Waiting for Tuesday, November 4, is like watching the seventh game of the World Series where the home team – a franchise with a storied history of failure – is six outs away from erasing a decade of pain and frustration. The home crowd is delirious, on the one hand, and yet a palpable current of apprehension ripples through the stands; these fans have been here before, standing so close to the post-game victory celebration that they could feel the spray of champagne in their faces, only to watch in disbelief as the home team stumbled, bumbled and fumbled it all away.
The clock atop the centerfield scoreboard seems frozen and the interval between each pitch stretches like an eternity. The home team has its ace closer on the mound, but the opposing batters keep fouling his best pitches into the stands. A base hit and a walk, a sacrifice bunt, and suddenly the pesky, never-say-die visiting team is threatening, a hit away from being right back in the contest. From the outfield bleachers to the luxury boxes above home plate, the current of apprehension becomes a wave of fear. Is another historic collapse about to happen?
Tuesday can’t get here quickly enough. If I have to watch another clip of stiff, ridiculous John McCain making that robotic thumbs-up gesture I’m going to puke on the living room rug; if I have to hear Sarah Palin contorting logic and twisting truth in order to link Barack Obama to the PLO, the Weather Underground, the Symbionese Liberation Army or Osama bin Laden himself, I’m going to become violent; and if I see Karl Rove – that disgraced, corrupt and lying toad –one more time, well, there’s no telling what I’m capable of.
Yes, it’s the top of the ninth and the home club has the lead, its ace closer on the mound, and its first world championship in sixteen long years in sight. Nothing can go wrong, right? It’s OK to breathe, to leave the room to get a cold beer from the fridge, to take the dog for a stroll…
No, hell no, don’t you dare move except to get out and cast your ballot. Don’t be misled by polls or pundits. Keep rolling those prayer beads in your hands, keep promising the Gods that you will turn yourself around if they just have mercy and let us win, keep lighting candles and burning incense until the decent voters of America drive a splintered baseball bat through the hearts of John McCain and Sarah Palin. But even when that happens – and it must happen or the dream of America is dead – don’t rejoice until the coroner pronounces McCain and Palin officially deceased.
Saturday, November 01, 2008
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Overload
Campaign overload. Too many TV commercials predicting the end of civilization if so-and-so is elected or if this or that ballot proposition passes. Here in the Golden State, the Mormon Church and other culturally atavistic groups have poured millions into Prop 8, an initiative that would eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry. This is essentially a civil rights issue that has morphed into a Category 1 Fear Issue, with overblown ads asserting that school children will be indoctrinated to accept same-sex marriage.
It’s hogwash, but that’s modern politics. Big money and bigger lies endlessly repeated, and the more citizens watch and hear the less they know. With all the problems facing California – dysfunctional budget process, inadequate funding for public education, rotting infrastructure, a prison-system about to burst its seams, millions of citizens unable to access decent medical care – what do we get worked up about? Same-sex marriage.
On the national level, I’m still digesting Alan Greenspan’s recent admission that his infallible Market God ideology is, after all, very, very fallible. Lo and behold, Wall Street firms cannot regulate themselves and even more shocking to Mr. Greenspan – who achieved Saint-like status during his tenure as chairman of the Federal Reserve – market forces do not automatically solve all ills. Wow! This is kind of like the Apostle Paul saying he harbors doubts about Jesus.
What’s the world coming to? Sarah Palin promises to rid America of autism; Karl Rove blames the downward spiral of global markets on Barack Obama; John McCain warns that America will topple into the toilet if the likes of Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and the rest of those profligate Democrats achieve a congressional majority. (Question for the erratic senator from Arizona: could a Democratic majority foul the nation up any more than the Republicans managed during their six-year reign of terror?)
There’s more, of course, much more, from e-mail barrages to the four-color campaign flyers that clog the mailbox and go immediately into the recycle can. While it’s a relief to finally see the finish line on the reign of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, it would be naive to think that we can quickly – or painlessly -- climb out of the ditch Bush and Cheney (and their Republican lapdogs – and some Democrats, too) have driven us into. Barack Obama should win this election, and in itself that will be refreshing, but let’s keep our expectations reasonable – we’re in deep shit on multiple fronts – and before things get better they will almost certainly get worse.
It’s hogwash, but that’s modern politics. Big money and bigger lies endlessly repeated, and the more citizens watch and hear the less they know. With all the problems facing California – dysfunctional budget process, inadequate funding for public education, rotting infrastructure, a prison-system about to burst its seams, millions of citizens unable to access decent medical care – what do we get worked up about? Same-sex marriage.
On the national level, I’m still digesting Alan Greenspan’s recent admission that his infallible Market God ideology is, after all, very, very fallible. Lo and behold, Wall Street firms cannot regulate themselves and even more shocking to Mr. Greenspan – who achieved Saint-like status during his tenure as chairman of the Federal Reserve – market forces do not automatically solve all ills. Wow! This is kind of like the Apostle Paul saying he harbors doubts about Jesus.
What’s the world coming to? Sarah Palin promises to rid America of autism; Karl Rove blames the downward spiral of global markets on Barack Obama; John McCain warns that America will topple into the toilet if the likes of Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and the rest of those profligate Democrats achieve a congressional majority. (Question for the erratic senator from Arizona: could a Democratic majority foul the nation up any more than the Republicans managed during their six-year reign of terror?)
There’s more, of course, much more, from e-mail barrages to the four-color campaign flyers that clog the mailbox and go immediately into the recycle can. While it’s a relief to finally see the finish line on the reign of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, it would be naive to think that we can quickly – or painlessly -- climb out of the ditch Bush and Cheney (and their Republican lapdogs – and some Democrats, too) have driven us into. Barack Obama should win this election, and in itself that will be refreshing, but let’s keep our expectations reasonable – we’re in deep shit on multiple fronts – and before things get better they will almost certainly get worse.
Monday, October 20, 2008
Fraud & War
It’s entirely possible that massive voter fraud and voter suppression will mar the Election of 2008. What should be a landslide for Barack Obama and the Democratic Party may become a squeaker, ala the Election of 2000. Lawyers from both campaigns are already converging on battleground states, making charges, filing briefs, preparing the soil for the legal wrangling that might begin on November 5.
As long as there have been elections in America there has been fraud – ballot stuffing, ballot stealing, crude or sophisticated efforts aimed at getting some voters to the polls (the same voter more than once in some cases) while keeping others away (often by violence, more commonly by intimidation). In recent years the GOP machine has become adept at the mechanics of stealing elections.
It’s always amusing to hear our political leaders demand “free and fair” elections in countries where Democracy is trying to take root, when our own elections are so prone to manipulation. The hypocrisy never seems to register with American politicians.
Considering the mess the country is in, and the clear path that can be traced from the policies of George W. Bush and the Republican Party to that mess, the ineptitude of the McCain campaign and the jittery way McCain has veered to and fro on the issues, first a die-hard free-marketeer then a neo-regulator, and McCain’s cynical and disastrous choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate, Barack Obama should ride an electoral tidal wave to the steps of the White House.
And yet because of the potential for voter fraud, the outcome seems far less secure than it should.
We know fraud is going to happen in battleground states, we know who’s behind it; we just don’t know if there will be enough fraud to change the outcome.
Meanwhile, real families are still losing their homes, going broke, suffering from inadequate medical care, and driving on roads and bridges that have been neglected for decades.
If the Reagan Era was Morning in America, these anxious times, at the tail end of the Bush Reign of Error, might be called Twilight in America. The colossal failures of the past eight years are something to behold. Bush and his cronies failed on every front, in every arena, foreign and domestic, and when they slink from Washington, discredited, disgraced and despised, they will have left the country weaker than they found it.
Sometime during this long, strange campaign season the U.S. media made what appears like a collective decision not to report on the failed Iraq Occupation. To find out what is happening in U.S.-occupied Iraq, Americans must look to foreign media, like the BBC, which has not abrogated its responsibility to report on the Iraq conflict.
In the final presidential debate, John McCain made a sunny assertion that the Iraqi people are coming together and putting the chaos and mayhem of the past five years behind them. McCain’s blindness can be written off to the fact that he resides in an alternative universe where whatever gibberish he spews is accepted as irrefutable truth.
This is how BBC reporting went just last week: “There is much less violence now, but Baghdad is nowhere near returning to normal: the streets are full of potholes and the traffic is clogged and backed up by check-points.” Blast walls erected by U.S. forces (or perhaps this was done by Halliburton?) are another reason for the reduction in violence. The BBC: “Concrete anti-blast walls still surround almost every significant building here, and stretch along streets where there are markets, bringing relative safety, but turning the pavements - where the vendors' stalls are - into narrow, claustrophobic canyons.”
This sounds to me like a people being kept apart by physical obstacles rather than a people coming together in peace, harmony and a spirit of reconciliation. Call me crazy, un-American even, but I don’t think the “Surge” is working well anywhere expect in the minds of U.S. politicians, who in turn feed tales of “success” to a complacent news media.
For further proof of this consider the thousands of Iraqis who turned out to protest their government’s ongoing negotiations with the United States over a Status of Forces Agreement that would legitimize the stationing of U.S. troops in Iraq for years to come. One point the Americans want in the agreement is immunity from prosecution; in other words, the Americans want to be able to act freely, move freely, and if a GI happens to kill an innocent civilian, the Iraqis must have no recourse.
If this situation were reversed and Iraqi troops occupied New York City, would New Yorkers vote to give their occupiers unlimited powers? Why we expect others to act in ways we never would is a by-product of our arrogance.
As long as there have been elections in America there has been fraud – ballot stuffing, ballot stealing, crude or sophisticated efforts aimed at getting some voters to the polls (the same voter more than once in some cases) while keeping others away (often by violence, more commonly by intimidation). In recent years the GOP machine has become adept at the mechanics of stealing elections.
It’s always amusing to hear our political leaders demand “free and fair” elections in countries where Democracy is trying to take root, when our own elections are so prone to manipulation. The hypocrisy never seems to register with American politicians.
Considering the mess the country is in, and the clear path that can be traced from the policies of George W. Bush and the Republican Party to that mess, the ineptitude of the McCain campaign and the jittery way McCain has veered to and fro on the issues, first a die-hard free-marketeer then a neo-regulator, and McCain’s cynical and disastrous choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate, Barack Obama should ride an electoral tidal wave to the steps of the White House.
And yet because of the potential for voter fraud, the outcome seems far less secure than it should.
We know fraud is going to happen in battleground states, we know who’s behind it; we just don’t know if there will be enough fraud to change the outcome.
Meanwhile, real families are still losing their homes, going broke, suffering from inadequate medical care, and driving on roads and bridges that have been neglected for decades.
If the Reagan Era was Morning in America, these anxious times, at the tail end of the Bush Reign of Error, might be called Twilight in America. The colossal failures of the past eight years are something to behold. Bush and his cronies failed on every front, in every arena, foreign and domestic, and when they slink from Washington, discredited, disgraced and despised, they will have left the country weaker than they found it.
Sometime during this long, strange campaign season the U.S. media made what appears like a collective decision not to report on the failed Iraq Occupation. To find out what is happening in U.S.-occupied Iraq, Americans must look to foreign media, like the BBC, which has not abrogated its responsibility to report on the Iraq conflict.
In the final presidential debate, John McCain made a sunny assertion that the Iraqi people are coming together and putting the chaos and mayhem of the past five years behind them. McCain’s blindness can be written off to the fact that he resides in an alternative universe where whatever gibberish he spews is accepted as irrefutable truth.
This is how BBC reporting went just last week: “There is much less violence now, but Baghdad is nowhere near returning to normal: the streets are full of potholes and the traffic is clogged and backed up by check-points.” Blast walls erected by U.S. forces (or perhaps this was done by Halliburton?) are another reason for the reduction in violence. The BBC: “Concrete anti-blast walls still surround almost every significant building here, and stretch along streets where there are markets, bringing relative safety, but turning the pavements - where the vendors' stalls are - into narrow, claustrophobic canyons.”
This sounds to me like a people being kept apart by physical obstacles rather than a people coming together in peace, harmony and a spirit of reconciliation. Call me crazy, un-American even, but I don’t think the “Surge” is working well anywhere expect in the minds of U.S. politicians, who in turn feed tales of “success” to a complacent news media.
For further proof of this consider the thousands of Iraqis who turned out to protest their government’s ongoing negotiations with the United States over a Status of Forces Agreement that would legitimize the stationing of U.S. troops in Iraq for years to come. One point the Americans want in the agreement is immunity from prosecution; in other words, the Americans want to be able to act freely, move freely, and if a GI happens to kill an innocent civilian, the Iraqis must have no recourse.
If this situation were reversed and Iraqi troops occupied New York City, would New Yorkers vote to give their occupiers unlimited powers? Why we expect others to act in ways we never would is a by-product of our arrogance.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Thank God That's Over
“Our tax policies need to be changed. There is something deeply peculiar about having rich individuals who make their money speculating on real estate or stocks paying lower taxes than middle-class Americans, whose income is derived from wages and salaries.” Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Prize Winning Economist
Final Presidential debate. Which McCain will show up tonight? The old McCain who never met a government regulation he didn’t want to kill, or the new populist McCain, who says he loves the average working American?
If you believe the polls, McCain’s only hope to close the gap with Obama is a knock out punch – or a huge gaffe on Obama’s part. The talking heads tell us that older Americans and white Americans may not vote for Obama, presumably because he’s black and different, which is incredible given the total cluster fuck that the Republicans – and John McCain – have presided over the past eight years.
Are those American voters actually silly enough to vote for McCain (or some minor party candidate) because of race? If so, this country is in worse shape than I thought.
At this dismal point in our history, I'd vote for an African-American lesbian if I thought she had some decent ideas and a dose of political savvy.
McCain is talking about class warfare now, as if he doesn’t grasp the stark fact that a class war has raged for the past thirty years – against working Americans who live by wages and salaries. Wealthy individuals and corporations have kicked the asses of working people for three decades, Senator McCain, and you and your pals Phil Gramm and Charles Keating helped them in the mugging.
“Well, thank you, Bob,” says McCain, sounding like an old man in a rest home. McCain says he knows how to cut billions in defense spending, but he’s thin on the specifics. “Earmarks,” says McCain, “that’s the answer. Cut those wasteful earmarks and we’ll be home free!”
Sweet Jesus, when will this agony be over?
“Senator Obama, I’m not President Bush! I can do it…we…I…we can…sure.” This is McCain’s Hail Mary pass, the last gasp of a dying campaign that is devoid of intellect, soul, heart, substance, content, and truth. The only idea McCain has in his quiver is tax cuts. Will someone please explain to John that we’ve tried that trickle down notion and it doesn’t work? And while your schooling the old fool, explain to him that most American corporations pay next to nothing in taxes, thanks to generous loopholes written into the tax code and voted upon in the Senate by John McCain and his fellow Republicans.
“The answer is Town Hall meetings,” McCain asserts. “If only Senator Obama had agreed to sit down with me in a town hall meeting, things in this campaign would have been so much different.”
The man is old and decrepit but he’s still got balls, I give him that.
Obama is acting Presidential and McCain is acting petulant.
McCain is a crybaby.
Obama’s right about one point: the American people are cynical about the entire political process, the inane back and forth, the wild claims, false accusations, outright lies and total Fox News bullshit spin, and the incredible amounts of money spent by these candidates to buy public offices.
McCain says that all the money the Obama camp is spending is “Destroying the fabric of Democracy.” As if Florida didn’t happen in 2000! As if massive voter fraud didn’t happen in Ohio in 2004! The truth is that the GOP has destroyed the integrity of our elections. Hey, John, it wasn’t Democrats who politicized the hiring process in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division!
McCain: “My campaign is about getting this economy back on track. But let’s talk about Bill Ayers and ACORN! That will put a lamb chop in every skillet and a Ford in every garage!”
This is too excruciating. I can’t stand another second of this travesty. McCain is a jabbering old fool. “Nuclear power is no problem! I have the answers, just trust me, people. I’m John McCain, straight-talking maverick!”
I’ve had enough of politics. I’m switching to the Dodgers game to see if the boys in blue can extend their season.
Final Presidential debate. Which McCain will show up tonight? The old McCain who never met a government regulation he didn’t want to kill, or the new populist McCain, who says he loves the average working American?
If you believe the polls, McCain’s only hope to close the gap with Obama is a knock out punch – or a huge gaffe on Obama’s part. The talking heads tell us that older Americans and white Americans may not vote for Obama, presumably because he’s black and different, which is incredible given the total cluster fuck that the Republicans – and John McCain – have presided over the past eight years.
Are those American voters actually silly enough to vote for McCain (or some minor party candidate) because of race? If so, this country is in worse shape than I thought.
At this dismal point in our history, I'd vote for an African-American lesbian if I thought she had some decent ideas and a dose of political savvy.
McCain is talking about class warfare now, as if he doesn’t grasp the stark fact that a class war has raged for the past thirty years – against working Americans who live by wages and salaries. Wealthy individuals and corporations have kicked the asses of working people for three decades, Senator McCain, and you and your pals Phil Gramm and Charles Keating helped them in the mugging.
“Well, thank you, Bob,” says McCain, sounding like an old man in a rest home. McCain says he knows how to cut billions in defense spending, but he’s thin on the specifics. “Earmarks,” says McCain, “that’s the answer. Cut those wasteful earmarks and we’ll be home free!”
Sweet Jesus, when will this agony be over?
“Senator Obama, I’m not President Bush! I can do it…we…I…we can…sure.” This is McCain’s Hail Mary pass, the last gasp of a dying campaign that is devoid of intellect, soul, heart, substance, content, and truth. The only idea McCain has in his quiver is tax cuts. Will someone please explain to John that we’ve tried that trickle down notion and it doesn’t work? And while your schooling the old fool, explain to him that most American corporations pay next to nothing in taxes, thanks to generous loopholes written into the tax code and voted upon in the Senate by John McCain and his fellow Republicans.
“The answer is Town Hall meetings,” McCain asserts. “If only Senator Obama had agreed to sit down with me in a town hall meeting, things in this campaign would have been so much different.”
