Wednesday, July 30, 2008
from Bill Moyers and Michael Winship
The below piece comes courtesy of Bill Moyers Journal, and Public Affairs Television:
The Wave of "Capitol Crimes" Continues
By Bill Moyers and Michael Winship
Like the largesse he spread so bountifully to members of Congress and the White House staff -- countless fancy meals, skybox tickets to basketball games and U2 concerts, golfing sprees in Scotland -- Jack Abramoff is the gift that keeps on giving.
The notorious lobbyist and his cohorts (including conservatives Tom Delay, Grover Norquist and Ralph Reed) shook down Native American tribal councils and other clients for tens of millions of dollars, buying influence via a coalition of equally corrupt government officials and cronies dedicated to dismantling government by selling it off, making massive profits as they tore the principles of a representative democracy to shreds.
A report earlier this summer from the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform builds on an earlier committee investigation that detailed some 485 contacts between Abramoff and the Bush administration. According to the new report, "Senior White House officials told the Committee that White House officials held Mr. Abramoff and members of his lobbying team in high regard and solicited recommendations from Mr. Abramoff and his colleagues on policy matters."
Now Abramoff's doing time in Maryland, at a minimum security Federal prison, serving five years and ten months for unrelated, fraudulent business practices involving a fake wire transfer he and a partner fabricated to secure a loan to buy SunCruz Casinos, a line of Florida cruise ships that ferried high and low rollers into international waters to gamble (its original owner, Konstantinos "Gus" Boulis, was gunned down, Mafia-style, in February 2001).
But come September, Abramoff will be sentenced for his larger-than-life role in one of the biggest scandals in American history, a collection of outrages that has already sent one member of Congress to jail, others into retirement and dozens of accomplices running for cover.
Over the last couple of years he has been singing to the authorities, which is why he has been kept in a detention facility close to DC and the reason his sentencing for tax evasion, the defrauding of Indians and the bribing of Washington officials has been delayed -- the FBI is thought to be using Abramoff's testimony to build an ever-expanding case that may continue to shake those who live within the Beltway bubble for months and years to come.
Bill Moyers Journal is airing an updated edition of "Capitol Crimes," a special that was first produced for public television two years ago, relating the entire sordid story of the Abramoff scandals. Produced by Sherry Jones, the rebroadcast comes at a moment of renewed interest, with not only Abramoff's sentencing imminent, but the most important national elections in decades little more than three months away and continuing, seemingly daily revelations of further, profligate abuses of power.
Monday saw the publication of a 140-page report from the Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General and Office of Professional Responsibility, confirming that, as the Washington Post recounted, "For nearly two years, a young political aide sought to cultivate a 'farm system' for Republicans at the Justice Department, hiring scores of prosecutors and immigration judges who espoused conservative priorities and Christian lifestyle choices.
"That aide, Monica M. Goodling, exercised what amounted to veto power over a wide range of critical jobs, asking candidates for their views on abortion and same-sex marriage and maneuvering around senior officials who outranked her, including the department's second-in-command... [The report] concluded yesterday that Goodling and others had broken civil service laws, run afoul of department policy and engaged in 'misconduct,' a finding that could expose them to further scrutiny and sanctions."
With the next day's sunrise came the indictment of Alaskan Republican Ted Stevens, the first sitting US Senator to face criminal charges in 15 years. Apparently, the senator was playing the home version of "The Price Is Right," for among the gifts a grand jury says were illegally rewarded him by the oil company VECO were a Viking gas grill, tool cabinet and a wraparound deck for his mountainside house in Anchorage. In fact, VECO allegedly gave the place an entire new first floor, with two bedrooms and a bath. How neighborly.
(By the way, just to round the circle, Senator Stevens received $1000 in campaign contributions from Jack Abramoff directly, which subsequently he donated to the Alaskan chapter of the Red Cross, and $16,500 from Native American tribes and others represented by Abramoff, which Stevens gave to other charities.)
Coincidentally, this week also marks the publication of a new book, The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule, written by Thomas Frank, the author of What's the Matter with Kansas? In an essay in the August issue of Harper's magazine, adapted from the book, Frank adroitly weaves the actions of Abramoff and his pals into a vastly larger ideological framework.
"Fantastic misgovernment is not an accident," he writes, "nor is it the work of a few bad individuals. It is the consequence of triumph by a particular philosophy of government, by a movement that understands the liberal state as a perversion and considers the market the ideal nexus of human society. This movement is friendly to industry not just by force of campaign contributions but by conviction; it believes in entrepreneurship not merely in commerce but in politics; and the inevitable results of its ascendance are, first, the capture of the state by business and, second, what follows from that: incompetence, graft, and all the other wretched flotsam that we've come to expect from Washington.
"... The conservatism that speaks to us through its actions in Washington is institutionally opposed to those baseline good intentions we learned about in elementary school. Its leaders laugh off the idea of the public interest as airy-fairy nonsense; they caution against bringing top-notch talent into government service; they declare war on public workers. They have made a cult of outsourcing and privatizing, they have wrecked established federal operations because they disagree with them, and they have deliberately piled up an Everest of debt in order to force the government into crisis. The ruination they have wrought has been thorough; it has been a professional job. Repairing it will require years of political action."
Have we the stamina, commitment -- or even the attention span -- to take such action? Abramoff may be cooling his heels in minimum security, but his pals Delay, Norquist and Reed appear on television and radio whose hosts treat them as political savants with nary a nod to their past nefarious association with Abramoff. Few in the audience seem to notice or care.
Former House majority leader Delay's awaiting trial on money laundering charges, and the incorrigible Ralph Reed, who played Christian pastors in Texas for suckers in enlisting their unwitting help for Abramoff's gambling clients, even has a political potboiler of a novel out -- Dark Horse, the story of a failed Democratic presidential candidate who finds God, then runs as an independent, funded, presumably, by the supreme being's political action committee.
"Do we Americans really want good government?" That's a question asked, not by Thomas Frank, but the muckraking journalist Lincoln Steffens, writing more than a century ago in his book, The Shame of the Cities. He wrote, "We are a free and sovereign people, we govern ourselves and the government is ours. But that is the point. We are responsible, not our leaders, since we follow them. We let them divert our loyalty from the United States to some 'party;' we let them boss the party and turn our municipal democracies into autocracies and our republican nation into a plutocracy. We cheat our government and we let our leaders loot it, and we let them wheedle and bribe our sovereignty from us."
From more than a hundred years' distance, Steffens would recognize Abramoff & company for what they are. And we for who we are; a nation too easily distracted and looking the other way as everything rightfully ours is taken.
Bill Moyers is managing editor and Michael Winship is senior writer of the weekly public affairs program Bill Moyers Journal, which airs Friday night on PBS. Check local airtimes or comment at The Moyers Blog at www.pbs.org/moyers.
The Wave of "Capitol Crimes" Continues
By Bill Moyers and Michael Winship
Like the largesse he spread so bountifully to members of Congress and the White House staff -- countless fancy meals, skybox tickets to basketball games and U2 concerts, golfing sprees in Scotland -- Jack Abramoff is the gift that keeps on giving.
The notorious lobbyist and his cohorts (including conservatives Tom Delay, Grover Norquist and Ralph Reed) shook down Native American tribal councils and other clients for tens of millions of dollars, buying influence via a coalition of equally corrupt government officials and cronies dedicated to dismantling government by selling it off, making massive profits as they tore the principles of a representative democracy to shreds.
A report earlier this summer from the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform builds on an earlier committee investigation that detailed some 485 contacts between Abramoff and the Bush administration. According to the new report, "Senior White House officials told the Committee that White House officials held Mr. Abramoff and members of his lobbying team in high regard and solicited recommendations from Mr. Abramoff and his colleagues on policy matters."
Now Abramoff's doing time in Maryland, at a minimum security Federal prison, serving five years and ten months for unrelated, fraudulent business practices involving a fake wire transfer he and a partner fabricated to secure a loan to buy SunCruz Casinos, a line of Florida cruise ships that ferried high and low rollers into international waters to gamble (its original owner, Konstantinos "Gus" Boulis, was gunned down, Mafia-style, in February 2001).
But come September, Abramoff will be sentenced for his larger-than-life role in one of the biggest scandals in American history, a collection of outrages that has already sent one member of Congress to jail, others into retirement and dozens of accomplices running for cover.
Over the last couple of years he has been singing to the authorities, which is why he has been kept in a detention facility close to DC and the reason his sentencing for tax evasion, the defrauding of Indians and the bribing of Washington officials has been delayed -- the FBI is thought to be using Abramoff's testimony to build an ever-expanding case that may continue to shake those who live within the Beltway bubble for months and years to come.
Bill Moyers Journal is airing an updated edition of "Capitol Crimes," a special that was first produced for public television two years ago, relating the entire sordid story of the Abramoff scandals. Produced by Sherry Jones, the rebroadcast comes at a moment of renewed interest, with not only Abramoff's sentencing imminent, but the most important national elections in decades little more than three months away and continuing, seemingly daily revelations of further, profligate abuses of power.
Monday saw the publication of a 140-page report from the Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General and Office of Professional Responsibility, confirming that, as the Washington Post recounted, "For nearly two years, a young political aide sought to cultivate a 'farm system' for Republicans at the Justice Department, hiring scores of prosecutors and immigration judges who espoused conservative priorities and Christian lifestyle choices.
"That aide, Monica M. Goodling, exercised what amounted to veto power over a wide range of critical jobs, asking candidates for their views on abortion and same-sex marriage and maneuvering around senior officials who outranked her, including the department's second-in-command... [The report] concluded yesterday that Goodling and others had broken civil service laws, run afoul of department policy and engaged in 'misconduct,' a finding that could expose them to further scrutiny and sanctions."
With the next day's sunrise came the indictment of Alaskan Republican Ted Stevens, the first sitting US Senator to face criminal charges in 15 years. Apparently, the senator was playing the home version of "The Price Is Right," for among the gifts a grand jury says were illegally rewarded him by the oil company VECO were a Viking gas grill, tool cabinet and a wraparound deck for his mountainside house in Anchorage. In fact, VECO allegedly gave the place an entire new first floor, with two bedrooms and a bath. How neighborly.
