "abortion under any circumstances" may not leave one a better person, but will coercing a woman to follow through with a pregnancy that resulted from rape, or incest leave her "a better woman?" Moreover, will handcuffing, and taking the nurse and doctor who performed her procedure make us a better society?
The good news out of South Dakota yesterday is that, according to an independent poll reported by the Associated Press, 52% of those surveyed oppose the ban while only 42% are in favor of the law, the most stringent of its kind, which would all but prohibit abortion in that state. The bad news is that 36% of those surveyed believe the ban doesn't apply in the case of rape and incest. So, while they're on opposing sides of the argument, both the pro-choice and anti-abortion camps in South Dakota are doing a disservice to their constituency when they use medical spin to their advantage, and not as a tool to educate voters, and the nation at large, about the real risk here, which is not a woman's health, but a human right to self-determination.
With their vote on this restrictive law, South Dakota may well be handing the Supreme Court a lightning rod, and it's time those of us who want to protect, and preserve affirmative action, and choice, to now turn our attention away from the Playmate of the Month ad in the Tennessee campaign, and focus instead on what is happening in this small midwest town. While Sioux Falls may seem light years away from Washington, D.C., as goes Rome so goes Pompeii
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
Bottom Line...
Time to lay off Senator Kerry. Let he, or she who hasn't made an off-the-cuff remark they didn't regret cast the first stone...
John Kerry is not a campaign issue.
John Kerry is not a campaign issue.
Freedom of Assembly? Not for Mike Stark
The below article appears in yesterday's Richmond Times-Dispatch, out of Virginia, and is a stunning account of the mob ethos currently taking hold of many in Virginia Senator Allen's campaign, as well as in the Republican party.
Letter from Mike Stark
Richmond Times-Dispatch
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
ELECTIONS 2006
The following is a letter to NBC29 from Mike Stark, the man who was tackled for a comment he made at Senator Allen's campaign stop in Charlottesville on Tuesday.
My name is Mike Stark. I am a law student at the University of Virginia, a marine, and a citizen journalist. Earlier today at a public event, I was attempting to ask Senator Allen a question about his sealed divorce record and his arrest in the 1970s, both of which are in the public domain. His people assaulted me, put me in a headlock, and wrestled me to the ground. Video footage is available here, from an NBC affiliate.
I demand that Senator Allen fire the staffers who beat up a constituent attempting to use his constitutional right to petition his government. I also want to know why Senator Allen would want his staffers to assault someone asking questions about matters of public record in the heat of a political campaign. Why are his divorce records sealed? Why was he arrested in the 1970s? And why did his campaign batter me when I asked him about these questions.
George Allen defends his support of the Iraq war by saying that our troops are defending the ideals America stands for. Indeed, he says our troops are defending our very freedom. What kind of country is it when a Senator's constituent is assaulted for asking difficult and uncomfortable questions? What freedoms do we have left? Maybe we need to bring the troops home so that they can fight for freedom at George Allen's campaign events. Demanding accountability should not be an offense worthy of assault.
I will be pressing charges against George Allen and his surrogates later today. George Allen, at any time, could have stopped the fray. All he had to do was say, "This is not how my campaign is run. Take your hands off that man." He could have ignored my questions. Instead he and his thugs chose violence. I spent four years in the Marine Corps. I'll be damned if I'll let my country be taken from me by thugs that are afraid of taking responsibility for themselves.
It just isn't the America I know and love. Somebody needs to take a stand against those that would bully and intimidate their fellow citizens. That stand begins right here, right now.
W. Michael Stark
This story can be found at: http://www.timesdispatch.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=RTD/MGArticle/RTD_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1149191441070
Go Back
Letter from Mike Stark
Richmond Times-Dispatch
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
ELECTIONS 2006
The following is a letter to NBC29 from Mike Stark, the man who was tackled for a comment he made at Senator Allen's campaign stop in Charlottesville on Tuesday.
My name is Mike Stark. I am a law student at the University of Virginia, a marine, and a citizen journalist. Earlier today at a public event, I was attempting to ask Senator Allen a question about his sealed divorce record and his arrest in the 1970s, both of which are in the public domain. His people assaulted me, put me in a headlock, and wrestled me to the ground. Video footage is available here, from an NBC affiliate.
I demand that Senator Allen fire the staffers who beat up a constituent attempting to use his constitutional right to petition his government. I also want to know why Senator Allen would want his staffers to assault someone asking questions about matters of public record in the heat of a political campaign. Why are his divorce records sealed? Why was he arrested in the 1970s? And why did his campaign batter me when I asked him about these questions.
George Allen defends his support of the Iraq war by saying that our troops are defending the ideals America stands for. Indeed, he says our troops are defending our very freedom. What kind of country is it when a Senator's constituent is assaulted for asking difficult and uncomfortable questions? What freedoms do we have left? Maybe we need to bring the troops home so that they can fight for freedom at George Allen's campaign events. Demanding accountability should not be an offense worthy of assault.
I will be pressing charges against George Allen and his surrogates later today. George Allen, at any time, could have stopped the fray. All he had to do was say, "This is not how my campaign is run. Take your hands off that man." He could have ignored my questions. Instead he and his thugs chose violence. I spent four years in the Marine Corps. I'll be damned if I'll let my country be taken from me by thugs that are afraid of taking responsibility for themselves.
It just isn't the America I know and love. Somebody needs to take a stand against those that would bully and intimidate their fellow citizens. That stand begins right here, right now.
W. Michael Stark
This story can be found at: http://www.timesdispatch.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=RTD/MGArticle/RTD_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1149191441070
Go Back
Quote of the Day
from Bernard Baruch...
"Millions saw the apple fall, but Newton was the only one to ask why."
"Millions saw the apple fall, but Newton was the only one to ask why."
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Crisis of Opportunity
Obviously, somebody needs to tell Senator Kerry when to go off script. After urging students at a college in California today to make the most of their educational opportunities, the Senator said "If you don't, you'll get stuck in Iraq" which he later described as a "botched joke." (AP) There is a botched joke in here somewhere; it's not in Kerry's statement, but in the absence of swift, and effective Democratic party leadership to turn the spotlight on an issue that deserves to be in the Republicans lap; namely, the issue of opportunity, or the lack thereof. .