The man is old and decrepit but he’s still got balls, I give him that.
Obama is acting Presidential and McCain is acting petulant.
McCain is a crybaby.
Obama’s right about one point: the American people are cynical about the entire political process, the inane back and forth, the wild claims, false accusations, outright lies and total Fox News bullshit spin, and the incredible amounts of money spent by these candidates to buy public offices.
McCain says that all the money the Obama camp is spending is “Destroying the fabric of Democracy.” As if Florida didn’t happen in 2000! As if massive voter fraud didn’t happen in Ohio in 2004! The truth is that the GOP has destroyed the integrity of our elections. Hey, John, it wasn’t Democrats who politicized the hiring process in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division!
McCain: “My campaign is about getting this economy back on track. But let’s talk about Bill Ayers and ACORN! That will put a lamb chop in every skillet and a Ford in every garage!”
This is too excruciating. I can’t stand another second of this travesty. McCain is a jabbering old fool. “Nuclear power is no problem! I have the answers, just trust me, people. I’m John McCain, straight-talking maverick!”
I’ve had enough of politics. I’m switching to the Dodgers game to see if the boys in blue can extend their season.
Thursday, October 09, 2008
The American Casino is Closed for Renovation
Some of the writers whose views on the economy I enjoy reading have taken to calling the American financial system of the past two and a half decades a “casino” economy, meaning, of course, that by design it bred a few stupendous winners and an inordinate number of losers.
Think for a moment about the confluence of trends and notions that led to the collapse on Wall Street: Indian gaming started to find a niche in American life about twenty years ago, give or take a few years, and before we knew it every state boasted some form of casino gambling; Las Vegas shed its “Sin City” reputation and took on a respectability that its founders never dreamed possible; states from Maine to California used Lotteries to shore up tax-depleted budgets, only to find that state-sanctioned gambling never generated enough cash to go around.
Reality TV arrived soon after, with its contrived competitions that pitted people against one another with big rewards (money, celebrity) for the last contestant standing. Whether it was ballroom dancing, peddling overpriced real estate, losing weight or seeing who could create a ball gown out of saran wrap, we ate it up, as if a scripted and edited TV program was reality.
It’s no surprise that pop culture mirrored our economy. When corporate CEO’s raked in $50 or $60 million bonuses for creating paper wealth instead of real wealth, the public -- conditioned by years of Conservative propaganda to believe that CEO’s deserved huge rewards for feats of alchemy -- hardly blinked. Who cared? Times were booming and the money was green, and sooner or later riches would trickle down to the masses like Republicans always promised.
Working stiffs, folks of average means, saw the glitz and glitter and bling on TV and wanted their fair share. The only problem was that thousands of middle-class manufacturing jobs had been shipped to China, India, Pakistan and other places where people were willing to work for pennies; and thanks to an assist from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, nations near our borders saw their economies “restructured,” forcing destitute and desperate people to stream into our country in search of work, no matter how dangerous, demeaning or low-paying.
And let’s not forget how the Titans of Finance and their buddies in Congress used every tactic at their disposal to smash unions, slash pension obligations and make people responsible for their own medical care – at a time when the cost of care was streaking toward the stratosphere.
Taken together, these factors created wage stagnation for the majority of American workers.
But of course, workers and their kin were still expected to do their duty and continue consuming as if there was no tomorrow. Consumers tapped credit cards until the cards maxed out. Home equity came next and for a few golden years, as home values soared and money remained cheap, mistaking one’s home for an ATM worked fine.
Sensible people predicted that these schemes would collapse, but voices of reason were drowned out by the likes of Alan Greenspan, John McCain and George W. Bush. To these men, the “financialization” of the American economy was a tremendous success, a triumph of free market ideology.
Until it wasn’t. Until the music died and valueless pieces of paper choked the gutters of Wall Street and the Titans, panicked by the swift collapse of their sand castles, ran to the Government with hands outstretched and a tale of doom on their lips. The gambler’s mentality was still alive when Hank Paulson, himself a decorated Wall Street alum, demanded that Congress loan him $700 billion of taxpayer money – with nary a string attached. Say what you will, but Henry Paulson has enormous balls.
On the tube behind me, John McCain is insisting that he and no one else knows how to deal with the financial wreckage. McCain is stiff and phony and ridiculous.
Nobody knows if the Great Bailout of 2008 will restore stability and health to the world economy. The only certain thing is that taxpayers have been swindled once again.
Think for a moment about the confluence of trends and notions that led to the collapse on Wall Street: Indian gaming started to find a niche in American life about twenty years ago, give or take a few years, and before we knew it every state boasted some form of casino gambling; Las Vegas shed its “Sin City” reputation and took on a respectability that its founders never dreamed possible; states from Maine to California used Lotteries to shore up tax-depleted budgets, only to find that state-sanctioned gambling never generated enough cash to go around.
Reality TV arrived soon after, with its contrived competitions that pitted people against one another with big rewards (money, celebrity) for the last contestant standing. Whether it was ballroom dancing, peddling overpriced real estate, losing weight or seeing who could create a ball gown out of saran wrap, we ate it up, as if a scripted and edited TV program was reality.
It’s no surprise that pop culture mirrored our economy. When corporate CEO’s raked in $50 or $60 million bonuses for creating paper wealth instead of real wealth, the public -- conditioned by years of Conservative propaganda to believe that CEO’s deserved huge rewards for feats of alchemy -- hardly blinked. Who cared? Times were booming and the money was green, and sooner or later riches would trickle down to the masses like Republicans always promised.
Working stiffs, folks of average means, saw the glitz and glitter and bling on TV and wanted their fair share. The only problem was that thousands of middle-class manufacturing jobs had been shipped to China, India, Pakistan and other places where people were willing to work for pennies; and thanks to an assist from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, nations near our borders saw their economies “restructured,” forcing destitute and desperate people to stream into our country in search of work, no matter how dangerous, demeaning or low-paying.
And let’s not forget how the Titans of Finance and their buddies in Congress used every tactic at their disposal to smash unions, slash pension obligations and make people responsible for their own medical care – at a time when the cost of care was streaking toward the stratosphere.
Taken together, these factors created wage stagnation for the majority of American workers.
But of course, workers and their kin were still expected to do their duty and continue consuming as if there was no tomorrow. Consumers tapped credit cards until the cards maxed out. Home equity came next and for a few golden years, as home values soared and money remained cheap, mistaking one’s home for an ATM worked fine.
Sensible people predicted that these schemes would collapse, but voices of reason were drowned out by the likes of Alan Greenspan, John McCain and George W. Bush. To these men, the “financialization” of the American economy was a tremendous success, a triumph of free market ideology.
Until it wasn’t. Until the music died and valueless pieces of paper choked the gutters of Wall Street and the Titans, panicked by the swift collapse of their sand castles, ran to the Government with hands outstretched and a tale of doom on their lips. The gambler’s mentality was still alive when Hank Paulson, himself a decorated Wall Street alum, demanded that Congress loan him $700 billion of taxpayer money – with nary a string attached. Say what you will, but Henry Paulson has enormous balls.
On the tube behind me, John McCain is insisting that he and no one else knows how to deal with the financial wreckage. McCain is stiff and phony and ridiculous.
Nobody knows if the Great Bailout of 2008 will restore stability and health to the world economy. The only certain thing is that taxpayers have been swindled once again.
Friday, October 03, 2008
Fembot from Alaska
What was that?
I hope to never see the likes of it again in my lifetime, but in this age of diminished expectations I’m certain I will.
We will.
No thinking person could have watched last night’s debate between the Vice Presidential candidates and come to the conclusion that Sarah Palin acquitted herself with distinction. She was like an outclassed prizefighter, ducking and dodging, throwing ineffectual jabs, backing up, and clinching at every opportunity in order to survive to the final bell of the last round.
But that’s really all anyone expected. The bar for Palin wasn’t merely lowered by the McCain campaign and the pundits – it was dropped on the floor.
Mired in two wars and an economic collapse, Palin spouted shopworn clichés, folksy “darn right’s, heckuva’s and Joe Six-Packs,” and for good measure (though in bad taste) even winked in the camera. I lost track of how many times she said “maverick” when referring to her running mate. Trying to sound a populist theme, a near impossibility after the policies her party slavishly followed the past eight years, the policies that dug the trench we find ourselves wallowing in, Palin ended up espousing the exact opposite.
Incredible. Handlers drilled talking points into Palin and she dutifully repeated them, whether appropriate to the question at hand or not. In some cases it seemed that Palin has spent the past eight years living in total isolation, without access to television, newspapers or the Internet. She promised greater oversight of the financial system and in the next breath urged government to get out of the way of the people; she repeated the shibboleth that tax cuts equal job creation, when the fact is that the Bush junta tried that trickle down idea and it failed, miserably.
What did Governor Palin mean when she said we had to “grow” our military? Does she not know that the United States spends more of its annual budget on defense than the rest of the planet, combined?
Even after five weeks on a national ticket and numerous cram sessions, Governor Palin doesn’t grasp the essential constitutional functions of the office of Vice President.
Quick study she is not.
And it was painful to watch Palin compare what she has done in Alaska to what she might do in Washington D.C., because there is no comparison; Alaska is a unique state, isolated, sparsely populated, energy rich. Oil and natural gas revenue fill Alaska’s coffers at a time when most states are drowning in red ink and making very difficult decisions about essential human services. Of course Alaska’s state taxes are low, but not because of Sarah Palin.
I learned last night that John McCain “knows what evil is.” George W. Bush also claims to have a deep understanding of evil, an understanding that prompted his Administration to invade and occupy a country that posed no threat to the United States. We will pay penalties for that decision for the next fifty years.
Sarah Palin is an unfortunate pawn in a cynical, deceitful Republican electoral strategy that rests on two pillars: endless repetition of half-truths, fabrications and outright lies, and the gullibility of American voters.
What was that? A disgrace.
I hope to never see the likes of it again in my lifetime, but in this age of diminished expectations I’m certain I will.
We will.
No thinking person could have watched last night’s debate between the Vice Presidential candidates and come to the conclusion that Sarah Palin acquitted herself with distinction. She was like an outclassed prizefighter, ducking and dodging, throwing ineffectual jabs, backing up, and clinching at every opportunity in order to survive to the final bell of the last round.
But that’s really all anyone expected. The bar for Palin wasn’t merely lowered by the McCain campaign and the pundits – it was dropped on the floor.
Mired in two wars and an economic collapse, Palin spouted shopworn clichés, folksy “darn right’s, heckuva’s and Joe Six-Packs,” and for good measure (though in bad taste) even winked in the camera. I lost track of how many times she said “maverick” when referring to her running mate. Trying to sound a populist theme, a near impossibility after the policies her party slavishly followed the past eight years, the policies that dug the trench we find ourselves wallowing in, Palin ended up espousing the exact opposite.
Incredible. Handlers drilled talking points into Palin and she dutifully repeated them, whether appropriate to the question at hand or not. In some cases it seemed that Palin has spent the past eight years living in total isolation, without access to television, newspapers or the Internet. She promised greater oversight of the financial system and in the next breath urged government to get out of the way of the people; she repeated the shibboleth that tax cuts equal job creation, when the fact is that the Bush junta tried that trickle down idea and it failed, miserably.
What did Governor Palin mean when she said we had to “grow” our military? Does she not know that the United States spends more of its annual budget on defense than the rest of the planet, combined?
Even after five weeks on a national ticket and numerous cram sessions, Governor Palin doesn’t grasp the essential constitutional functions of the office of Vice President.
Quick study she is not.
And it was painful to watch Palin compare what she has done in Alaska to what she might do in Washington D.C., because there is no comparison; Alaska is a unique state, isolated, sparsely populated, energy rich. Oil and natural gas revenue fill Alaska’s coffers at a time when most states are drowning in red ink and making very difficult decisions about essential human services. Of course Alaska’s state taxes are low, but not because of Sarah Palin.
I learned last night that John McCain “knows what evil is.” George W. Bush also claims to have a deep understanding of evil, an understanding that prompted his Administration to invade and occupy a country that posed no threat to the United States. We will pay penalties for that decision for the next fifty years.
Sarah Palin is an unfortunate pawn in a cynical, deceitful Republican electoral strategy that rests on two pillars: endless repetition of half-truths, fabrications and outright lies, and the gullibility of American voters.
What was that? A disgrace.
Thursday, October 02, 2008
Queen of the Tiger Cage
John McCain’s Ranch, Arizona
It’s 105 degrees at 9:00 a.m. when GOP Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin comes down for breakfast. After two straight days of intense preparation for her debate against Democrat Joe Biden, Palin looks as haggard as a hospital intern after a 12-hour shift in a big-city ER on a night when rival gang-bangers launch a killing spree.
McCain’s people are nervous about the debate, even though they’ve been working the media non-stop for days, pushing the story that Palin is much better in a debate format than she is in a one-on-one interview and will hold her own against the unpredictable and loquacious Biden. McCain’s people know the claim is a stretch, but they don’t have much choice; the campaign is in disarray, sliding in the polls, and the clock is ticking.
Even after two days of history lessons, review of talking points, mock interviews, and long conference calls with Dick Cheney, Rush Limbaugh and Karl Rove, Palin still seems unsure of herself and displays a potentially disastrous tendency to wander off topic or make unsupportable claims.
With less than twenty-four hours to go before the big showdown, it’s time to pull out all the stops, so this morning, even before Palin can pour a cup of coffee and help herself to a doughnut, aides hustle her outside into the harsh sunlight. The Governor shields her eyes as she is marched to a replica of a North Vietnamese POW camp erected on McCain’s lawn. The camp is authentic down to the last detail, including guards dressed like NVA soldiers, and armed with Chinese-made rifles.
“What’s this?” Palin asks.
“Never mind,” the aide says impatiently. “Get in that bamboo cage.”
“I’m not getting in there! Are you crazy?”
“Senator McCain wants you to get a taste of what he went through in Vietnam. He thinks it will help you in the debate. Get in.”
“There’s a dead fish in there! And it smells like dog poop! Gross!”
Two aides shove the Governor inside the cage and secure the door. The Governor is too tall to stand comfortably and too concerned about soiling her skirt to sit down. She feels disoriented, the heat is unbearable, and she wishes she were back home, shooting wolves from a helicopter with a high-powered assault rifle. Since the GOP Convention, party types from all over the country have been whispering to her that John McCain is unhinged -- and she’s beginning to believe them.
“What is our mantra?” a voice booms over a loudspeaker. “Who are our enemies? Which nation is more of a threat to the United States of America, Russia or Canada?”
Again the voice booms, “What is our mantra? Answer!”
“Country first,” Palin offers, tentatively.
“Louder, with conviction!”
“COUNTRY FIRST!”
“And our enemies?”
“The Liberal media and the Washington elite?”
“Yes, yes, among others. Are we winning the war in Iraq? Is Barack Obama a traitor for not supporting the Surge? Should the United States invade and occupy Pakistan? Answer!”
“Yes, yes, yes! We should invade everybody and drill for oil in their backyards! It’s our Manifest Destiny and part of the Bush Doctrine. Can I please have a drink of water?”
“No! Do you think this is a game? We’re in a war for the American Way of Life, locked in a struggle with an implacable enemy. Imagine how Senator McCain felt when he was in captivity!"
“OK, OK,” Palin says. “I get it! I demand to be let out of this stinky cage.”
“You’re too young to have been a POW but now you at least know how it feels. Joe Biden cannot make the same claim. This gives you an enormous advantage. Tonight you must go for the jugular of that Muslim-sympathizer, Obama. Show no mercy and ask no quarter. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“I can’t hear you!”
“YES! Now let me out of here, I’m ruining a fabulous pair of pumps.”
“Our fate rests in your hands, Governor. The stakes are high but the bar is so low that you cannot fail.”
It’s 105 degrees at 9:00 a.m. when GOP Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin comes down for breakfast. After two straight days of intense preparation for her debate against Democrat Joe Biden, Palin looks as haggard as a hospital intern after a 12-hour shift in a big-city ER on a night when rival gang-bangers launch a killing spree.
McCain’s people are nervous about the debate, even though they’ve been working the media non-stop for days, pushing the story that Palin is much better in a debate format than she is in a one-on-one interview and will hold her own against the unpredictable and loquacious Biden. McCain’s people know the claim is a stretch, but they don’t have much choice; the campaign is in disarray, sliding in the polls, and the clock is ticking.
Even after two days of history lessons, review of talking points, mock interviews, and long conference calls with Dick Cheney, Rush Limbaugh and Karl Rove, Palin still seems unsure of herself and displays a potentially disastrous tendency to wander off topic or make unsupportable claims.
With less than twenty-four hours to go before the big showdown, it’s time to pull out all the stops, so this morning, even before Palin can pour a cup of coffee and help herself to a doughnut, aides hustle her outside into the harsh sunlight. The Governor shields her eyes as she is marched to a replica of a North Vietnamese POW camp erected on McCain’s lawn. The camp is authentic down to the last detail, including guards dressed like NVA soldiers, and armed with Chinese-made rifles.
“What’s this?” Palin asks.
“Never mind,” the aide says impatiently. “Get in that bamboo cage.”
“I’m not getting in there! Are you crazy?”
“Senator McCain wants you to get a taste of what he went through in Vietnam. He thinks it will help you in the debate. Get in.”
“There’s a dead fish in there! And it smells like dog poop! Gross!”
Two aides shove the Governor inside the cage and secure the door. The Governor is too tall to stand comfortably and too concerned about soiling her skirt to sit down. She feels disoriented, the heat is unbearable, and she wishes she were back home, shooting wolves from a helicopter with a high-powered assault rifle. Since the GOP Convention, party types from all over the country have been whispering to her that John McCain is unhinged -- and she’s beginning to believe them.
“What is our mantra?” a voice booms over a loudspeaker. “Who are our enemies? Which nation is more of a threat to the United States of America, Russia or Canada?”
Again the voice booms, “What is our mantra? Answer!”
“Country first,” Palin offers, tentatively.
“Louder, with conviction!”
“COUNTRY FIRST!”
“And our enemies?”