(By the way, just to round the circle, Senator Stevens received $1000 in campaign contributions from Jack Abramoff directly, which subsequently he donated to the Alaskan chapter of the Red Cross, and $16,500 from Native American tribes and others represented by Abramoff, which Stevens gave to other charities.)
Coincidentally, this week also marks the publication of a new book, The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule, written by Thomas Frank, the author of What's the Matter with Kansas? In an essay in the August issue of Harper's magazine, adapted from the book, Frank adroitly weaves the actions of Abramoff and his pals into a vastly larger ideological framework.
"Fantastic misgovernment is not an accident," he writes, "nor is it the work of a few bad individuals. It is the consequence of triumph by a particular philosophy of government, by a movement that understands the liberal state as a perversion and considers the market the ideal nexus of human society. This movement is friendly to industry not just by force of campaign contributions but by conviction; it believes in entrepreneurship not merely in commerce but in politics; and the inevitable results of its ascendance are, first, the capture of the state by business and, second, what follows from that: incompetence, graft, and all the other wretched flotsam that we've come to expect from Washington.
"... The conservatism that speaks to us through its actions in Washington is institutionally opposed to those baseline good intentions we learned about in elementary school. Its leaders laugh off the idea of the public interest as airy-fairy nonsense; they caution against bringing top-notch talent into government service; they declare war on public workers. They have made a cult of outsourcing and privatizing, they have wrecked established federal operations because they disagree with them, and they have deliberately piled up an Everest of debt in order to force the government into crisis. The ruination they have wrought has been thorough; it has been a professional job. Repairing it will require years of political action."
Have we the stamina, commitment -- or even the attention span -- to take such action? Abramoff may be cooling his heels in minimum security, but his pals Delay, Norquist and Reed appear on television and radio whose hosts treat them as political savants with nary a nod to their past nefarious association with Abramoff. Few in the audience seem to notice or care.
Former House majority leader Delay's awaiting trial on money laundering charges, and the incorrigible Ralph Reed, who played Christian pastors in Texas for suckers in enlisting their unwitting help for Abramoff's gambling clients, even has a political potboiler of a novel out -- Dark Horse, the story of a failed Democratic presidential candidate who finds God, then runs as an independent, funded, presumably, by the supreme being's political action committee.
"Do we Americans really want good government?" That's a question asked, not by Thomas Frank, but the muckraking journalist Lincoln Steffens, writing more than a century ago in his book, The Shame of the Cities. He wrote, "We are a free and sovereign people, we govern ourselves and the government is ours. But that is the point. We are responsible, not our leaders, since we follow them. We let them divert our loyalty from the United States to some 'party;' we let them boss the party and turn our municipal democracies into autocracies and our republican nation into a plutocracy. We cheat our government and we let our leaders loot it, and we let them wheedle and bribe our sovereignty from us."
From more than a hundred years' distance, Steffens would recognize Abramoff & company for what they are. And we for who we are; a nation too easily distracted and looking the other way as everything rightfully ours is taken.
Bill Moyers is managing editor and Michael Winship is senior writer of the weekly public affairs program Bill Moyers Journal, which airs Friday night on PBS. Check local airtimes or comment at The Moyers Blog at www.pbs.org/moyers.
The Terror Gang
Both Barack Obama and John McCain are chomping at the bit to use military force, a strategy that, according to a recent Rand center report, is effective only 7% of the time.
The study also asserts "there is no battlefield solution to terrorism," that the phrase "war on terror" only perpetuates what is essentially a criminal act, and what we already know, that there is no such thing as a terror "war." (AP) Indeed, the think tank financed by our tax dollars says good intelligence, and policing, are the most effective ways of dealing with counterterrorism efforts.
Notably, in Berlin, Obama not only echoed JFK's ardent pledge to fight communism, he acknowledged that he will continue the so-called "war on terror," adding that "we must defeat terror." But, how does he propose to do that and, more importantly, what will he do with the terror infrastructure we ourselves created in Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Iran with the introduction of mercenaries, a.k.a. war contractors?
We're growing insurgents in Iran, and fighting insurgents in Iraq. It's now conventional wisdom that the U.S. entered a sovereign country illegally, seized its assets, pummeled its president and his palace, and now has the gall to call the resistance "insurgents." Don't believe the "surge" freaks, like McCain, who tell you the insurgency, in Iraq, is disappearing. Anywhere there is illegal occupation, there will be justifiable insurrection.
And, judging by his latest foreign policy photo ops, don't expect to see any seismic shift in an Obama administration, but instead the same old preemptive military war games of his predecessor, that is, unless we call him on this, and do it now.
Moreover, while he's making noises about "torture," we need to hear that, as president, Mr. Obama will stop the heinous practice of using international airspace to fly those we detain to countries that openly torture.
As a prospective commander-in-chief, he must also make it known that he not only has an exit strategy for our troops, in Iraq, but for Halliburton, Blackwater, and the countless bloodsuckers who have been carpetbagging in that stolen country for the past 6 years. It's time to tell the terror gang to fold up their tents, and come home.
It's also time for Obama to speak out against the latest outrage coming from the desk of Attorney General Michael Mukasey who now urges Congress to issue a "new" declaration of war against Al Qaeda. Does anyone remember an old declaration of war against Iraq, or Al Qaeda, being ratified by Congress? Yes, of course, Congress approved funding, but for an undeclared war.
But, why this sudden urgency, on the part of the Justice Department, to legitimize a bastard war? Can it be that the attorney general is worried that the promise of immunity from war crimes, given by the Military Commissions Act of 2006, will be rescinded by a new Congress, and/or president?
If Mukasey succeeds and, despite the findings of a governmental research group that treating so-called terrorists like warriors flat out doesn't work, he manages to get a formal declaration of war against Al Qaeda, George W. Bush won't be the only commander-in-chief who can sleep better at night knowing that waterboarding, and other "enhanced alternative interrogation techniques," can be applied with impunity, and that we can call whomever we please an "unlawful enemy combatant," continue to hold them indefinitely without ever charging them, or giving them access to the evidence against them.
John McCain is right. We know way more where he stands on "national security" than we do about Barack Obama, but that may not be such a good thing. After all, we know where McCain stands on what he calls Islamofascism. Let's just say that it's in keeping with his stand on affirmative action, and a stone's throw from his position on electronic eavesdropping. Remember, too, that his campaign advisors are also on the boards of AT&T, and other telecoms who will benefit from the new F.I.S.A. retroactive immunity clause.
Who can believe, but it was nearly 50 years ago that we got to see a presidential debate for the first time on television with Kennedy and Nixon. And, with Obama and McCain, we now know what a presidential chat room looks while the pair talk at each other as if text messaging. If the medium is the message, then presidential politics may be forever trivialized, and substantively neutralized.
"No one welcomes war," says Obama. Not true---the holders of those huge military contracts, like Halliburton, do; Blackwater does, manufacturers of battle gear, and cluster bombs, do. The question isn't who welcomes war, but who will do something to prevent it, and who has the moxie to stand up to the war machine? Not McCain, of course, who's angling for a way to keep a base of operations in Baghdad for generations, and not Obama who intends to redeploy troops into Afghanistan, Pakistan, and is eyeballing Tehran. But if not Mr. Obama, then who?
What Barack Obama's argument boils down to is---right war, wrong theatre. Or, put differently, the notion of a "war on terror" isn't inherently flawed, only our execution of it is. In the end, do we have any more confidence that a President Obama will oppose those forces in the Pentagon, and intelligence agencies, who are working overtime in a clandestine effort to topple the Ahmadinejad leadership, as well as those who strive for a military strike against Iran? Can we expect fairness, and balance, from a Barack administration, or just the usual laissez-faire policies when it comes to the shameful Israeli embargo of Gaza?
With his talk of nuclear non-proliferation, Obama is clearly heading in the right direction while McCain is still waiting for that 3 A.M. phone call, but nuclear non-proliferation is not the same as disarmament. A world without nuclear weapons must start with a world without cluster bombs, and those who gorge themselves on profits from their manufacture.
When, in the 1920's, Al Capone and his gang terrorized New York, and the country, then President Calvin Coolidge didn't declare a "war on the Mafia." Ironically, too, a war of that nature would have been far more winnable than a war on "terror."
And, if more members of Congress had bothered to read the USA Patriot Act before signing off on it, making it law, we wouldn't be facing such a grave threat to civil liberties today.
Both Senators McCain and Obama will be well-advised to familiarize themselves with findings that admonish American leadership for using hackneyed, and hopelessly abstract, phraseology like "war on terror," and instead call for "counterterrorism" efforts.
Counterterrorism doesn't sound as sexy, and won't be nearly as profitable, but is guaranteed to save more lives, and to keep us from continuing to be a global embarrassment.
The study also asserts "there is no battlefield solution to terrorism," that the phrase "war on terror" only perpetuates what is essentially a criminal act, and what we already know, that there is no such thing as a terror "war." (AP) Indeed, the think tank financed by our tax dollars says good intelligence, and policing, are the most effective ways of dealing with counterterrorism efforts.
Notably, in Berlin, Obama not only echoed JFK's ardent pledge to fight communism, he acknowledged that he will continue the so-called "war on terror," adding that "we must defeat terror." But, how does he propose to do that and, more importantly, what will he do with the terror infrastructure we ourselves created in Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Iran with the introduction of mercenaries, a.k.a. war contractors?
We're growing insurgents in Iran, and fighting insurgents in Iraq. It's now conventional wisdom that the U.S. entered a sovereign country illegally, seized its assets, pummeled its president and his palace, and now has the gall to call the resistance "insurgents." Don't believe the "surge" freaks, like McCain, who tell you the insurgency, in Iraq, is disappearing. Anywhere there is illegal occupation, there will be justifiable insurrection.
And, judging by his latest foreign policy photo ops, don't expect to see any seismic shift in an Obama administration, but instead the same old preemptive military war games of his predecessor, that is, unless we call him on this, and do it now.
Moreover, while he's making noises about "torture," we need to hear that, as president, Mr. Obama will stop the heinous practice of using international airspace to fly those we detain to countries that openly torture.
As a prospective commander-in-chief, he must also make it known that he not only has an exit strategy for our troops, in Iraq, but for Halliburton, Blackwater, and the countless bloodsuckers who have been carpetbagging in that stolen country for the past 6 years. It's time to tell the terror gang to fold up their tents, and come home.