While, clearly, this was not Mr. Bush, or Mr. Rove's, intention, what better time to add the issue of an ongoing campaign to limit the chances for our young people to advance themselves to the Democrats talking points. What better time to bring to the table the fact that there is a crisis of opportunity in this country, and that many of the youngsters who join the armed forces do so right out of high school, not only because it validates them, but because it provides them with income, and a direction. Thanks to the unspoken, and unadvertised, Bush domestic doctrine of privilege, more often than not, the military gives many youngsters their only prospect for achievement, social acceptance, advancement, and upward mobility. So, indeed, in the words of President Bush: "Bring it on;" as one can think of no better time than now to turn a crisis of opportunity into a window of opportunity.
Try as he might to massage, and twist Kerry's remark such that it would appear Mr. Bush's previous presidential rival said our service men and women are of inferior intellect, there is no getting away from the fact, yes, no getting away from the issue of oportunity, or the lack of it, belongs squarely, and irrevocably, in the laps of those who occupy the seats of government in this country now, and for the past 6 years. Just as there is disparity of income, among the most egregious disparities in modern times, there is disparity of opportunity. We have seen the cost of a college education skyrocket, affirmative action rolled back, and it has become flat out tougher for a working person's child to get a college degree in America since George W. Bush took office. period. With every passing year, it is not a question of intelligence that determines who goes, or does not, go to war, but a question of income. Why this isn't on the list of Democratic talking points is inconceivable.
Why Mr. Kerry would allow a dispassionate neo-conservative to grab the ball, and run with it is unfathomable. Why it is that the Democrats have yet to come up with a Karl Rove of their own to stand up, and point out the gross inequality that tries to pass itself off as "patriotism" is incomprehensible to anyone with even a modicum of sense. The egregious inequity of the reality that there are more young men of color in our nation's prisons than in our nation's universities. Why it is that no one is standing up, and throwing it back at the president that, were he to be born to John and Martha Dogood of Ames, Iowa, he'd never have gotten away without doing his duty in Vietnam. Moreover, now is the perfect time to point out to this empire of the privileged that they're exporting those with fewer options to fight, and die in the front lines of their prefab wars. Most of all, someone needs to tell John Kerry those who can make the most of their educational opportunities are those who are gifted with opportunity, a gift that this White House has shown to be seldom earned, or deserved.
It becomes likewise increasingly apparent, with every passing year, that we have a government that believes the value of human life is more before birth than after birth., and one that praises those who do battle over those who debate, and dialogue. So, we see our youngsters, fresh from high school, without a clue as to what they will do, or where they will go, turn to the military in much the same way their grandfathers did as a means to escape a life of poverty or, worse still, crime, and gangs. Military service thus becomes the refuge of the economically disenfranchised, and service in Iraq has less to do with studying, and doing homework than socioeconomic status, and the state of one's finances.
Yes, thanks to this president, and his failed policies, we not only have a crisis of leadership, but a crisis of opportunity. Yet again, there is a desperate effort, on the part of this administration, to blame the Democrats for dropping the ball as they've recently done with North Korea, and Al Qaeda; only this time with a flagrant, and transparent attempt to twist an ambiguous,if dumb, extemporaneous remark into a way to deflect attention away from the core issues of this election. If Karl Rove wants to change the subject, there must be a reason for it, and the reason is, obviously, the Republicans are losing, and losing bad. If the Democrats want to win back Congress, they need to take the samurai's sword out of Kerry's hands, and put it squarely where it belongs, in the clenches of this president and his party of privilege; there must be focus, focus, focus. Only by disarming the opposition, and addressing disenfranchisement in the most direct, and immediate way can they hope to win not merely the vote, but the hearts and minds of the American people.
Memo
Memo to the Prez, Veep, and the Donald (Rumsfeld):
The only time staying power, or "staying the course," counts is when one is horizontal....
The only time staying power, or "staying the course," counts is when one is horizontal....
"honey, did you see the First Amendment? I could have sworn I saw it here this morning...."
and this from the Associated Press...
Activist Arrested for Halloween Stunt
By JERRY HARKAVY, Associated Press Writer
UPDATED 5 HOURS 2 MINUTES AGO
SOUTH PORTLAND, Maine - The lawyer who divulged President Bush's drunken-driving arrest days before the 2000 election was arrested Tuesday after he was spotted on a highway overpass wearing an Osama bin Laden Halloween costume and holding a toy gun.
Tom Connolly, 49, was charged with criminal threatening, a misdemeanor, and was released after posting $500 bail. He said he intends to plead not guilty.
"There was a First Amendment this morning when I woke up. I don't know how it evaporated with the dawn," Connolly, an unsuccessful Democratic candidate for governor in 1998, told reporters after his release.
Police said the costume included plastic dynamite, grenades, and a replica of an AK-47 assault rifle.
"The whole thing is just incredibly bizarre," said Police Chief Ed Googins. "It just crossed the line."
The chief said there was no way to tell from a distance if the gun was real or fake.
Connolly also was carrying a sign that said "I love TABOR," a reference to the Taxpayer Bill of Rights on the Maine ballot, but at least one person who saw it thought it said "I love the Taliban," Googins said.
The Portland attorney is known for wearing costumes to make political statements, often donning a George W. Bush mask and dancing for passing motorists.
His wife has described him as "marvelously eccentric."
In 2000, Connolly acknowledged that he tipped off reporters about Bush's 24-year-old misdemeanor drunken driving charge at Kennebunkport. Republicans said the release of the information before the election was a Democratic dirty trick.
Activist Arrested for Halloween Stunt
By JERRY HARKAVY, Associated Press Writer
UPDATED 5 HOURS 2 MINUTES AGO
SOUTH PORTLAND, Maine - The lawyer who divulged President Bush's drunken-driving arrest days before the 2000 election was arrested Tuesday after he was spotted on a highway overpass wearing an Osama bin Laden Halloween costume and holding a toy gun.
Tom Connolly, 49, was charged with criminal threatening, a misdemeanor, and was released after posting $500 bail. He said he intends to plead not guilty.
"There was a First Amendment this morning when I woke up. I don't know how it evaporated with the dawn," Connolly, an unsuccessful Democratic candidate for governor in 1998, told reporters after his release.
Police said the costume included plastic dynamite, grenades, and a replica of an AK-47 assault rifle.
"The whole thing is just incredibly bizarre," said Police Chief Ed Googins. "It just crossed the line."
The chief said there was no way to tell from a distance if the gun was real or fake.
Connolly also was carrying a sign that said "I love TABOR," a reference to the Taxpayer Bill of Rights on the Maine ballot, but at least one person who saw it thought it said "I love the Taliban," Googins said.
The Portland attorney is known for wearing costumes to make political statements, often donning a George W. Bush mask and dancing for passing motorists.
His wife has described him as "marvelously eccentric."