“The Liberal media and the Washington elite?”
“Yes, yes, among others. Are we winning the war in Iraq? Is Barack Obama a traitor for not supporting the Surge? Should the United States invade and occupy Pakistan? Answer!”
“Yes, yes, yes! We should invade everybody and drill for oil in their backyards! It’s our Manifest Destiny and part of the Bush Doctrine. Can I please have a drink of water?”
“No! Do you think this is a game? We’re in a war for the American Way of Life, locked in a struggle with an implacable enemy. Imagine how Senator McCain felt when he was in captivity!"
“OK, OK,” Palin says. “I get it! I demand to be let out of this stinky cage.”
“You’re too young to have been a POW but now you at least know how it feels. Joe Biden cannot make the same claim. This gives you an enormous advantage. Tonight you must go for the jugular of that Muslim-sympathizer, Obama. Show no mercy and ask no quarter. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“I can’t hear you!”
“YES! Now let me out of here, I’m ruining a fabulous pair of pumps.”
“Our fate rests in your hands, Governor. The stakes are high but the bar is so low that you cannot fail.”
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Uncle John Shows Up
I fortified myself with vodka and tuned in C-Span to watch the first McCain-Obama debate. John McCain showed up, imagine that, but he looked stiff and constipated; Obama looked presidential but once the debate got underway he missed a number of opportunities to thump McCain. McCain tried to emphasize his experience by dropping names and recounting how he had tramped the terrain of Afghanistan (with Alexander the Great, perhaps), and therefore knew in his bones how a war there should be fought. McCain claimed that the US is on the way to Victory (McCain loves the word) in Iraq, though very few Americans know what victory in Iraq might actually look like. Perhaps we should ask the suffering Iraqis what an American victory would look like to them. I have the feeling that a total withdrawal of all foreign troops would figure prominently in Iraqi thinking.
At times Friday night McCain reminded me of the old uncle who gets invited to Thanksgiving dinner out of pity, is placed in a corner of the den with a TV tray and the remote control, and is ignored while the rest of the family tries to enjoy turkey with all the trimmings. Only in McCain’s case he won’t be ignored. “Let me tell you,” he says over and over before launching into a ramble that no one can follow.
On the economy, McCain was clearly out of his depth. He reiterated his empty claim that he believes in and supports the American worker, but of course his actions over the past eight years – and let’s not forgot, as McCain conveniently has, that for six of those years, the Republicans, McCain’s party, had total control of the government – make a mockery of the claim. McCain aided and abetted the Titans of Finance who plundered and profited before the house of cards collapsed. American workers have been hurting for a long time; odd how McCain only now notices.
It was particularly infuriating to hear McCain talk about cutting “runaway” spending. First of all, the misbegotten Invasion and Occupation of Iraq is the primary example of a Republican Administration drunk on spending; the cost of this misadventure is climbing towards the trillion dollar mark, and yet McCain’s Jockey briefs get wadded up about congressional “earmarks.” Give us a break, John. Your party is the culprit here. Two wars – one of them completely unnecessary – a financial system built upon greed and fraud, a decimated manufacturing base, budget and trade deficits, ceaseless borrowing from foreign banks to cover our economic weakness, absurd tax policies -- the list goes on and it has all come to a head courtesy of McCain’s Republican Party.
Pork barrel spending is the least of our fiscal problems.
Don’t get the impression that I was bowled over by Senator Obama because I wasn’t. Obama missed numerous opportunities to hammer McCain, and the senator’s assertion that we can rely on nuclear power and clean coal technology was simply political silliness. Given our current financial mess, the United States cannot afford to build more nuclear power plants, and even if we could, we shouldn’t.
But at least Obama had facts at his command and an understanding that the country has entered a new era. Neither candidate will admit it, and McCain is too old and nostalgic to recognize it anyway, but the United States is no longer the baddest bully on the playground; we exhibit classic symptoms of a decrepit empire. Thankfully, Obama has a sense of this and perhaps the intelligence and political skill to do something about it.
Watching McCain ramble through his talking points brought to mind Sarah Palin’s disastrous interview with Katie Couric on CBS. If you missed that, it’s definitely worth a look. Palin is a train wreck, a small town mayor trying desperately to play on the big stage and failing miserably. Palin is so inept that she makes Spiro Agnew and Dan Quayle look competent.
At times Friday night McCain reminded me of the old uncle who gets invited to Thanksgiving dinner out of pity, is placed in a corner of the den with a TV tray and the remote control, and is ignored while the rest of the family tries to enjoy turkey with all the trimmings. Only in McCain’s case he won’t be ignored. “Let me tell you,” he says over and over before launching into a ramble that no one can follow.
On the economy, McCain was clearly out of his depth. He reiterated his empty claim that he believes in and supports the American worker, but of course his actions over the past eight years – and let’s not forgot, as McCain conveniently has, that for six of those years, the Republicans, McCain’s party, had total control of the government – make a mockery of the claim. McCain aided and abetted the Titans of Finance who plundered and profited before the house of cards collapsed. American workers have been hurting for a long time; odd how McCain only now notices.
It was particularly infuriating to hear McCain talk about cutting “runaway” spending. First of all, the misbegotten Invasion and Occupation of Iraq is the primary example of a Republican Administration drunk on spending; the cost of this misadventure is climbing towards the trillion dollar mark, and yet McCain’s Jockey briefs get wadded up about congressional “earmarks.” Give us a break, John. Your party is the culprit here. Two wars – one of them completely unnecessary – a financial system built upon greed and fraud, a decimated manufacturing base, budget and trade deficits, ceaseless borrowing from foreign banks to cover our economic weakness, absurd tax policies -- the list goes on and it has all come to a head courtesy of McCain’s Republican Party.
Pork barrel spending is the least of our fiscal problems.
Don’t get the impression that I was bowled over by Senator Obama because I wasn’t. Obama missed numerous opportunities to hammer McCain, and the senator’s assertion that we can rely on nuclear power and clean coal technology was simply political silliness. Given our current financial mess, the United States cannot afford to build more nuclear power plants, and even if we could, we shouldn’t.
But at least Obama had facts at his command and an understanding that the country has entered a new era. Neither candidate will admit it, and McCain is too old and nostalgic to recognize it anyway, but the United States is no longer the baddest bully on the playground; we exhibit classic symptoms of a decrepit empire. Thankfully, Obama has a sense of this and perhaps the intelligence and political skill to do something about it.
Watching McCain ramble through his talking points brought to mind Sarah Palin’s disastrous interview with Katie Couric on CBS. If you missed that, it’s definitely worth a look. Palin is a train wreck, a small town mayor trying desperately to play on the big stage and failing miserably. Palin is so inept that she makes Spiro Agnew and Dan Quayle look competent.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Flight of the Owners
“Since becoming President of the United States in 2001, President Bush has worked with the Congress to create an ownership society and build a future of security, prosperity, and opportunity for all Americans.” Official White House Website
That’s rich, isn’t it, given that the “owners” are currently running to the Federal government and lining up for a taxpayer-funded bailout. Rich but hardly surprising -- the fact that this nonsensical blurb remains on the White House website is testament to the Bush Administration’s staunch refusal to recognize reality.
The Ownership Society was always a codeword for supporting the wealthy at the expense of the middle class and the poor. Bush and his posse of radical ideologues pretended that the Ownership Society was open to all, but of course the front door was guarded and only the “right” people were allowed inside. Bush & Co. wrecked the economy by misplaced faith in the “free market” and by dismantling the regulatory framework that was created to curb the schemes and shenanigans of greedy capitalists.
We’re experiencing the end result of Bush’s disastrous blindness and incompetent leadership: a $700 billion Government bailout. Lo and behold, the Market God is neither infallible nor immune to manipulation and gaming; now the Federal government is poised to become the not-so-proud owner of billions of dollars worth of paper – much of it of unknown or dubious value. That there is no place to turn except the Government must make the Bushies squirm and retch; they have nothing but contempt for Government, and to watch their cronies, political allies and campaign contributors run to Government for aid must gall them no end.
Or perhaps it galls them not at all. Introspection has never been a Bush Administration strength.
The meltdown in the financial markets pushed a lot of things off the table last week. I lost track of GOP-darling Sarah Palin while her running mate was stumbling for words to explain his economic flip-flops. I assume Palin was closeted with advisors and tutors, learning the capitols of the world, the names of heads of state, and the major exports of India, Saudi Arabia and China. By now, I’m sure Palin can recite the Bush Doctrine forwards and backwards.
Ah, folly, you twisted devil. Regardless of who he claims to be as Wall Street burns, John McCain is one of the best legislative lackeys that bankers, investment houses and hedge fund operators ever had. McCain’s claim to carry the banner for improved regulation of the financial sector is contradicted by his voting record.
McCain keeps trying to reinvent himself as someone he’s not, hoping, I suppose, that the media will ignore his record and let his blatant lies pass. If you believe that John McCain can “reform” the corrupt culture he helped create in Washington, then you might as well bet your house on the Pittsburgh Pirates to win the World Series next season. The truth is that McCain has assiduously championed the interests of his corporate benefactors, and to believe that he has changed is pure fantasy.
Crude oil is up, the DOW is down and the US Government can always tap taxpayer money for ill-advised wars or to rescue wayward corporations. We can’t find ten bucks to provide health care for the uninsured or to educate our children properly or to wean ourselves from fossil fuels, but we can wage wars and rescue the wealthy with hardly any debate at all.
That’s the American Way in this age of perversity.
That’s rich, isn’t it, given that the “owners” are currently running to the Federal government and lining up for a taxpayer-funded bailout. Rich but hardly surprising -- the fact that this nonsensical blurb remains on the White House website is testament to the Bush Administration’s staunch refusal to recognize reality.
The Ownership Society was always a codeword for supporting the wealthy at the expense of the middle class and the poor. Bush and his posse of radical ideologues pretended that the Ownership Society was open to all, but of course the front door was guarded and only the “right” people were allowed inside. Bush & Co. wrecked the economy by misplaced faith in the “free market” and by dismantling the regulatory framework that was created to curb the schemes and shenanigans of greedy capitalists.
We’re experiencing the end result of Bush’s disastrous blindness and incompetent leadership: a $700 billion Government bailout. Lo and behold, the Market God is neither infallible nor immune to manipulation and gaming; now the Federal government is poised to become the not-so-proud owner of billions of dollars worth of paper – much of it of unknown or dubious value. That there is no place to turn except the Government must make the Bushies squirm and retch; they have nothing but contempt for Government, and to watch their cronies, political allies and campaign contributors run to Government for aid must gall them no end.
Or perhaps it galls them not at all. Introspection has never been a Bush Administration strength.
The meltdown in the financial markets pushed a lot of things off the table last week. I lost track of GOP-darling Sarah Palin while her running mate was stumbling for words to explain his economic flip-flops. I assume Palin was closeted with advisors and tutors, learning the capitols of the world, the names of heads of state, and the major exports of India, Saudi Arabia and China. By now, I’m sure Palin can recite the Bush Doctrine forwards and backwards.
Ah, folly, you twisted devil. Regardless of who he claims to be as Wall Street burns, John McCain is one of the best legislative lackeys that bankers, investment houses and hedge fund operators ever had. McCain’s claim to carry the banner for improved regulation of the financial sector is contradicted by his voting record.
McCain keeps trying to reinvent himself as someone he’s not, hoping, I suppose, that the media will ignore his record and let his blatant lies pass. If you believe that John McCain can “reform” the corrupt culture he helped create in Washington, then you might as well bet your house on the Pittsburgh Pirates to win the World Series next season. The truth is that McCain has assiduously championed the interests of his corporate benefactors, and to believe that he has changed is pure fantasy.
Crude oil is up, the DOW is down and the US Government can always tap taxpayer money for ill-advised wars or to rescue wayward corporations. We can’t find ten bucks to provide health care for the uninsured or to educate our children properly or to wean ourselves from fossil fuels, but we can wage wars and rescue the wealthy with hardly any debate at all.
That’s the American Way in this age of perversity.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
John McCain, Working Man
“Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives.” John Stuart Mill
Ladies and Gentlemen, I have an important announcement. Are you ready? Hold onto your butts now because this is huge: Republican presidential hopeful John McCain has discovered -- the American worker!
Yes my friends, it’s true, I heard old man McCain singing the praises of the American worker with my own ears. There was McCain on one of the morning propaganda shows answering questions (well, sort of) about the Wall Street meltdown and what it means for the nation. Not only did McCain call for a blue-ribbon commission to investigate Wall Street’s abuses (why do politician’s always call for a blue-ribbon commission?), he also said he believes in the ingenuity of the American worker.
How rich is that? For twenty-five years, the Republican Party and John McCain have undermined American workers in every way possible, from relentless deregulation, to off-shoring American jobs to China, to busting unions, to supporting tax and trade policies that favor Capital over Labor.
Now, as Wall Street swan dives into the proverbial toilet, McCain wants to wrap himself in the tattered flag of the American worker, as if working Americans have had anything to do with the swindles that pass for business-as-usual on Wall Street.
The man has no shame whatsoever and must be exposed for the liar that he is.
The sad truth is that many voters believe McCain’s spiel, even when the facts of their own lives tell them that he is wrong. I happened to catch a TV interview with an unemployed Michigan autoworker the other day, and was flabbergasted when this poor man said that when it comes to the economy he trusts John McCain more than Barack Obama. Dear, suffering man, the problems of Michigan and the hardships faced by average working people all across America are directly related to a quarter century of Republican ideology: the “you’re-on-your-own, rugged individual, government-is-the-enemy, taxation-is-theft, and the Market-knows-best” bullshit that we’ve been force fed. Why any person with a pulse – particularly someone from a state as beleaguered as Michigan -- believes that the Republicans have an answer for our economic woes is beyond me.
Word up, Michigan: a vote for McCain is a vote to continue the disastrous policies that produced the economic suffering you’re experiencing.
How does John McCain explain the fact that the real wages of American workers fell or remained stagnant while productivity soared? How does he explain his staunch opposition to the Employee Free Choice Act – legislation that would make it easier for American workers to join unions and bargain collectively? How does he explain his steadfast support of a tax system that favors capital over labor, or the fact that his dear friend and former economic guru, Phil Gramm, authored the legislation that deregulated the financial services industry and ushered in an era of greed, excess and corruption? If McCain is so pro-worker, why is his campaign riddled with corporate lobbyists?
To hear John McCain extol the virtues of American workers is like listening to a street whore in Bangkok extol the virtues of abstinence-only sex education; it doesn’t fit, it doesn’t work, and it sure as hell doesn’t make a shred of sense.
John McCain and his Republican allies (does the name Alan Greenspan ring any bells?) are responsible for the collapse of our financial system. The facts are clear, the proof irrefutable; to lay the blame anywhere but at the feet of a failed ideology is to believe that that infamous bridge in Alaska leads somewhere.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I have an important announcement. Are you ready? Hold onto your butts now because this is huge: Republican presidential hopeful John McCain has discovered -- the American worker!
Yes my friends, it’s true, I heard old man McCain singing the praises of the American worker with my own ears. There was McCain on one of the morning propaganda shows answering questions (well, sort of) about the Wall Street meltdown and what it means for the nation. Not only did McCain call for a blue-ribbon commission to investigate Wall Street’s abuses (why do politician’s always call for a blue-ribbon commission?), he also said he believes in the ingenuity of the American worker.
How rich is that? For twenty-five years, the Republican Party and John McCain have undermined American workers in every way possible, from relentless deregulation, to off-shoring American jobs to China, to busting unions, to supporting tax and trade policies that favor Capital over Labor.
Now, as Wall Street swan dives into the proverbial toilet, McCain wants to wrap himself in the tattered flag of the American worker, as if working Americans have had anything to do with the swindles that pass for business-as-usual on Wall Street.
The man has no shame whatsoever and must be exposed for the liar that he is.
The sad truth is that many voters believe McCain’s spiel, even when the facts of their own lives tell them that he is wrong. I happened to catch a TV interview with an unemployed Michigan autoworker the other day, and was flabbergasted when this poor man said that when it comes to the economy he trusts John McCain more than Barack Obama. Dear, suffering man, the problems of Michigan and the hardships faced by average working people all across America are directly related to a quarter century of Republican ideology: the “you’re-on-your-own, rugged individual, government-is-the-enemy, taxation-is-theft, and the Market-knows-best” bullshit that we’ve been force fed. Why any person with a pulse – particularly someone from a state as beleaguered as Michigan -- believes that the Republicans have an answer for our economic woes is beyond me.
Word up, Michigan: a vote for McCain is a vote to continue the disastrous policies that produced the economic suffering you’re experiencing.
How does John McCain explain the fact that the real wages of American workers fell or remained stagnant while productivity soared? How does he explain his staunch opposition to the Employee Free Choice Act – legislation that would make it easier for American workers to join unions and bargain collectively? How does he explain his steadfast support of a tax system that favors capital over labor, or the fact that his dear friend and former economic guru, Phil Gramm, authored the legislation that deregulated the financial services industry and ushered in an era of greed, excess and corruption? If McCain is so pro-worker, why is his campaign riddled with corporate lobbyists?
To hear John McCain extol the virtues of American workers is like listening to a street whore in Bangkok extol the virtues of abstinence-only sex education; it doesn’t fit, it doesn’t work, and it sure as hell doesn’t make a shred of sense.
John McCain and his Republican allies (does the name Alan Greenspan ring any bells?) are responsible for the collapse of our financial system. The facts are clear, the proof irrefutable; to lay the blame anywhere but at the feet of a failed ideology is to believe that that infamous bridge in Alaska leads somewhere.
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Serious Times, Serious People, Really
To prove that the McCain Campaign isn’t sheltering Sarah Palin from media scrutiny, John McCain and Palin are hitting the campaign trail and speaking with reporters – at least those reporters screened by Blackwater for Liberal tendencies, anti-McCain attitude or fact-based skepticism. What follows is the transcript of a press conference that took place recently in eastern Ohio.
Fox News: Governor Palin, what shade of lipstick are you wearing today?
Palin: This is hardwood-rose, a good outdoorsy shade, don’t you think?