It's also time for Obama to speak out against the latest outrage coming from the desk of Attorney General Michael Mukasey who now urges Congress to issue a "new" declaration of war against Al Qaeda. Does anyone remember an old declaration of war against Iraq, or Al Qaeda, being ratified by Congress? Yes, of course, Congress approved funding, but for an undeclared war.
But, why this sudden urgency, on the part of the Justice Department, to legitimize a bastard war? Can it be that the attorney general is worried that the promise of immunity from war crimes, given by the Military Commissions Act of 2006, will be rescinded by a new Congress, and/or president?
If Mukasey succeeds and, despite the findings of a governmental research group that treating so-called terrorists like warriors flat out doesn't work, he manages to get a formal declaration of war against Al Qaeda, George W. Bush won't be the only commander-in-chief who can sleep better at night knowing that waterboarding, and other "enhanced alternative interrogation techniques," can be applied with impunity, and that we can call whomever we please an "unlawful enemy combatant," continue to hold them indefinitely without ever charging them, or giving them access to the evidence against them.
John McCain is right. We know way more where he stands on "national security" than we do about Barack Obama, but that may not be such a good thing. After all, we know where McCain stands on what he calls Islamofascism. Let's just say that it's in keeping with his stand on affirmative action, and a stone's throw from his position on electronic eavesdropping. Remember, too, that his campaign advisors are also on the boards of AT&T, and other telecoms who will benefit from the new F.I.S.A. retroactive immunity clause.
Who can believe, but it was nearly 50 years ago that we got to see a presidential debate for the first time on television with Kennedy and Nixon. And, with Obama and McCain, we now know what a presidential chat room looks while the pair talk at each other as if text messaging. If the medium is the message, then presidential politics may be forever trivialized, and substantively neutralized.
"No one welcomes war," says Obama. Not true---the holders of those huge military contracts, like Halliburton, do; Blackwater does, manufacturers of battle gear, and cluster bombs, do. The question isn't who welcomes war, but who will do something to prevent it, and who has the moxie to stand up to the war machine? Not McCain, of course, who's angling for a way to keep a base of operations in Baghdad for generations, and not Obama who intends to redeploy troops into Afghanistan, Pakistan, and is eyeballing Tehran. But if not Mr. Obama, then who?
What Barack Obama's argument boils down to is---right war, wrong theatre. Or, put differently, the notion of a "war on terror" isn't inherently flawed, only our execution of it is. In the end, do we have any more confidence that a President Obama will oppose those forces in the Pentagon, and intelligence agencies, who are working overtime in a clandestine effort to topple the Ahmadinejad leadership, as well as those who strive for a military strike against Iran? Can we expect fairness, and balance, from a Barack administration, or just the usual laissez-faire policies when it comes to the shameful Israeli embargo of Gaza?
With his talk of nuclear non-proliferation, Obama is clearly heading in the right direction while McCain is still waiting for that 3 A.M. phone call, but nuclear non-proliferation is not the same as disarmament. A world without nuclear weapons must start with a world without cluster bombs, and those who gorge themselves on profits from their manufacture.
When, in the 1920's, Al Capone and his gang terrorized New York, and the country, then President Calvin Coolidge didn't declare a "war on the Mafia." Ironically, too, a war of that nature would have been far more winnable than a war on "terror."
And, if more members of Congress had bothered to read the USA Patriot Act before signing off on it, making it law, we wouldn't be facing such a grave threat to civil liberties today.
Both Senators McCain and Obama will be well-advised to familiarize themselves with findings that admonish American leadership for using hackneyed, and hopelessly abstract, phraseology like "war on terror," and instead call for "counterterrorism" efforts.
Counterterrorism doesn't sound as sexy, and won't be nearly as profitable, but is guaranteed to save more lives, and to keep us from continuing to be a global embarrassment.
Monday, July 28, 2008
Remember the 1968 Democratic Convention
in Chicago? Amazing, isn't it, that it's nearly 40 years ago to the day. Who can forget the tsunami of our discontent? Not just with the war in Vietnam, but with all the vestigial lies, and gratuitous distortions we've come to associate with how governments are run.
Only a year or two later, I joined J.M. Coetzee, and others, who were staging a sit-in at the administration building of the State University of New York Buffalo campus.
Am I dating myself? You got a better suggestion?
Only a year or two later, I joined J.M. Coetzee, and others, who were staging a sit-in at the administration building of the State University of New York Buffalo campus.
Am I dating myself? You got a better suggestion?
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Andrew McCain Resigns from Silver State Bank
On the eve of President Bush's signing of the housing bill which will regulate, as well as bail out, mortgage behemoth Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and create a $300 billion program to expand the Federal Housing Administration's capacity to guarantee mortgages, comes word that Andrew McCain, son of presumptive Republican nominee, John McCain, has resigned today from Silver State Bank's board of directors. The bank cites "personal reasons" for Mr. McCain's sudden departure (Las Vegas Review-Journal)
McCain was appointed to the board of the Henderson, Nevada bank in February where he served on the Audit Committee.
Prior to coming to Silver State, he was director of the Choice Bank in Scottsdale, Arizona until its merger with Silver State Bancorp which has 13 branches in Southern Las Vegas, and 4 branches in Arizona, and California. While, according to Yahoo Finance, construction and land loans make up more than 70% of the bank's lending portfolios, Silver State also lists residential mortgage loans as among its specialties.
"When the casinos treat you poorly, let Silver State treat you like a valued customer" is the bank's declared mission statement. Given widespread speculation about the prospect of hundreds of bank failings, a motto like this one is enough to cause the hair on the back of your neck to stand up, as well as ask a few hugely important questions.
McCain was appointed to the board of the Henderson, Nevada bank in February where he served on the Audit Committee.
Prior to coming to Silver State, he was director of the Choice Bank in Scottsdale, Arizona until its merger with Silver State Bancorp which has 13 branches in Southern Las Vegas, and 4 branches in Arizona, and California. While, according to Yahoo Finance, construction and land loans make up more than 70% of the bank's lending portfolios, Silver State also lists residential mortgage loans as among its specialties.
"When the casinos treat you poorly, let Silver State treat you like a valued customer" is the bank's declared mission statement. Given widespread speculation about the prospect of hundreds of bank failings, a motto like this one is enough to cause the hair on the back of your neck to stand up, as well as ask a few hugely important questions.
Friday, July 25, 2008
What the banks did...
What the banks did to mortgage holders can properly be called date rape.
As filmmaker and media critic, Danny Schechter, says "You can't blame the victim for the crime."
What's more, the generation that coined the phrase "conspicuous consumption" is now conspicuously consuming itself.
As filmmaker and media critic, Danny Schechter, says "You can't blame the victim for the crime."
What's more, the generation that coined the phrase "conspicuous consumption" is now conspicuously consuming itself.
by Michael Winship
The below article comes courtesy of Bill Moyers Journal and Public Affairs Television:
The Company We Keep
By Michael Winship
At one point during the five and a half years John McCain spent as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam, he was tortured and beaten so badly he tried to kill himself.
After four days of this brutality, he gave in and agreed to make a false confession, telling lies to end the unbearable pain. Later, he would write, “I had learned what we all learned over there: Every man has his breaking point. I had reached mine.”
Similar techniques were utilized in the Asian war preceding Vietnam – Korea. The Communist Chinese used them to interrogate US POW’s and force them to confess to things they didn’t do, such as germ warfare.
A chart of the Chinese methods, compiled in 1957 by an American sociologist, lists the methods, among them, “Sleep Deprivation,” “Semi-Starvation,” “Filthy, Infested Surroundings,” “Prolonged Constraint,” and “Exposure.” The effects are listed, too: “Makes Victim Dependent on Interrogator,” “Weakens Mental and Physical Ability to Resist,” “Reduces Prisoner to ‘Animal Level’ Concerns,” and others.
On July 2, The New York Times reported that the chart had made a surprise return appearance, this time at Guantanamo Bay, where in 2002 it was used in a course to teach our military interrogators “Coercive Management Techniques,” to be used when interrogating detainees held there as prisoners in the war on terror.
In other words, we had adopted the inhumane tactics of enemies past, tactics we once were quick to call torture. Tactics created not to get at the truth but to manufacture lies that we then characterize as credible. How can we expect this to be an effective way to extract real information from terrorists?
Since 2005, Congress has banned the use of such methods by the military but we have no way of knowing whether the CIA continues to use them (For example, The Associated Press reported Thursday that, “CIA Director Michael Hayden banned waterboarding in 2006, but government officials have said it remains a possibility if approved by the attorney general, the CIA chief and the president).”
Such is the secrecy and deliberate obfuscation that have characterized our nation’s descent into lawlessness and duplicity, depicted brilliantly in New Yorker magazine investigative reporter Jane Mayer’s new book, The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals.
Post 9/11, she reports, “For the first time in its history, the United States sanctioned government officials to physically and psychologically torment US-held detainees, making torture the official law of the land in all but name.” The late American historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., she says, told her that “the Bush administration’s extralegal counterterrorism program presented the most dramatic, sustained and radical challenge to the rule of law in American history.”
Over lunch in 2006, the year before Schlesinger died, he said, “No position taken had done more damage to the American reputation in the world -- ever.”
Read all of this in light of the series of hearings on Capitol Hill over the last weeks in which members of Congress have tried to find out how in the name of protecting us from further terrorist attacks, the Bush White House has twisted or abandoned the law to allow what most of the international community recognizes as torture.
The administration remains in denial. Former Attorney General John Ashcroft told the House Judiciary Committee, “I don’t know of any acts of torture that have been committed by individuals in developing information,” he said. “So I would not certainly make an assumption. I would attribute the absence of an attack [since 9/11] at least in part, because there have been specific attacks that have been disrupted, to the excellent work and the dedication and commitment of people whose lives are dedicated to defending the country. Interrogators have used enhanced interrogation techniques but they haven’t used torture.” Grim hairsplitting.
This week, as the result of a Freedom of Information Act suit, the ACLU received a heavily redacted copy of an infamous August 2, 2002 memo, signed by then-head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel Jay Bybee and written with his subordinate, the equally infamous John Yoo. “An individual must have the specific intent to inflict severe pain or suffering,” it reads. “… The absence of specific intent negates the charge of torture… We have further found that if a defendant acts with the good faith belief that his actions will not cause such suffering, he has not acted with specific intent.”
