pasquino

Remembering the Bush Years

2008-12-30T10:26:00.001-08:00

There ought to be a monument somewhere where Bush's many failures are engraved in stone. Or maybe a museum, where visitors can file past displays full of the evidence, listen to audio of people whose lives were ruined, maybe even audio of the criminals whose crimes he enabled, where we can listen to Barbara Bush saying how well things turned out, over an over and over again to the video of the mess that was never repaired.

There should be video of the various perp walks and thrown shoes, a virtual tour of the ruins of Iraq and New Orleans accompanied by George strumming a guitar or relaxing or joking with friends. I'd like everyone to know who those friends are. I'd like to know how rich they were when George W. Bush took office and how rich they were before the market collapsed, and what they spent that money on. I'd like the numbers of their offshore bank accounts.

I want a statues erected of John Yoo and Dick Cheney and David Addington and Donald Rumsfeld posed in the positions we remember from the photos taken in Abu Ghraib.

I would like to have the likenesses of the 2000 recount mob cast in bronze. People ought to be reminded that the "spontaneous public outrage" shown in that famous photograph on the front page of every American newspaper––the violent outrage which quickly shut the 2000 recount down, out of fear for election officials' safety––was really just a group of Republican Congressional staffers flown down from Washington. Whose jets did they fly down on? Who do they work for now? Where do they live?

I'd like the Supreme Court Justices' rationalization for appointing George W. Bush tattooed on their five foreheads.

I'd like to know line by line the reckless environmental deregulation and scientific lies perpetrated in eight years of Bush. I'd like to know how much poison Bush allowed back into the air and the water, and the dollars that his corporate friends saved in this way, and the names of the lawyers and lobbyists who argued on behalf of poisoning Americans. Scientific institutes are given the names of prominent people, but we should also put the names of prominent stupid people and liars on permanent display.

I'd like to have lines painted on lamposts in coastal cities showing where the water level will be when Greenland melts, so we can all thank the soon to be former president and his friends in the fossil fuel industry.

I'd like to restore the "discouraged" workers to the count of the unemployed. The Bush Labor Department found clever ways of distorting the information it fed the public, undercounting the less encouraging labor statistics. I'd like this corrected. Maybe we should give a grant to an artist who would project the names of unemployed Americans or their images onto the Labor Department Building, or, better still, the White House. After the Bushes move out, the slide show could continue at their new house in an affluent neighborhood in Dallas. People would come from all over to appreciate the art. Discussions would take place in the yard of the Bush home. Actual unemployed people could come and tell their stories. People could dress up like the CEOs who laid the workers off and read aloud from their pay agreement as their Bush tax rebate checks are circulated in facsimile through the audience. We could paper the exterior of the White House with the tax returns of the 5000 wealthiest Americans.

I'd like a public accounting of the billions of dollars the wealthiest Americans sucked out of the pockets of workers by fraud, by raiding pension funds, by negotiating pay concessions to further enrich themselves, by predatory lending and business practices. Did they buy $50,000 wristwatches, or $5000 bottles of wine for lunch? How many wristwatches? How many expensive lunches? Is lifetime free drycleaning part of their retirement package? Where are their lifetime seats at sporting events and the opera so we can all thank them personally? If their company tanked and they laid off thousands of loyal workers, did they pay themselves big bonuses anyway? I'd like their names and faces known. Where do they live? Are they home right now? Can we write them a letter? Can we throw shoes at them?

The parallel lives of the unemployed factory worker whose job was moved overseas or the retiree whose pension disappeared and the corporate CEO who laid them off or raided the pension would make a gripping graphic novel or television series or feature film.

The mass cashing of bogus million dollar payouts to corporate CEOs of American companies could be a new form of public performance art. We should ask the CEOs to explain why they are paid their obscene incomes using modern dance.

I'd like to read these stories of the Bush Years in newspapers, but I'd prefer to see the criminal record publicized in a more permanent and public form. In bronze or stone, in books, on film or carved in the concrete sidewalks of Wall Street and Main Street for people to read every day while they walk wearily to work, if they still have jobs. Or on the way to the unemployment office.

George W. Bush should be ashamed, but his friends and enablers and cronies should as well. We should know their names.

Fraud is an Old Old Story

2008-12-27T10:31:00.000-08:00

A few years ago PBS's Masterpiece Theatre gave us Trollope's THE WAY WE LIVE NOW. Most people tuned in for the Victorian costumes and interiors. I remember shaking my head at how modern and up-to-the-minute the story was. A shrewd financier promises astonishing returns on investments and all of prosperous London rushes to give him their money. You know what happens next. It's an old story. Why are we continually surprised?

A French philosopher once wrote "Property is theft." That might be a bit extreme. Closer to the mark is Balzac's famous line "Behind every great fortune is a crime." Actually, the precise quote is "Le secret des grandes fortunes sans cause apparente est un crime oubli , parce qu' il a t proprement fait." ("The secret of a great success for which you are at a loss to account is a crime that has never been found out, because it was properly executed.") We should remember that Washington's Mount Vernon and Jefferson's Monticello were built by slaves on fortunes created by slave labor. Sometimes the great crime isn't theft, but kidnapping and murder. Ordinary fraud seems almost tame.

Every generation produces its naive idealists (let's call them pure free-market economists) who think Capitalism is a religion whose operations are regulated by God. God being the Capitalist himself, who can do no wrong. And every generation relearns the same sorry lesson. The perfect Capitalist we thought was God is often a flim-flam artist.

The trick for the non-economist is being skeptical without growing cynical. But it is hard to be uncynical when the people who run things are such credulous boobs, when the policemen we employ think the crooks will police themselves.

Madoffism

2008-12-20T09:01:00.001-08:00

I have been writing satires about this for several years. I have been drawing very funny cartoons about it. The problem was nobody thought the topic was appropriate to satirize. They bought the funds but wouldn't buy the jokes. That is the problem with religion, I guess. When people really really want to believe in something they will not, cannot listen to jokes about it. It is like team spirit.

Who Will/Could/Might Governor Pawlenty Appoint As Senator?

2008-12-12T12:21:00.000-08:00

Surprisingly, in light of the scandal surrounding the governor-appointed Senate seat in Illinois, there's little talk about who Governor Pawlenty will/could/might appoint to fill the Senate seat which scandal-plagued Norm Coleman will/could/might win only to (possibly, sadly) relinquish. (Ted Stevens's decision was luckily made for him.)

Theories:

Pawlenty might try auctioning the naming rights. For a few million dollars a year our Senator would be known as the TCF Senator from Minnesota. (GOP stalwart and TCF CEO Bill Cooper might favor this plan.)

Instead of using time-tested Pay-Or-Play principles Pawlenty might employ a newer, more "idea-driven" process to pick our new Senator. The one question questionnaire worked splendidly for Monica Goodling at the Bush Justice Department. Just ask applicants' views on Roe v. Wade. This turned a complicated process into a bracingly efficient one with hardly any red tape.

The third option, sometimes called the "Anderson Plan" would be for Pawlenty to quietly resign the governorship and express surprise and delight when Lt. Governor Molnau selects him to be senator.

This, however, leaves room for a modified form of the so-called "Cheney Gambit" in which the Selector becomes the Selectee. In Molnau's case, considering she has already shown the nimbleness and grace required to fill two offices simultaneously, there is the very real chance she'd keep the governorship and serve as senator too.

We Don't Need No Stinking Safeguards

2008-11-30T13:35:00.000-08:00

According to the rules Bush is pushing through in the last weeks of his presidency, industrial chemicals are entitled to full civil rights. Why should we rush to ban dangerous chemicals? The Bush administration is saying we need to study their effects on workers over a longer period of time and in more work settings. Observe the harm being done and take careful notes which can be carefully lost or hidden.