Fox News: It’s lovely, Governor. How do you feel about taxation?
Palin: Taxation is bad. I support lowering the tax burden on hard working Americans.
CNN: Governor, do you think women who supported Hillary Clinton will support you?
Palin: I don’t see why not. They’re women, I’m a woman, so I expect they’ll vote for me.
McCain: I want to remind you that my opponent never spent time in a North Vietnamese prison camp.
Palin: And let me add that I read about North Vietnam on Wikipedia.
Correspondent from the Nation magazine, sneaking past Security: Excuse me, can we talk about the economy, please.
Fox News: Who let that leftist agitator in? Governor Palin, how do you juggle your official duties and a large family?
Nation Correspondent, before being assaulted with pepper spray: What about Iraq, the illegal invasion and occupation…you bastards – get your hands off me, this is still AMERICA!
Palin: Well, my husband, the First Dude, is really good about helping out around the house. He doesn’t cook, but he will wash windows and do laundry.
CNN: Isn’t she wonderful!
Fox News: She’s electric! She has single-handedly re-energized the Republican Party! McCain is a genius for selecting her as his running mate!
NBC News: John, good to see you again. Do you believe – as President Bush does – that the fundamentals of the economy are strong?
McCain: The economy is robust, the envy of the world. And did I mention that I served time in a Vietnamese POW camp? Let me just say this: Republicans put America first. My opponent will coddle America’s enemies. My opponent doesn’t know what it’s like to survive in a POW camp.
Palin: I gave every citizen of Alaska a tax rebate!
CNN: Governor, I’m sorry to ask this question, forgive me, but did you support the infamous Bridge to Nowhere?
Palin: I did not – I fought against that silly bridge. I don’t know why the Liberal establishment keeps insisting that I supported the Bridge. Clearly, the Liberal establishment is against me – and against women in general.
CBS News correspondent, second row, whispered to ABC News correspondent: I love her but she’s lying. She supported the Bridge and tried to secure more Federal dough for similar projects. She only opposed it when it became a political embarrassment for Senator Stevens. I should do my job and ask a tough follow-up, but isn’t she just wonderful?
Fox News: John, is this election about character?
McCain: Absolutely. And unlike my opponent, my character was molded during my years in a POW camp.
Palin: It’s more important to have character than to be a character. I read that in a book, actually.
Fox News: Governor, the Obama Campaign has made a number of scurrilous attacks against you for an alleged lack of experience in foreign policy. How do you respond?
Palin: First of all, there’s no tougher species of female than a hockey mom. Second, I am the commander-in-chief of the Alaskan National Guard – the front line of America’s defense against a Russian invasion of our glorious nation. I have a uniform and everything. If the Russians want a fight, the ANG is ready for them. Bring ‘em on Vladimir is what I say. Did you know that you can see Russia from Alaska?
Fox News: OMG! OMG! I’m so excited I think I just soiled myself.
Amy Goodman, Democracy Now Host, shoving past Security: This is supposed to be a serious press conference about serious issues! What do either one of you have to say about the trashing of the Constitution, illegal spying on American citizens or the shameful treatment of our veterans?
(Seconds after she asked this question Goodman and her film crew were tasered by State Troopers and arrested.)
Palin: I think I believe in Law & Order, and I’m pretty sure I read the Constitution when it came out in paperback. And I just watched my son ship off to serve his country in Iraq – against the very people who plotted and launched the terrible attacks of September 11.
ABC News correspondent whispered to CBS News correspondent: Oops. I guess Sarah missed the memo from Karl Rove. Well, she’s still amazing even though she doesn’t seem to understand that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. Smarts are overrated in politics anyway.
McCain: I don’t feel the need to respond to insolent questions. After all, I was a POW.
Fox News: Governor Palin, what shade of lipstick are you wearing today?
Palin: This is hardwood-rose, a good outdoorsy shade, don’t you think?
Fox News: It’s lovely, Governor. How do you feel about taxation?
Palin: Taxation is bad. I support lowering the tax burden on hard working Americans.
CNN: Governor, do you think women who supported Hillary Clinton will support you?
Palin: I don’t see why not. They’re women, I’m a woman, so I expect they’ll vote for me.
McCain: I want to remind you that my opponent never spent time in a North Vietnamese prison camp.
Palin: And let me add that I read about North Vietnam on Wikipedia.
Correspondent from the Nation magazine, sneaking past Security: Excuse me, can we talk about the economy, please.
Fox News: Who let that leftist agitator in? Governor Palin, how do you juggle your official duties and a large family?
Nation Correspondent, before being assaulted with pepper spray: What about Iraq, the illegal invasion and occupation…you bastards – get your hands off me, this is still AMERICA!
Palin: Well, my husband, the First Dude, is really good about helping out around the house. He doesn’t cook, but he will wash windows and do laundry.
CNN: Isn’t she wonderful!
Fox News: She’s electric! She has single-handedly re-energized the Republican Party! McCain is a genius for selecting her as his running mate!
NBC News: John, good to see you again. Do you believe – as President Bush does – that the fundamentals of the economy are strong?
McCain: The economy is robust, the envy of the world. And did I mention that I served time in a Vietnamese POW camp? Let me just say this: Republicans put America first. My opponent will coddle America’s enemies. My opponent doesn’t know what it’s like to survive in a POW camp.
Palin: I gave every citizen of Alaska a tax rebate!
CNN: Governor, I’m sorry to ask this question, forgive me, but did you support the infamous Bridge to Nowhere?
Palin: I did not – I fought against that silly bridge. I don’t know why the Liberal establishment keeps insisting that I supported the Bridge. Clearly, the Liberal establishment is against me – and against women in general.
CBS News correspondent, second row, whispered to ABC News correspondent: I love her but she’s lying. She supported the Bridge and tried to secure more Federal dough for similar projects. She only opposed it when it became a political embarrassment for Senator Stevens. I should do my job and ask a tough follow-up, but isn’t she just wonderful?
Fox News: John, is this election about character?
McCain: Absolutely. And unlike my opponent, my character was molded during my years in a POW camp.
Palin: It’s more important to have character than to be a character. I read that in a book, actually.
Fox News: Governor, the Obama Campaign has made a number of scurrilous attacks against you for an alleged lack of experience in foreign policy. How do you respond?
Palin: First of all, there’s no tougher species of female than a hockey mom. Second, I am the commander-in-chief of the Alaskan National Guard – the front line of America’s defense against a Russian invasion of our glorious nation. I have a uniform and everything. If the Russians want a fight, the ANG is ready for them. Bring ‘em on Vladimir is what I say. Did you know that you can see Russia from Alaska?
Fox News: OMG! OMG! I’m so excited I think I just soiled myself.
Amy Goodman, Democracy Now Host, shoving past Security: This is supposed to be a serious press conference about serious issues! What do either one of you have to say about the trashing of the Constitution, illegal spying on American citizens or the shameful treatment of our veterans?
(Seconds after she asked this question Goodman and her film crew were tasered by State Troopers and arrested.)
Palin: I think I believe in Law & Order, and I’m pretty sure I read the Constitution when it came out in paperback. And I just watched my son ship off to serve his country in Iraq – against the very people who plotted and launched the terrible attacks of September 11.
ABC News correspondent whispered to CBS News correspondent: Oops. I guess Sarah missed the memo from Karl Rove. Well, she’s still amazing even though she doesn’t seem to understand that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. Smarts are overrated in politics anyway.
McCain: I don’t feel the need to respond to insolent questions. After all, I was a POW.
Saturday, September 06, 2008
Masters of Deceit (or How to Run a Campaign when you have Nothing to Run On)
Rovian logic. If the economy stinks for most Americans and portends to worsen before it improves – talk instead about illegal immigration, abortion, or something nebulous, like “character.” Whatever you do, don’t talk about the real world issues impacting real people’s lives – the issues your party is largely responsible for creating.
Talk about reforming politics in Washington as if your party has not been in total command of all three branches of government – and still controls two – for six of the past eight years. Talk about how you are the one to take on the Establishment even though you yourself are a pillar of that Establishment.
Talk nostalgically about small towns and families while vowing to continue the policies that are destroying small towns and families.
Above all, paint your opponents as unpatriotic and un-American while your party undermines the Constitution, runs roughshod over the rule of law and strains relationships with America’s traditional allies. You don’t need a comprehensive plan or vision for the country, you just need to lie compellingly about your opponents. Run on your biography, not the actual record, and invoke your stint as a POW at every opportunity – even when it’s irrelevant to the topic at hand.
If you watched any part of the GOP Convention you know that the Rove Playbook is still widely read and that Republicans are clinging to George W. Bush’s illusions. If the American electorate was more sophisticated and harder to dupe, the GOP would be packing bags, shredding documents and preparing to depart Washington D.C., because after eight disastrous years of Republican misrule, logic says there’s no way John McCain can beat Barack Obama.
Think about it. Is the Republican ticket running against Barack Obama and Joe Biden or are they running against the long, dark shadow cast by George Bush and Dick Cheney? The crux of the matter is that McCain and Palin must run against their own party’s disastrous record without turning off or alienating the party faithful.
It’s a trick worthy of Houdini, but it’s also a stage show the Republicans have perfected – after all, George Bush made it to the White House twice, which proves that American presidential elections are about images and emotions and distortions, not facts, policies or truth.
For the Masters of Deceit, Sarah Palin is a smart choice (even though her right-wing policy positions and staggering absence of experience make her a ridiculous choice) because she’s enough of a circus act to divert attention from the stiff old man she’s running alongside. The mainstream media took Palin at face value, got caught up in the hype and announced that Palin “electrified” the GOP convention and “energized” the base. Palin is good copy and next to the sclerotic McCain, the dull Fred Thompson and the rabid Rudy Guliani, who wouldn’t look fresh and chipper?
The disciples of Karl Rove will spend the next two months trying to induce gullible voters to forget the policy failures of the past eight years: a failing economy brought on by Republican blind faith in a benevolent Market God; two wars, one of them completely unnecessary; a failure to address America’s energy needs or come to grips with the serious implications of climate change; indifference to citizen concerns about the affordability of health care and higher education; and the erosion of Constitutional protections.
The cynicism of Karl Rove and the GOP would be amusing if it wasn’t deadly serious.
Talk about reforming politics in Washington as if your party has not been in total command of all three branches of government – and still controls two – for six of the past eight years. Talk about how you are the one to take on the Establishment even though you yourself are a pillar of that Establishment.
Talk nostalgically about small towns and families while vowing to continue the policies that are destroying small towns and families.
Above all, paint your opponents as unpatriotic and un-American while your party undermines the Constitution, runs roughshod over the rule of law and strains relationships with America’s traditional allies. You don’t need a comprehensive plan or vision for the country, you just need to lie compellingly about your opponents. Run on your biography, not the actual record, and invoke your stint as a POW at every opportunity – even when it’s irrelevant to the topic at hand.
If you watched any part of the GOP Convention you know that the Rove Playbook is still widely read and that Republicans are clinging to George W. Bush’s illusions. If the American electorate was more sophisticated and harder to dupe, the GOP would be packing bags, shredding documents and preparing to depart Washington D.C., because after eight disastrous years of Republican misrule, logic says there’s no way John McCain can beat Barack Obama.
Think about it. Is the Republican ticket running against Barack Obama and Joe Biden or are they running against the long, dark shadow cast by George Bush and Dick Cheney? The crux of the matter is that McCain and Palin must run against their own party’s disastrous record without turning off or alienating the party faithful.
It’s a trick worthy of Houdini, but it’s also a stage show the Republicans have perfected – after all, George Bush made it to the White House twice, which proves that American presidential elections are about images and emotions and distortions, not facts, policies or truth.
For the Masters of Deceit, Sarah Palin is a smart choice (even though her right-wing policy positions and staggering absence of experience make her a ridiculous choice) because she’s enough of a circus act to divert attention from the stiff old man she’s running alongside. The mainstream media took Palin at face value, got caught up in the hype and announced that Palin “electrified” the GOP convention and “energized” the base. Palin is good copy and next to the sclerotic McCain, the dull Fred Thompson and the rabid Rudy Guliani, who wouldn’t look fresh and chipper?
The disciples of Karl Rove will spend the next two months trying to induce gullible voters to forget the policy failures of the past eight years: a failing economy brought on by Republican blind faith in a benevolent Market God; two wars, one of them completely unnecessary; a failure to address America’s energy needs or come to grips with the serious implications of climate change; indifference to citizen concerns about the affordability of health care and higher education; and the erosion of Constitutional protections.
The cynicism of Karl Rove and the GOP would be amusing if it wasn’t deadly serious.
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
One Small Step Closer to the Gulag
On the day I begin re-reading One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Democracy Now host Amy Goodman is arrested in St. Paul, Minnesota for protesting the arrest of two of her colleagues. All three have journalist credentials and Press ID, and yet police in riot gear manhandle them as if they’re members of the Weather Underground. Fortunately, some alert soul captures this outrage on video and posts it on YouTube.
For all of Barack Obama’s soaring and inspiring rhetoric, we didn’t hear much in his convention speech about restoring civil liberties. I wonder if Bill Clinton’s call for restoring the American Dream at home also meant turning back the emerging American police state.
The police state will prevail unless and until the arrest of a journalist as prominent as Amy Goodman is front-page news. As of this morning, at least on the New York Times and Los Angeles Times websites, it’s not even worth a mention. I don’t suspect that Diane Sawyer or Matt Lauer will lead with the story, either, though in the grand scheme of freedom and liberty, the arrest of Amy Goodman and the systematic stifling of dissent in this country is more important than Hurricane Gustav or the hypocrisy of Sarah Palin.
Dissent is as fundamental to a real democracy as free and fair elections. The Constitution still guarantees the right of free speech and free assembly, but when peaceful protestors – with a permit -- are met by police in full riot gear and journalists trying to do their jobs are arrested, one wonders what the Constitution means.
I first read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich in 1979. Back then America seemed as far from the Gulag as the moon is from Pluto. Today the distance is far shorter. We’re in the process of trading some of our most precious civil liberties for a false sense of security. No nation on this planet jails as many of its citizens as we do; we torture prisoners and invade countries that pose no threat to us. And, like Pravda in the days of the Soviet Union, the American media feeds the population a steady diet of half-truths, whole lies, and mind-numbing trivia.
We can ignore what happened to Amy Goodman in St. Paul, but not for long. Tyranny happens gradually.
For all of Barack Obama’s soaring and inspiring rhetoric, we didn’t hear much in his convention speech about restoring civil liberties. I wonder if Bill Clinton’s call for restoring the American Dream at home also meant turning back the emerging American police state.
The police state will prevail unless and until the arrest of a journalist as prominent as Amy Goodman is front-page news. As of this morning, at least on the New York Times and Los Angeles Times websites, it’s not even worth a mention. I don’t suspect that Diane Sawyer or Matt Lauer will lead with the story, either, though in the grand scheme of freedom and liberty, the arrest of Amy Goodman and the systematic stifling of dissent in this country is more important than Hurricane Gustav or the hypocrisy of Sarah Palin.
Dissent is as fundamental to a real democracy as free and fair elections. The Constitution still guarantees the right of free speech and free assembly, but when peaceful protestors – with a permit -- are met by police in full riot gear and journalists trying to do their jobs are arrested, one wonders what the Constitution means.
I first read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich in 1979. Back then America seemed as far from the Gulag as the moon is from Pluto. Today the distance is far shorter. We’re in the process of trading some of our most precious civil liberties for a false sense of security. No nation on this planet jails as many of its citizens as we do; we torture prisoners and invade countries that pose no threat to us. And, like Pravda in the days of the Soviet Union, the American media feeds the population a steady diet of half-truths, whole lies, and mind-numbing trivia.
We can ignore what happened to Amy Goodman in St. Paul, but not for long. Tyranny happens gradually.
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Moose Burgers, Get Your Moose Burgers
Sarah Palin. Who? Sarah Palin, Governor of Alaska for the past twenty months. What is the population of Alaska? Less than a million people – in the entire state! As a point of comparison, that’s less than the population of San Jose, California, Jacksonville, Florida and Columbus, Ohio. Sarah Palin is the best the GOP can do? Palin is the most qualified Republican woman they can find?
I have nothing against a female vice-president or Alaska – but are they freaking serious!
Choosing Sarah Palin as his running mate simply shows that John McCain is desperate. Choosing Palin also confirms – as if any further proof were needed – that the GOP is done, out of ideas, finished, kaput, bankrupt, adrift on the sea of a failed ideology. Choosing Palin does not – even though Sean Hannity tried his best to spin it so – re-establish McCain’s maverick reputation. McCain has marched in lock step with George W. Bush, down the road, around the bend, and over the edge of a sheer cliff.
The GOP run is over. Hannity, Limbaugh, Barnes, Savage and the rest of the right-wing blowhards had their time in the sun, total control of the country -- White House, Congress, Courts – and tanked spectacularly, historically, monumentally.
McCain and Palin, a doddering old man and an untested woman from an isolated state that bears no resemblance to the rest of the United States. Where Palin’s from it’s fine and dandy to support gun ownership, indiscriminate oil drilling and other nutty right-wing ideas because at the end of the day we’re talking about Alaska – a state that, frankly, was added to the union as an afterthought and means next to nothing in the grand scheme of things.
Bill Clinton was right – absent another stolen, fraudulent election – Obama and Biden are on the right side of history and should capture the White House in a landslide. Clinton was also right when he said that this election boils down to two simple elements: restoring the American Dream at home, and restoring American credibility abroad.
And Barack Obama was right when he framed the election this way: “If you don’t have a record to run on (and how can John McCain and his Alaskan sidekick possibly run on the Republican record? Hi folks, we’re losers and we want you to vote for us!) paint your opponent as someone to run from.” Precisely, and that’s what the dying, sputtering GOP machine will do from here to Election Day. Only now the Democrats can do the same thing, spotlighting McCain’s age and mental confusion, his temper and history of ethical lapses, and now the gaffe of all gaffes, tapping unknown, untested Sarah Palin as his running mate.