Jameel Jaffer, head of the ACLU’s national security project told Spencer Ackerman of The Washington Independent, “Imagine that in an ordinary criminal prosecution a bank robber tortures a bank manager to get the combination to a vault. He argues that the torture was not to inflict pain, but to get the combination. Every torturer has a reason other than to cause pain. If you're going to let people off the hook for an intention other than to cause pain, you're not going to be able to prosecute anyone for torture.”
Deborah Pearlstein, a constitutional scholar and human rights lawyer who has spent time at Guantanamo monitoring conditions there, testified to Congress that, “As of 2006, there had been more than 330 cases in which U.S. military and civilian personnel have, incredibly, alleged to have abused or killed detainees. This figure is based almost entirely on the U.S. government's own documentation. These cases involved more than 600 U.S. personnel and more than 460 detainees held at U.S. facilities throughout Afghanistan, Iraq, and Guantanamo Bay. They included some l00-plus detainees who died in U.S. custody, including 34 whose deaths the Defense Department reports as homicides. At least eight of these detainees were, by any definition of the term, tortured to death.”
Pearlstein cited a recent British study that discovered that our detainee policies had led to Britain’s withdrawal from joint, covert counterterrorism operations with the CIA “because the U.S. failed to offer adequate assurances against inhumane treatment.” The House of Commons Select Committee on Foreign Affairs has issued a report stating the United States can’t be trusted to tell the truth about how it interrogates detainees. “Given the clear differences in definition,” the report concludes, “the UK can no longer rely on US assurances that it does not use torture, and we recommend that the Government does not rely on such assurances in the future.”
On Monday, the first American war crimes trial in since World War II opened at Guantanamo, the United States presenting its case against Salim Ahmed Hamdan before a jury of US military officers. Hamdan, who at the time of 9/11 was Osama bin Laden’s driver, is charged with conspiracy and providing material support for terrorism. Two surface-to-air missiles were found in a car he was driving – he says it was a borrowed vehicle and that he had no idea what was in the trunk. The judge has thrown out confessions Hamdan made in Afghanistan after his capture. “The interests of justice are not served by admitting these statements,” the judge said, “because of the highly coercive environments and conditions under which they were made.” Hamdan was bound for long periods of time, with a bag over his head.
You will know us by the company we keep. The burners of witches and the medieval masters of thumbscrews and Iron Maidens, the interrogators of the Spanish inquisition, the North Vietnamese soldiers who beat John McCain and his fellow American prisoners of war into false confessions. We have joined their ranks.
In the almost seven years since 9/11, we have countered terror not only with vigilance and war but fear, imprisonment without due process and yes, torture. Torture is no more about learning the truth than rape is about sex. Both are about the violent abuse of power.
Michael Winship is senior writer of the weekly public affairs programBill Moyers Journal, which airs Friday night on PBS.Check local airtimes or comment at The Moyers Blog at www.pbs.org/moyers.
The Company We Keep
By Michael Winship
At one point during the five and a half years John McCain spent as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam, he was tortured and beaten so badly he tried to kill himself.
After four days of this brutality, he gave in and agreed to make a false confession, telling lies to end the unbearable pain. Later, he would write, “I had learned what we all learned over there: Every man has his breaking point. I had reached mine.”
Similar techniques were utilized in the Asian war preceding Vietnam – Korea. The Communist Chinese used them to interrogate US POW’s and force them to confess to things they didn’t do, such as germ warfare.
A chart of the Chinese methods, compiled in 1957 by an American sociologist, lists the methods, among them, “Sleep Deprivation,” “Semi-Starvation,” “Filthy, Infested Surroundings,” “Prolonged Constraint,” and “Exposure.” The effects are listed, too: “Makes Victim Dependent on Interrogator,” “Weakens Mental and Physical Ability to Resist,” “Reduces Prisoner to ‘Animal Level’ Concerns,” and others.
On July 2, The New York Times reported that the chart had made a surprise return appearance, this time at Guantanamo Bay, where in 2002 it was used in a course to teach our military interrogators “Coercive Management Techniques,” to be used when interrogating detainees held there as prisoners in the war on terror.
In other words, we had adopted the inhumane tactics of enemies past, tactics we once were quick to call torture. Tactics created not to get at the truth but to manufacture lies that we then characterize as credible. How can we expect this to be an effective way to extract real information from terrorists?
Since 2005, Congress has banned the use of such methods by the military but we have no way of knowing whether the CIA continues to use them (For example, The Associated Press reported Thursday that, “CIA Director Michael Hayden banned waterboarding in 2006, but government officials have said it remains a possibility if approved by the attorney general, the CIA chief and the president).”
Such is the secrecy and deliberate obfuscation that have characterized our nation’s descent into lawlessness and duplicity, depicted brilliantly in New Yorker magazine investigative reporter Jane Mayer’s new book, The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals.
Post 9/11, she reports, “For the first time in its history, the United States sanctioned government officials to physically and psychologically torment US-held detainees, making torture the official law of the land in all but name.” The late American historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., she says, told her that “the Bush administration’s extralegal counterterrorism program presented the most dramatic, sustained and radical challenge to the rule of law in American history.”
Over lunch in 2006, the year before Schlesinger died, he said, “No position taken had done more damage to the American reputation in the world -- ever.”
Read all of this in light of the series of hearings on Capitol Hill over the last weeks in which members of Congress have tried to find out how in the name of protecting us from further terrorist attacks, the Bush White House has twisted or abandoned the law to allow what most of the international community recognizes as torture.
The administration remains in denial. Former Attorney General John Ashcroft told the House Judiciary Committee, “I don’t know of any acts of torture that have been committed by individuals in developing information,” he said. “So I would not certainly make an assumption. I would attribute the absence of an attack [since 9/11] at least in part, because there have been specific attacks that have been disrupted, to the excellent work and the dedication and commitment of people whose lives are dedicated to defending the country. Interrogators have used enhanced interrogation techniques but they haven’t used torture.” Grim hairsplitting.
This week, as the result of a Freedom of Information Act suit, the ACLU received a heavily redacted copy of an infamous August 2, 2002 memo, signed by then-head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel Jay Bybee and written with his subordinate, the equally infamous John Yoo. “An individual must have the specific intent to inflict severe pain or suffering,” it reads. “… The absence of specific intent negates the charge of torture… We have further found that if a defendant acts with the good faith belief that his actions will not cause such suffering, he has not acted with specific intent.”
Jameel Jaffer, head of the ACLU’s national security project told Spencer Ackerman of The Washington Independent, “Imagine that in an ordinary criminal prosecution a bank robber tortures a bank manager to get the combination to a vault. He argues that the torture was not to inflict pain, but to get the combination. Every torturer has a reason other than to cause pain. If you're going to let people off the hook for an intention other than to cause pain, you're not going to be able to prosecute anyone for torture.”
Deborah Pearlstein, a constitutional scholar and human rights lawyer who has spent time at Guantanamo monitoring conditions there, testified to Congress that, “As of 2006, there had been more than 330 cases in which U.S. military and civilian personnel have, incredibly, alleged to have abused or killed detainees. This figure is based almost entirely on the U.S. government's own documentation. These cases involved more than 600 U.S. personnel and more than 460 detainees held at U.S. facilities throughout Afghanistan, Iraq, and Guantanamo Bay. They included some l00-plus detainees who died in U.S. custody, including 34 whose deaths the Defense Department reports as homicides. At least eight of these detainees were, by any definition of the term, tortured to death.”
Pearlstein cited a recent British study that discovered that our detainee policies had led to Britain’s withdrawal from joint, covert counterterrorism operations with the CIA “because the U.S. failed to offer adequate assurances against inhumane treatment.” The House of Commons Select Committee on Foreign Affairs has issued a report stating the United States can’t be trusted to tell the truth about how it interrogates detainees. “Given the clear differences in definition,” the report concludes, “the UK can no longer rely on US assurances that it does not use torture, and we recommend that the Government does not rely on such assurances in the future.”
On Monday, the first American war crimes trial in since World War II opened at Guantanamo, the United States presenting its case against Salim Ahmed Hamdan before a jury of US military officers. Hamdan, who at the time of 9/11 was Osama bin Laden’s driver, is charged with conspiracy and providing material support for terrorism. Two surface-to-air missiles were found in a car he was driving – he says it was a borrowed vehicle and that he had no idea what was in the trunk. The judge has thrown out confessions Hamdan made in Afghanistan after his capture. “The interests of justice are not served by admitting these statements,” the judge said, “because of the highly coercive environments and conditions under which they were made.” Hamdan was bound for long periods of time, with a bag over his head.
You will know us by the company we keep. The burners of witches and the medieval masters of thumbscrews and Iron Maidens, the interrogators of the Spanish inquisition, the North Vietnamese soldiers who beat John McCain and his fellow American prisoners of war into false confessions. We have joined their ranks.
In the almost seven years since 9/11, we have countered terror not only with vigilance and war but fear, imprisonment without due process and yes, torture. Torture is no more about learning the truth than rape is about sex. Both are about the violent abuse of power.
Michael Winship is senior writer of the weekly public affairs programBill Moyers Journal, which airs Friday night on PBS.Check local airtimes or comment at The Moyers Blog at www.pbs.org/moyers.
Words to live by...
"We don't beat the reaper by living longer. We beat the reaper by living well, and living fully."
Randy Pausch
Randy Pausch
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Any Surprise Here?
According to the Progress Report, the latest Internal Revenue Service data indicates that "the richest 1% of Americans in 2006 garnered the highest share of the nation's adjusted gross income for two decades" and "possibly the highest since 1929.” Meanwhile, "the average tax rate of the wealthiest 1% fell to its lowest level in at least 18 years."
Excuse me, but whose policies can we attribute this gross economic inequity to, and which party do we want to elect to give us four more years of this financial disenfranchisement?
Excuse me, but whose policies can we attribute this gross economic inequity to, and which party do we want to elect to give us four more years of this financial disenfranchisement?
by Paul Krassner
Welcome to Camp Mogul
By Paul Krassner
My irreverent friend, Khan Manka, Chairman & CEO of Manka Brothers Studios, had broken his ankle and was afraid he wouldn’t be able to attend the 26th annual gathering of the nation’s most powerful executives and their trophy wives in Sun Valley, Idaho. I really wanted to spy on this summer camp for billionaires, so I suggested that Manka get a wheelchair, then I could serve as his official wheelchair pusher, and he immediately went for the idea.