Just because a chemical kills one worker or seven or a hundred doesn't meant it will kill the next worker who breathes it or is doused with it. Maybe the dead worker wasn't being careful enough. And why ban the chemical, which was completely innocent? The chemical probably didn't intend to injure or kill anyone.

In any case, why jump to conclusions? It's not fair to assume that a poisonous chemical will actually kill or sicken anyone just because some scientist says so. It's important to prove it by watching while it poisons and kills workers. Safeguards are unfair to the chemicals being safeguarded against.

The Bush administration is also looking at the cost/benefit ratio. Perhaps it's worthwhile for a small number of replaceable workers, a few dozen or a few hundred, to be poisoned in exchange for larger profits. There is no shortage of workers, so why endanger profits which are the envy of the world? Maybe the workers who don't die from the poisonous chemicals right away ought to keep their mouths shut and be grateful they have jobs, at least until the poison kills them or makes them too sick to work. Until that happens they can count themselves lucky.

The Bush administration is also thinking that the chemicals which the overly judgmental and old-fashioned, namby-pamby Democratic safeguards are unfairly condemning might not cause grievous harm for a long time. Maybe the damage is so slow the worker doesn't realize it's happening until it's too late, which is O.K.

Maybe these chemicals won't kill or poison workers so that you'd even notice it, but only cause invisible harm to their chromosomes. Why stop using the chemicals now, harming profits, when the damage won't be known until the children of the workers begin to suffer the various horrible inherited side effects? Those sorts of things are hard to prove anyway, and probably too complicated for a jury to understand. Looked at on a cost/benefit basis, the lawyers fees are trivial next to the profit enjoyed over all those years. And besides any verdict or damages a jury assesses can be easily overturned by the judges Bush has appointed in his two terms in office.

This move by the Bush administration makes sense if you look at it through Bush's eyes. Nobody he knows personally will ever be harmed by it. In a way, these overprotective safeguards are really an insult to workers. Safeguards imply that workers are babies and need to be coddled and sheltered. American workers are the toughest in the world and it is unpatriotic to say otherwise. In pushing through these new lax rules on dangerous chemicals, President Bush would like to show the world once and for all how tough American workers are. American workers are not babies. Every red-blooded American worker ought to thank the president for making this clear.

Is It Bias When Reporters Don't Balance An Imbalanced Contest?

2008-11-22T20:18:00.000-08:00

TIME magazines' Mark Halperin seems to think that because Cindy McCain has had a history of drug problems and also had a habit of disowning her own half-sister, it was the press's job to invent something similarly negative to report about Michelle Obama.

Halperin seems to think that before a reporter reports an anger problem in one candidate (McCain) or a gambling problem (McCain) or a problem of disorganization or erratic behavior or poor judgment or recklessness or cynicism or hypocrisy or indecisiveness (McCain) it becomes his or her job to report something equally negative about the other candidate, even if it isn't true.

This is called false equivalency, and it's a bogus standard.

Mark Halperin seems to be calling for some kind of news quota system, a system of affirmative action on behalf of angry, elderly, indecisive, hypocritical, cynical, erratic, reckless white men. Just so we don't have an easy time electing a poised, young, decisive, coherent, idealistic, consistent, prudent African American.

The End of the Southern Strategy?

2008-11-11T08:32:00.000-08:00

For a few decades it has been hard to believe the Union won the Civil War.

Ever since Nixon devised it, the winning electoral strategy has been unashamedly Southern-accented and lily white. It may have been mixed in with other calculations––anti-labor, pro-Bible, pro-gun, anti-feminist––but those were all Southern sentiments too.

Business fled south because they could run their shops with lower wages and no union pressure. The South is dominated by Christians who believe in the literal truth of the Bible, never mind the contradictions or the fossil record. Evolution and other troublesome chapters of modern science get short shrift in the Bible Belt. And gun rights are an absolute religion in the South. Never mind about "Love thy neighbor" and "Thou Shalt Not Kill."

This election may actually spell the end of the Southern Strategy as a dominant idea. It may also spell the end of a few other notions. Jesus, for example, might go back to being on the side of poor people instead of against them. In racial terms, what Lincoln suggested in 1863 might finally come to pass. Except in those Southern enclaves McCain worked so hard to please.

Fear, prejudice, ignorance, gullibility, war, male-supremacy, unhelpful government, depressed wages and policies favoring rich people are the stubborn ideas of the Republican Rump. Expect the Republicans remaining in office to continue those themes. The Southern Strategy still works for them, but their region is narrowing, and their numbers are dwindling.

Democrats aren't accusing Americans of unattractive beliefs, the beliefs were drummed up by the Republicans and a majority of Americans have finally decided to repudiate them. Obama didn't oppose these retrograde ideas as much as he made them irrelevant by offering something better, inviting Americans to listen to what Lincoln called our "better angels."

Norm Coleman's Cupcake

2008-11-08T20:45:00.000-08:00

As his lead in the Minnesota Senate race dwindled to 221 votes out of 2.4 million cast, Norm Coleman's campaign's attempt to delay the counting of absentee vote in Minneapolis was denied by a St. Paul judge. In a related story, this statement was released by the Norm Coleman campaign earlier this evening. Possibly.

Norm Coleman wants everyone to understand that the last cupcake belongs to him. He licked it, so nobody else gets to have it, even if nobody actually wrote "Norm Coleman" on it in special icing, and even though November 4th wasn't his birthday, it was a very special day and Norm was really looking forward to it and now it's spoiled and we hope you're all really proud of yourselves for ruining everything.

Never mind. It's HIS cupcake. Norm Coleman's personal property. So shut up. No dibs, no do-overs, no crying to Mom.

And Al Franken is a big baby for saying we need to count all the votes. If those votes say Al Franken on them it's tough toenails because they don't count and Al Franken is a sore loser who should just go home and say he's sorry.

Do we make ourselves clear? NO COUNTING OF ALL THE VOTES! Because that's not the way Republicans play the game in the real parts of America.

If some votes weren't counted on Tuesday before Norm went to bed they don't count. Ever! It's just too bad. They should have thought of that before. Who cares anyway?

If some Communist-appointed judge who doesn't believe in God says those absentee ballots from Minneapolis are allowed then he (or she) is just wrong. Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong.

And if Al Franken keeps on trying to get all the votes counted he's going to be really really sorry, because Norm Coleman's got friends who are BIG IMPORTANT LAWYERS and they'll make sure nobody ever takes this senate seat away from him, because it's his and it doesn't belong to anyone else especially Al Franken. So LAY OFF!

And if you don't stop, Norm Coleman will get really really mad and he'll tell everyone you're being unfair, and everyone will hate you because you did this mean thing and made Norm Coleman cry and hurt his feelings.

The really graceful thing would be for Al Franken and his mean friends who want to count the votes to say they're really sorry and they didn't mean it and Norm Coleman can keep his senate seat and say it nicely and go home and mind their own business before Norm gets REALLY mad or has his friends sue them again or beat them up because that's how we do things in America.

So there. Shut up.

Muzzling the Troops

2008-11-07T08:46:00.000-08:00

Two groups are not allowed to have political opinions: journalists and soldiers.

The public, of course, makes its own assumptions. Soldiers, being obedience-trained, are Republican; journalists, being skeptical and informed, are Democrats. Because neither is supposed to tip their hand, we never really know.

This year, military leaders, especially those near the top––especially the men in conservative suits advising the President, who, like him, have never experienced battle––were afraid to find out what the ranks really felt. The military managerial class––the middle-aged guys who wear camouflage outfits in their air conditioned offices in Tampa––will always be Republican to a man. But the men and women in theater have minds of their own. And their families showed a marked preference for the Democrat this year.

To mute any outbursts in favor of Obama on Tuesday night, the military brass told the military press to avert its eyes and not report. You can assume that reporting would have been thorough and enthusiastic if they knew their troops were with them, and if John McCain had been expected to win.