In 2000, Connolly acknowledged that he tipped off reporters about Bush's 24-year-old misdemeanor drunken driving charge at Kennebunkport. Republicans said the release of the information before the election was a Democratic dirty trick.
Busted: Augusto Pinochet
While the party has been over for a 90 year old, fragile, former dictator, General Augusto Pinochet, for some time, he is finally paying his dues. Pinochet was arrested yesterday, and placed on house arrest in Santiago, Chile where he was charged with torture for human rights abuses at Villa Grimaldi, the notorious secret detention cell in which current Chilean President Michelle Bachelet and her mother were once held. The indictment for torture is precedent-setting for the former dictator. Additionally, he was indicted for one homicide, 35 kidnappings, as well as 24 counts of torture, in all, dating back to his reign of terror of 1973-1990. (AP) He will serve his sentence not in the Villa where he detained, and disappeared many who opposed, but instead in his suburban Santiago mansion.
Notably,the general has been indicted 4 times before, 3 times on human rights charges, and once on tax evasion, but this is the only time the Chilean government has demanded he stand trial, and be held to account for allegations that he tortured those in his detention. Judge Alejandro Solis refused to drop charges against the ailing Pinochet, as had been the case in the past, asserting that the general "is not mentally alienated" and able to stand trial. (Seattle Times)
Speaking of being "mentally alienated," you may already know about Villa Grimaldi, a detention camp which was not unlike Guantanamo Bay. Viva Grimaldo was a large parcel of land with many buildings which has been demolished. The first detainees arrived there in the mid-1970's, and it soon became synonymous with internal repression, as well as one of the more infamous ways in which General Pinochet worked to stifle dissent, and eliminate his opposition. In fact, a prominent member of the Socialist Party, Ariel Mancilla, after being sent to the Villa, and tortured, was never to be heard from again.
One can only hope that Pinochet's arrest will be a wake-up call for those in Bush administration whose absurdist efforts to whitewash, and give the heads-up to interrogations that include simulated drowning, a technique traditionally considered torture, will inevitably backfire. More importantly, should a new Congress emerge after next week's election, the world will be holding its breath for us, as a nation, to call to task any, and all those, in our own government, responsible for crimes against humanity. And, while Tony Snow may consider himself adept at turning a phrase, (or corrupting one), even Houdini couldn't talk his way out of the charges the Bush regime will face, down the road, from the international community, if we don't change course, and do so quickly.
Oh, and as for General Pinochet: while he may have been cocky 30 years ago, sooner or later, the chickens come home to roost.
"Everyone Knows Rush Limbaugh's just faking" by Linwood Barclay
The below article was published in "The Toronto Star," and was written by Linwood Barclay...
"Everyone knows Rush Limbaugh's just faking"
Oct.27, 2006. 01:00AM
By: LINWOOD BARCLAY
Now, I know this may offend those who suffer from this particularcondition, and these individuals might not like it much when I suggestthat a certain person with this diagnosis is exaggerating his symptoms,but I have to say, I think Rush Limbaugh is just pretending to be adick.While the right-wing radio host does exhibit most, if not all, of thecommon characteristics of this behaviour, it's so rare for all of themto coalesce at a single moment that one can only conclude Limbaugh'smost recent performances are nothing short of fraudulent.I'm no expert diagnostician, but nobody could be this big a one.Limbaugh must be acting.Consider what Rush Limbaugh said this week about Michael J. Fox.
The Canadian-born actor did an ad for a U.S. politician who supportsstem cell research, a controversial field that many believe could leadto a cure for Parkinson's disease. Fox suffers from Parkinson's, and anyone who has seen him in television interviews in the last few yearsis aware of his symptoms. Awkward, involuntary movements, occasional speech difficulty, tremors.Those symptoms are much in evidence in the ad.Said Limbaugh on his radio show: "He is exaggerating the effects of the disease. He's moving all around and shaking and it's clearly an act."Limbaugh also suggested Fox probably went off his medication beforefilming the ad. It's difficult to imagine that anyone could say anything so amazinglyuninformed, so incredibly moronic, and actually believe it. That's why I'm so convinced Limbaugh was acting.
At this point, it's probably useful to review the most common symptomsexhibited by a person with EDS (extreme dick syndrome) for those not upto speed on them:
1. Exhibits a level of arrogance rooted in a feeling of superiority,
2. Is capable of achieving levels of hypocrisy (railing against drugaddicts when you are one, for example) previously thought unattainable.3. Blow-hardedness.4. Is indifferent to the woes and misfortunes of the disadvantaged.5. Lies his ass off.6. Goes to the "6 items or less" checkout with a dozen things.7. Never lets ignorance of a subject keep him from shooting his mouthoff about it.8. Believes facts are overrated.9. Chews with his mouth open.10. Always finds some little thing the waitress did wrong to justify not leaving a tip.
Anyone who has four or more of these symptoms is very likely sufferingfrom EDS. Sadly, at the moment there\'s no known cure for this condition. Researchers are still debating whether you\'re born with it,or it's a lifestyle choice. The real problem is, people with thiscondition don't make for a very sympathetic cause.
But in Limbaugh's case, it's probably a moot point, since he's justputting on a show.My guess, in fact, is that Rush Limbaugh is a liberal plant. ADemocratic plant. The Democrats, who appear to be on the verge ofwinning back both houses of Congress, don't want to leave anything tochance. What better way to turn things their way than for a prominentspokesperson for the right wing (nudge nudge, wink wink) to saysomething so astonishingly and despicably vile that it will makefair-minded Republicans vote Democrat, or at the very least, stay home.I know these statements of mine are going to enrage genuine sufferersof EDS everywhere. "How dare he say that!" they'll say. "We know we're rude and insensitive and total jerks 24/7, and he's got a lot of nerve suggesting otherwise."I will say this, however. If it can be determined by an independent panel of experts that Rush Limbaugh is, in fact, a dick, I will apologize, unreservedly.
"Everyone knows Rush Limbaugh's just faking"
Oct.27, 2006. 01:00AM
By: LINWOOD BARCLAY
Now, I know this may offend those who suffer from this particularcondition, and these individuals might not like it much when I suggestthat a certain person with this diagnosis is exaggerating his symptoms,but I have to say, I think Rush Limbaugh is just pretending to be adick.While the right-wing radio host does exhibit most, if not all, of thecommon characteristics of this behaviour, it's so rare for all of themto coalesce at a single moment that one can only conclude Limbaugh'smost recent performances are nothing short of fraudulent.I'm no expert diagnostician, but nobody could be this big a one.Limbaugh must be acting.Consider what Rush Limbaugh said this week about Michael J. Fox.