This by-now traditional five-day extravaganza for 300 guests has been hosted by Wall Street investment banker Herbert Allen, President and CEO of Allen & Company. There were moguls all over the campground, overflowing with the country’s most influential leaders in business, entertainment and media. I could feel myself developing a severe case of imposter syndrome.
Saturday was Talent Night, and it was absolutely hysterical. Part-time Sun Valley resident Tom Hanks served as the emcee. Warren Buffet was the opening act, with a medley of Jimmy Buffet songs, all sung out of tune. Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos skillfully juggled five Kindels (wireless electronic books). Edgar Bronfman from Warner Music--dressed like the character Tevya in *Fiddler on the Roof*--sang with zest, “If I Were a Rich Man.” Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang--who had turned down an offer from Microsoft to buy Yahoo earlier this year--sang a duet with the ex-CEO of Microsoft, Bill Gates, harmonizing on a song from *Annie Get Your Gun,* “Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better.” Meg Whitman of eBay did a striptease, auctioning off each item of clothing, one at a time, and over 3-million dollars was raised for an unnamed charity.
There had been a lot of drinking in the evening, and it was obviously too much booze that loosened up Fox mogul Rupert Murdoch’s tongue. He was shouting at the moon: “Who says there are 27 million slaves around the fucking world? How would anybody know? Do they have census takers or what? Where can I get one? You tell me! I’ll decide!”
Also, a screaming match broke out between the co-founders of Google, Sergei Brin and Eric Schmidt, over the infamous cover of the *New Yorker,* which depicted Barack and Michelle Obama as the new President and First Lady, as a terrorist couple doing the fist-bump gesture in the Oval Office. Sergei thought it was a brilliant satirical illustration, but Eric thought it was racist and irresponsible.
Last year, the surprise guest was former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. This year, it was Steven Beschloss, the editor of a new magazine which will be launched this fall and be delivered to 100,000 U.S. households with an average net worth of $25-million. There were piles of preview copies scattered about.
While Beschloss was holding court in an outdoor area, annoying mosquitoes kept buzzing around the crowd. Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, yelled at him, “I gues we’ll never hear *your* readers whining about a mental recession. And those of your subscribers who are in the sub-prime mortgage industry--these mosquitoes are *their* fault, because, along with all the home foreclosures they’re responsible for, the stagnant water in abandoned pools turns into new breeding grounds for mosquitoes.”
Others drowned him out by singing the mogul version of good old-fashioned camp songs, such as “This Land Is *My* Land, This Land Is *My* Land” and “KumBuyYahoo.” I couldn’t help but notice that billionaire activist Carl Icahn snapped his fingers as if having an epiphany; a week later he ended up on Yahoo’s board of directors.
Khan Manka explained that the bigwigs at these events have so-called “informal” meetings which always take place where a pair of individuals can have their discussions alone without any interruption--on the golf course, hiking along an isolated trail, fly-fishing at Silver Creek--but Manka had been privy to only one specific example that he could share.
“Back in 1995,” he told me, “Disney honcho Michael Eisner met with Robert Iger, who was then the head of ABC. And exactly one month later, these two giant companies merged into one media megamonster. Coincidence? I don’t think so. Their deal had been sealed when Eisner and Iger exchanged friendship bracelets that they had worked on at Camp Mogul.”
Courtesy of Paul Krassner
Originally posted on Arthur Blog on Yahoo.com
By Paul Krassner
My irreverent friend, Khan Manka, Chairman & CEO of Manka Brothers Studios, had broken his ankle and was afraid he wouldn’t be able to attend the 26th annual gathering of the nation’s most powerful executives and their trophy wives in Sun Valley, Idaho. I really wanted to spy on this summer camp for billionaires, so I suggested that Manka get a wheelchair, then I could serve as his official wheelchair pusher, and he immediately went for the idea.
This by-now traditional five-day extravaganza for 300 guests has been hosted by Wall Street investment banker Herbert Allen, President and CEO of Allen & Company. There were moguls all over the campground, overflowing with the country’s most influential leaders in business, entertainment and media. I could feel myself developing a severe case of imposter syndrome.
Saturday was Talent Night, and it was absolutely hysterical. Part-time Sun Valley resident Tom Hanks served as the emcee. Warren Buffet was the opening act, with a medley of Jimmy Buffet songs, all sung out of tune. Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos skillfully juggled five Kindels (wireless electronic books). Edgar Bronfman from Warner Music--dressed like the character Tevya in *Fiddler on the Roof*--sang with zest, “If I Were a Rich Man.” Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang--who had turned down an offer from Microsoft to buy Yahoo earlier this year--sang a duet with the ex-CEO of Microsoft, Bill Gates, harmonizing on a song from *Annie Get Your Gun,* “Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better.” Meg Whitman of eBay did a striptease, auctioning off each item of clothing, one at a time, and over 3-million dollars was raised for an unnamed charity.
There had been a lot of drinking in the evening, and it was obviously too much booze that loosened up Fox mogul Rupert Murdoch’s tongue. He was shouting at the moon: “Who says there are 27 million slaves around the fucking world? How would anybody know? Do they have census takers or what? Where can I get one? You tell me! I’ll decide!”
Also, a screaming match broke out between the co-founders of Google, Sergei Brin and Eric Schmidt, over the infamous cover of the *New Yorker,* which depicted Barack and Michelle Obama as the new President and First Lady, as a terrorist couple doing the fist-bump gesture in the Oval Office. Sergei thought it was a brilliant satirical illustration, but Eric thought it was racist and irresponsible.
Last year, the surprise guest was former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. This year, it was Steven Beschloss, the editor of a new magazine which will be launched this fall and be delivered to 100,000 U.S. households with an average net worth of $25-million. There were piles of preview copies scattered about.
While Beschloss was holding court in an outdoor area, annoying mosquitoes kept buzzing around the crowd. Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, yelled at him, “I gues we’ll never hear *your* readers whining about a mental recession. And those of your subscribers who are in the sub-prime mortgage industry--these mosquitoes are *their* fault, because, along with all the home foreclosures they’re responsible for, the stagnant water in abandoned pools turns into new breeding grounds for mosquitoes.”
Others drowned him out by singing the mogul version of good old-fashioned camp songs, such as “This Land Is *My* Land, This Land Is *My* Land” and “KumBuyYahoo.” I couldn’t help but notice that billionaire activist Carl Icahn snapped his fingers as if having an epiphany; a week later he ended up on Yahoo’s board of directors.
Khan Manka explained that the bigwigs at these events have so-called “informal” meetings which always take place where a pair of individuals can have their discussions alone without any interruption--on the golf course, hiking along an isolated trail, fly-fishing at Silver Creek--but Manka had been privy to only one specific example that he could share.
“Back in 1995,” he told me, “Disney honcho Michael Eisner met with Robert Iger, who was then the head of ABC. And exactly one month later, these two giant companies merged into one media megamonster. Coincidence? I don’t think so. Their deal had been sealed when Eisner and Iger exchanged friendship bracelets that they had worked on at Camp Mogul.”
Courtesy of Paul Krassner
Originally posted on Arthur Blog on Yahoo.com
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Fact-Finding Missions
Last night, I did something I seldom do these days. I sat through about 30 minutes of punditry on CNN to get a sense of how the mainstream media is spinning Sen. Obama's trip to the Middle East.
One CNN house commentator, David Gergen, with whom I usually agree, said that Obama made his "first mistake" of his campaign not by meeting with Iraq Prime Minister Maliki, but by divulging a private conversation in which Maliki agreed with the presumptive Democratic candidate that it's time for a timetable, and that 2010 is as good a deadline for withdrawal as any.
"He's (Obama) in no position to negotiate withdrawal. He's not the commander-in-chief," Gergen said. A network staff reporter then responded by saying that Obama is "presumptuous" not presumptive, and that the trip overseas was intended to be a "fact-finding mission" only. Given what this country has done with "facts," over the past eight years, and all the two-bit fact counterfeiters, that contention is laughable.
The larger issue is what is Obama supposed to do, when confronted with what has come to be called, euphemistically, the "situation on the ground"-- play deaf, dumb, and blind?
Does Maliki have to serve Bush with an eviction notice to make it any more obvious that the country we've occupied for the past six years no longer wants us there?
Have we had so much secrecy, during the Bush years, that an attempt at openness, on the part of a prospective president, looks like presumptousness to us? The obdurate insistence by the mainstream media of maintaining control of information by selectively spinning it is, ultimately, no different than the campaign of redaction, and revision, it is seeking to expose.
If former secretary of state, Colin Powell, went shopping for uranium in Niger before accepting that there was any, and if Dick Cheney went hunting for weapons of mass destruction before committing us to an irrelevant, and seemingly endless, military engagement, this country, and planet, would be in far better shape.
Likewise, if secretarys of state, as well as our current president, paid attention to facts on the ground, we'd be out of Iraq by now, and a strike against Iran would be no more imminent than walking on Mercury.
One CNN house commentator, David Gergen, with whom I usually agree, said that Obama made his "first mistake" of his campaign not by meeting with Iraq Prime Minister Maliki, but by divulging a private conversation in which Maliki agreed with the presumptive Democratic candidate that it's time for a timetable, and that 2010 is as good a deadline for withdrawal as any.
"He's (Obama) in no position to negotiate withdrawal. He's not the commander-in-chief," Gergen said. A network staff reporter then responded by saying that Obama is "presumptuous" not presumptive, and that the trip overseas was intended to be a "fact-finding mission" only. Given what this country has done with "facts," over the past eight years, and all the two-bit fact counterfeiters, that contention is laughable.
The larger issue is what is Obama supposed to do, when confronted with what has come to be called, euphemistically, the "situation on the ground"-- play deaf, dumb, and blind?
Does Maliki have to serve Bush with an eviction notice to make it any more obvious that the country we've occupied for the past six years no longer wants us there?
Have we had so much secrecy, during the Bush years, that an attempt at openness, on the part of a prospective president, looks like presumptousness to us? The obdurate insistence by the mainstream media of maintaining control of information by selectively spinning it is, ultimately, no different than the campaign of redaction, and revision, it is seeking to expose.