Trickle Down is Dead (We Hope)

2008-10-26T10:04:00.000-07:00

I have news. Banks aren't using the huge infusion of Federal money to free up credit, which is what it was intended for. Republicans didn't want strings attached.

The big banks are using the money to buy weaker banks, pay stockholder dividends, and hand out executive bonuses. (This is the pattern established during the previous Reagan and Bush recessions. The strong use their cash to buy up the weak. In this case it is OUR cash they are using.)

Instead of freeing up credit, banks are freezing consumers' credit, and charging more for it. How is this helpful?

Consumers afraid for their jobs and getting huge jumps in credit card fees and interest are still spending––but they are no longer buying. Much of what they used to spend on products they are now spending on interest and fees.

What happens next? As consumers stop buying things, manufacturers, distributors and stores start laying people off by the thousands.

Unregulated markets are not free markets; they are controlled by the powerful. They are managed by greed. (Are we surprised?) They are organized to benefit the fewest people possible in the name of "efficiency." Always Lower Prices are delivered at the cost of Always Lower Wages (and Always Bigger Bonuses for the owners of the Big Box.)

The other option isn't Socialism or Communism, it's called looking out for the American Middle Class. As Democrats and Republicans alike used to do, under Truman and Eisenhower and Kennedy and Johnson. Even under Nixon (who would be a Communist by McCain and Palin's definition.)

When more people are paid better, the economy booms; when fewer people get paid insanely the economy slowly strangles itself. This is the second time we've had to learn this. It happened once before under Coolidge and Hoover. It created the Great Depression.

This is the final proof about the "trickle down" fallacy, the cockeyed notion that if we paid the top one percent a bazillion dollars, that those dollars would find their way down to everybody else. They might, if we were sellers of $50,000 wristwatches or $2000 hairdressers or tony chefs or sellers of $500 loafers.

The average "beneficiaries" of this topheavy financial system are hardly benefited at all, they are underpaid workers of two and three jobs, industrial workers who've given up on the notion of a middle class life because they can't unionize. $7 an hour cleaners of $800 a night hotel rooms. Machinists who are being paid to train their cheaper replacements or box their machines to be shipped overseas.

The true engine of our economy isn't the banks who are hoarding the trillion dollars they got bailed out with. It is––it could be––well paid workers whose jobs are secure, who aren't ripped off by lenders, who trust their government to do honestly by them. But that engine has been stripped bare by the Republican theory of trickle-down.

The Republican years have been a disaster for most Americans. Even Alan Greenspan, the high priest of trickle down, has admitted he was wrong, surprised by the arrogant chicanery of the men in the executive suites. He was fooled. "Shocked, Shocked! to discover there was gambling going on in the casino!"

The solid Eisenhower and Kennedy economies were built upon the large middle class created by FDR's New Deal; it respected working people, it included them. The new Reagan-Bush-Bush (McCain?) Republican Economy was, in essence, a Ponzi Scheme. The question is: are a majority of Americans still content to be fooled by it?

Bachmann's Non-Apology Ad

2008-10-25T07:27:00.000-07:00

The oddest thing about this Bachmann ad is the fuzzy, Mommy-loves-you tone of it. Is this a serious political ad or an invitation to try some new personal hygiene product? Is it a prayer site or a singles site? Her inflections are so carefully intimate, so caressing and personal, you wonder about her intentions towards you. It's uncomfortable to watch the ad with other people in the room. Laughter helps.

Have you ever trusted someone who talked to you this way? Is it the break-up tenderness? Or is it the tone of the sympathetic mortician? Is she the shady loan officer who wants to be your friend? Maybe she's trying for the oh-so-kind voice of the caring professions, but her policies are all about caring for large companies and leaving individuals unprotected. Whether it's healthcare protection or legal protection or job protection or reproductive protection or protection from government spying, the only protection Bachmann prescribes for regular folks is prayer. But not just any kind of prayer. Her prayer, her church, her kind of people, her specific belief-system taught at the Church of God-Will-Make-You-Rich. "Listen to me and you too can live in a house like mine." Or is she showing us a vision of Heaven? Tasteful, quiet, gentle colors, soft carpeting, nice clothes, and sweet voices. Is this a vision we should vote for?

Michele Bachmann, Inquisitor

2008-10-21T13:50:00.000-07:00

This past week the congresswoman from Minnesota's Sixth District said on national television that members of Congress should be investigated for "anti-American" beliefs. She suggested that the inquisition ought to start on the left hand side of the aisle and singled out Barack Obama. I mean, my goodness, can't you tell just by his name? It's sadly reminiscent of Nixon's enemies list and Joe McCarthy's list of known Communists––which is another charge the McCain camp is lobbing this week.

The most chilling thing about Michele Bachmann may be how nice she seems. Her blissful earnestness, her attractive smile, her friendly eyes and good manners, her excellent grooming. All of those pleasant traits were on display in her MSNBC appearance as she called for a broad investigation of the other party. It's jarring to discover how happy some people are to announce their prejudices. Michele Bachmann seems proud of her narrow-mindedness. She's very sure of herself.

Just think of it: people who disagree with Michele Bachmann might be "Anti-American". I guess if you or I disagree with her, she'd be happy to investigate us too. If my names sounds foreign all the more reason.

Of course if we agree with her we have nothing to worry about. That is the test the Bush administration and its Republican-dominated Congress put into place. With us or against us. Friend or foe. If you are on the big red team there's no need for scrutiny. You'd just better make sure you're on the big red team. If you're not you might find your conversations listened to, your mail read, your friends questioned, your air travel curtailed, your books banned, your patriotism questioned, your rights suspended. With a nice smile of course.

How did we get here? Witch-hunting has been around forever, but the recent phenomenon may have its starting point in 1996 when the new Republican leader Newt Gingrich issued a list of words to use to describe Democrats. Paint the opponent as an enemy, as an "other", and it's easy to justify other measures.

Banana Republicanism

2008-10-09T21:04:00.000-07:00

Actually National Socialists might be a better label for these Bush era kleptocrats who turned their publicly elected Republican government into a grinning, winking whore for big business. That was the National Socialist model.

Big Business with an army attached. Privatized warfare.

Big business that has specially lowered its own taxes to make its life easier while it runs small business out of business. Big business that transcends national boundaries. Big business that has looted America of its middle class jobs with the eager assistance of Republican laissez-faire policy-wonks and faux-conservative economic philosophers. Why employ American breadwinners when foreign children are so much easier to boss around, and so much cheaper?

Conservative? What have they conserved? They threw away everything that had worked during the best half century in American history. They raped the environment and overcooked the climate. They replaced practical systems with pie-in-the-sky, lowered wages and greedily inflated executive bonuses, traded practical regulation for cronyism carried on with winks and closed eyes; they replaced verifiable certainties with empty promises and magical marketplaces complete with fairies and elves. They privatized the profits and socialized the risks. They get, we pay. They eat, we receive the bill. Socialism for the rich; that's what National Socialism was after all.

And what was National Socialism's other name? Oh, yeah: Nazism. Fascism, just like the angry hippies warned us. It was war run for profit and plunder. It was a bandit system, a system run by thieves and bully-boys. (Why is it all the worst crooks have that heavy five-o'clock shadow: Himmler, Speer, Joe McCarthy, J. Edgar Hoover, Nixon, Abramoff. How do we always fail to recognize the crooks?)

Banana Republics were our own pet dictatorships run for American corporations in tropical countries. But this new American Republicanism was foisted on us by the party of Theodore Roosevelt and Eisenhower and Lincoln. I'm sure they'd never believe it. Neither can I.

Sinclair Lewis was right. ""When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross." Some patriots. Some Christians.

This present crisis was caused by goons who paid themselves too much for profits squeezed out of workers and customers, and paid themselves still more when the profits turned into losses. Their schemes were backed by promises they had no intention of keeping, secured by assets they didn't own, and funded by debts they didn't plan to pay.