The Canadian-born actor did an ad for a U.S. politician who supportsstem cell research, a controversial field that many believe could leadto a cure for Parkinson's disease. Fox suffers from Parkinson's, and anyone who has seen him in television interviews in the last few yearsis aware of his symptoms. Awkward, involuntary movements, occasional speech difficulty, tremors.Those symptoms are much in evidence in the ad.Said Limbaugh on his radio show: "He is exaggerating the effects of the disease. He's moving all around and shaking and it's clearly an act."Limbaugh also suggested Fox probably went off his medication beforefilming the ad. It's difficult to imagine that anyone could say anything so amazinglyuninformed, so incredibly moronic, and actually believe it. That's why I'm so convinced Limbaugh was acting.
At this point, it's probably useful to review the most common symptomsexhibited by a person with EDS (extreme dick syndrome) for those not upto speed on them:
1. Exhibits a level of arrogance rooted in a feeling of superiority,
2. Is capable of achieving levels of hypocrisy (railing against drugaddicts when you are one, for example) previously thought unattainable.3. Blow-hardedness.4. Is indifferent to the woes and misfortunes of the disadvantaged.5. Lies his ass off.6. Goes to the "6 items or less" checkout with a dozen things.7. Never lets ignorance of a subject keep him from shooting his mouthoff about it.8. Believes facts are overrated.9. Chews with his mouth open.10. Always finds some little thing the waitress did wrong to justify not leaving a tip.
Anyone who has four or more of these symptoms is very likely sufferingfrom EDS. Sadly, at the moment there\'s no known cure for this condition. Researchers are still debating whether you\'re born with it,or it's a lifestyle choice. The real problem is, people with thiscondition don't make for a very sympathetic cause.
But in Limbaugh's case, it's probably a moot point, since he's justputting on a show.My guess, in fact, is that Rush Limbaugh is a liberal plant. ADemocratic plant. The Democrats, who appear to be on the verge ofwinning back both houses of Congress, don't want to leave anything tochance. What better way to turn things their way than for a prominentspokesperson for the right wing (nudge nudge, wink wink) to saysomething so astonishingly and despicably vile that it will makefair-minded Republicans vote Democrat, or at the very least, stay home.I know these statements of mine are going to enrage genuine sufferersof EDS everywhere. "How dare he say that!" they'll say. "We know we're rude and insensitive and total jerks 24/7, and he's got a lot of nerve suggesting otherwise."I will say this, however. If it can be determined by an independent panel of experts that Rush Limbaugh is, in fact, a dick, I will apologize, unreservedly.
Monday, October 30, 2006
What Color Is Your Aura?
Ever wonder what color your aura is? Those in the know seem to think that a major defeat in next week's election could "dim Karl Rove's aura" (WaPo). This can't help but make me wonder whether Rove has an aura, and what color it might be which also gets me thinking about Halloween, and what to wear to a Halloween party.
As I sit running through various and sundry outfits that might work---Mata Hari, Isadora Duncan, Algier Hiss, I can't help but fantasize about what some, in the Bush administration, might go trick or treating in. Dick Cheney, for instance, might trick or treat dressed like Marilyn Monroe, and
Condoleezza Rice -- Joan of Arc
Karl Rove -- Mary Magdalene
Donald Rumsfeld -- as an Emperor Penguin
George W. Bush --- Napoleon
Lynne Rumsfeld -- Marie Antoinette ?
Oh, and as for me...
I think I'll go as a Diebold voting machine, and make sure I remain tamper-proof in this election unlike the last time, back in 2004, when Diebold chief executives pledged their "commitment to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes" to President Bush. (Common Dreams)
Yes, in an era when interest in virginity has been born again, if I go as Diebold, I can make damned sure nobody screws with me. After all, why would anyone in their right mind dare "To think Diebold is somehow tainted because they have a couple of folks on their board who support the president"as Jason Mauk, GOP spokesman said 2 years ago after the last debacle. (Common Dreams)
So, it just feels right, to me, to dress as Diebold on Halloween tomorrow cause voting machines, and elections have auras, too, and this one must be brighter than we've seen in a long, long time.
As I sit running through various and sundry outfits that might work---Mata Hari, Isadora Duncan, Algier Hiss, I can't help but fantasize about what some, in the Bush administration, might go trick or treating in. Dick Cheney, for instance, might trick or treat dressed like Marilyn Monroe, and
Condoleezza Rice -- Joan of Arc
Karl Rove -- Mary Magdalene
Donald Rumsfeld -- as an Emperor Penguin
George W. Bush --- Napoleon
Lynne Rumsfeld -- Marie Antoinette ?
Oh, and as for me...
I think I'll go as a Diebold voting machine, and make sure I remain tamper-proof in this election unlike the last time, back in 2004, when Diebold chief executives pledged their "commitment to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes" to President Bush. (Common Dreams)
Yes, in an era when interest in virginity has been born again, if I go as Diebold, I can make damned sure nobody screws with me. After all, why would anyone in their right mind dare "To think Diebold is somehow tainted because they have a couple of folks on their board who support the president"as Jason Mauk, GOP spokesman said 2 years ago after the last debacle. (Common Dreams)
So, it just feels right, to me, to dress as Diebold on Halloween tomorrow cause voting machines, and elections have auras, too, and this one must be brighter than we've seen in a long, long time.
Sunday, October 29, 2006
"a little silly"
If folks in Congress, of both parties, as well as the news media can spend 2 consecutive weeks talking of little else besides salacious instant messages sent by Rep. Mark Foley to a teenage page, they can figure out a way to squeeze in news of the illegal practice of extraordinary rendition, dubious interrogation techniques, secret terror cells, as well as this vice president's insolent dismissal of allegations that he finds waterboarding, a method of torture that dates back to the Inquisition, acceptable. Why not put extraordinary rendition back on the front page instead of all this gratuitous tripe about the Virginia Senate race?
Do we care more about obscenity of thought, word, and image than obscenity in action? Maybe, instead of an election, a week from Tuesday, we should have a slumber party because most Americans seem to care more about Lynne Cheney's lesbian novel of 20 years ago than her husband's implied heads-up for a practice that has been universally condemned as torture for more than a generation. You'll recall, back in 1901, the method some have referred to as the "water cure" earned Major Edwin Glenn 10 years of hard labor after he was convicted of having given an Insurgent, in the Philippines, a "dunk in the water." How Mr. Cheney can consider as a "no brainer" an interrogation technique, waterboarding, for which U.S. military commissions prosecuted, and convicted, several Japanese as war criminals in World War II is, in a word, incredible. Clearly, history was not this vice president's major.