If former secretary of state, Colin Powell, went shopping for uranium in Niger before accepting that there was any, and if Dick Cheney went hunting for weapons of mass destruction before committing us to an irrelevant, and seemingly endless, military engagement, this country, and planet, would be in far better shape.
Likewise, if secretarys of state, as well as our current president, paid attention to facts on the ground, we'd be out of Iraq by now, and a strike against Iran would be no more imminent than walking on Mercury.
timetables work--not only for Iraq
The world would be in much better shape if George H.W. Bush knew when to pull out.
Monday, July 21, 2008
Non-Sequitur of the Day
"I hate war and I know how to win wars."
Presumptive Republican nominee for president, Sen. John McCain
(courtesy Associated Press)
Presumptive Republican nominee for president, Sen. John McCain
(courtesy Associated Press)
Deregulation and Choice
There is one more element in the equation that goes into the effort to roll back legal abortion in test cases like South Dakota, and that is how strange it is that an administration that prides itself on a "free market" economy, daily pollutes the environment by deregulating greenhouse gas emissions, by allowing gross polluting trucks, under NAFTA, to pour toxic waste into California's air, now wants to regulate decisions a woman makes in the privacy of her own home, and in consultation with her physician.
In fact, these "free market" folks want to transform licensed physicians into government pitch men who function as FDA warning labels on a pack of cigarettes. Yep, they're into free markets, not free women.
A country that has infrastructure in place to deprive women of pay equity, and equal opportunity while, simultaneously, peddling "welfare to work" programs only succeeds in creating a faux caste system from which only the most indigent suffer, and these are the women they want to deprive of choice when choice is the only thing they have.
Moreover, should Roe v. Wade be overturned, or turned over to the states to decide, there won't be fewer abortions, only fewer poor women having abortions, so this is not about ideology, after all, but about privilege.
Keep in mind, too, that the word "regle," in French, means "rule." Fascinating, isn't it, how those who are best at breaking the rules, in Washington, these days, are working hard at making rules from which they may, someday, too claim immunity.
As a society, we're willing to immunize cheats, liars, war criminals, and law breakers, but prosecute any physician who acknowledges a woman's constitutional right to seek remedy from an unwanted pregnancy.
Governmental interference in a woman's personal decision to terminate her pregnancy is no different from governmental intervention in the bedroom. It's the same principle really.
The arranged marriage of health, politics, and religion is one that can only lead to divorce.
After the National Security Agency scandal, and revelations of telecom eavesdropping, any illusions we had, as citizens, to privacy have been quickly dispelled.
The "war on terror" is really a war on privacy, after all, is it not?
Leave regulation for the oil companies, military contractors, banks, and credit card companies that are gouging the consumer, and keep them the hell out of our private lives.
In fact, these "free market" folks want to transform licensed physicians into government pitch men who function as FDA warning labels on a pack of cigarettes. Yep, they're into free markets, not free women.
A country that has infrastructure in place to deprive women of pay equity, and equal opportunity while, simultaneously, peddling "welfare to work" programs only succeeds in creating a faux caste system from which only the most indigent suffer, and these are the women they want to deprive of choice when choice is the only thing they have.
Moreover, should Roe v. Wade be overturned, or turned over to the states to decide, there won't be fewer abortions, only fewer poor women having abortions, so this is not about ideology, after all, but about privilege.
Keep in mind, too, that the word "regle," in French, means "rule." Fascinating, isn't it, how those who are best at breaking the rules, in Washington, these days, are working hard at making rules from which they may, someday, too claim immunity.
As a society, we're willing to immunize cheats, liars, war criminals, and law breakers, but prosecute any physician who acknowledges a woman's constitutional right to seek remedy from an unwanted pregnancy.
Governmental interference in a woman's personal decision to terminate her pregnancy is no different from governmental intervention in the bedroom. It's the same principle really.
The arranged marriage of health, politics, and religion is one that can only lead to divorce.
After the National Security Agency scandal, and revelations of telecom eavesdropping, any illusions we had, as citizens, to privacy have been quickly dispelled.
The "war on terror" is really a war on privacy, after all, is it not?
Leave regulation for the oil companies, military contractors, banks, and credit card companies that are gouging the consumer, and keep them the hell out of our private lives.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
"Whole and Separate"
What's happening to women's reproductive rights in South Dakota, and how are they getting away with it?
As of Friday, doctors in that state, before performing an abortion, are required, by law, to tell their patient that the procedure will "terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique living human being."
Yes, and that's only part of the script. As if it's not bad enough that a medical practitioner, in that state, must now ask a woman if she'd like to see a sonogram of the fetus, they must also let her know that an abortion will increase her chances of suicide, and she must confirm, in writing, that she understands this.
This isn't the first we've heard from South Dakota on this subject. Over the past two years, their legislature has attempted to place the most draconian restrictions on legal abortion of any in the country. While other states require informed consent, South Dakota is the only state currently audacious enough to describe a fetus as a separate, but equal being.
Remember the days when doctors used the word "script" as shorthand for prescription? Well, those days might are over if anti-choice folks get their way as health care practitioners may soon be pitching abstincence, and adoption, over abortion, and practicing ideology, not gynecology, between the stirrups.
And this from an executive branch which will, for generations, be remembered as the signature signing statement White House, along with a proposal that all federally-funded funded health programs certify, in writing, not to discriminate against hospitals, doctors, or health-care workers who refuse to perform abortions or provide emergency contraception which may include, but not be limited to, the morning-after pill, and oral contraceptives. How's that for chutzpah from a government whose own Justice Department has been shown to be discriminating against prospective staff hiring based on political party affiliation?
An administration that has made abstinence-only programs a requirement for federal funding in HIV/AIDS clinics both at home and abroad, has made survival itself, in much of the AIDS-devastated world, a matter of privilege. Now, as this latest proposal stipulates, "any of the various procedures--including the prescription, dispensing and administration of any drug or the performance of any procedure or any action--that results in the termination of the life of a human being in utero between conception and natural birth" may no longer be eligible to receive tax dollars.
To add insult to injury, the Bush camp claims that Congress led the way with legislation that protected health care providers from being coerced to perform abortions. If this is so, why were we, whose taxes pay their salaries, not aware that Congress was signing off on what amounts to an affirmative action program for medical ideologues?
Those who made selective deception their mantra for the past eight years want, as their legacy, selective discrimination. Discrimination against those who discriminate, rightly, against an attempt to break down the boundaries between religious precepts and scientific practice. It is not the patient's business what the doctor's personal belief system is any more than it is the doctor's business what his patient's personal beliefs are.
How dare any government, state or federal, to force its way between a woman and her doctor, and transform medical practitioners into cops with scripts in their ongoing surge of ideology.
And, what an impressive, unforgettable, if unbelievable, display of concern for what happens to the "life of a human being" while it is in utero from an administration that has shown no concern whatsoever for poor children without health coverage, and one whose economic policies have led to the abhorrent reality that 1 in 5 children will go to bed hungry tonight. We can only hope to be spared from all this hypocritical concern about the life of the unborn.
This commander-in-chief, and generals in Iraq and Afghanistan, should show their concern, too, and be given a pitch to read to their troops that going to war will terminate "the life of a whole, separate, unique living human being." Wonder how many generals would go along with the script, and how many would enlist were they required to hear those words a few hours before leaving for their tour of duty.
As of Friday, doctors in that state, before performing an abortion, are required, by law, to tell their patient that the procedure will "terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique living human being."
Yes, and that's only part of the script. As if it's not bad enough that a medical practitioner, in that state, must now ask a woman if she'd like to see a sonogram of the fetus, they must also let her know that an abortion will increase her chances of suicide, and she must confirm, in writing, that she understands this.
This isn't the first we've heard from South Dakota on this subject. Over the past two years, their legislature has attempted to place the most draconian restrictions on legal abortion of any in the country. While other states require informed consent, South Dakota is the only state currently audacious enough to describe a fetus as a separate, but equal being.
Remember the days when doctors used the word "script" as shorthand for prescription? Well, those days might are over if anti-choice folks get their way as health care practitioners may soon be pitching abstincence, and adoption, over abortion, and practicing ideology, not gynecology, between the stirrups.
And this from an executive branch which will, for generations, be remembered as the signature signing statement White House, along with a proposal that all federally-funded funded health programs certify, in writing, not to discriminate against hospitals, doctors, or health-care workers who refuse to perform abortions or provide emergency contraception which may include, but not be limited to, the morning-after pill, and oral contraceptives. How's that for chutzpah from a government whose own Justice Department has been shown to be discriminating against prospective staff hiring based on political party affiliation?
An administration that has made abstinence-only programs a requirement for federal funding in HIV/AIDS clinics both at home and abroad, has made survival itself, in much of the AIDS-devastated world, a matter of privilege. Now, as this latest proposal stipulates, "any of the various procedures--including the prescription, dispensing and administration of any drug or the performance of any procedure or any action--that results in the termination of the life of a human being in utero between conception and natural birth" may no longer be eligible to receive tax dollars.
To add insult to injury, the Bush camp claims that Congress led the way with legislation that protected health care providers from being coerced to perform abortions. If this is so, why were we, whose taxes pay their salaries, not aware that Congress was signing off on what amounts to an affirmative action program for medical ideologues?
Those who made selective deception their mantra for the past eight years want, as their legacy, selective discrimination. Discrimination against those who discriminate, rightly, against an attempt to break down the boundaries between religious precepts and scientific practice. It is not the patient's business what the doctor's personal belief system is any more than it is the doctor's business what his patient's personal beliefs are.
How dare any government, state or federal, to force its way between a woman and her doctor, and transform medical practitioners into cops with scripts in their ongoing surge of ideology.
And, what an impressive, unforgettable, if unbelievable, display of concern for what happens to the "life of a human being" while it is in utero from an administration that has shown no concern whatsoever for poor children without health coverage, and one whose economic policies have led to the abhorrent reality that 1 in 5 children will go to bed hungry tonight. We can only hope to be spared from all this hypocritical concern about the life of the unborn.