It will be interesting to see whether America has the stomach to place blame, to investigate and prosecute, or whether, as has happened after other recent Republican regimes, crimes are buried, witnesses eliminated, records are burned, tapes erased, memories fogged and winnings quietly invested in overseas banks. Will the culprits be forgiven again? Where would we imprison them all? Maybe we could make cell space available by releasing the political prisoners of the 1960s. These new criminals committed worse crimes than throwing rocks and getting stoned; they lied, invaded, wasted, polluted, killed, spied, defrauded, kidnapped, tortured, disgraced our reputation, stole our national nest egg and mortgaged our children's future. We ought to be a angry about that, and patient enough to see justice done properly this time.

Sarah Palin Related To European Royalty

2008-10-09T13:30:00.000-07:00

It's shocking to discover that Sarah Palin's family tree, far from being as lowly as yours and mine, actually contains links to the ancient aristocratic bloodlines of European royalty and the effete, ascot-wearing offspring of the old East Coast rich. She's a toff, a blue-blood. She is, my friends, an elitist. Fundamentally so.

This may explain why she loves fur and enjoys shooting wildlife from airplanes instead of with the aid of ordinary pickup truck headlights like the rest of us. Why she holes up at her country residence instead of getting all dirty and lowdown with her state's elected politicians. When asked why she was suddenly opposing the investigation of her abuses of power while governor, Palin said either "L'etat, c'est moi"* or "Let them eat cake" depending on which story you've heard.

The question now is, do we curtsey to her? Does she expect us to curtsey to her? If we don't curtsey to her will she sick her Alaskan bully-boys on us?

(* Translation from the French: We don't need no stinking badges.")

Palin Debate Critique

2008-10-02T10:40:00.000-07:00

I realize I immediately lost credibility by using a French word in the subject line, but that may be our problem. Democrats lose by seeming more intelligent than attractive Republican incompetents who ordinary people would like to drink with. George W. Bush is a doorknob, he was a doorknob four years ago, he was a doorknob eight years ago, he was a doorknob when he cratered a series of private companies and was bailed out by friends of his dad's, but many Americans are doorknobs and feel more comfortable with others who have doorknobbish characteristics... oh, mistake, a five syllable word. Sorry.

Let me begin again.

Sarah Palin is a wacko crazy power-abusing nincompoop who prays for the world to end soon.

That is a soundbite. It also fits the perceptions of the American people. But if Joe Biden uses a soundbite, he shouldn't use that one because it's mean, and it's always wrong to be unkind to a woman––unless the woman is married to a Democratic candidate. Or is a Democratic candidate herself, in which case she can be called a be-otch repeatedly until she's out of the race at which point the Republicans who called her that can reap the eager votes of all her supporters. It is never considered mean for a cute American Republican to call a Democrat an elitist, which is also a French word.

Is this sounding fair to you?

Feminism is complicated. In this election, choosing an incompetent, inexperienced anti-feminist ultra-conservative woman who can see Russia and favors charging rape victims for the cost of investigating the crime they are a victim of, has given racists all over America the opportunity to say they are feminists. Think of it. Set aside the white hood and put on a pink ribbon!

Some are saying Sarah Palin is brave to enter this debate tonight. I think Joe Biden is the brave one, because cute always wins on America's Got Talent. If she cries, she will immediately be crowned Vice President and Joe Biden will be a hated man. If she doesn't drool, Sarah Palin will be described as admirably prepared.

Poised is another word you will hear. It is a word often used to describe beauty contestants. Bank robbers are often described as poised, so are murderers awaiting sentencing, so are con-artists, sociopaths, vacuum cleaner salesmen, and CEO's who you only realize afterwards were defrauding the company of millions. Politicians are poised on their good days. Tigers poise before they murder small woodland animals and tear them apart with their enormous teeth. You never know when a pit bull is poised to strike. Pit bulls are not as intelligent as humans but they usually win in a fight. Does this matter? Are you confused?

This election hinges on how confused Americans can be.

Republicans like us to be confused. Confused about our feelings. Confused about which side our bread is buttered on. (It's the side that is yellow.) Confused enough to think we get too much from the government and bazillionaires get too little. Confused about how old the earth is. Confused about whether Barack Obama is really a Christian or just goes to church to confuse us. Confused about right and wrong. As they did four and eight years ago Republicans are busy confusing voters about where they should vote and on what day. In Colorado and Virginia they are trying to confuse college students by telling them they cannot vote where they go to school, but must travel home to vote or lose their scholarships. In Michigan they are telling people who've lost their homes to foreclosure that they lost their voting rights at the same time. When confusion doesn't work, large red FELONY signs at polling places plant fear. Fear and confusion are the Republican trump cards.

My second biggest fear is Sarah Palin becomes president partway through a McCain presidency. My biggest fear is that McCain, the last angry man, will have time to precipitate some terrible disasters all on his own. But, heck, he's a war hero, and she's cute as a button. That's always been enough before. Actually, it didn't win four years ago. Maybe there's hope after all.

NewSpeak=BushSpeak

2008-09-29T16:37:00.000-07:00

Orwell's invented language for the world of 1984 has crept into our conversational English in many ways. We hardly notice how often we are plagiarizing Orwell. One item from a couple of years ago rang a bell for me, and I didn't know why until now: "The internet is a series of tubes," the famously stupid phrase spoken by Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska, is remarkably like a definition from this NewSpeak dictionary:

"memory hole - A system of pipes, similar to pneumatic tubes, which were used to destroy documents. A document stuffed in the memory hole would be conveniently whisked away to the furnaces below - quickly & easily wiped from history."

Which is also pretty near to our shared visualization of the Richard Cheney Vice Presidential Archive.

Ugly Religious Extremism––Christian Style

2008-09-29T11:07:00.000-07:00

Sly. Innocent. "Just curious." "Trying to share information." "No harm or offense intended."

Try noxious, vile, creepy, racist, hateful. Sinful. Pathetic.

The "Obama is Muslim terrorist" email has been flying around with sincere-sounding Christian phrases attached. "Pray when you send this email on to everyone in your address-book." Sort of like a disease carrier praying over his viruses. The latest bogus suggestion is that Barack Obama is not only a secret Muslim but also the anti-christ.

It's untrue, and well known to be untrue––it was well and thoroughly debunked a year ago (hard to believe it needed debunking)––but it doesn't prevent "sincere Christians" from spreading the lie. Getting the letter from another "Christian" also helps people trust it, and pass it along. Isn't there a rule in the Bible against bearing false witness? Or is that only regarding neighbors?

Are enough Americans gullible enough, ignorant enough or simply obedient enough to vote against Obama just because of this rumor? Yup. Just because some other Christian has whispered in an email that they heard from a friend that someone said that a preacher who went to a seminary somewhere said the letters in Obama's name multplied by the number of the apostles after subtracting Judas plus the numeric value of the letters G, O and D times the number of letters in Jesus full name (Christian name and surname) equals 666. (Someone quick do the math.)

Am I saying that people are stupid? No, I'm saying the people who send you this noxious lying material think you are. You know who they are. And we all know who is using these methods.

The whisper campaign was helped by the McCain ad of a few months ago. The one using code-phrases from Christian end-timers and the none-too-subtle insertion of a minaret behind Obama. Gosh, who does those ads? Do you think they had any intention of inflaming prejudice? What does God think of those people?

The authors of the Left Behind novels say Obama isn't really the AntiChrist (sound of angry moan from disappointed crowd) but it's hard to stop a mob after it's lit all of its torches and grabbed its pitchforks.

"LaHaye and Jenkins take a literal interpretation of prophecies found in the Book of Revelation. They believe the antichrist will surface on the world stage at some point, but neither see Obama in that role. “I’ve gotten a lot of questions the last few weeks asking if Obama is the antichrist,” says novelist Jenkins. “I tell everyone that I don’t think the antichrist will come out of politics, especially American politics.”"