In his much-quoted interview with conservative talk show host Scott Hennen of WDAY in Fargo, N.D., the vice president agreed that "a dunk in the water is a no-brainer if it can save lives." (Washington Post) Yet, not too long ago, a president was impeached for fine tuning the definition of sex when he lied to a grand jury about his affair with a White House intern. Oh, so it's okay to tweak the definition of torture, but not of sex. Or, maybe the issue is lying to a grand jury; lying to the press, the American people, and Congress doesn't count. It seems Mr. Cheney has worked with this president for so long that everything has now become "a no brainer" to him.
President Clinton, you'll recall, said he didn't consider "oral sex" sex in much the same way this vice president thinks that "a slam dunk" has nothing to do with waterboarding. We can only hope that the vice president will be given the chance to testify about this before a grand jury, after the election, when the Democrats take Congress. As the kind of skewered logic that condones torture by linguistic sleight of hand is impeachable, in the best sense of the word. And when the White House press secretary contends that a "dunk in the water" was not meant as anything more than that, clearly the same form of sophistry is applied; only this kind of sophistry is far more pernicious than anything that any previous president intended.This administration is making the same argument when it comes to torture, as evidenced by Mr. Cheney's remarks,aboard Air Force Two, last night when he insisted that he "didn't say anything about waterboarding," and "didn't even use that word."
To add insult to injury, the vice president also agreed with WDAY talk show host that discussions about interrogation techniques are, in his words, "a little silly" while, simultaneously, praising information obtained from detainees as a result of these techniques. (WaPo). Has the vice president paid a visit to Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraid, or other bordellos of butchery in Iraq, and Afghanistan lately? Indeed, this "end justifies the means" logic is fit for Mephistopheles, but not those who fancy themselves leaders of the free world.
Just think, for a minute, about where western civilization would be now if those who met in Geneva, more than 50 years ago, to pen the Geneva Conventions agreed that it is "a little silly" to talk about interrogation techniques. Or, maybe the vice president thinks that the travesties of bin Laden, and Al Qaeda surpass those of other monsters of history, and exceed the horrors of that other world war half a century ago? What's more, to consider national, and international dialogue about methods used to obtain information from prisoners of war "silly," and irrelevant is to insult those who met in Geneva, the integrity of international law, the spirit of global cooperation, as well as the intelligence of the American people.
A week or so ago, general, and Joint Chiefs of Staff Peter Pace, suggested that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld takes his orders from "a higher source." For this, one can rest assured, future generations may remember the good general as Peter Pan. That said, in his recent memoirs, former German German Chancellor, Gerhard Schroder, writes of his meetings with the president that "Again and again in our private talks it became clear how God-fearing this President was and how he ruled by what he saw as a Higher Power...The problem begins when political discussions seem to result from a conversation with God." (Times of London)
It would appear, when Bush and Rumsfeld are on a conference call with that "Higher Power," Mr. Cheney must be in the woods working on his target practice. To his credit, the vice president isn't among those, in his administration, suggesting his actions are divinely inspired, and claiming they have the New Testament stamp of approval. One can think of little that is more "silly" than a wartime president's claim to be divinely inspired to torture, maim, rape, occupy, and plunder a sovereign nation with impunity, and without oversight; only "silly" isn't the right word, "criminal" is more like it.
Do we care more about obscenity of thought, word, and image than obscenity in action? Maybe, instead of an election, a week from Tuesday, we should have a slumber party because most Americans seem to care more about Lynne Cheney's lesbian novel of 20 years ago than her husband's implied heads-up for a practice that has been universally condemned as torture for more than a generation. You'll recall, back in 1901, the method some have referred to as the "water cure" earned Major Edwin Glenn 10 years of hard labor after he was convicted of having given an Insurgent, in the Philippines, a "dunk in the water." How Mr. Cheney can consider as a "no brainer" an interrogation technique, waterboarding, for which U.S. military commissions prosecuted, and convicted, several Japanese as war criminals in World War II is, in a word, incredible. Clearly, history was not this vice president's major.
In his much-quoted interview with conservative talk show host Scott Hennen of WDAY in Fargo, N.D., the vice president agreed that "a dunk in the water is a no-brainer if it can save lives." (Washington Post) Yet, not too long ago, a president was impeached for fine tuning the definition of sex when he lied to a grand jury about his affair with a White House intern. Oh, so it's okay to tweak the definition of torture, but not of sex. Or, maybe the issue is lying to a grand jury; lying to the press, the American people, and Congress doesn't count. It seems Mr. Cheney has worked with this president for so long that everything has now become "a no brainer" to him.
President Clinton, you'll recall, said he didn't consider "oral sex" sex in much the same way this vice president thinks that "a slam dunk" has nothing to do with waterboarding. We can only hope that the vice president will be given the chance to testify about this before a grand jury, after the election, when the Democrats take Congress. As the kind of skewered logic that condones torture by linguistic sleight of hand is impeachable, in the best sense of the word. And when the White House press secretary contends that a "dunk in the water" was not meant as anything more than that, clearly the same form of sophistry is applied; only this kind of sophistry is far more pernicious than anything that any previous president intended.This administration is making the same argument when it comes to torture, as evidenced by Mr. Cheney's remarks,aboard Air Force Two, last night when he insisted that he "didn't say anything about waterboarding," and "didn't even use that word."
To add insult to injury, the vice president also agreed with WDAY talk show host that discussions about interrogation techniques are, in his words, "a little silly" while, simultaneously, praising information obtained from detainees as a result of these techniques. (WaPo). Has the vice president paid a visit to Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraid, or other bordellos of butchery in Iraq, and Afghanistan lately? Indeed, this "end justifies the means" logic is fit for Mephistopheles, but not those who fancy themselves leaders of the free world.
Just think, for a minute, about where western civilization would be now if those who met in Geneva, more than 50 years ago, to pen the Geneva Conventions agreed that it is "a little silly" to talk about interrogation techniques. Or, maybe the vice president thinks that the travesties of bin Laden, and Al Qaeda surpass those of other monsters of history, and exceed the horrors of that other world war half a century ago? What's more, to consider national, and international dialogue about methods used to obtain information from prisoners of war "silly," and irrelevant is to insult those who met in Geneva, the integrity of international law, the spirit of global cooperation, as well as the intelligence of the American people.