This commander-in-chief, and generals in Iraq and Afghanistan, should show their concern, too, and be given a pitch to read to their troops that going to war will terminate "the life of a whole, separate, unique living human being." Wonder how many generals would go along with the script, and how many would enlist were they required to hear those words a few hours before leaving for their tour of duty.
Friday, July 18, 2008
"Mother's Milk of Politics Turns Sour"
Courtesy of Bill Moyers' Journal, and Public Affairs Television...
"Mother’s Milk of Politics Turns Sour"
By Bill Moyers and Michael Winship
Once again we're closing the barn door after the horse is out and gone. In Washington the Federal Reserve has finally acted to stop some of the predatory lending that exploited people’s need for money. And like Rip Van Winkle, Congress is finally waking up from a long doze under the warm sun of laissez faire economics. That's French for turning off the alarm until the burglars have made their getaway.
Philosophy is one reason we do this to ourselves; when you worship market forces as if they were the gods of Olympus, then the gods can do no wrong -- until, of course, they prove to be human. Then we realize we should have listened to our inner agnostic and not been so reverent in the first place.
But we also get into these terrible dilemmas – where the big guys step all over everyone else and the victims are required to pay the hospital bills – because we refuse to recognize the connection between money and politics. This is the great denial in democracy that may ultimately mean our ruin. We just don't seem able to see or accept the fact that money drives policy.
It's no wonder that Congress and the White House have been looking the other way as the predators picked the pockets of unsuspecting debtors. Mega banking and investment firms have been some of the biggest providers of the cash vital to keeping incumbents in office. There isn't much appetite for biting – or regulating – the manicured hand that feeds them.
Guess who gave the most money to candidates in this 2007-08 federal election cycle? That's right, the financial services and real estate industries. They stuffed nearly $250 million dollars into the candidate coffers.
The about-to-be-bailed-out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac together are responsible for about half the country's $12 trillion mortgage debt. Lisa Lerer of Politico.com reports that over the past decade, the two financial giants with the down home names have spent nearly $200 million on campaign contributions and lobbying. According to Lerer, “They’ve stacked their payrolls with top Washington power brokers of all political stripes, including Republican John McCain’s presidential campaign manager, Rick Davis; Democrat Barack Obama’s original vice presidential vetter, Jim Johnson; and scores of others now working for the two rivals for the White House.”
Last Sunday's New York Times put it as bluntly as anyone ever has: “In Washington, Fannie and Freddie's sprawling lobbying machine hired family and friends of politicians in their efforts to quickly sideline any regulations that might slow their growth or invite greater oversight of their business practices. Indeed, their rapid expansion was, at least in part, the result of such artful lobbying over the years.”What a beautiful term: "artful lobbying." It means honest graft.
Look at any of the important issues bogged down in the swampland along the Potomac and you don't have to scrape away the muck too deeply to find that campaign cash is at the core of virtually every impasse. We're spending more than six percent of our salaries on gasoline, and global warming keeps temperatures rising but the climate bill was killed last month and President Bush just got rid of his daddy's longtime ban on offshore drilling.
Only in a fairy tale would anyone believe it's just coincidence that the oil and gas industries have donated more than $18 million to federal candidates this year, three-quarters of it going to Republicans. They've spent more than $26 million lobbying this year – that's seven times more than environmental groups have spent.
Follow the money – it goes from your gas tank to the wine bars and steak houses of DC, where the payoffs happen. Or ponder that FISA surveillance legislation that just passed the Senate. It let the big telecommunications companies off the hook for helping the government wiretap our phones and laptops without warrants.
Over the years those telecom companies have given Republicans in the House and Senate $63 million dollars and Democrats $49 million. No wonder that when their lobbyists reach out and place a call to Congress, they never get a busy signal. Do the same without making a big contribution, and you'll be put on "hold" until the embalmer shows up to claim your cold corpse.
The late journalist Meg Greenfield once wrote that trying to get money out of politics is akin to the quest for a squirrel-proof birdfeeder. No matter how clever and ingenious the design, the squirrels are always one mouthful ahead of you. Here's an example. Corporations are limited in how much they can contribute to candidate's campaigns, right? But someone's always figuring out how to open another back door.
So Democrats have turned to Steve Farber. He's using the resources of his big K Street law and lobbying factory to help raise $40 million for the Democratic National Convention. Half a dozen of his clients have signed up, including AT&T, Comcast, Western Union and Google. Their presence at the convention will offer lots of opportunities to curry favors at private parties while ordinary delegates wander Denver looking for the nearest Wendy's. By the way, just as you pay at the gas pump for those energy lobbyists to wine and dine your representatives in Washington, you'll pay on April 15 for Denver –corporations can deduct their contributions.
Another back door – one quite familiar to Steve Farber and his ilk – leads to presidential libraries. Bill Clinton’s in Arkansas required serious political bucks, and we're not talking penny ante fines for overdue books. Again, there's no limit to the amount a donor can give and no obligation to reveal their names. Clinton's cost $165 million and we still don’t know the identities of everyone who put up the dough, even though four years ago a reporter stumbled on a list that included Arab businessmen, Saudi royals, Hollywood celebs and the governments of Dubai, Kuwait, Qatar, Brunei and Taiwan.
Hmmm…Once George W. is out of the White House, he, too, plans what one newspaper described as a “legacy polishing” institute – a presidential library and think tank at Southern Methodist University in Dallas costing half a billion dollars.
Last Sunday, The Times of London released a remarkable video of one of the president's buddies and fund raisers –Stephen Payne, a political appointee appointed to the Homeland Security Advisory Council.
The Times set him up in a video sting, and taped a conversation in which Payne offers an exiled leader of Kyrgyzstan meetings with such White House luminaries as Vice President Cheney and Condoleezza Rice – provided he makes a whopping contribution to the Bush Library, and an even bigger payment to Payne's lobbying firm. Payne tells him, “It will be somewhere between $600,000 and $750,000, with about a third of it going directly to the Bush Library... That's gonna be a show of 'we're interested, we're your friends, we're still your friends.'”
The White House denies any connection between library contributions and access to officials and harrumphed at the preposterous idea that Payne had a close relationship with the President. Unfortunately, there's at least one photo of Payne with the President cutting brush at his Crawford ranch. There’s also one of Payne demonstrating more guts than common sense, on a rifle range with Deadeye Dick Cheney.
Payne, who now is supporting John McCain, says he's done nothing wrong, but a congressional investigation intends to find out. So from the financial meltdown brought on by predatory lending to global warming to tax breaks and other favors, the late California politician Jesse "Big Daddy" Unruh got it right: Money is the mother's milk of politics. He knew what he was talking about, because Big Daddy swigged it by the gallon. Now it has curdled into a witch's brew.
Bill Moyers is managing editor and Michael Winship is senior writer of the weekly public affairs program Bill Moyers Journal, which airs Friday night on PBS. Check local airtimes or comment at The Moyers Blog at www.pbs.org/moyers.
"Mother’s Milk of Politics Turns Sour"
By Bill Moyers and Michael Winship
Once again we're closing the barn door after the horse is out and gone. In Washington the Federal Reserve has finally acted to stop some of the predatory lending that exploited people’s need for money. And like Rip Van Winkle, Congress is finally waking up from a long doze under the warm sun of laissez faire economics. That's French for turning off the alarm until the burglars have made their getaway.
Philosophy is one reason we do this to ourselves; when you worship market forces as if they were the gods of Olympus, then the gods can do no wrong -- until, of course, they prove to be human. Then we realize we should have listened to our inner agnostic and not been so reverent in the first place.
But we also get into these terrible dilemmas – where the big guys step all over everyone else and the victims are required to pay the hospital bills – because we refuse to recognize the connection between money and politics. This is the great denial in democracy that may ultimately mean our ruin. We just don't seem able to see or accept the fact that money drives policy.
It's no wonder that Congress and the White House have been looking the other way as the predators picked the pockets of unsuspecting debtors. Mega banking and investment firms have been some of the biggest providers of the cash vital to keeping incumbents in office. There isn't much appetite for biting – or regulating – the manicured hand that feeds them.
Guess who gave the most money to candidates in this 2007-08 federal election cycle? That's right, the financial services and real estate industries. They stuffed nearly $250 million dollars into the candidate coffers.
The about-to-be-bailed-out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac together are responsible for about half the country's $12 trillion mortgage debt. Lisa Lerer of Politico.com reports that over the past decade, the two financial giants with the down home names have spent nearly $200 million on campaign contributions and lobbying. According to Lerer, “They’ve stacked their payrolls with top Washington power brokers of all political stripes, including Republican John McCain’s presidential campaign manager, Rick Davis; Democrat Barack Obama’s original vice presidential vetter, Jim Johnson; and scores of others now working for the two rivals for the White House.”
Last Sunday's New York Times put it as bluntly as anyone ever has: “In Washington, Fannie and Freddie's sprawling lobbying machine hired family and friends of politicians in their efforts to quickly sideline any regulations that might slow their growth or invite greater oversight of their business practices. Indeed, their rapid expansion was, at least in part, the result of such artful lobbying over the years.”What a beautiful term: "artful lobbying." It means honest graft.
Look at any of the important issues bogged down in the swampland along the Potomac and you don't have to scrape away the muck too deeply to find that campaign cash is at the core of virtually every impasse. We're spending more than six percent of our salaries on gasoline, and global warming keeps temperatures rising but the climate bill was killed last month and President Bush just got rid of his daddy's longtime ban on offshore drilling.
Only in a fairy tale would anyone believe it's just coincidence that the oil and gas industries have donated more than $18 million to federal candidates this year, three-quarters of it going to Republicans. They've spent more than $26 million lobbying this year – that's seven times more than environmental groups have spent.
Follow the money – it goes from your gas tank to the wine bars and steak houses of DC, where the payoffs happen. Or ponder that FISA surveillance legislation that just passed the Senate. It let the big telecommunications companies off the hook for helping the government wiretap our phones and laptops without warrants.
Over the years those telecom companies have given Republicans in the House and Senate $63 million dollars and Democrats $49 million. No wonder that when their lobbyists reach out and place a call to Congress, they never get a busy signal. Do the same without making a big contribution, and you'll be put on "hold" until the embalmer shows up to claim your cold corpse.