Need we talk any further about John McCain, the blatantly transparent political calculator – crassly trying to attract female votes by choosing Palin – his abysmal absence of vision, or do we now know everything we need to know?
I have nothing against a female vice-president or Alaska – but are they freaking serious!
Choosing Sarah Palin as his running mate simply shows that John McCain is desperate. Choosing Palin also confirms – as if any further proof were needed – that the GOP is done, out of ideas, finished, kaput, bankrupt, adrift on the sea of a failed ideology. Choosing Palin does not – even though Sean Hannity tried his best to spin it so – re-establish McCain’s maverick reputation. McCain has marched in lock step with George W. Bush, down the road, around the bend, and over the edge of a sheer cliff.
The GOP run is over. Hannity, Limbaugh, Barnes, Savage and the rest of the right-wing blowhards had their time in the sun, total control of the country -- White House, Congress, Courts – and tanked spectacularly, historically, monumentally.
McCain and Palin, a doddering old man and an untested woman from an isolated state that bears no resemblance to the rest of the United States. Where Palin’s from it’s fine and dandy to support gun ownership, indiscriminate oil drilling and other nutty right-wing ideas because at the end of the day we’re talking about Alaska – a state that, frankly, was added to the union as an afterthought and means next to nothing in the grand scheme of things.
Bill Clinton was right – absent another stolen, fraudulent election – Obama and Biden are on the right side of history and should capture the White House in a landslide. Clinton was also right when he said that this election boils down to two simple elements: restoring the American Dream at home, and restoring American credibility abroad.
And Barack Obama was right when he framed the election this way: “If you don’t have a record to run on (and how can John McCain and his Alaskan sidekick possibly run on the Republican record? Hi folks, we’re losers and we want you to vote for us!) paint your opponent as someone to run from.” Precisely, and that’s what the dying, sputtering GOP machine will do from here to Election Day. Only now the Democrats can do the same thing, spotlighting McCain’s age and mental confusion, his temper and history of ethical lapses, and now the gaffe of all gaffes, tapping unknown, untested Sarah Palin as his running mate.
Need we talk any further about John McCain, the blatantly transparent political calculator – crassly trying to attract female votes by choosing Palin – his abysmal absence of vision, or do we now know everything we need to know?
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Racists, Rednecks and Rove
This is a big week for the Republicans, even though the Democrats and Barack Obama are center-stage. You can bet the GOP brain trust – led by Karl Rove – is camped around a massive Plasma TV screen, drinking whiskey neat and recording everything that happens, everything that is said, reading between the lines and below the lines, seeking to uncover the story beneath the story -- all for the purpose of storing ammo for the general election.
If Barack Obama thinks he has seen the worst of the GOP attack machine he is sadly mistaken. Rove and his minions will pull out all the stops once Obama and McCain are officially anointed; oh yes, that’s when the big guns will be wheeled into position, and come September and October, the GOP will launch a major assault on the Truth, and millions of American voters will be cut down and left for dead. From now until then, Rove and his people will be working OT to paint Obama as too Liberal, too Foreign, and too much of a Muslim sympathizer. And if that PR offensive doesn’t gain traction, bet heavy that Rove and Co. will call their pals at Diebold and see about rigging voting machines to record votes for Obama as votes for John McCain.
Rednecks, racists and big money Chamber of Commerce types are worried about Barack Obama -- the idea that a black man with a strange name might take up residence in the White House makes a lot of white folks nervous. The cowboys at the county fair are talking about the possibility of an Obama presidency in apocalyptic terms. This isn’t the same as when Jesse Jackson ran because Jackson didn’t stand a chance of winning. Jesse was, frankly, too black to win over white voters. Not so with Obama, who is smart, articulate and charismatic.
Wall Street movers and their armies of K Street lobbyists are girding for war in the corridors of power. Money is already flowing to grease palms and buy loyalty, just in case Obama gets elected and proposes something sensible like re-regulating the banking system so that middle-class and working-class Americans are protected from predatory Titans of Finance.
The same siege mentality prevails in the health care industry, lest Obama get uppity and use his bully pulpit to promote Universal health care. The Privileged and the Profit Makers know that the time is now to inoculate themselves against an assault on everything they’ve gained during Bush’s reign.
There are, of course, a few realists in the McCain camp who know their man is a corrupt stiff with a liability-laden resume; all they can do is stoke the fears of the masses – fears about Mexicans swarming across the border to rape and rob defenseless white suburbanites; fears of socialized medicine; fears of reverse discrimination; fears of high taxes; and the Numero Uno Fear -- bearded Muslims.
McCain’s operatives know that peddling Fear is all they’ve got. When it comes to policy McCain is Bush Redux, and even the thickest, dumbest, shit-kicking, tattooed American has figured out that Bush and the GOP are responsible for the shit-storm sweeping the country. When citizens are weaned on TV you can fool most of them most of the time, but sooner or later even dolts wake up and realize that George W. Bush and his cronies are guilty of sodomizing the United States of America.
More to the point, McCain’s people know their man can’t hold his own against Barack Obama in a televised debate – even one with cream-puff questions lobbed by journalists infatuated with McCain. “I was a POW” is a statement of historical fact, not a policy position. Moreover, “I was a POW” is irrelevant to this election. This thing is about pulling us out of the open sewer Republican greed, corruption and incompetence put us in.
If Barack Obama thinks he has seen the worst of the GOP attack machine he is sadly mistaken. Rove and his minions will pull out all the stops once Obama and McCain are officially anointed; oh yes, that’s when the big guns will be wheeled into position, and come September and October, the GOP will launch a major assault on the Truth, and millions of American voters will be cut down and left for dead. From now until then, Rove and his people will be working OT to paint Obama as too Liberal, too Foreign, and too much of a Muslim sympathizer. And if that PR offensive doesn’t gain traction, bet heavy that Rove and Co. will call their pals at Diebold and see about rigging voting machines to record votes for Obama as votes for John McCain.
Rednecks, racists and big money Chamber of Commerce types are worried about Barack Obama -- the idea that a black man with a strange name might take up residence in the White House makes a lot of white folks nervous. The cowboys at the county fair are talking about the possibility of an Obama presidency in apocalyptic terms. This isn’t the same as when Jesse Jackson ran because Jackson didn’t stand a chance of winning. Jesse was, frankly, too black to win over white voters. Not so with Obama, who is smart, articulate and charismatic.
Wall Street movers and their armies of K Street lobbyists are girding for war in the corridors of power. Money is already flowing to grease palms and buy loyalty, just in case Obama gets elected and proposes something sensible like re-regulating the banking system so that middle-class and working-class Americans are protected from predatory Titans of Finance.
The same siege mentality prevails in the health care industry, lest Obama get uppity and use his bully pulpit to promote Universal health care. The Privileged and the Profit Makers know that the time is now to inoculate themselves against an assault on everything they’ve gained during Bush’s reign.
There are, of course, a few realists in the McCain camp who know their man is a corrupt stiff with a liability-laden resume; all they can do is stoke the fears of the masses – fears about Mexicans swarming across the border to rape and rob defenseless white suburbanites; fears of socialized medicine; fears of reverse discrimination; fears of high taxes; and the Numero Uno Fear -- bearded Muslims.
McCain’s operatives know that peddling Fear is all they’ve got. When it comes to policy McCain is Bush Redux, and even the thickest, dumbest, shit-kicking, tattooed American has figured out that Bush and the GOP are responsible for the shit-storm sweeping the country. When citizens are weaned on TV you can fool most of them most of the time, but sooner or later even dolts wake up and realize that George W. Bush and his cronies are guilty of sodomizing the United States of America.
More to the point, McCain’s people know their man can’t hold his own against Barack Obama in a televised debate – even one with cream-puff questions lobbed by journalists infatuated with McCain. “I was a POW” is a statement of historical fact, not a policy position. Moreover, “I was a POW” is irrelevant to this election. This thing is about pulling us out of the open sewer Republican greed, corruption and incompetence put us in.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Irony Abounds & Abounds & Abounds
It’s ironic to hear George W. Bush lecturing Russia about invading a sovereign nation, and demanding that Russia pull its occupying forces back. Isn’t that like telling Russia to cut & run?
George W. Bush and his ideological allies invaded a sovereign nation, Iraq, on a sand dune of lies and insist, five years, thousands of dead and wounded and billions of dollars wasted later, that American forces remain in place until “victory” is achieved. Why should Russia, which has its own interests, do any different?
And isn’t it ironic, not to mention telling, that during the Russian incursion into Georgia, the American media showed viewers plenty of images of war, but that same media machine cannot be bothered to show Americans what is really happening on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan. Are we to believe that there are no weeping elderly women in Iraq, or orphaned children in Afghanistan? Compared to the coverage in Georgia, the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns have been bloodless.
Ironic that conservative ideology asserts that the answer to every social problem or need is to turn to the private sector, where the profit motive and competition will insure efficiency. But then why are Conservatives masters of the “no-bid” contract awarded to big political donors? Where’s the competitive advantage in that?
And, frankly, why would taxpayers want the functions of government turned over to American business? In case Conservatives have forgotten, we’re the nation that cannot compete in manufacturing -- our auto industry is pitiful, we’re losing our edge in technology and science, and our banks and investment houses are run by greed-mongers who can’t tell a sound investment from a bogus one; these people and their regulatory enablers created the mortgage crisis that has the home foreclosure rate up above 50%.
America may be a world leader in entertainment, but that’s not enough to sustain a superpower. The only business arena the American private sector excels in is buying and selling paper, swapping stock, consolidating corporations and lobbying the Federal government for public subsidies, hardly the stuff of which great powers are made.
Ironic that Barack Obama feels compelled to submit to a “faith” grilling at the hands of mega-church leader Rick Warren. If there ever was a tyranny of the “minority,” this is it. Evangelical Christians make up a relatively small part of the electorate and yet our presidential candidates find it necessary to pander to this group. Didn’t John McCain sound tough when he said he’d follow Osama bin Laden to the gates of hell? Uh, John, your party and your friend George W. Bush have had seven years to bring Mr. bin Laden to “justice” and you’ve failed in spectacular fashion.
The world may indeed be divided into good and evil, but if so, how does humankind defeat evil as Mr. McCain told the Christian faithful he would? By force of arms? By eradicating the distinction between church and state? By making public school children recite the Lord’s Prayer and the Ten Commandments?
Ironic that in a time of great social complexity, nuance and shades of gray, that one of our presidential candidates, Barack Obama, is ridiculed by the Right for being too smart, too intelligent, too eloquent. In a time when we desperately need fresh and bold thinking and all the smarts we can muster to meet the challenges facing our world, the mainstream media echoes the notion that a corrupt dolt is the man we should rally behind. Sorry, but for nearly eight years we’ve followed a fool, an embarrassment on the world stage, a man with an unmatched absence of curiosity and a super-abundance of hubris, and look where we stand: locked in a war on a “tactic,” in debt to foreigners, and in the midst of an economic meltdown.
Yes, these days irony abounds, and woe to the nation that cannot see it.
George W. Bush and his ideological allies invaded a sovereign nation, Iraq, on a sand dune of lies and insist, five years, thousands of dead and wounded and billions of dollars wasted later, that American forces remain in place until “victory” is achieved. Why should Russia, which has its own interests, do any different?
And isn’t it ironic, not to mention telling, that during the Russian incursion into Georgia, the American media showed viewers plenty of images of war, but that same media machine cannot be bothered to show Americans what is really happening on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan. Are we to believe that there are no weeping elderly women in Iraq, or orphaned children in Afghanistan? Compared to the coverage in Georgia, the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns have been bloodless.
Ironic that conservative ideology asserts that the answer to every social problem or need is to turn to the private sector, where the profit motive and competition will insure efficiency. But then why are Conservatives masters of the “no-bid” contract awarded to big political donors? Where’s the competitive advantage in that?
And, frankly, why would taxpayers want the functions of government turned over to American business? In case Conservatives have forgotten, we’re the nation that cannot compete in manufacturing -- our auto industry is pitiful, we’re losing our edge in technology and science, and our banks and investment houses are run by greed-mongers who can’t tell a sound investment from a bogus one; these people and their regulatory enablers created the mortgage crisis that has the home foreclosure rate up above 50%.
America may be a world leader in entertainment, but that’s not enough to sustain a superpower. The only business arena the American private sector excels in is buying and selling paper, swapping stock, consolidating corporations and lobbying the Federal government for public subsidies, hardly the stuff of which great powers are made.
Ironic that Barack Obama feels compelled to submit to a “faith” grilling at the hands of mega-church leader Rick Warren. If there ever was a tyranny of the “minority,” this is it. Evangelical Christians make up a relatively small part of the electorate and yet our presidential candidates find it necessary to pander to this group. Didn’t John McCain sound tough when he said he’d follow Osama bin Laden to the gates of hell? Uh, John, your party and your friend George W. Bush have had seven years to bring Mr. bin Laden to “justice” and you’ve failed in spectacular fashion.
The world may indeed be divided into good and evil, but if so, how does humankind defeat evil as Mr. McCain told the Christian faithful he would? By force of arms? By eradicating the distinction between church and state? By making public school children recite the Lord’s Prayer and the Ten Commandments?
Ironic that in a time of great social complexity, nuance and shades of gray, that one of our presidential candidates, Barack Obama, is ridiculed by the Right for being too smart, too intelligent, too eloquent. In a time when we desperately need fresh and bold thinking and all the smarts we can muster to meet the challenges facing our world, the mainstream media echoes the notion that a corrupt dolt is the man we should rally behind. Sorry, but for nearly eight years we’ve followed a fool, an embarrassment on the world stage, a man with an unmatched absence of curiosity and a super-abundance of hubris, and look where we stand: locked in a war on a “tactic,” in debt to foreigners, and in the midst of an economic meltdown.
Yes, these days irony abounds, and woe to the nation that cannot see it.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Straight Talk
Editor's Note: Things haven't been going the McCain Campaign's way of late, and some in his inner circle are becoming worried that McCain is flat-lining when he should be peaking for the GOP convention. The charge that a vote for McCain is the same thing as voting for a third Bush term rankles the Arizona Senator as much as the charge that he's too cozy with DC lobbyists.
McCain tried to set the record straight at a recent press conference.
McCain: Hey guys.
Press: Hi John!
McCain: I have a statement and then I’ll take your questions. Most of you guys have been on my campaign bus, so you know I like straight-talk, not elitist twisting of the facts. Some liberal media outlets have reported that a vote for McCain is a vote for George W. Bush’s third term. That’s a lot of hogwash. John McCain has his own agenda for America. OK, that’s it, short and sweet. Fire away!
Press: Mr. McCain, what is your stance on taxes?
McCain: I stand firmly on the principle that taxes are bad. My position is simple: no new taxes on business or the American people, ever.
Press: Mr. McCain, by nearly every measure the economy is in rough shape. How do you plan to turn it around?
McCain: Frankly, I disagree with you. The fundamentals of our economy are strong. What we need to do is cut taxes. Taxes are killing us.
Press: No offense, sir, but thanks to the tax cuts enacted by the Bush Administration, corporate and individual tax rates are at historically low levels.
McCain: Listen, pal, if you disagree with me again I won’t let you on my campaign bus. No more free booze or cozy access to me and my staff for you. Read my lips: taxes are the problem. Cut taxes and the economy will take off like a cruise missile.
Press: Speaking of missiles, what are you planning to do about Iran?
McCain: Well, I was a military man and I know that we can’t let tyrants get hold of nuclear weapons. If Iran acts up, threatens its neighbors, Iran will pay the price. If Iran wants to test John McCain’s will, John McCain will not hesitate to respond.
Press: Given that the US is bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan, is it wise to confront Iran militarily?
McCain: What are you suggesting, that America cut and run? You sound like Senator Obama. Look, the only thing that Iran understands is force. We have to do whatever it takes to keep Iran from acquiring a nuclear device, and if that means military action, so be it.
Press: Switching subjects for a moment, health care is of great concern to the American people. What is your health policy?
McCain: Tax cuts and the free market. My opponent supports socialized medicine, I don’t. Next question?
Press: Mr. McCain, do you think the US can drill its way out of its energy problems or are renewable fuels like wind and solar power the answer?
McCain: We drill, we win our independence. What we need to do is provide tax incentives to oil companies for expanded exploration. The government should get out of the way of oil companies and let them do what they do best.
Press: Mr. McCain, best estimates by the oil industry itself is that the US only has 2% of the world’s oil reserves. If that’s correct, domestic exploration won’t come close to meeting the country’s needs.
McCain: I don’t buy it. Keep your engine tuned and your tires inflated. Stop talking like a defeatist.
Press: Major oil companies are making record profits. Why should the taxpayers subsidize expanded exploration by Exxon?
McCain: Because that’s how business gets done in America.
Press: Mr. McCain, you’ve surrounded yourself with advisors who trained under Karl Rove, and it has been widely reported that your campaign is taking the low road. How do you respond?
McCain: I don’t. John McCain lives on the high road. I’ve never taken the low road in my life. People who insinuate that my campaign is taking the low road are un-American and unpatriotic. I don’t surround myself with lobbyists, either. With John McCain you get straight-talk and a new direction for America.
Press: Gee, no offense Mr. McCain, but your positions sound positively Bush-like!
McCain: No beer for you!
McCain tried to set the record straight at a recent press conference.
McCain: Hey guys.
Press: Hi John!
McCain: I have a statement and then I’ll take your questions. Most of you guys have been on my campaign bus, so you know I like straight-talk, not elitist twisting of the facts. Some liberal media outlets have reported that a vote for McCain is a vote for George W. Bush’s third term. That’s a lot of hogwash. John McCain has his own agenda for America. OK, that’s it, short and sweet. Fire away!
Press: Mr. McCain, what is your stance on taxes?
McCain: I stand firmly on the principle that taxes are bad. My position is simple: no new taxes on business or the American people, ever.
Press: Mr. McCain, by nearly every measure the economy is in rough shape. How do you plan to turn it around?
McCain: Frankly, I disagree with you. The fundamentals of our economy are strong. What we need to do is cut taxes. Taxes are killing us.