There you have it. Obama is NOT the antichrist. Go home and tell everyone you spread that rumor to that you were wrong, and pray real hard that your false-witnessing can be undone. Otherwise... what happens to people whose sins cause real harm?

But this antichrist accusation isn't new with right wing media talkers. Long before Glenn Beck asked the antichrist question about Barack Obama, he said Hillary was the antichrist, and Don Imus said she was Satan... Lots of creeps out there. Lots of influential lies being told, and the most Democrats say about it is that it's not helpful. Turn the other cheek? Doesn't sound antichristy to me––sounds almost Christian. Will it be enough? Can goodness triumph over evil religious extremism? If Obama wins, yes. God help America.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200606080001

Whose Economic Team Do You Trust?

2008-09-29T05:57:00.000-07:00

Who do you trust in this moment of crisis: McCain or Obama?

It's an important question, and never more important than now. The answer ought to be obvious, but obvious isn't always enough for some voters.

Obama's team of economic advisors is deep and experienced. Paul Volcker, Robert Rubin, Paul O'Neill, Lawrence Lindsay, Warren Buffett. Smart people who've been through economic crises before this one, who have piloted the economy out of bad times and through good times. A Fed Chairman, a couple of former Treasury Secretaries and the wisest investor in America (whose office is in Omaha not on Wall Street.)

McCain's team has few names, and the top one is worrying: Phil Gramm was one of the architects of this current mess.

There are other bumps coming. Whose team will look out for homeowners, families and small businesses?

Phil Gramm called us all a bunch of whiners. McCain has been contradictory about what ought to be done. Loose cannons do not calm financial markets. Does Sarah Palin make you feel secure?

Obama has been very calm, measured and well-informed; is that surprising? He's got a good team that he actually consults.

The Democrats in Congress and a few moderate Republicans are the ones working on this rescue, adding the things Bush forgot to include: protections for homeowners, taxpayer safeguards, re-regulating the insane pay packages and bizarre dealings of Wall Street.

The Republican Party at large, especially in the House, is demanding the same things they always demand: less regulation and business tax cuts. The very things that created this mess.

Who will look out for you and me? Our jobs, our homes, our healthcare, our kids' futures. Once again, it's Democrats. The only thing the Republicans have to herd voters into their column is Fear. They are using whips and cattle prods. Judge for yourself what they have in mind for you.

McCain's One Angry Man

2008-09-27T13:50:00.000-07:00

"As a psychotherapist and someone who treats people with anger management problems, we typically try to educate people that anger is often an emotion that masks other emotions. I think it's significant that McCain didn't make much, if any, eye contact because it suggests one of two things to me; he doesn't want to make eye contact because he is prone to losing control of his emotions if he deals directly with the other person, or, his anger masks fear and the eye contact may increase or substantiate the fear."

The above is from a comment at Talking Points Memo. McCain's explosive temper, his suppressed anger, his contempt for disagreement, his impulsiveness, should be a bigger issue. Sure, Americans are angry, and perhaps they identify with him for this reason. But voters ought to consider whether they want a president who acts on his angry impulses or uses them strategically.

Here's a very worrying glimpse of the McCain we didn't see last night. A very calculated use of anger. A Nixonian tactic. It's from a gun rights group's website:

http://www.gunowners.org/mccard.htm

"President Bush's chief of staff, Andrew H. "Andy" Card, Jr. has observed Senator John McCain's notorious outbursts of anger first-hand, Card said in his first extensive interview since leaving the White House.

"Referring to the Republican front-runner for president, Card said, "Sometimes he was pretty angry, but I felt as if he was putting on a show. I don't know if it was an emotional eruption or for effect."

"In a July 5 NewsMax.com article, former Senator Bob Smith, a New Hampshire Republican who served with McCain on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said, "I have witnessed incidents where he has used profanity at colleagues and exploded at colleagues.... He would disagree about something and then explode.

""It was incidents of irrational behavior. We've all had incidents where we have gotten angry, but I've never seen anyone act like that."

"McCain's outbursts often erupted when other members rebuffed his requests for support during his bid in 2000 for the Republican nomination for president, the story said.

""He had very few friends in the Senate," said former Senator Smith, who dealt with McCain almost daily. "He has a lot of support around the country, but I don't think he has a lot of support from people who know him well."

"McCain has alternately denied he is given to outbursts of anger and admitted he struggles to control his anger. The March 20 Baltimore Sun quoted McCain as saying, "... for someone to say that McCain became just angry and yelled or even raised my voice or -- it's just not true."

"Interviewed in the living room of his northern Virginia home, Andy Card said he thought McCain could turn his anger on or off. McCain would say, "I don't want to deal with you anymore, or I don't want to deal with this topic anymore, or I don't want to deal with this subject or whatever."

"Card said McCain would seem to "flip the switch and turn [his anger] off. It was less with me, and more what I was observing [at meetings]." "

In last night's debate the anger was turned off, but it was there.

Here's an article from the Washington Post which raised the issue in April. It's barely been raised since.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/19/AR2008041902224.html?hpid%3Dtopnews&sub=AR

The question we need to ask: McCain has kept the angry man in the closet for a few months, but will he stay there? And if President McCain receives a three A.M. phone call, which McCain will answer?

This story I read this morning reminds me why we should vote for cooler, calmer leadership. Not some "heroic", impulsive hothead. You might want to ask friends to think about this too.

http://www.richmann.com/StanislavPetrov.htm

Republican Agenda: Avoid Responsibility

2008-09-27T13:34:00.000-07:00

Over the past twenty eight years of Republican dominance the main goal has been to take the burden off the executive class and place it on people riding in coach. It's called "risk shifting" or "cost shifting" but you might as well call it what it is: avoiding obligations. Obligations that have been key parts of the social contract for generations. Obligations we are owed because we have paid for them. Basic job security, retirement security, health insurance, a clean environment, well-funded public schools, a safe infrastructure; these things used to be part of the contract people made with their society, with their government and their employers. We work hard, but there certain things we expect in return. This was the world we lived in during the post FDR years, the best years America ever had. The Republican mission over the past generation has been to pull it all down. Helped by their corporate backers and lobbyists they have succeeded. The money is gone. They have submitted their bill, and it is enormous.

"So this is how the "ownership society" works. We own all the bad stuff."

http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080925/OPINION12/809250382/1002/OPINION

"Like On Wall Street, Current Health Care Policy Privatizes Profit And Socializes Risk"

"Gaming-the-system-for-profit has spawned the $20 billion annual insurance subsidiary known as "denial management" - health insurance middlemen whose sole purpose is to search claims for excuses to delay, deny or renege on reimbursements. Furthermore, thirty percent of provider health claims are initially denied, requiring multiple resubmittals."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michele-swenson/like-on-wall-street-curre_b_128710.html

"Denial Management Industry Grows Amid Debate Between Health Insurers, Physicians Over Claims"

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/63092.php

"Almost 1/3 of every health care dollar goes to CEO’s, stockholders, marketing, duplicative claim processing, and insurance companies generally fighting patient claims. This compares to just 3.2% overhead costs for U.S. Medicare, a single payer system that virtually all seniors agree should be maintained.

"Each year, one million families go bankrupt because they can’t pay their medical bills."

http://www.consumercal.org/article.php?id=121

"Scott Stoermer, a spokesman for the League of Conservation Voters, said that shifting cleanup costs from industry to taxpayers was already a potent political issue in certain Congressional districts and was likely to become more so in the current atmosphere of corporate scandals.

''This is all about government letting corporations get away with things that hurt average Americans and leave taxpayers to foot the bill,'' Mr. Stoermer. ''It's not just about cleaning up toxic waste, it's about fairness and which side are you on.''