A week or so ago, general, and Joint Chiefs of Staff Peter Pace, suggested that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld takes his orders from "a higher source." For this, one can rest assured, future generations may remember the good general as Peter Pan. That said, in his recent memoirs, former German German Chancellor, Gerhard Schroder, writes of his meetings with the president that "Again and again in our private talks it became clear how God-fearing this President was and how he ruled by what he saw as a Higher Power...The problem begins when political discussions seem to result from a conversation with God." (Times of London)
It would appear, when Bush and Rumsfeld are on a conference call with that "Higher Power," Mr. Cheney must be in the woods working on his target practice. To his credit, the vice president isn't among those, in his administration, suggesting his actions are divinely inspired, and claiming they have the New Testament stamp of approval. One can think of little that is more "silly" than a wartime president's claim to be divinely inspired to torture, maim, rape, occupy, and plunder a sovereign nation with impunity, and without oversight; only "silly" isn't the right word, "criminal" is more like it.
Friday, October 27, 2006
A Slam Dunk for the Vice President...
When White House Press Secretary Tony Snow was asked today to define what a dunk in the water is, he responded, " It's a dunk in the water." This statement comes on the heels of a controversy that began, on Tuesday, when the vice president was asked during an interview if "a dunk in water is a no brainer if it can save lives." The vice president replied: "Well, it's a no brainer for me, but for a while there I was criticized as being the vice president for torture."
Whew, "for a while there" Mr. Cheney probably thought he'd get off the hook for making a statement that appeared to most human rights groups, and most human beings, too, for that matter, to be condoning torture, as well as an interrogation technique, "waterboarding," that is widely regardly as cruel and inhumane.
You can bet that the vice president is taking a huge sigh of relief today in light of the White House's embarrassing attempt at damage control when claiming that his remarks had nothing to do with waterboarding; would you believe scuba diving? Hiring Tony Snow was, arguably, the smartest move this administration has made as he has turned a town riddled with right-wing bible-thumping hypocrites into theatre of the absurd.
But, the rest of us are taking an even greater sign of relief that we have only 2 more years to deal with the level of sophistry, and Machiavellian machinations of Karl Rove, Bush, Cheney, and Co. While, as Tony Snow calls it, "a dunk in the water is a dunk in the water," it's yet another slam dunk for an administration that ranks up there as the first to acknowledge its own policies for what they are "no brainers."
Whew, "for a while there" Mr. Cheney probably thought he'd get off the hook for making a statement that appeared to most human rights groups, and most human beings, too, for that matter, to be condoning torture, as well as an interrogation technique, "waterboarding," that is widely regardly as cruel and inhumane.
You can bet that the vice president is taking a huge sigh of relief today in light of the White House's embarrassing attempt at damage control when claiming that his remarks had nothing to do with waterboarding; would you believe scuba diving? Hiring Tony Snow was, arguably, the smartest move this administration has made as he has turned a town riddled with right-wing bible-thumping hypocrites into theatre of the absurd.
But, the rest of us are taking an even greater sign of relief that we have only 2 more years to deal with the level of sophistry, and Machiavellian machinations of Karl Rove, Bush, Cheney, and Co. While, as Tony Snow calls it, "a dunk in the water is a dunk in the water," it's yet another slam dunk for an administration that ranks up there as the first to acknowledge its own policies for what they are "no brainers."
A Final Word on Justice Scalia...
Excerpts from a piece by:
STUART TAYLOR JR.
SPECIAL TO THE NEW YORK TIMES (NYT)
Published: February 16, 1987
(Note: Stuart Taylor has written columns for The National Journal, a socially conservative publication, as well as Newsweek. You may wish to keep the irony of this in mind when reading excerpts from the following article.)
from Taylor's "Scalia Proposes Major Overhaul of U.S. Courts," NYT, 2/16/87...
"Associate Justice Antonin Scalia of the Supreme Court said today that the Federal judiciary was being transformed from an 'elite' into a vast bureaucracy by a flood of routine cases, and called for a major overhaul."He urged relegating large categories of cases like routine Social Security disability claims and Freedom of Information Act suits to specialized tribunals, to reverse what he termed the ''continuing deterioration'' in the prestige of the Federal district and appellate courts and the quality of the lawyers interested in serving on them 'A Natural Aristocracy'
"The time is well past due'"for action if '"a system of elite Federal courts'" is to be retained, Justice Scalia told a luncheon audience at the American Bar Association convention here. He said the framers of the Constitution saw the Federal judiciary as a "'natural aristocracy, in their words, of ability rather than wealth.'"
In his first major speech since he joined the Supreme Court in September, the 50-year-old Justice asserted it was inevitable that Federal district and appellate courts will stop attracting "the cream of the profession" unless action is taken to limit their caseloads and their need to decide routine personal injury and employment disputes and other cases they consider 'trivial.'"Justice Scalia said...he aspired to become a Federal judge because Federal courts were 'forums for the big case. An elite group of practitioners' argued before judges viewed as 'great minds' who enjoyed prestige unequaled by judges in other nations, he said. 'A Judge, Not a Processor."
Since 1960, he said, the Federal courts have been transformed by an explosion of Federal rights on which lawsuits could be brought,'"ome created by Congress, some by the courts.'"He said that since 1960 the number of Federal civil suits filed each year has more than quadrupled, from 58,000 to more than 250,000, and the number of appeals has multiplied ninefold, from 3,900 to 35,000. "
Oh, and here's another excerpt, this time from an interview Amy Goodman did with Stuart Taylor, Jr. on Oct. 27, 2004, right before the presidential election, that's bound to give you goosebumps as it did me...
"AMY GOODMAN: I'm Amy Goodman, as we continue with Stuart Taylor. He has written the piece called "The A List" with The National Journal. You go through the list of possible Kerry picks, possible Bush picks for the Supreme Court. One of the issues that's been raised is that when it comes to someone like Antonin Scalia, a fiercely conservative Justice, that the democrats joined with the republicans in supporting them, John Kerry was included in that when he was appointed to the Supreme Court in confirmation. What's your response to that, Stuart Taylor?