Press: No offense, sir, but thanks to the tax cuts enacted by the Bush Administration, corporate and individual tax rates are at historically low levels.
McCain: Listen, pal, if you disagree with me again I won’t let you on my campaign bus. No more free booze or cozy access to me and my staff for you. Read my lips: taxes are the problem. Cut taxes and the economy will take off like a cruise missile.
Press: Speaking of missiles, what are you planning to do about Iran?
McCain: Well, I was a military man and I know that we can’t let tyrants get hold of nuclear weapons. If Iran acts up, threatens its neighbors, Iran will pay the price. If Iran wants to test John McCain’s will, John McCain will not hesitate to respond.
Press: Given that the US is bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan, is it wise to confront Iran militarily?
McCain: What are you suggesting, that America cut and run? You sound like Senator Obama. Look, the only thing that Iran understands is force. We have to do whatever it takes to keep Iran from acquiring a nuclear device, and if that means military action, so be it.
Press: Switching subjects for a moment, health care is of great concern to the American people. What is your health policy?
McCain: Tax cuts and the free market. My opponent supports socialized medicine, I don’t. Next question?
Press: Mr. McCain, do you think the US can drill its way out of its energy problems or are renewable fuels like wind and solar power the answer?
McCain: We drill, we win our independence. What we need to do is provide tax incentives to oil companies for expanded exploration. The government should get out of the way of oil companies and let them do what they do best.
Press: Mr. McCain, best estimates by the oil industry itself is that the US only has 2% of the world’s oil reserves. If that’s correct, domestic exploration won’t come close to meeting the country’s needs.
McCain: I don’t buy it. Keep your engine tuned and your tires inflated. Stop talking like a defeatist.
Press: Major oil companies are making record profits. Why should the taxpayers subsidize expanded exploration by Exxon?
McCain: Because that’s how business gets done in America.
Press: Mr. McCain, you’ve surrounded yourself with advisors who trained under Karl Rove, and it has been widely reported that your campaign is taking the low road. How do you respond?
McCain: I don’t. John McCain lives on the high road. I’ve never taken the low road in my life. People who insinuate that my campaign is taking the low road are un-American and unpatriotic. I don’t surround myself with lobbyists, either. With John McCain you get straight-talk and a new direction for America.
Press: Gee, no offense Mr. McCain, but your positions sound positively Bush-like!
McCain: No beer for you!
Saturday, August 09, 2008
Hot Dogs
Are these the dog days? Why do I see dogs sleeping on raised and rickety porches in the Deep South, where the heat and humidity melt asphalt? Strange visions in a strange time. For all I know it’s raining in Savannah and the dogs have taken shelter. Out here in the dry, dry west, one hundred miles north of Los Angeles, where the beautiful people come to relax and play, it’s another warm and beautiful evening. State Street, our shopping Mecca, is hopping and bopping as if the price of gas is $1.29 a gallon and home values are still in the stratosphere. The beautiful young have credit cards with available balances, and line up to buy Coach handbags, Juicy sweatpants, and $300 Versace sunglasses.
President Bush lectured the Chinese about human rights the other day, without a trace of irony, in fact, though everybody in the world knows that Bush is the great American jailer, sponsor of torture and an all-around despot. Bush lecturing anyone about human rights is like Darth Vader preaching non-violence. The Chinese know Bush lost all credibility long ago and that nobody pays any attention to him. Every time Bush appears in public and opens his mouth Republican Party bosses wince and hold their breath. “What drivel will the fool spew this time? Will he assert that the US is winning the war in Iraq? Will he say that the American economy is fine, just fine, humming like a top? Will he claim that global warming is a myth of the ‘liberal’ media?”
Bad times, dark days. Israel has the bomb and Iran wants the bomb and Bush doesn’t care how many innocent people die in a “pre-emptive” conflict to insure that Israel remains the Middle East’s sole nuclear power. Hell, do they even bother to count dead Iraqis anymore? Americans, yes -- Iraqis, who cares! Pile their dead bodies like cordwood and never mind the weather! The important story of the day is John Edwards and his love child!
I’m sad that Hunter S. Thompson is dead and gone -- we need his crazy energy more than ever. Hunter would stare down the barrel of the upcoming election and give us the deal without all the watered-down mainstream media “analysis.” Matt Lauer would give his left testicle for one-eighth of Hunter’s political acumen. We need Hunter to stride into his pasture at two a.m. with a loaded .357 Magnum and pump a round into a 55-gallon drum full of jet fuel; Hunter to snort coke and throw butter knives at his housekeeper; Hunter to rail against the death of freedom and the police state that America is in danger of becoming.
Ah, but Hunter’s drinking with the Gods and no one can fill his sneakers here on earth. We’re on our own with the plutocrats, Bush, the Chinese, and the sleeping dogs.
President Bush lectured the Chinese about human rights the other day, without a trace of irony, in fact, though everybody in the world knows that Bush is the great American jailer, sponsor of torture and an all-around despot. Bush lecturing anyone about human rights is like Darth Vader preaching non-violence. The Chinese know Bush lost all credibility long ago and that nobody pays any attention to him. Every time Bush appears in public and opens his mouth Republican Party bosses wince and hold their breath. “What drivel will the fool spew this time? Will he assert that the US is winning the war in Iraq? Will he say that the American economy is fine, just fine, humming like a top? Will he claim that global warming is a myth of the ‘liberal’ media?”
Bad times, dark days. Israel has the bomb and Iran wants the bomb and Bush doesn’t care how many innocent people die in a “pre-emptive” conflict to insure that Israel remains the Middle East’s sole nuclear power. Hell, do they even bother to count dead Iraqis anymore? Americans, yes -- Iraqis, who cares! Pile their dead bodies like cordwood and never mind the weather! The important story of the day is John Edwards and his love child!
I’m sad that Hunter S. Thompson is dead and gone -- we need his crazy energy more than ever. Hunter would stare down the barrel of the upcoming election and give us the deal without all the watered-down mainstream media “analysis.” Matt Lauer would give his left testicle for one-eighth of Hunter’s political acumen. We need Hunter to stride into his pasture at two a.m. with a loaded .357 Magnum and pump a round into a 55-gallon drum full of jet fuel; Hunter to snort coke and throw butter knives at his housekeeper; Hunter to rail against the death of freedom and the police state that America is in danger of becoming.
Ah, but Hunter’s drinking with the Gods and no one can fill his sneakers here on earth. We’re on our own with the plutocrats, Bush, the Chinese, and the sleeping dogs.
Sunday, August 03, 2008
Viva!
It’s Fiesta time in Santa Barbara and the city is geared up for brisk tourist business, catering to wide-eyed Europeans flush with cash, out-of-towners here to enjoy Flamenco dancing and overpriced tortas. Most locals head for the hills when Fiesta rolls around, or, if they stay in town, do no more than check out the happenings at Our Lady of Guadalupe church, where the scene feels organic and authentic and one isn’t likely to see many Caucasian guys wearing silly sombreros and shouting “Viva La Fiesta!”
Again this year, the “El Presidente” is a pudgy Caucasian fellow with a European surname.
Fiesta wasn’t always such a big production around here. True, the event has always had a commercial angle, though in the old days it wasn’t as crassly commercial as it is now, but then again, the entire U.S. economy grooves to a crassly commercial tune, twenty-four hours a day, so why should the good merchants of SB (most of them now upscale corporate chains) miss an opportunity to hawk their wares? If some German tourist is willing to lay down $10 for a watered-down house margarita, and $25 for an official Fiesta T-shirt, what’s the problem?
Our Spanish heritage is hailed without getting into the messy details of what the Spanish did to indigenous people during their reign. Instead of an imperial campaign for God, Gold, Guns, and Genocide, the arrival of the Spanish in SB is placed in a benevolent light during Fiesta; the Spanish were decent folk who came to spread the Good Word and bring civilization to the heathen. OK, maybe some Indians croaked laying adobe bricks for the Mission, but on the whole it was a worthwhile endeavor, right? Maybe a few Indians didn’t cotton to the new arrivals, didn’t appreciate their style, and made it a point to say so and were summarily beaten to a pulp, but that was the exception, not the rule, the work of some bad apples. Just like Abu Ghraib a few hundred years later, right?
But despite the commercialism and the historical myopia, it’s still sweet to see the kids in the parade, and the dancers who work so hard at their art. For a few days these events take our minds off the failed Occupation of Iraq, the crumbling economy, and the nastiness of the Presidential campaign.
So bring out the mariachis and let’s get our collective Viva on!
Again this year, the “El Presidente” is a pudgy Caucasian fellow with a European surname.
Fiesta wasn’t always such a big production around here. True, the event has always had a commercial angle, though in the old days it wasn’t as crassly commercial as it is now, but then again, the entire U.S. economy grooves to a crassly commercial tune, twenty-four hours a day, so why should the good merchants of SB (most of them now upscale corporate chains) miss an opportunity to hawk their wares? If some German tourist is willing to lay down $10 for a watered-down house margarita, and $25 for an official Fiesta T-shirt, what’s the problem?
Our Spanish heritage is hailed without getting into the messy details of what the Spanish did to indigenous people during their reign. Instead of an imperial campaign for God, Gold, Guns, and Genocide, the arrival of the Spanish in SB is placed in a benevolent light during Fiesta; the Spanish were decent folk who came to spread the Good Word and bring civilization to the heathen. OK, maybe some Indians croaked laying adobe bricks for the Mission, but on the whole it was a worthwhile endeavor, right? Maybe a few Indians didn’t cotton to the new arrivals, didn’t appreciate their style, and made it a point to say so and were summarily beaten to a pulp, but that was the exception, not the rule, the work of some bad apples. Just like Abu Ghraib a few hundred years later, right?
But despite the commercialism and the historical myopia, it’s still sweet to see the kids in the parade, and the dancers who work so hard at their art. For a few days these events take our minds off the failed Occupation of Iraq, the crumbling economy, and the nastiness of the Presidential campaign.
So bring out the mariachis and let’s get our collective Viva on!
Thursday, July 24, 2008
The Long Fall of Mighty Ford
Not many days ago there was a revelation in the massive board room of the Ford Motor Company.
The mood in the room was serious when the head honchos of finance, manufacturing, marketing and sales trooped in and took their seats. Black & white photos of Henry Ford stared down upon the execs, and there was disappointment in Henry’s unwavering gaze. “What have you morons done to my great company?” Henry seemed to say. “We ruled the world once, and now we can’t even hold our own in Michigan! We survived the Great Depression and World War II! Now the Japs and the Koreans are beating our brains out. I’m disgusted with you boys.”
The chairman didn’t look any happier when he arrived. Dispensing with the usual upbeat patter, he launched right in: “Our stock’s in the tank and we’re bleeding money like a hemophiliac. Americans aren’t buying SUV’s anymore. In fact, if our marketing people are right, the SUV, our stock-in-trade, our beloved cash cow, is dead as a dinosaur, croaked by $4 a gallon gas.”
A couple of executives burst into tears. Another cursed the Arabs. Someone else claimed the sudden spike in the price of gasoline was a plot hatched by Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. “The CIA should have killed that bastard. Isn’t that why we have a CIA – to take out the enemies of Big Business!”
“Actually,” the CFO said, “the CIA has outsourced the killing of foreign political enemies to Blackwater. According to the Wall Street Journal, it’s a growth industry with an almost unlimited upside.”
“Gentlemen,” the chairman said. “We can point fingers until the sun goes down but that’s not going to help us out of this mess. I love the Expedition as much as you do. The idea that three generations of a family or an entire little league team can travel comfortably together in one vehicle, each with his or her own cup holder, is quintessentially American. But, whether we like it or not, the world has changed. What we need now is a new idea.”
For a solid minute it was so quiet you could have heard a fly fart. The chairman waited for his brain trust to come up with something; Henry Ford waited.
The VP of Marketing spoke first. “What about bringing back a Ford classic, like, I don’t know, the Fairlane? Americans loved the Fairlane. We can create an entire campaign around a theme of nostalgia.”
“Most of the people who remember the Fairlane are dead or living in nursing homes,” the head of manufacturing said. “If I heard the chairman correctly, we’re looking for a new idea, something fresh, out-of-the-box, and by box I don’t think he’s referring to a coffin.”
Around the table heads nodded in agreement, although every man in the room would have given his left testicle to revive the Fairlane from the automobile museum. Or if not the Fairlane, the Falcon or the Galaxie or the Torino or the Ranchero. The past was sweet, predictable and comfortable; the future was bitter, unpredictable and anything but comfortable. The Indians and the Chinese were growing more powerful and uppity, testing nuclear weapons and hosting the Olympic Games, snapping up US Treasury bonds like the sky was the limit, asserting their new-found power at every opportunity and thumbing their noses at the US of A. What kind of world was it when Chinese communists beat American capitalists at their own game? A perverse and twisted world, that’s what.
Rising slowly to his feet, the VP of Sales said, “I know this will sound crazy, but what if we design and build a line of high-quality, fuel efficient cars.”
“We’ve already got the Focus line-up,” the VP of Manufacturing growled, “and nobody’s buying.”
“That’s because the Focus is shit,” someone said. “If I understand the concept here, we’re talking about taking Toyota and Honda on at their own game, about blowing the roof off fuel efficiency and really getting behind the whole hybrid deal.”
“Holy shit,” said the CFO. “I can’t believe what I’m hearing!”
“We do it in Europe,” the chairman said. “But the question is -- can we do it here? Are Americans ready for a sea-change at Ford Motor Company? Are we ready?”
“We’re about to become European,” the VP of Sales said, his voice laden with sadness.
“It’s the death of the great American road, the death of everything we hold near and dear, the death of life as we know it.”
Henry Ford glowered at them. “No shit, Sherlock. If you jackasses were worth all the money you’re making, you would have figured this out ten years ago and Ford wouldn’t be swimming in the piss hole with GM and Chrysler. There’s nothing worse than a businessman with no vision and no balls, except an entire nation that can’t read the writing on the wall even when it’s written in bright red ink.”
The mood in the room was serious when the head honchos of finance, manufacturing, marketing and sales trooped in and took their seats. Black & white photos of Henry Ford stared down upon the execs, and there was disappointment in Henry’s unwavering gaze. “What have you morons done to my great company?” Henry seemed to say. “We ruled the world once, and now we can’t even hold our own in Michigan! We survived the Great Depression and World War II! Now the Japs and the Koreans are beating our brains out. I’m disgusted with you boys.”
The chairman didn’t look any happier when he arrived. Dispensing with the usual upbeat patter, he launched right in: “Our stock’s in the tank and we’re bleeding money like a hemophiliac. Americans aren’t buying SUV’s anymore. In fact, if our marketing people are right, the SUV, our stock-in-trade, our beloved cash cow, is dead as a dinosaur, croaked by $4 a gallon gas.”
A couple of executives burst into tears. Another cursed the Arabs. Someone else claimed the sudden spike in the price of gasoline was a plot hatched by Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. “The CIA should have killed that bastard. Isn’t that why we have a CIA – to take out the enemies of Big Business!”
“Actually,” the CFO said, “the CIA has outsourced the killing of foreign political enemies to Blackwater. According to the Wall Street Journal, it’s a growth industry with an almost unlimited upside.”
“Gentlemen,” the chairman said. “We can point fingers until the sun goes down but that’s not going to help us out of this mess. I love the Expedition as much as you do. The idea that three generations of a family or an entire little league team can travel comfortably together in one vehicle, each with his or her own cup holder, is quintessentially American. But, whether we like it or not, the world has changed. What we need now is a new idea.”
For a solid minute it was so quiet you could have heard a fly fart. The chairman waited for his brain trust to come up with something; Henry Ford waited.
The VP of Marketing spoke first. “What about bringing back a Ford classic, like, I don’t know, the Fairlane? Americans loved the Fairlane. We can create an entire campaign around a theme of nostalgia.”
“Most of the people who remember the Fairlane are dead or living in nursing homes,” the head of manufacturing said. “If I heard the chairman correctly, we’re looking for a new idea, something fresh, out-of-the-box, and by box I don’t think he’s referring to a coffin.”
Around the table heads nodded in agreement, although every man in the room would have given his left testicle to revive the Fairlane from the automobile museum. Or if not the Fairlane, the Falcon or the Galaxie or the Torino or the Ranchero. The past was sweet, predictable and comfortable; the future was bitter, unpredictable and anything but comfortable. The Indians and the Chinese were growing more powerful and uppity, testing nuclear weapons and hosting the Olympic Games, snapping up US Treasury bonds like the sky was the limit, asserting their new-found power at every opportunity and thumbing their noses at the US of A. What kind of world was it when Chinese communists beat American capitalists at their own game? A perverse and twisted world, that’s what.
Rising slowly to his feet, the VP of Sales said, “I know this will sound crazy, but what if we design and build a line of high-quality, fuel efficient cars.”
“We’ve already got the Focus line-up,” the VP of Manufacturing growled, “and nobody’s buying.”
“That’s because the Focus is shit,” someone said. “If I understand the concept here, we’re talking about taking Toyota and Honda on at their own game, about blowing the roof off fuel efficiency and really getting behind the whole hybrid deal.”
“Holy shit,” said the CFO. “I can’t believe what I’m hearing!”
“We do it in Europe,” the chairman said. “But the question is -- can we do it here? Are Americans ready for a sea-change at Ford Motor Company? Are we ready?”
“We’re about to become European,” the VP of Sales said, his voice laden with sadness.
“It’s the death of the great American road, the death of everything we hold near and dear, the death of life as we know it.”
Henry Ford glowered at them. “No shit, Sherlock. If you jackasses were worth all the money you’re making, you would have figured this out ten years ago and Ford wouldn’t be swimming in the piss hole with GM and Chrysler. There’s nothing worse than a businessman with no vision and no balls, except an entire nation that can’t read the writing on the wall even when it’s written in bright red ink.”
Saturday, July 19, 2008
I Believe the World is Flat...I Believe...I Believe...
Which is more shocking, the hypocrisy of Wall Street bankers or the stupidity of our President?