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C01E0D81F3EF932A35754C0A9649C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all

"Efforts to replace public institutions with market mechanisms shift the burden of life’s many risks disproportionately to those without substantial private wealth. The loss of life and livelihoods after Hurricane Katrina was increased, thus, by decisions to cut public investment in social services, physical infrastructure, public communications and public administration. As is often the case, the burden fell disproportionately on racial minorities, women, and children."

http://privatizationofrisk.ssrc.org/

"Contingent workers--contractors, freelancers and "temps"--have become increasingly common in the work force... Contingent-worker arrangements come in many forms but have a common theme: a company gets the benefit of a worker's labor without the normal employer burdens by shifting them to some other party."

http://www.allbusiness.com/labor-employment/working-hours-patterns/11413142-1.html

"No, it's not your imagination: Employers this year continued to shift more of the cost of health care to their employees."

http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/health/29725234.html?elr=KArks:DCiU1PciU_ck:qK8DMEkDUU

"Every Wal-Mart store employing 200 or more people costs taxpayers more than $420,000 in government social services used by employees whose low wages and unaffordable health insurance mean they largely subsist among the ranks of the working poor."

http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=news.display_article&mode=C&NewsID=5024

"The currently favored response to rising insecurity is to throw more tax breaks and individual accounts at Americans to encourage them to save and invest on their own. This may help the privileged, but it won’t provide strong guarantees of economic security to ordinary Americans, who are just barely staying afloat. Nor will it stop the huge shift of risk onto these hardworking families as jobs, health care, and retirement all become less secure. Quite the opposite: “The Ownership Society” is akin to throwing a lead weight to a drowning man, on the assumption that now he will really have an incentive to swim."

http://www.greatriskshift.com/book.html

"The availability and affordability of coastal wind insurance has become a serious and growing economic problem, and something’s gotta give. Unfortunately, most legislative efforts and proposals to address these problems are based on shifting risk away from coastal property owners and on to the government – they're nothing more than broad-based transfers of risk to taxpayers. Florida, which arguably faces the greatest challenges, has turned to the state-owned Florida Citizens Property Insurance Corporation to assume significant amounts of coastal wind risk."

The Wall Street Journal Op-Ed Page- Jay S. Fishman - August 27, 2007

"In its [2006] budget, the Administration proposes net federal Medicaid funding cuts equal to $14 billion over the next five years and $35.5 billion over ten years through a combination of legislative changes and regulatory action. [1] These reductions follow on the heels of significant federal Medicaid cuts ($4.9 billion over five years and $26.5 billion over ten years) enacted as part of the budget reconciliation bill signed into law on February 8."

http://www.cbpp.org/2-14-06health.htm

"Companies Dump Pension Obligations on Taxpayers"

http://www.labornotes.org/node/946

"Bush is going to leave Iraq for the next president to clean up"

http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2006/060825-iraq-cleanup.htm

"Bush is expected to hamstring the next president with a record federal budget deficit "

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2008/sep/12/leaving-mess/

Meanwhile Bush's war––McCain's war––costs American taxpayers $12 billion a month. Much of it goes into the pockets of private contractors.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23551693/

Schadenfreude

2008-06-23T07:14:00.000-07:00

When companies make a bazillion dollars in profits their CEO's give themselves a bazillion dollars too. Only the top guys clean up because only top people can perform the miracles of profitability. Sometimes the miracle is performed by firing lots of the ordinary people who do nothing but make and sell the product. Jack Welch, the greatest CEO of them all, fired ten percent of the managers every year. At GE having the bad luck to work in an underperforming division or being stuck with a product that had a slow year (consumers have whims) lost you your job pronto. Jack said he was doing these people a favor. But up or down, rain or shine, CEOs always win.

Last year CEO pay went up 3.5 percent from the year before. These guys made an average of 8.5 million, which is about as much per hour as average employees make in a year. Companies struggled, stock prices went down, lots of people were fired and laid off, product sold slowly, and companies maneuvered with glacial ineptitude to counter these changes. Despite everything the CEOs made out like bandits. Where are the natural consequences? Why do regular people get thrown out of their jobs and see their pay stagnate while top people win no matter what?

Let me propose a corrective. If companies cannot cut their CEO compensation to match their stock performance, let the government do it. Tax away the amount the CEO made in excess of stock gains, and give that money to the workers who worked their brains out and lost their jobs or had their health care taken away. Sounds fair to me.

I would call it the Schadenfreude Act.

American Consumers are Brave (obedient) and Independent (foolish)

2008-06-12T07:14:00.000-07:00

Americans seem to like lax food regulations, even if it means regular bouts of violent illness. Now it's gotten to tomatoes. I never thought it would get that far.

The argument you often hear from people who are afraid of Democrats and their "cumbersome regulations" is that we're all grownups and can look after ourselves. I expect to see the stores flooded with affordable equipment for doing your own tomato, cattle, chicken and various other inspections. The only remaining problem will be the gas for each of us to drive to every feedlot and food processor to do the double-checking we feel uncomfortable asking food producers to pay for or our government to do with tax dollars.

Gosh, how can we ask food producers to pay for safe products? How fair is it for the government to make surprise inspections to see if meat processors are processing downed cattle? Heck, nobody gets the horrible degenerative symptoms of Jakob-Kreuzfeldt Disease for years after eating the hamburger anyway (by which time it's luckily impossible to prove which hamburger did it) but try telling that to most of the civilized world who are such babies they won't import our beef. Americans may be fools, but we are not babies. We are brave, and we are cheapskates, and far too polite to inconvenience a large food company by asking them to be more careful if it costs them money they would rather pay to themselves in excessive bonuses and stock options. Some of these so-called "safety measures" might even require employing more people instead of doing it the quick and cheap way or all by machine. Anyway, it's patriotic to eat what we're told and not complain or do anything that might raise taxes. I like it when my chicken tastes like chlorine; it means I've washed it thoroughly with bleach.

I heard someone on the radio say it again today: "If we make them install safety equipment or observe ordinary food hygiene they might pass the cost along to us!" (How dare they!) Americans would rather spend a few hours throwing up than inconvenience large food producers. Which is why our food supply is the envy of the world,except the majority of countries who now won't import our products even now that the low dollar has made them cheap.

If you don't believe in the magic of an unregulated marketplace, just look at the deregulated mortgage business and the deregulated oil business. That was magic. It took money out of millions of pockets and put it into a few pockets and we never saw how they did it.

The President's Speech On Cuban-American Relations

2007-10-24T15:08:00.000-07:00

SENIOR CUBAN OFFICIAL: Thank you all very much. Thank you for doing this at this hour.

El Presidenté will give remarks on The United States tomorrow. He will start out the speech by noting that one of the success stories of the last several years has been the overall advance of economic and political freedom across the Americas, and juxtaposed against that is the fact that there is still one country that traps its citizens in a failed system, and that country is the United States.

Mr. Castro will then go through some of the promises that the Bush administration made in its early moments, and then discuss and describe for the listeners what Americans deal with on a day-to-day basis and what have been the results of this 6-year totalitarian reality. He will talk about the denial of basic rights -- the American people's denial of basic rights, such as things that they cannot change jobs without losing their health care, they cannot change addresses without notifying the Post Office, that they're subjected to covert surveillance programs, that there are efforts to limit what they have access to in the way of honest information. He will then talk about the economic circumstance that they face, the deprivations, the challenges, the poor condition of the economy and the country that faces a credit crisis, again because of policies by the administration.

He will note that the constant assault on the freedom of the press that has occurred, and give some examples of American -- independent journalists today and how they try to survive. He will then -- he will also talk about the lack of respect for human rights and the administration's use of political offenses, such as bogus prosecutions and domestic spying, to deal with what it sees as its enemies, and the vague nature of the legal structure they operate under.