STUART TAYLOR, JR.: My response is that that happened for reasons that seem a long time ago and it's not likely to happen again. Part of it could happen again. One thing that Justice Scalia had going for him was that Chief Justice Rehnquist, then Justice Rehnquist, was running interference. The two were nominated simultaneously when Chief Justice Warren Burger stepped down. The president nominated Rehnquist, who was then a Justice to step up to Chief Justice, and Scalia, a lower court judge, to fill the Rehnquist vacancy. The liberal opponents focused their attacks on Rehnquist because of the visibility of the Chief Justice position and because of his very conservative record during his years on the court as -- and other issues, and Scalia was something of a beneficiary of that. I think that liberals sort of used up their energy, and what they thought was the public's patience in their attacks on Rehnquist, also the fact that Scalia was the first Italian Justice got him some credit and he's a very gregarious and charming man, that got him some credit. And I think it was probably not quite as apparent then as it is now how conservative he would prove to be, although he was pretty clearly pretty conservative. The one parallel that I could see this time is if there is a nominee for Chief Justice from within the court who draws substantial opposition from the other party, then whoever is sort of second in line to fill that nominee's seat might benefit to the same -- in sort of in the same way that Scalia did, but I think the confirmation battles have become much more bitter. The polarization on the court and in the country has become more extreme, and now democrats in the last four years have set a precedent for Senate filibusters of controversial nominees, which basically means that you no long need just 50 votes to get confirmed -- or 51, I should say -- you need 60 to break a filibuster, and that could make it difficult for any controversial nominee to get through.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Stuart Taylor, the issue of what happened in 2000, the issue of the race being thrown -- the race for president being thrown to the Supreme Court. Do you see any scenario where that could happen again?
STUART TAYLOR, JR.: It could happen for sure, and it could happen in a number of different states. Basically, the 2000 litigation set another kind of precedent, which is the idea that maybe some court will decide who won the presidential election rather than the usual process. That had never happened before, and even if the Supreme Court had decided Bush versus Gore the other way, I think that that precedent would have the same effect. So, both parties are geared up with thousands of lawyers all over the country, already bringing lawsuits about all sorts of things, voter registration procedures, provisional voting procedures. And basically, if the national electoral vote turns out to be close, and there are some states that are close enough so that if you swing one or two of them or three of them away from where it seems to be heading through lawsuits, there will be lawsuits and it's -- there are a huge number of variables, but sort of a -- I see a very substantial possibility, maybe not a probability, that once again we won't know who the president's going to be until sometime after election day."
Importantly, members of both parties in Congress supported Antonin Scalia's appointment to the Supreme Court!
STUART TAYLOR JR.
SPECIAL TO THE NEW YORK TIMES (NYT)
Published: February 16, 1987
(Note: Stuart Taylor has written columns for The National Journal, a socially conservative publication, as well as Newsweek. You may wish to keep the irony of this in mind when reading excerpts from the following article.)
from Taylor's "Scalia Proposes Major Overhaul of U.S. Courts," NYT, 2/16/87...
"Associate Justice Antonin Scalia of the Supreme Court said today that the Federal judiciary was being transformed from an 'elite' into a vast bureaucracy by a flood of routine cases, and called for a major overhaul."He urged relegating large categories of cases like routine Social Security disability claims and Freedom of Information Act suits to specialized tribunals, to reverse what he termed the ''continuing deterioration'' in the prestige of the Federal district and appellate courts and the quality of the lawyers interested in serving on them 'A Natural Aristocracy'
"The time is well past due'"for action if '"a system of elite Federal courts'" is to be retained, Justice Scalia told a luncheon audience at the American Bar Association convention here. He said the framers of the Constitution saw the Federal judiciary as a "'natural aristocracy, in their words, of ability rather than wealth.'"
In his first major speech since he joined the Supreme Court in September, the 50-year-old Justice asserted it was inevitable that Federal district and appellate courts will stop attracting "the cream of the profession" unless action is taken to limit their caseloads and their need to decide routine personal injury and employment disputes and other cases they consider 'trivial.'"Justice Scalia said...he aspired to become a Federal judge because Federal courts were 'forums for the big case. An elite group of practitioners' argued before judges viewed as 'great minds' who enjoyed prestige unequaled by judges in other nations, he said. 'A Judge, Not a Processor."
Since 1960, he said, the Federal courts have been transformed by an explosion of Federal rights on which lawsuits could be brought,'"ome created by Congress, some by the courts.'"He said that since 1960 the number of Federal civil suits filed each year has more than quadrupled, from 58,000 to more than 250,000, and the number of appeals has multiplied ninefold, from 3,900 to 35,000. "
Oh, and here's another excerpt, this time from an interview Amy Goodman did with Stuart Taylor, Jr. on Oct. 27, 2004, right before the presidential election, that's bound to give you goosebumps as it did me...
"AMY GOODMAN: I'm Amy Goodman, as we continue with Stuart Taylor. He has written the piece called "The A List" with The National Journal. You go through the list of possible Kerry picks, possible Bush picks for the Supreme Court. One of the issues that's been raised is that when it comes to someone like Antonin Scalia, a fiercely conservative Justice, that the democrats joined with the republicans in supporting them, John Kerry was included in that when he was appointed to the Supreme Court in confirmation. What's your response to that, Stuart Taylor?
STUART TAYLOR, JR.: My response is that that happened for reasons that seem a long time ago and it's not likely to happen again. Part of it could happen again. One thing that Justice Scalia had going for him was that Chief Justice Rehnquist, then Justice Rehnquist, was running interference. The two were nominated simultaneously when Chief Justice Warren Burger stepped down. The president nominated Rehnquist, who was then a Justice to step up to Chief Justice, and Scalia, a lower court judge, to fill the Rehnquist vacancy. The liberal opponents focused their attacks on Rehnquist because of the visibility of the Chief Justice position and because of his very conservative record during his years on the court as -- and other issues, and Scalia was something of a beneficiary of that. I think that liberals sort of used up their energy, and what they thought was the public's patience in their attacks on Rehnquist, also the fact that Scalia was the first Italian Justice got him some credit and he's a very gregarious and charming man, that got him some credit. And I think it was probably not quite as apparent then as it is now how conservative he would prove to be, although he was pretty clearly pretty conservative. The one parallel that I could see this time is if there is a nominee for Chief Justice from within the court who draws substantial opposition from the other party, then whoever is sort of second in line to fill that nominee's seat might benefit to the same -- in sort of in the same way that Scalia did, but I think the confirmation battles have become much more bitter. The polarization on the court and in the country has become more extreme, and now democrats in the last four years have set a precedent for Senate filibusters of controversial nominees, which basically means that you no long need just 50 votes to get confirmed -- or 51, I should say -- you need 60 to break a filibuster, and that could make it difficult for any controversial nominee to get through.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Stuart Taylor, the issue of what happened in 2000, the issue of the race being thrown -- the race for president being thrown to the Supreme Court. Do you see any scenario where that could happen again?