When the good money is rolling in furiously and in amounts almost impossible to count, Wall Street types have no use for government regulation or oversight. It’s only when the bankers’ relentless greed turns south that they run to Daddy Fed with both arms extended. What a contrast to the distaste most banker-types feel for aid for displaced workers, single mothers, and people with mental problems; those folks must fend for themselves in order to build “self-reliance.” Heaven forbid the poor become dependent on taxpayer assistance!
Large-scale corporate welfare is hardly unusual, though government rescue of Big Business is always cloaked in the guise of keeping the economic system functioning for the good of the “nation.” We’re assured that a taxpayer bail-out is in the best interests of average people living in average towns, but we know better, don’t we?
If tough love and zero tolerance for failure are good enough for Average Jane, why isn’t it good enough for Bear Stearns or Indy Mac? What happened to all the happy talk about the self-regulating free market? Isn’t the All-Knowing Market God supposed to weed out the weak, the corrupt, and the inefficient?
Hypocrisy isn’t pretty and it can’t be papered over forever. Even a people as monumentally distracted as Americans will sooner or later see the beacon of truth shining through the fog.
Ah, and then there’s George W. Bush, our man-child Prez. What can you say about a man who is so out of touch with reality? You know we’re in deep doo-doo when our energy policy boils down to a bad Dr. Phil imitation: “By golly, if we want to lower gasoline prices we’ve got to change people’s psychology. We’ve got to drill and pump and refine – in the most environmentally friendly ways, of course – even though that won’t do a thing to lower the price of gas. But people’s psychology will be changed – and that’s what’s most important. Hee, hee, hee. Yessir!”
Is Bush serious? Change the psychology by drilling for crude that -- even if found and extracted -- will not be brought to market soon enough or in enough volume to alter the price at the pump by a penny? This is Bush’s plan to deal with the cold fact that Americans have lived beyond our energy means for decades? (Are you old enough, dear reader, to remember the political whupping Jimmy Carter took for calling the energy crisis of the late 70’s the “moral equivalent of war”?)
The Georgia peanut farmer must be laughing now.
On that beautiful day when W exits the White House for the final time, never, under any circumstances, to be invited back, Barack Obama will need a gaggle of shamans, Tibetan holy men, Buddhist monks, rabbis, and magicians, to cleanse Bush’s evil stench from the walls, carpets and furniture. It will be like trying to clean a cheap Hollywood SRO hotel room after the fire department carts the body of a chain smoker to the morgue. Obama’s team will need sage sticks the size of telephone poles to rid the White House of Bush’s essence.
When the story of George W. Bush is finally written it will be short and to the point: he failed at everything he attempted, and everything he touched turned to shit.
Amen.
When the good money is rolling in furiously and in amounts almost impossible to count, Wall Street types have no use for government regulation or oversight. It’s only when the bankers’ relentless greed turns south that they run to Daddy Fed with both arms extended. What a contrast to the distaste most banker-types feel for aid for displaced workers, single mothers, and people with mental problems; those folks must fend for themselves in order to build “self-reliance.” Heaven forbid the poor become dependent on taxpayer assistance!
Large-scale corporate welfare is hardly unusual, though government rescue of Big Business is always cloaked in the guise of keeping the economic system functioning for the good of the “nation.” We’re assured that a taxpayer bail-out is in the best interests of average people living in average towns, but we know better, don’t we?
If tough love and zero tolerance for failure are good enough for Average Jane, why isn’t it good enough for Bear Stearns or Indy Mac? What happened to all the happy talk about the self-regulating free market? Isn’t the All-Knowing Market God supposed to weed out the weak, the corrupt, and the inefficient?
Hypocrisy isn’t pretty and it can’t be papered over forever. Even a people as monumentally distracted as Americans will sooner or later see the beacon of truth shining through the fog.
Ah, and then there’s George W. Bush, our man-child Prez. What can you say about a man who is so out of touch with reality? You know we’re in deep doo-doo when our energy policy boils down to a bad Dr. Phil imitation: “By golly, if we want to lower gasoline prices we’ve got to change people’s psychology. We’ve got to drill and pump and refine – in the most environmentally friendly ways, of course – even though that won’t do a thing to lower the price of gas. But people’s psychology will be changed – and that’s what’s most important. Hee, hee, hee. Yessir!”
Is Bush serious? Change the psychology by drilling for crude that -- even if found and extracted -- will not be brought to market soon enough or in enough volume to alter the price at the pump by a penny? This is Bush’s plan to deal with the cold fact that Americans have lived beyond our energy means for decades? (Are you old enough, dear reader, to remember the political whupping Jimmy Carter took for calling the energy crisis of the late 70’s the “moral equivalent of war”?)
The Georgia peanut farmer must be laughing now.
On that beautiful day when W exits the White House for the final time, never, under any circumstances, to be invited back, Barack Obama will need a gaggle of shamans, Tibetan holy men, Buddhist monks, rabbis, and magicians, to cleanse Bush’s evil stench from the walls, carpets and furniture. It will be like trying to clean a cheap Hollywood SRO hotel room after the fire department carts the body of a chain smoker to the morgue. Obama’s team will need sage sticks the size of telephone poles to rid the White House of Bush’s essence.
When the story of George W. Bush is finally written it will be short and to the point: he failed at everything he attempted, and everything he touched turned to shit.
Amen.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Our Never-Ending Search for the Easy Way Out
This week I’ve been thinking about sacrifice and what it means to sacrifice today for a better tomorrow. Among the many ideals Americans have lost sight of during the past thirty years of conservative ideological hegemony is the idea of shared sacrifice. What has become of our willingness to sacrifice? Have we become so politically polarized that we cannot agree that anything is worthy of our collective sacrifice?
Our President would have us believe that we can invade and occupy a foreign country without a shred of national sacrifice – no draft, no rationing, no war bonds – nothing, except a mind-boggling bill that will be dropped on the doorstep of future generations.
The conservative, free-market mythology that has prevailed in our country for the past thirty years tells us that we can have low taxes – especially for the wealthiest among us – and still enjoy good roads and highways, well-tended parks, excellent schools, ready and able police and fire protection, and other services that government provides to make life better for all citizens.
Sacrifice entails effort and effort entails sweat, discomfort, even pain. Overweight? Don’t sweat on the treadmill, just swallow this magic diet pill, chock full of sacred herbs from Borneo. Bothered by love handles or cellulite or sagging eyelids? No problem, step right up and let your friendly cosmetic surgeon slice and dice your cares away. Yellow teeth? Thinning hair? Piece of cake, we can fix that. Will that be VISA or Mastercard?
Want to get in on the housing boom but find yourself short of cash? Don’t scrimp and save. Step right up and let me tell you about the magic of sub-prime loans and Collateralized Debt Obligations.
Yes, oil is a finite resource but you’re an American and that gives you the right to drive a behemoth SUV that takes up two parking spaces at the mall and burns more gas in a month than a Peruvian peasant uses in a year. Americans are special and Peruvians are just, well, Peruvians!
Corporations feel no responsibility to sacrifice a dime’s profit so that workers can share in the bounty they produce, just as the wealthiest Americans feel no responsibility to sacrifice some of their coin for the less fortunate. The rulebook has been re-written so that no such sacrifice is required of corporations or the wealthy.
After 9/11, when President Bush was talking like a whiskey-addled cowboy about bringing terrorists and evildoers to justice, the late Susan Sontag wrote that the Administration’s rhetoric was infantile. The mainstream press went after Sontag hammer and tongs, but the truth is that Sontag was right then -- and seven years later Americans are still being addressed like spoiled children. As every parent knows, children demand that the world conform to their whims and wishes, not the other way around.
Instead of accepting that idea that high gas prices are probably here to stay – and adjusting our driving habits, vehicle choices and lifestyles (making a sacrifice, in other words) – our politicians insist that all we need is more domestic exploration or a gas-tax “holiday.” Instead of accepting that Americans use more energy than any other people in the world, we are encouraged to continue consuming more than our share of resources, but to look for the “green” label or the most ecologically friendly packaging.
Like the spoiled child, we want what we want when we want it.
Many years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King said that when profit motives and property rights become more important than the needs of people, the triple-headed evil of racism, extreme materialism and militarism cannot be conquered. Look around and you’ll see that Dr. King was on to the truth.
Our President would have us believe that we can invade and occupy a foreign country without a shred of national sacrifice – no draft, no rationing, no war bonds – nothing, except a mind-boggling bill that will be dropped on the doorstep of future generations.
The conservative, free-market mythology that has prevailed in our country for the past thirty years tells us that we can have low taxes – especially for the wealthiest among us – and still enjoy good roads and highways, well-tended parks, excellent schools, ready and able police and fire protection, and other services that government provides to make life better for all citizens.
Sacrifice entails effort and effort entails sweat, discomfort, even pain. Overweight? Don’t sweat on the treadmill, just swallow this magic diet pill, chock full of sacred herbs from Borneo. Bothered by love handles or cellulite or sagging eyelids? No problem, step right up and let your friendly cosmetic surgeon slice and dice your cares away. Yellow teeth? Thinning hair? Piece of cake, we can fix that. Will that be VISA or Mastercard?
Want to get in on the housing boom but find yourself short of cash? Don’t scrimp and save. Step right up and let me tell you about the magic of sub-prime loans and Collateralized Debt Obligations.
Yes, oil is a finite resource but you’re an American and that gives you the right to drive a behemoth SUV that takes up two parking spaces at the mall and burns more gas in a month than a Peruvian peasant uses in a year. Americans are special and Peruvians are just, well, Peruvians!
Corporations feel no responsibility to sacrifice a dime’s profit so that workers can share in the bounty they produce, just as the wealthiest Americans feel no responsibility to sacrifice some of their coin for the less fortunate. The rulebook has been re-written so that no such sacrifice is required of corporations or the wealthy.
After 9/11, when President Bush was talking like a whiskey-addled cowboy about bringing terrorists and evildoers to justice, the late Susan Sontag wrote that the Administration’s rhetoric was infantile. The mainstream press went after Sontag hammer and tongs, but the truth is that Sontag was right then -- and seven years later Americans are still being addressed like spoiled children. As every parent knows, children demand that the world conform to their whims and wishes, not the other way around.
Instead of accepting that idea that high gas prices are probably here to stay – and adjusting our driving habits, vehicle choices and lifestyles (making a sacrifice, in other words) – our politicians insist that all we need is more domestic exploration or a gas-tax “holiday.” Instead of accepting that Americans use more energy than any other people in the world, we are encouraged to continue consuming more than our share of resources, but to look for the “green” label or the most ecologically friendly packaging.
Like the spoiled child, we want what we want when we want it.
Many years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King said that when profit motives and property rights become more important than the needs of people, the triple-headed evil of racism, extreme materialism and militarism cannot be conquered. Look around and you’ll see that Dr. King was on to the truth.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
My Laundry List of Hopes
The Obama Campaign machine sent me a letter the other day, appealing for a donation. That’s Ok, my name is on a lot of mailing lists, though if I receive even one solicitation from John McCain, I’ll be insulted.
So much hype, hoopla and trivial information has surrounded Barack Obama that it’s hard to get to what the man stands for. Is he a closet Muslim? Does he take policy direction from Jeremiah Wright? Will he find a place in an Obama administration for Hillary Clinton?
The Progressive community, small though it is, holds its breath and hopes that Obama will not drift further toward the bland, safe center, but the closer the general election gets the more Obama will be forced to move in that direction. Obama wants to get elected, so he’s not going to propose anything that might disturb the powers-that-be. He can speak eloquently about improving the lot of American workers, but not to the extent that he upsets Wall Street financiers; he can speak sensibly about talking with leaders from nations who oppose the United States, but in the next breath he’ll rattle the saber to ward off criticism that he’s soft on evil-doers; he can speak about a new brand of politics, but again, he can only go so far.
Obama has tapped into the desire of Americans for something different from the disastrous Bush-Cheney regime. I share that desire but my expectations for meaningful change are low. I hope the concerns of people who struggle every day to feed their families and gain a modicum of economic security will be raised to at least equal status with the aims of investors for maximum profits. I hope for a national realization that our current energy policy is a failure; we can punch holes in the crust of the planet under American control until the cows come home, but we’ll never bring enough oil on line to make a difference, and the sooner we realize that the better off we’ll be. I hope for a sensible policy on immigration, a removal of legal and physical barriers that have no chance of working. Most of all, I hope for a return of respect for law and a balance of power between our three branches of government.
That’s a lot to hope for. Obama claims he can deliver if enough people send his campaign a check. I haven’t taken that step yet, though I probably will. A McCain presidency is inconceivable to me, though I never thought American voters would re-elect George W. Bush in 2004 and won’t be surprised if McCain’s fear-based politics carry the day this November. That’s a depressing thought, not to mention a dark commentary on the American electorate.
So much hype, hoopla and trivial information has surrounded Barack Obama that it’s hard to get to what the man stands for. Is he a closet Muslim? Does he take policy direction from Jeremiah Wright? Will he find a place in an Obama administration for Hillary Clinton?
The Progressive community, small though it is, holds its breath and hopes that Obama will not drift further toward the bland, safe center, but the closer the general election gets the more Obama will be forced to move in that direction. Obama wants to get elected, so he’s not going to propose anything that might disturb the powers-that-be. He can speak eloquently about improving the lot of American workers, but not to the extent that he upsets Wall Street financiers; he can speak sensibly about talking with leaders from nations who oppose the United States, but in the next breath he’ll rattle the saber to ward off criticism that he’s soft on evil-doers; he can speak about a new brand of politics, but again, he can only go so far.
Obama has tapped into the desire of Americans for something different from the disastrous Bush-Cheney regime. I share that desire but my expectations for meaningful change are low. I hope the concerns of people who struggle every day to feed their families and gain a modicum of economic security will be raised to at least equal status with the aims of investors for maximum profits. I hope for a national realization that our current energy policy is a failure; we can punch holes in the crust of the planet under American control until the cows come home, but we’ll never bring enough oil on line to make a difference, and the sooner we realize that the better off we’ll be. I hope for a sensible policy on immigration, a removal of legal and physical barriers that have no chance of working. Most of all, I hope for a return of respect for law and a balance of power between our three branches of government.
That’s a lot to hope for. Obama claims he can deliver if enough people send his campaign a check. I haven’t taken that step yet, though I probably will. A McCain presidency is inconceivable to me, though I never thought American voters would re-elect George W. Bush in 2004 and won’t be surprised if McCain’s fear-based politics carry the day this November. That’s a depressing thought, not to mention a dark commentary on the American electorate.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Nutcases
Full disclosure: I’ve never watched more than a snippet of Bill O’Reilly’s cable news program, The O’Reilly Factor. Fox is a channel I skip past on those rare occasions when I have sovereignty over the remote control. I’m one of those people who believe that Fox epitomizes all that is wrong with the corporate-dominated American news media.
Last weekend in Minneapolis, 3,500 other folks who share my belief gathered at the National Conference for Media Reform, a group spurred into being a few years ago by Robert McChesney and John Nichols – names most Americans have never heard of – a fact which illustrates one problem with the American media.
Conference attendees heard from Amy Goodman, Phil Donahue, Naomi Klein and keynote speaker, Bill Moyers. That’s a fairly impressive line-up of people, particularly Bill Moyers, who has been one of the most thoughtful voices in American television for almost half a century. While it’s true that all these folks lean left politically, they share in common the belief that a free, independent news media is essential for a healthy Democracy, and a deep concern that the American media has moved in the opposite direction as a result of corporate consolidation and Federal Communications Commission policy.
Along comes the O’Reilly Factor in the person of the show’s producer, Porter Barry, who ambushed Bill Moyers in a corridor and badgered him to appear on Mr. O’Reilly’s show. An onlooker had the presence of mind to record this verbal mugging. I heard it on KPFK. The piece was introduced with a clip from the O’Reilly Factor in which Mr. O’Reilly ridiculed the Media Reform Conference in general and its participants in particular, calling them all “far-left nutcases” or words to that effect.
Think about that for a minute: nutcases for believing that a Democracy cannot flourish without a free, independent media that challenges the powers-that-be and the status quo? nutcases for asserting that the American people were ill-served in the run-up to the Iraq invasion by a media machine that echoed power rather than confronting power? nutcases for advocating for reform of a system of ownership and control that can no longer be said to serve the people?
If so, count me among the nuts.
Does Bill O’Reilly honestly believe that the American news media does a good job of informing the people, or of using the publicly owned airwaves in the best interests of the people? When O’Reilly looks across the media landscape does he see diversity of opinion? Does he hear reasoned debate that elevates people’s understanding of the critical issues we face?
I wonder what he sees and hears.
The American news media is remarkable, not for the information it illuminates but for the stories and events it keeps in the dark, for the stories it highlights and those it downplays. You can bet the American Occupation of Iraq looks different in Britain or France or Spain than it does here.
Unlike Bill Moyers, Bill O’Reilly is not a journalist – he’s a propagandist for a point of view that has made him wealthy, powerful and largely untouchable. The powerful and privileged never give up their perquisites without a fight, so it’s understandable that O’Reilly would dismiss any movement for reform as “Liberal” or “Leftist” nonsense rather than confronting the issue with intellectual rigor or honesty.
And Bill Moyers never resorted to ridiculing his guests. Moyers even lets his guests speak.
Sunday, June 08, 2008
The Graveyard of Empires
Why is the U.S. in Iraq? Most thinking citizens realize that the Bush Administration misled the nation into a pre-emptive war based on bogus information and an aggressive PR campaign that used ex-military officers and a compliant, negligent news media to push the case for invasion.
As the situation on the ground in Iraq changed, when it became clear that the Iraqis did not want us in their country, our rationale for the invasion changed from finding WMD to spreading Democracy to rooting out terrorists.
For the record: we found no WMD; discovered that freedom and Democracy cannot be imposed on another country, particularly one lacking a tradition of political freedom; and created chaotic conditions that will undoubtedly produce more terrorists, not less.
Yet, like empires before us, we persist in thinking that our will can be imposed on Iraq, that we can coerce a weak, fragmented Iraqi government to sign a security pact with the U.S. that will allow U.S. bases in the country in perpetuity, and secure the grandest prize of all – exclusive access to Iraqi oil for multinational energy companies.