The late journalist Meg Greenfield once wrote that trying to get money out of politics is akin to the quest for a squirrel-proof birdfeeder. No matter how clever and ingenious the design, the squirrels are always one mouthful ahead of you. Here's an example. Corporations are limited in how much they can contribute to candidate's campaigns, right? But someone's always figuring out how to open another back door.
So Democrats have turned to Steve Farber. He's using the resources of his big K Street law and lobbying factory to help raise $40 million for the Democratic National Convention. Half a dozen of his clients have signed up, including AT&T, Comcast, Western Union and Google. Their presence at the convention will offer lots of opportunities to curry favors at private parties while ordinary delegates wander Denver looking for the nearest Wendy's. By the way, just as you pay at the gas pump for those energy lobbyists to wine and dine your representatives in Washington, you'll pay on April 15 for Denver –corporations can deduct their contributions.
Another back door – one quite familiar to Steve Farber and his ilk – leads to presidential libraries. Bill Clinton’s in Arkansas required serious political bucks, and we're not talking penny ante fines for overdue books. Again, there's no limit to the amount a donor can give and no obligation to reveal their names. Clinton's cost $165 million and we still don’t know the identities of everyone who put up the dough, even though four years ago a reporter stumbled on a list that included Arab businessmen, Saudi royals, Hollywood celebs and the governments of Dubai, Kuwait, Qatar, Brunei and Taiwan.
Hmmm…Once George W. is out of the White House, he, too, plans what one newspaper described as a “legacy polishing” institute – a presidential library and think tank at Southern Methodist University in Dallas costing half a billion dollars.
Last Sunday, The Times of London released a remarkable video of one of the president's buddies and fund raisers –Stephen Payne, a political appointee appointed to the Homeland Security Advisory Council.
The Times set him up in a video sting, and taped a conversation in which Payne offers an exiled leader of Kyrgyzstan meetings with such White House luminaries as Vice President Cheney and Condoleezza Rice – provided he makes a whopping contribution to the Bush Library, and an even bigger payment to Payne's lobbying firm. Payne tells him, “It will be somewhere between $600,000 and $750,000, with about a third of it going directly to the Bush Library... That's gonna be a show of 'we're interested, we're your friends, we're still your friends.'”
The White House denies any connection between library contributions and access to officials and harrumphed at the preposterous idea that Payne had a close relationship with the President. Unfortunately, there's at least one photo of Payne with the President cutting brush at his Crawford ranch. There’s also one of Payne demonstrating more guts than common sense, on a rifle range with Deadeye Dick Cheney.
Payne, who now is supporting John McCain, says he's done nothing wrong, but a congressional investigation intends to find out. So from the financial meltdown brought on by predatory lending to global warming to tax breaks and other favors, the late California politician Jesse "Big Daddy" Unruh got it right: Money is the mother's milk of politics. He knew what he was talking about, because Big Daddy swigged it by the gallon. Now it has curdled into a witch's brew.
Bill Moyers is managing editor and Michael Winship is senior writer of the weekly public affairs program Bill Moyers Journal, which airs Friday night on PBS. Check local airtimes or comment at The Moyers Blog at www.pbs.org/moyers.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
The Politics of Codependency
When Barack Obama warns that a vote for John McCain is a vote for a third term of George W. Bush, he's not speaking figuratively. However hard he might appear to try, McCain can't seem to be able to shake Bush. The Arizona senator's plans for the economy, health care, his foreign policy, or war plan, are almost identical to that of the current president. He's even going along with off shore drilling. A McCain presidency will come about as close to cloning Dolly the Sheep as humanly possible.
Indeed, the relationship between Republican presumptive presidential nominee and his President is more than merely symbiotic, it is one of textbook codependency, a maladaptive, obsessive behavior acquired in order to survive in an emotionally turbulent and chaotic environment.
After all, what is it if not compulsive after five years of nonstop combat for a prospective commander-in-chief to say "I know how to win wars." He'd better---at the rate of $10 billion a month! With all the foreclosures, job cuts, the fall of Freddie Mac and Fanny Mae, and predicted volatility in the banking industry, we may need that $10 billion a month just to bail out the FDIC.
So, save us from any presidential candidate who claims to be strong on national security while, at the same time, going along with an economic policy that is bound to perpetuate an unstable housing, and financial market, as well as an shaky global economy. How pray tell, can that possibly be good for national security? Unless, of course, Sen. McCain's plan is for economic isolationism. If so, someone ought to tell him it's a little late for that---after all, we're not only dependent on the Middle East for oil, we are China's biggest debtor after the second largest banking failure in U.S. history, and a cash-eating bacteria is quickly spreading from Wall Street to the global markets. We may not have learned much, over the past several years, but we have learned one thing. We've learned how to say "national security" in Chinese---John McCain!
Oh, and the Republican candidate boasts of supporting the surge in the face of mounting evidence it was effective. There's only one problem with his logic, as Barack Obama has deftly shown, we're "winning" the war in the wrong battlefield. Senator McCain doesn't want an exit strategy--he wants to continue an irrelevant war, one that the puppet leadership itself now considers an occupation.
And if, as Mitt Romney suggests, McCain invented the surge, bragging about that is the equivalent of bragging about inventing bait and switch!
To think you've accomplished victory in combat when you're in the wrong battlefield is like a surgeon who declares an amputation a success after being told he amputated the wrong limb. Bottom line: can McCain say he knows how to win wars if he needs a map to find them?
If you want good foreign policy--show people some return for their money.
What does the average working man and woman have to show for the past eight years we've had a Republican in the White House? The overwhelming majority, 270 million, have seen our annual income decline while the upper one percent has seen its income grow astronomically, by 650% since 1975. LBJ's "war on poverty" was transformed into GWB's "war on terror" which, as Senator Obama rightly says, was never a war at all, but what looks increasingly like a failed effort to gain leverage in a region that contains the vast majority of the world's oil.
Not that I think foreign policy should come down to who is better at target practice, mind you, but it would help if one didn't have to consult Thomas Guide before taking the wheel. And, apart from his willingness to dialogue with those who might otherwise harm us, Obama combines the charm, wit, and eloquence of JFK with the political shrewdness, and dealmaker savvy, of LBJ, an unbeatable combination.
But, don't let the mainstream media fool you. This election isn't about who will make the best commander-in-chief in Iraq, any more than it is about race. After all, we're the progeny of another global adventurist, Christopher Columbus, who didn't have a sense of direction either and who would, no doubt, also be hunting down Al Qaeda in Iraq.
This election isn't about photo ops, and comfort zones, either. It's as simple as this---are you better off today than you were eight years ago? If your answer is yes, then vote for John McCain, and give this executive, George W. Bush, the privilege of claiming permanent incumbency and, guaranteed, you won't be dancing in the streets eight years from now.
Indeed, the relationship between Republican presumptive presidential nominee and his President is more than merely symbiotic, it is one of textbook codependency, a maladaptive, obsessive behavior acquired in order to survive in an emotionally turbulent and chaotic environment.
After all, what is it if not compulsive after five years of nonstop combat for a prospective commander-in-chief to say "I know how to win wars." He'd better---at the rate of $10 billion a month! With all the foreclosures, job cuts, the fall of Freddie Mac and Fanny Mae, and predicted volatility in the banking industry, we may need that $10 billion a month just to bail out the FDIC.
So, save us from any presidential candidate who claims to be strong on national security while, at the same time, going along with an economic policy that is bound to perpetuate an unstable housing, and financial market, as well as an shaky global economy. How pray tell, can that possibly be good for national security? Unless, of course, Sen. McCain's plan is for economic isolationism. If so, someone ought to tell him it's a little late for that---after all, we're not only dependent on the Middle East for oil, we are China's biggest debtor after the second largest banking failure in U.S. history, and a cash-eating bacteria is quickly spreading from Wall Street to the global markets. We may not have learned much, over the past several years, but we have learned one thing. We've learned how to say "national security" in Chinese---John McCain!
Oh, and the Republican candidate boasts of supporting the surge in the face of mounting evidence it was effective. There's only one problem with his logic, as Barack Obama has deftly shown, we're "winning" the war in the wrong battlefield. Senator McCain doesn't want an exit strategy--he wants to continue an irrelevant war, one that the puppet leadership itself now considers an occupation.
And if, as Mitt Romney suggests, McCain invented the surge, bragging about that is the equivalent of bragging about inventing bait and switch!
To think you've accomplished victory in combat when you're in the wrong battlefield is like a surgeon who declares an amputation a success after being told he amputated the wrong limb. Bottom line: can McCain say he knows how to win wars if he needs a map to find them?
If you want good foreign policy--show people some return for their money.
What does the average working man and woman have to show for the past eight years we've had a Republican in the White House? The overwhelming majority, 270 million, have seen our annual income decline while the upper one percent has seen its income grow astronomically, by 650% since 1975. LBJ's "war on poverty" was transformed into GWB's "war on terror" which, as Senator Obama rightly says, was never a war at all, but what looks increasingly like a failed effort to gain leverage in a region that contains the vast majority of the world's oil.
Not that I think foreign policy should come down to who is better at target practice, mind you, but it would help if one didn't have to consult Thomas Guide before taking the wheel. And, apart from his willingness to dialogue with those who might otherwise harm us, Obama combines the charm, wit, and eloquence of JFK with the political shrewdness, and dealmaker savvy, of LBJ, an unbeatable combination.
But, don't let the mainstream media fool you. This election isn't about who will make the best commander-in-chief in Iraq, any more than it is about race. After all, we're the progeny of another global adventurist, Christopher Columbus, who didn't have a sense of direction either and who would, no doubt, also be hunting down Al Qaeda in Iraq.
This election isn't about photo ops, and comfort zones, either. It's as simple as this---are you better off today than you were eight years ago? If your answer is yes, then vote for John McCain, and give this executive, George W. Bush, the privilege of claiming permanent incumbency and, guaranteed, you won't be dancing in the streets eight years from now.
Quote of the Day
After today's announcement that President Bush has now claimed executive privilege to protect his attorney-general, Michael Mukasey, from having to honor a House subpoena, the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Henry Waxman, had this to say...
"This unfounded assertion of executive privilege does not protect a principle; it protects a person. If the vice president did nothing wrong, what is there to hide?"
"This unfounded assertion of executive privilege does not protect a principle; it protects a person. If the vice president did nothing wrong, what is there to hide?"
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