STUART TAYLOR, JR.: It could happen for sure, and it could happen in a number of different states. Basically, the 2000 litigation set another kind of precedent, which is the idea that maybe some court will decide who won the presidential election rather than the usual process. That had never happened before, and even if the Supreme Court had decided Bush versus Gore the other way, I think that that precedent would have the same effect. So, both parties are geared up with thousands of lawyers all over the country, already bringing lawsuits about all sorts of things, voter registration procedures, provisional voting procedures. And basically, if the national electoral vote turns out to be close, and there are some states that are close enough so that if you swing one or two of them or three of them away from where it seems to be heading through lawsuits, there will be lawsuits and it's -- there are a huge number of variables, but sort of a -- I see a very substantial possibility, maybe not a probability, that once again we won't know who the president's going to be until sometime after election day."
Importantly, members of both parties in Congress supported Antonin Scalia's appointment to the Supreme Court!
Thursday, October 26, 2006
The Scales and Scalia
In a speech in Phoenix on Tuesday, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. said we have "a negligent press in this country," indicting everyone from "pollutors to politicians," but especially the news media for enabling the worst environmental president, and letting him off the hook. Moreover, Mr. Kennedy suggested that we have a press that acts as a vehicle for the delivery of entertainment rather than one that informs, and investigates. Amen. "We know more about Tom and Katie than about global warming," as Kennedy rightly said. (Fishbowl NY) Undoubtedly, we've been seduced by opinion, and abandoned by fact.
But, Kennedy isn't the only one castigating the news media lately. On Saturday, in a discussion about the role of the judiciary at the behest of the National Italian American Foundation, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia blasted the news media, as well as the reading public, suggesting that they are complicit distorting representations of federal judges and courts. Scalia further observed that "The press is never going to report judicial opinions accurately. They're just going to report, who is the plaintiff? Was that a nice little old lady? And who is the defendant? Was this, you know, some scuzzy guy? And who won? Was it the good guy that won or the bad guy?" (Editor and Publisher). With words like "scuzzy" and "nice," this statement sounds more like it could be coming from the mouths of Mr. Bush, or Mr. Rumsfeld than a member of the Supreme Court. Clearly, if "scalia" is Italian for scales, these are not the scales of justice, but the ones generally worn by reptiles.
Intriguing, isn't it, how two men from opposite sides of the political spectrum come to the same conclusion about the press, if for different reasons. The first, Mr. Kennedy, arguing for more information, more knowledge whereas, in contrast, the Judge suggests that selling papers means writing for a bunch of simpletons. Think about this: we have a man sitting, for life, on the highest court in the land who thinks that we might not be capable of understanding the complexities of the Court, or its rulings. Is this altogether different from what judges in 18th Century England thought?
What's more, in his speech to the National Italian American Foundation, on Saturday, Scalia also demystified the notion of an independent judiciary: "You talk about independence as though it is unquestionably, and unqualifiedly a good thing," he tells the group. Yes, yes, the Supreme Court like Congress belongs under the king's thumb, and not just King George, mind you, but future American monarchs, as well.Moreover, Judge Scalia contends that people understand, or misunderstand, the highest court in the land as a result of a news media that "typically oversimplifies and sensationalizes." (E & P) He also thinks that the Internet has an adverse effect on the way in which judges and their opinions are viewed, or maybe shared? Implicitly, the question isn't representation or misrepresentation, but judicial privacy. It is just possible that Scalia is asserting judicial privilege; namely, that the Court's judgments belong to the realm of esoterica, not unlike documents this administration labels "classified?" If so, will future generations regard finding out about a ruling in a case, such as Roe v. Wade, as "leaking?"
Perhaps it's not so much that the press is pandering, after all, but that the people aren't at a level where they're capable of understanding more than whether the plaintiff was "a nice little old lady;" is this what the Judge is suggesting, really, beneath it all? If so, this is an important assertion coming from a government that regards itself as a democracy. Or, is he claiming, along with Robert Kennedy, that the press is delinquent in fulfilling its obligation to foster an informed electorate?
And, when a federal judge orders a New York Times investigative journalist, Nicholas Kristof, to identify 3 confidential sources,as well as turn over information without which his piece about anthrax mailings that killed more nearly half a dozen people might not have been written, that is a challenge to all information-gathering needed to provide the public with anything more than an entertainment delivery vehicle. How in the hell can we expect the press not to think twice before engaging in controversy, as well as muzzle themselves, or self-censor, when the outcome is legalized humiliation?
How can we expect journalists to provide us with anything more than a dog and pony show when cynicism has spread as far as the Supreme Court, hen the courts are strong arming them to compromise their ethics, and rat out those who gave them privileged information? When the notion of a free press is neutralized by the suggestion that the news media provides us with fiction, and only those who make policy can provide us with the key to the Holy Grail? Do we stifle dissent when we impugn, and neuter those who bring us our information?
Over the past 5 plus years, we have seen more grand jury subpoenas of members of the press than ever in our nation's history, including the McCarthy era, mostly frivolous subpoenas. We have seen journalists hand-cuffed and taken to jail, or placed on house arrest. We have seen responsible network broadcasting turned into a parody of "Good Morning America." Is this any justification for pandering to the lowest common denominator, or presenting news-lite? Hell no.... but self-censorship, my friends, is the most insidious form because it never sees the light of day.
Yes, Mr. Kennedy is right to suggest that we, in this country, have been seduced by opinion and abandoned by fact, a trend that can only widen, and worsen, if other judges, like Scalia, take the bench, and impugn not only the integrity of the news media, but the ability of the American people to understand both judges, and judicial findings. The Bush administration's policy of classifying, and making privileged information can only expand when Supreme Court judges roll over to executive control. Would it be audacious to suggest that Scalia, a strong proponent of looking to the "original Constitution" as a guide revisit that great document which provides for checks and balances, as well as an independent Court? More to the point, the Judge himself oversimplifies when he suggests that the news media doesn't report accurately, as well that the independence of the Court is not always a good thing.
Notably, while both Scalia, on the right, and Kennedy, on the left, agree about major defects in the press, the former reflects the kind of elitism that takes us back to the monarchy while the latter suggests that an informed electorate is our best defense. And, while nobody is talking about the Supreme Court anymore, it's time to get started because whoever we elect as president, in 2008, will have the opportunity to appoint more Scalias, and Scalia-clones,after which the Constitution will be found along with Gideon's Bible in your local Motel 6.
It is inconceivable that anyone sitting on the highest court of a country founded by progressives would suggest that the news media can "never" report anything accurately; this kind of thinking poses a clear and present danger to a free press. At best, such a worldview leads to mediocrity; at worst, dictatorship. We have already witnessed what a class, and classified, view has to offer us; one that promotes privacy, and privilege while, at the same time, depriving us of our right to confidentiality.
If nothing else, the past decade has shown us that mediocrity has many takers. Excellence, on the other hand, is yet to be spoken for.
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