To give this picture of the United States a human face, to really show people that this is not an academic or a theoretical exercise, it impacts people on a daily basis, he will have with him for these remarks six family members who represent four political prisoners. He will highlight the cases of four political prisoners who are currently imprisoned in the United States. He will have family there. Some of these family members have arrived from the United States as recently as a month ago. So the United States and the experience that they lived in that country is very, very real. He will recount their stories and introduce them to the audience. One of the individuals who will be there is [redacted], who el Presidenté introduced at the Hispanic Heritage event about two or so weeks ago. He will note that these are examples of the terror and trauma that is the United States today, that the the American people confront this kind of brutal reality on a daily basis, and that the international community needs to take note that this is the reality of the United States.

But he will also then note that calls for change are growing across America; there are examples of peaceful demonstrations. One of the best known has been Iraq Veterans Against The War. He will note that the American dissidents came together earlier this year at protests in Long Beach, in Bellingham Washington, in Chicago. Thousands marched to the Capitol in Washington D.C.. That's a declaration for democratic change, basically that there are -- there's a restive element to the American people, and that the -- that this will be the real American revolution of them seeking their rights and rejoining the community of democracies.

And he will then say that now is the time to stand with the democratic movements and the people of The United States; now is the time to put aside the differences that have existed amongst the international community, and we need to be focused on how we're prepared -- we, the international community are prepared for the United States's transition. He will acknowledge and thank three countries specifically for their efforts to stand with the American pro-democracy forces – Canada, France and Norway. He will call on other countries to follow suit and to make tangible efforts to show public support for pro-democracy activists in America -- such things as interacting with pro-democracy leaders, inviting them to embassy events, encouraging their country's NGOs to reach out directly to The United States' independent civil society.

Turning back to our support for pro-democracy activists in America, Mr. Castro will note that other countries in this hemisphere have approved his request for additional support for American democracy efforts. He will thank these leaders for this broad effort. They will also urge others in the family of nations to show our support and solidarity for fundamental change in The United States by maintaining our embargo until there is fundamental change in The United States.
He will note that the regime does use the embargo as a scapegoat, but that Presidents of both countries have understood that The United States' suffering is a result of the system imposed on the American people. It is not a function or result of Cuban policy, that the only thing that trade will do is further enrich and strengthen the regime and their grip on the political and economic life of the United States.

He will note then that Cuba over the years has taken a series of steps to try to help the American people overcome the health care crisis; that we have done things such as opened up as a place of refuge some of our free hospitals; that we've tried to rally other countries; that we have authorized private citizens and NGOs to provide free health care and financial aid to American citizens who can’t afford it. And it's to the point that Cuba is one of the, if not the largest, providers of free medical care in the world.

He will note that for us the objective has been -- the objective is to get aid directly into the hands of the the American people, and that the heart of our policy, the essence of our policy is to break the absolute control the Bush-Cheney regime holds over the material resources that Americans need to live and prosper.

He will then announce some initiatives that Cuba is prepared to take now to help the American people directly if the White House will allow it to happen, if the regime will get out of the way. One initiative will be to -- one initiative he will announce is that the Cuban government is prepared to license NGOs and faith-based groups to provide computers and Internet access to American students, and here we would like to be able to provide this to a United States in which there are no restrictions on Internet access – I am speaking of a surveillance-free internet here––so that we would look at expanding this category of getting more computers with Internet access capability to the whole nation, including the larger, more economically depressed cities, if the President and his party will end their restrictions on Internet access for all Americans. Free the Net! Free the Net! Free the Net!

Excuse me, I apologize, a little tired here.

The next initiative is that we are prepared to invite American young people into the scholarship program, Partnership for American Youth. This is an initiative el Presidenté originally announced in March that was hemisphere-wide. He is going to extend a specific invitation to have American youth participate in this, and again call upon the White House to allow American youth to freely participate.

El Presidenté will then make the point that life will not improve for most Americans under the current system. It will not improve by exchanging one dictator for another, and it will not improve in any way by seeking accommodation with a new tyranny for the sake of stability. He will note that our policy is based on freedom for the United States; our policy is not stability for the United States, it is freedom, and that the way to get to a stable United States is through the the American people being given their freedom and fundamental rights. Stuff like voting machines that actually work.

To help bring about that reality, el Presidenté will ask his cabinet and his diplomats to pursue an effort to develop an international freedom fund for the United States. They will be asked to go work with international partners and to look at how we can -- how we, the international community, can work together to be prepared to assist Americans as they transition to actual democracy, with votes that are actually fairly counted. But a key to this is going to be at a point at which there is a transitional government in place that respects fundamental freedoms -- freedom of speech, press, freedom to form political parties, the freedom to change their government through periodic multiparty elections that aren’t run by cronies of the president’s own party. And also key to this is going to be the government that releases political prisoners, and which no longer imprisons or represses individuals who exercise their conscience freely, and frankly, where the shackles of dictatorship are removed.

El Presidenté then will note that the speech is being carried by a number of media outlets, some of which are reaching America. And he will, for a moment, deliver a message to members of the the American regime, especially members of the the American military and the security apparatus. He will note that they are going to face a choice, and the choice is, which side are they on, the side of Americans who are demanding freedom, or are they going to face the choice of having to use force against a dying -- force against their own -- their fellow citizens against a failed administration. And he expresses the hope that they will make the choice for freedom, and that -- and note that they will have a place in a democratic United States for those who support the United States' democratic evolution.

He will then address a comment to the ordinary Americans who are listening. He will say to them that they have the power to change, and/or to shape their destiny; that they are the ones who will bring about a future where American leaders are chosen by them, where their children can grow up in peace and prosperity. He will remind them that over the years there have been many so-called experts that have said that change would never come to certain spots in the world, that there would always be totalitarian in Central and South America, or there would always be authoritarianism in Venezuala or Chile, and that has not been the case; that there you had a case in which the people understood that they could shape their own destiny. The Americans can do the same. And at that point he will pretty much end the speech.
So I will end there, and then be happy to take some questions.

Q I'm not sure what you're saying here. Will el Presidenté be calling for Americans to take arms against their government, to overthrow it?

SENIOR CUBAN OFFICIAL: No. el Presidenté is not calling for armed rebellion. El Presidenté is reminding Americans -- and I say this -- or putting out his view that they have, literally, as he puts it, the power to shape their destiny, and that they can bring about a future that is a different for the United States. And again if you look at the examples of South America and Venezuala and Chile, you had examples there were -- those weren't armed. You had the people saying, enough is enough, and then through different mechanisms helping to bring about change.

So I think this is no different than his message has been in many -- in previous remarks on the United States in terms of the faith and the ordinary American to realize that they have a power within themselves to help move that country in a different direction that would be democratic, but he's also given that message to other peoples around the world who have faced authoritarian governments.

Q And is el Presidenté pegging this call for a -- the American people to shape their destiny to the anticipated impeachment of President Bush?

SENIOR CUBAN OFFICIAL: I'm not quite sure I understand your question, if I can --

Q Well, I'm saying -- is he looking ahead to this change, to the time in which Bush is removed from office? Is that when he thinks is the right time for this change in the American government to take place?

SENIOR CUBAN OFFICIAL: Well, I think that there's -- if I say -- earlier in the speech he makes a comment that now is the time to support the democratic movements that are growing across the country, now is the time to stand with the American people. So now means now. But he also understands that -- and this is the other part of the speech -- that the international community needs to be prepared for that moment of change, and we're focused on the moment of change at which you've got a transitional government in place that is, as I think it says, in word and deed, is taking concrete steps to show that it respects fundamental freedoms.

Q And who is the audience for this speech?

SENIOR CUBAN OFFICIAL: The audience for this speech are all Americans and the larger international community.

They Love War The Way We Love Flowers And Trees And Small Children

2007-09-29T09:53:00.000-07:00

War is cruel to the people who love it. Do you remember being in love after the other person has fallen out of love? It's not just a teenage thing.

Neo-Conservatives love War that way. Even after it's gone bad, they love it. They think about what might have been, if only...