I was listening to a lecture by a professor of classics a few days ago and perked up when he said that through the ages the Middle East has been the crucible of conflict and the graveyard of empires. Americans don’t like to think of their country as an imperial power with an empire; we shy from linking the freedom and Democracy-loving US of A with the Romans, the Ottomans or the British, but the fact is that America often imposes its will, its culture and its values on other nations by force – economic, political and military. We need to believe that America only wages war when it’s absolutely necessary, and that other, less enlightened nations, choose to start wars.
But we made the choice for the world to witness, and no matter how President Bush or John McCain or the mouthpieces on Fox News spin the truth, the consequences have been disastrous. The Occupation of Iraq is a military, political and moral failure, and a humanitarian nightmare. When American politicians or generals talk about “Victory” in Iraq it’s obvious they have little idea what victory looks like. The corporate-controlled U.S. news media may ignore what’s happening in Iraq in favor of the latest celebrity gossip, but ignoring what we have wrought will not make it go away.
I read somewhere that the U.S. seeks as many as 50 permanent military facilities in Iraq. I wonder about the proximity of those military bases to oil fields or distribution facilities and major highways. When we slice through the rhetoric and the distortions and the bluster, one fact stands clear and alone: multi-national energy companies want to use the taxpayer-supported U.S. military as a security force for their private investments.
Access to Iraqi oil was, and remains, the ultimate objective of this war-of-choice.
Monday, June 02, 2008
Bring on the Rabbi
Just when you think the Presidential primary season can’t get any sillier, along comes another story about a holy friend of Barack Obama, this time a Catholic priest who mocked Hillary Clinton while speaking at a church Obama frequents. Who’s next, a deranged rabbi or a Hare Krishna?
The Clinton camp took offense, of course, and Obama issued the standard apology (and then went so far as to quit the church altogether) while the mainstream media speculated breathlessly about what this latest flap might do to Obama’s chances to clinch the Democratic nomination.
Sweet Jesus, have all the nitwits at ABC and NBC swallowed stupid pills? Why is Barack Obama constantly being held accountable for statements made by other people? People not connected to his campaign? With all the critical issues in play in this election, why is the media so concerned with what people around Barack Obama say? Those folks are not running for president. If we’re going to lower the bar to ground level, why not interview Obama’s barber, his dentist, and his auto mechanic? Let’s find out if Obama has ever stiffed a waitress or left the toilet seat up. Let’s interview Obama’s trash hauler and find out if the Senator separates his recyclable trash from his kitchen waste.
Barack Obama can’t control what comes from the mouths of friends and associates, and in any case those folks are entitled to their opinion – no matter how inaccurate, indecent, or inappropriate. If the priest had called for Hillary Clinton to be strapped behind a Chevy Suburban and dragged through the streets of Chicago, OK, then all this teeth-gnashing and hand-wringing would be appropriate. But what’s wrong with saying that Hillary feels entitled to the Democratic nomination and her old bedroom in the White House? Entitlement oozes from the woman.
Bill and Hillary Clinton have some questionable acquaintances and a well-documented history of ethical two-stepping. John McCain’s inner circle includes a number of high-powered DC lobbyists with ties to dictators. If we’re going to judge our political candidates by the company they keep, let’s at least judge them all by the same criteria. And then let’s seal them all in a plastic bubble – for their own good, and ours.
The Clinton camp took offense, of course, and Obama issued the standard apology (and then went so far as to quit the church altogether) while the mainstream media speculated breathlessly about what this latest flap might do to Obama’s chances to clinch the Democratic nomination.
Sweet Jesus, have all the nitwits at ABC and NBC swallowed stupid pills? Why is Barack Obama constantly being held accountable for statements made by other people? People not connected to his campaign? With all the critical issues in play in this election, why is the media so concerned with what people around Barack Obama say? Those folks are not running for president. If we’re going to lower the bar to ground level, why not interview Obama’s barber, his dentist, and his auto mechanic? Let’s find out if Obama has ever stiffed a waitress or left the toilet seat up. Let’s interview Obama’s trash hauler and find out if the Senator separates his recyclable trash from his kitchen waste.
Barack Obama can’t control what comes from the mouths of friends and associates, and in any case those folks are entitled to their opinion – no matter how inaccurate, indecent, or inappropriate. If the priest had called for Hillary Clinton to be strapped behind a Chevy Suburban and dragged through the streets of Chicago, OK, then all this teeth-gnashing and hand-wringing would be appropriate. But what’s wrong with saying that Hillary feels entitled to the Democratic nomination and her old bedroom in the White House? Entitlement oozes from the woman.
Bill and Hillary Clinton have some questionable acquaintances and a well-documented history of ethical two-stepping. John McCain’s inner circle includes a number of high-powered DC lobbyists with ties to dictators. If we’re going to judge our political candidates by the company they keep, let’s at least judge them all by the same criteria. And then let’s seal them all in a plastic bubble – for their own good, and ours.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
It's the Little Things
Another weird week or two on the political front. John McCain is apparently fit as a fiddle and physically up to the challenge of a run for the White House. McCain has also cleaned his campaign house, repudiating endorsements from a couple of whack-job evangelical types; he’s still surrounded by a posse of ethically challenged advisors, fine gentlemen who lobbied for the dictators of Myanmar, among others. McCain insists that he’s clean as a hounds tooth despite being surrounded by slime balls.
Hillary Clinton refuses to believe that her campaign is toast. It’s inconceivable to Hillary that voters actually prefer Barack Obama over her. Hillary gamely soldiers on, putting a resolute face on her non-existent chances, playing up her recent primary victories, and insisting, even in the face of overwhelming evidence, that she is the Democrat who can win in November.
Bill Clinton recently made a bizarre statement out on the campaign trial, asserting that the real divide in America is not class or race, but the arrogance of people like Barack Obama. Statements like that from the Clinton camp underscore their desperation. Bill might find it helpful to conduct a quick unscientific poll of average, working-class Americans to see if they are really worried about smart people or about the high cost of gasoline, food, medical care, education, housing, cable TV, and the insane Occupation we refuse to abandon in Iraq.
Meanwhile, the airwaves are full of right-wing nutcases who thunder about the dangers of illegal immigration and how poor Mexicans, Guatemalans and Salvadorans are swarming the border and undermining the American Way of Life, stealing babies from suburban homes, spreading diseases, taking jobs from Americans, and overwhelming hospital emergency rooms. It’s nothing more than shameful fear-mongering, but you can bet it will sway a fair number of voters in November. Because he has nothing to run on except Fear, McCain will pander to this extreme notion and promise to lynch any brown-skinned person with the temerity to cross the border without proper papers.
According to the nut-job Right, Muslims want to do us in from without and Mexicans want to do us in from within. Our task is not to understand these people – our task is to stomp them beneath our iron heel. Crazy times breed crazy notions. Truth, reason and verifiable facts take a beating in a climate of fear. Nobody on the far Right ever asks why Mexicans are compelled to leave their homes and risk everything they have, including their lives, to come north and do the low-wage, dangerous shitwork that Americans are unwilling to do. You can’t expect Bill O’Reilly or Lou Dobbs to examine the nexus between NAFTA and illegal immigration. No, no, these fellows have more important things to do than exercise their intellect. It’s so much easier to spout wild generalizations about savage illegal immigrants.
On the bright side, the Reign of Bush is winding down and the man hasn’t started a war with Iran yet.
It’s the little things we need to be thankful for.
Hillary Clinton refuses to believe that her campaign is toast. It’s inconceivable to Hillary that voters actually prefer Barack Obama over her. Hillary gamely soldiers on, putting a resolute face on her non-existent chances, playing up her recent primary victories, and insisting, even in the face of overwhelming evidence, that she is the Democrat who can win in November.
Bill Clinton recently made a bizarre statement out on the campaign trial, asserting that the real divide in America is not class or race, but the arrogance of people like Barack Obama. Statements like that from the Clinton camp underscore their desperation. Bill might find it helpful to conduct a quick unscientific poll of average, working-class Americans to see if they are really worried about smart people or about the high cost of gasoline, food, medical care, education, housing, cable TV, and the insane Occupation we refuse to abandon in Iraq.
Meanwhile, the airwaves are full of right-wing nutcases who thunder about the dangers of illegal immigration and how poor Mexicans, Guatemalans and Salvadorans are swarming the border and undermining the American Way of Life, stealing babies from suburban homes, spreading diseases, taking jobs from Americans, and overwhelming hospital emergency rooms. It’s nothing more than shameful fear-mongering, but you can bet it will sway a fair number of voters in November. Because he has nothing to run on except Fear, McCain will pander to this extreme notion and promise to lynch any brown-skinned person with the temerity to cross the border without proper papers.
According to the nut-job Right, Muslims want to do us in from without and Mexicans want to do us in from within. Our task is not to understand these people – our task is to stomp them beneath our iron heel. Crazy times breed crazy notions. Truth, reason and verifiable facts take a beating in a climate of fear. Nobody on the far Right ever asks why Mexicans are compelled to leave their homes and risk everything they have, including their lives, to come north and do the low-wage, dangerous shitwork that Americans are unwilling to do. You can’t expect Bill O’Reilly or Lou Dobbs to examine the nexus between NAFTA and illegal immigration. No, no, these fellows have more important things to do than exercise their intellect. It’s so much easier to spout wild generalizations about savage illegal immigrants.
On the bright side, the Reign of Bush is winding down and the man hasn’t started a war with Iran yet.
It’s the little things we need to be thankful for.
Thursday, May 08, 2008
The Big Disconnect
The New York Times is considered our “paper of record,” an authoritative source for news, information and opinion on life in these United States at this point in history. A few days ago in its on-line edition the Times ran this headline: WALL ST. STARTS TO SEE SIGNS OF A TURNAROUND.
With thousands of citizens in danger of losing their homes, individuals and small business owners suffering from sky-high fuel costs, health care a luxury millions of Americans cannot afford, our paper of record leads with a story about how Wall Street is faring, as if what happens on Wall Street is in any way connected to the reality of hard times in Portland, Oregon, Durango, Colorado or Chicago, Illinois.
Below the headline was this tidbit: “For ExxonMobil, $10.9 billion profit disappoints.” While average Americans struggle to make ends meet with rising costs and flat wages, ExxonMobil is unhappy about its $10.9 billion profit.
Meanwhile, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton argue about which of them has shadier friends or who is more patriotic; not to be outdone, John McCain is trying to sell Americans the idea that a tax break to buy a health insurance policy is the same thing as health care. John McCain’s blind faith in the “free market” is a subject for another day, though if McCain’s faith doesn’t sound eerily familiar and absolutely chilling, you haven’t been paying attention.
Wall Street may see golden light at the end of the tunnel, but directly below the headline in the Times was another: “Consumer Spending Stagnates as Prices Rise.” Consumers are in the deep end, up to their ears in debt, unable to buy stuff, which is a problem since our economy is based on ever-rising consumption of goods and services. But here’s the conundrum the cheerleaders for current economic arrangements seldom mention: how are consumers supposed to continue consuming if their wages remain flat?
Hard times coming. Hard times already here. If you work for wages, you don’t need to be reminded that it’s getting harder and harder to make ends meet.
What does it say about America’s economy when the Investor Class sees daylight and working people see darkness? Do you get the feeling that there’s a Big Disconnect in our society, a decoupling of public and corporate interest, of individual freedom and social responsibility, of individual good and common good?
Turn off your TV, put your computer to sleep, take off the iPod, power down your phone, and listen. Do you hear the sound of paper being torn, ripped, shredded? That’s the last page or two of the social contract being destroyed. The brainchild of FDR, who believed that no American should struggle for the necessities of bare survival, the social contract came into being after World War II. The contract was Business and Labor agreeing that when workers produced they should share in the profits; the contract implied that there was dignity in work and that working people deserved a fair shot at dignity; the contract was a shared belief that the next generation would do better and have even more opportunity than the current generation.
Gone. That in the midst of these worrisome economic times the New York Times chooses to report on Wall Street illustrates how difficult it is to have a real conversation about our economy – not only who it works for, but who it doesn’t, and why. In real, inflation-adjusted terms, the wages of working Americans have been flat for thirty years, but when was the last time you saw a news story about that? American families are working full tilt – not to get ahead, but just to hold their place. Seen any stories in the major media about that? The political buying power of corporations and their lobbyists is so pervasive that they have driven wages down, exported manufacturing jobs to countries where workers are more easily exploited, eliminated health insurance, dumped pension obligations and gutted regulatory bodies, all of which is great for investors, price per share, and lavish executive compensation, but a death sentence for workers.
Think about it. Big Business controls the media and therefore has the power to shape, frame, spotlight and filter the information we see and hear. In the middle of presidential primaries in a watershed election year, we get endless takes on the words and deeds of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright; not that America doesn’t need to hold a national conversation about race relations, we do, desperately, but that’s not what’s happening in news coverage of Reverend Wright. Big Media sets the story line, and no deviation from the script is allowed.
I don’t know if Americans can ever return to a shared social contract that takes into account the idea that human beings have needs other than economic needs. The conservative, free-market, ownership society, you’re-on-your-own ideology that has prevailed for the past three decades has turned us into anxious economic animals, constantly running to hold our place, working two jobs to earn the wage that one job once provided; constantly worried about whether we can afford health care or if we can afford to educate our kids or retire with enough financial wherewithal to live with dignity and give something back to our families and communities. The power arrayed against that happening is daunting.
But for the millions of us who believe that human life is about more than chasing a dollar or a euro, we have an obligation to stand against the prevailing power structure – to question it, to demand answers from it, to use moral persuasion to make it listen to our legitimate concerns. That’s Democracy. Dissent is a patriotic, creative act. As Dr. King said, “There is never a time in our American democracy that we must ever think we’re wrong when we protest. We reserve that right.”
It’s past time for America to reconnect with its basic values, just as it’s past time for working Americans to say, loud and often, enough is enough.
With thousands of citizens in danger of losing their homes, individuals and small business owners suffering from sky-high fuel costs, health care a luxury millions of Americans cannot afford, our paper of record leads with a story about how Wall Street is faring, as if what happens on Wall Street is in any way connected to the reality of hard times in Portland, Oregon, Durango, Colorado or Chicago, Illinois.
Below the headline was this tidbit: “For ExxonMobil, $10.9 billion profit disappoints.” While average Americans struggle to make ends meet with rising costs and flat wages, ExxonMobil is unhappy about its $10.9 billion profit.
Meanwhile, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton argue about which of them has shadier friends or who is more patriotic; not to be outdone, John McCain is trying to sell Americans the idea that a tax break to buy a health insurance policy is the same thing as health care. John McCain’s blind faith in the “free market” is a subject for another day, though if McCain’s faith doesn’t sound eerily familiar and absolutely chilling, you haven’t been paying attention.
Wall Street may see golden light at the end of the tunnel, but directly below the headline in the Times was another: “Consumer Spending Stagnates as Prices Rise.” Consumers are in the deep end, up to their ears in debt, unable to buy stuff, which is a problem since our economy is based on ever-rising consumption of goods and services. But here’s the conundrum the cheerleaders for current economic arrangements seldom mention: how are consumers supposed to continue consuming if their wages remain flat?
Hard times coming. Hard times already here. If you work for wages, you don’t need to be reminded that it’s getting harder and harder to make ends meet.
What does it say about America’s economy when the Investor Class sees daylight and working people see darkness? Do you get the feeling that there’s a Big Disconnect in our society, a decoupling of public and corporate interest, of individual freedom and social responsibility, of individual good and common good?
Turn off your TV, put your computer to sleep, take off the iPod, power down your phone, and listen. Do you hear the sound of paper being torn, ripped, shredded? That’s the last page or two of the social contract being destroyed. The brainchild of FDR, who believed that no American should struggle for the necessities of bare survival, the social contract came into being after World War II. The contract was Business and Labor agreeing that when workers produced they should share in the profits; the contract implied that there was dignity in work and that working people deserved a fair shot at dignity; the contract was a shared belief that the next generation would do better and have even more opportunity than the current generation.
Gone. That in the midst of these worrisome economic times the New York Times chooses to report on Wall Street illustrates how difficult it is to have a real conversation about our economy – not only who it works for, but who it doesn’t, and why. In real, inflation-adjusted terms, the wages of working Americans have been flat for thirty years, but when was the last time you saw a news story about that? American families are working full tilt – not to get ahead, but just to hold their place. Seen any stories in the major media about that? The political buying power of corporations and their lobbyists is so pervasive that they have driven wages down, exported manufacturing jobs to countries where workers are more easily exploited, eliminated health insurance, dumped pension obligations and gutted regulatory bodies, all of which is great for investors, price per share, and lavish executive compensation, but a death sentence for workers.
Think about it. Big Business controls the media and therefore has the power to shape, frame, spotlight and filter the information we see and hear. In the middle of presidential primaries in a watershed election year, we get endless takes on the words and deeds of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright; not that America doesn’t need to hold a national conversation about race relations, we do, desperately, but that’s not what’s happening in news coverage of Reverend Wright. Big Media sets the story line, and no deviation from the script is allowed.
I don’t know if Americans can ever return to a shared social contract that takes into account the idea that human beings have needs other than economic needs. The conservative, free-market, ownership society, you’re-on-your-own ideology that has prevailed for the past three decades has turned us into anxious economic animals, constantly running to hold our place, working two jobs to earn the wage that one job once provided; constantly worried about whether we can afford health care or if we can afford to educate our kids or retire with enough financial wherewithal to live with dignity and give something back to our families and communities. The power arrayed against that happening is daunting.
But for the millions of us who believe that human life is about more than chasing a dollar or a euro, we have an obligation to stand against the prevailing power structure – to question it, to demand answers from it, to use moral persuasion to make it listen to our legitimate concerns. That’s Democracy. Dissent is a patriotic, creative act. As Dr. King said, “There is never a time in our American democracy that we must ever think we’re wrong when we protest. We reserve that right.”
It’s past time for America to reconnect with its basic values, just as it’s past time for working Americans to say, loud and often, enough is enough.
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