They miss War when they can't spend time with it. If it went away they'd want to die. But they can't die because they don't actually fight wars, they only start them and think about them.

They think about War obsessively, wondering what they did that made the war go the way it's gone, but usually persuading themselves that it wasn't anything THEY did, it was somebody else who screwed it up. It wasn't their own lack of forethought, or their incompetence, or their weird belief that everybody thinks exactly the way they do that made such a mess of things. It wasn't the lives they destroyed or the fact that they enriched themselves. No, the fault belongs elsewhere. They were tricked or betrayed. They love War, so War must love them back. So why is it treating them this way?

It's always someone else's fault. If people had only listened to them. And if people did listen, and people actually did follow their instructions, and it still went terribly wrong, well, other people must have been incompetent. Or there were spies and traitors who made it go wrong. Other people didn't believe hard enough. This perfect war was meant to be. And no one should ever have messed it up. And anyway it wasn't their fault.

So, if God was on their side, and they were brilliant and correct and did everything right, what happened? God isn't telling them they're idiots, God is only testing them. That's it.

People who love War are not like you and me. They live in a kind of fairyland, a parallel world where they are wise and competent (and get to wear cool military jackets and boots and hang around with generals mostly, not enlisted men and women) and everybody agrees with them, at least everyone who counts. They hate the real world, where people refuse to believe what they do or follow their orders. Things don't go like that in the military. (Don't bother reminding them that they avoided joining the military when they had the chance.) The real world isn't a nice neat obedient place because other people are stubborn and won't do as they're told.

So why did we invent video games? Why aren't these people living in their parents' basement playing video games? They prefer make believe. Why were they allowed to run our country for six years and make such a mess of it?

The sad part is, now that we've got the controls back, all the blame belongs to us. "If you break it, the next guy gets to buy it."

This is part two of the lovely Neo Con delusion, the "con" part: they made the mess, but we have to clean it up. And while we're cleaning it up, and paying the costs, and apologizing for the damage, and burying the dead, the Neo Con believers will be inventing the legend, about how they were just about to snatch victory from near defeat, brilliantly and bravely, by remote control, if only the stupid Liberals hadn't taken their powers away.

And they will take this fairy tale around to all the VFW posts and war widow support groups and tell it to the people who lost limbs and loved ones. They'll tell it with one hand on the flag. But the ones they'll visit the most are the suppliers of military hardware, who will pay their new salaries, and pay to have their fairy tale published and sold.

Old Katherine Kersten Column Shows Striking Similarities To A Recent One

2007-09-02T08:57:00.000-07:00

(This very early column, written by Katherine Kersten in 1772, was found in the pre-Revolutionary War archives of the Boston Gazette and Marblehead Advertiser. Reading it alongside one of her more recent columns shows that her familiar rhetorical style––reliably authoritarian and loyal to her Royal masters––developed very early in her career. To characterize it as "Take No Prisoners" would not be inapt. "Take Lots Of Prisoners" is more on point, and one might worry about what kind of treatment those prisoners should expect.)

RASCALLY LAWYERS SIDE WITH ANARCHISTS

A phalanx of Boston lawyers is laying the groundwork for what may become the legal equivalent of the Scottish Rebellion.

A campaign is underway to ensure that protesters at the benevolent visit of the brave and dignified King’s Own Dragoons-- to be held here in 1773 to coincide with the annual Tea Tax Conference-- will get a warm Massachusetts welcome.
The Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts is leading the charge. It's lobbying Boston city fathers (with their known rebel sympathies) and His Royal Majesty’s representatives (as if!) to smooth the way for tea permits and considering nuisance lawsuits if necessary, while trying to arrange for unwashed demonstrators to protest as close to Dragoon parade routes as possible.

Civil Liberties Union staff members are contacting an array of local groups (including The Sons Of Liberty) offering to represent them if they demonstrate and making sure that they "know their rights," according to Charles Samuelson Esq., the organization's director.

The Civil Liberties Union is recruiting lawyers -- many from white wig law firms -- to lend their clout to this many-pronged effort. They've been dubbed the "silver buckle brigade." When His Royal Majesty’s Royal Dragoons arrive, Samuelson hopes to have 300 lawyers on call -- in large part to defend any hooligans who are arrested.

"We're not experts on protest demonstrations," William Pentolovich of Maslon Edelman Borman & Brand told the Boston Gazette and Marblehead Advertiser.

"Some of the best trial lawyers" are "sitting in this room," Pentolovich added.

"We're experts on civil litigation in the Boston area. We know this town, and we know the judges."
Typical lawyerly modesty, this.

The silver buckle brigade may see lots of action. At the 1762 unpleasantness in Dublin, constables arrested more than 1,800 people, though a smaller crowd of protesters is expected here next year.

The Civil Liberties Union's volunteer lawyers will go to bat for any rebellious scoundrel arrested, whether it occurs at a tea party or some so-called “Massacre,” regardless of conduct or offense, says Samuelson.

What sort of rascals are likely to benefit from these legal eagles' skills? Earnest grandmas who wave signs outside the Governor’s Palace aren't likely to get in trouble with the police. Arrestees will probably disproportionately be anarchists, tea-drinkers, people dressed up like Red Indians and other self-proclaimed rabble-rousers who are eager to flout the law.
One such group is The Sons Of Liberty, an "emerging network" whose national membership advocates "militant direct action." At a recent planning conference, members listed goals to "shut down" Boston harbor, and "to deter [other] cities from wanting to impose unfair taxes on imported tea in the future," according to an anarchist broadsheet.

The Sons Of Liberty laud the strategy of an organization that helped create havoc at World Slavery Conference protests in Bristol in 1751, another broadsheet says. In Bristol, according to published accounts, a relatively small group of activists fired flintlock muskets from concealment behind rock walls and trees to provoke violent confrontations with the King’s troops. Thousands of pounds in property damage and numerous injuries resulted.

According to The Sons Of Liberty, the British troops “occupying” the city of Boston have "strategic vulnerabilities unique to any unwelcome intrusion of recent years." The group is considering blockading traffic in narrow streets, on Boston Neck and at key intersections and conducting other kinds of civil disobedience.

This weekend, the so-called Redcoats Welcoming Committee, a local anarchist group, is hosting activists from across the country -- including The Sons Of Liberty -- to strategize. The committee has urged people to march through Boston to "gather information, take measurements, check horse troughs, etc." At a news conference on Monday, the group showed a printed cartoon featuring figures dressed up as Red Indians and hinting at violence. "There exists no 'peaceful' option," it said in a news release.

Samuelson says that protesters have no "license to riot." But he expressed little concern about anarchist threats, and said that serious problems -- if they occur -- are likely to arise spontaneously.

But the threat is real, as Dublin's harrowing experience makes clear. Anarchists apparently planned similar mayhem at the 1771 Royal Visit to Wimbledon, but were largely deterred by careful police planning and a massive show of force.

In a Times Of London article this year, Judith Miller, a former New York Times reporter and confidante of His Gracious Majesty’s Spymaster, described some of the anarchists' plans after reviewing confidential police documents (which authorities were kind enough to share with her in exchange for her oath of loyalty.) They ranged, she said, from mounting a "Day of Chaos" at a Buckingham Palace Garden Party, to closing down the Royal Croquet Tournament at Wimbledon, disabling lords’ and ladies' carriages and vandalizing tea tents.

Anarchists have vowed to learn from their Dublin experience. Next year, we Bostonians may discover exactly what they've learned.

For a critical mass of protesters at the 1775 Tea Tax Conference, the goal will not be to exercise their free speech rights, but to obstruct the rights of others to enjoy tea our Royal Masters have been kind enough to import for us, at reasonable charges.

Apparently, these rascals may be represented free of charge by some of the colony’s top legal talent. Way to go, guys.

http://www.startribune.com/blogs/kersten/?p=251