Less than 24 hours from the last post, we have more claims about the Health Insurance Reform bill. This time the federal government is going to have access to your bank account (which they already have under the old Bush laws) and will tap your bank account to pay for Health reform. To be frank, this is a variation of my idea that federal hackers raid corporate acounts in tax havens to pay for the deficit--an idea I still support. A man openly carrying a gun with a sign "Death to Tyrants" appears near President Obama's Health Care townhall meeting. because the audience was well-behaved, our corporate media claimed the audience was hand-picked despite the Republicans the President called on. They liked Arlen Specter's townhall meeting where people screamed loudly, covering the gamut of issues such as how innocent lives will be lost when Guatanamo will be closed. Naturally, we had the office of a black Democrat in Georgia covered with swastikas--was this an advertisement for the perpetrator or a delirious accusation that now blacks are Nazis. It could go either way.
What's great is that Liberty College talking points on the health care reform bill were posted and made like they were really referring to a real text. Thank God, they point out that ACORN will get special discounts on their health care. ACORN as we all know rigged both the Presidential election and the Minnesota Senate race. One of the best statements came from a town hall in Missouri where one of the protestors claimed illegals would get heath care and take it back to their home country. Cool.
Part of the subtext of the manufactured outrage throughout the election period and through the pseudo issues raised from the day Obama became President is that the Left had all the fun in the 1960s and 1970s and the conservatives sat back and just took it. How does one explain the infatuation with Bill Ayres? Conservatives resent the fact that Bill Ayres didn't go to jail and has created a career as an educator. Currently, there are efforts under way to try and deprive him of his tenured position. Most amusing to me is the right's belief that the Rosetta Stone for understanding the Obama Administation is Saul Alinsky and his Rules for Radicals. Part of this is because the RNC did a large opposition research project on Hillary Clinton, who did her thesis on Saul Alinsky, so they can't let good material go to waste. Rules for Radicals is the new bible for World Net Daily and a virtual playbook to understand the Obama Administration. Rewind to the campaign when Alinsky's son was interviewed about this and he started laughing uncontrollably explaining that his father had died before Obama was even a teenager and he knew of no connection.
A right-wing website published an article last night that claimed the Left were not able to mount violent protests anymore and taunted to the Left as if the Right is finally going to even the score for what?--Vietnam, Watergate, Abortion, Drugs, Welfare, Iraq? If you look at the protesters at the townhall meetings they are basically aging Baby Boomers, some of whom may have moved from the left to the right as they aged. Others were those who felt they missed out on the 60s and 70s because "they lives responsibly"--the silent majority.
The new twist is really religious. Terry Randall of Operation Rescue vowed violence if the Health Care Bill paid for abortions. Of course, there is an explicit amendment prohibiting this. But Rev. Huckabee with his sweetest sincere voice urged all pro-lifers to work against the Healthcare Bill because it did fund abortion and that Obama was the most radical pro-abortion President we have ever had. (A note--the Left is a bit miffed because Obama keeps putting pro-lifers in the Administration on health care issues. I agree with this concern.) Huckabee went on to say that Obama is for partial-birth abortions, late-term abortions and, I expected to hear, post-birth abortions. At today's townhall meeting, a Republican started asking the President a question reciting his alleged positions in his earlier career--as if the man has not listened at all for the past several months.
I received an e-mail basically declaring war on the govermment, "which has turned socialist"--certainly one of the most amazing transformations in world history, and calling for the people to take the government back from the current Administration. This is a common theme these days about conservatives wanting "their country back." Josh Marshall at www.talkingpointsmemo.com had snarky comeback,"Can't you wait your turn?"
But I think it comes from a number of reactions to both demographic and ideological changes in the country. Conservatives are very crestfallen that the Holy War against Islam has been --at least rhetorically--dismantled, even though the counter-terrorism programs have been beefed up. Few of us really undestood how George W. Bush really was the culimination of conservatives' dream and ideal of a born-again Christian , who was totally devoted to deregulation and to corporate interests and willing to launch an endless war against islamic terrorism. After the Cold War ended, conservatives felt a deep vaccuum in their lives, which became momentarily replaced by the events of 9-11. Recall Glenn Beck's glycerine tears about "how 9-11 brought us all together" and how we should all unite again on 9-12 this year. Conservatives feel now that they are the "dispossessed white people", a prominent theme of both white and Christian nationalists since the 1990s. Of course, the fact that white control all primary financial and political institutions in this country doesn't quite seem to count.
The Republican vote against Judge Sotomayor--a moderate despite conservatives' complaints--looks suicidal except that Republicans are cynically banking on white outrage to propel them back into being political players. But to stay in tune with this fanatical base, Republicans have to start creating structures to accomodate the insurrectionary rhetoric of Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh and other right wing radio hosts. The last I looked calling for insurrection was against federal law. I know Thomas Jefferson called for a revolution each generation but we never took that seriously. Sort of like Glenn Beck not acknowledging his hero Tom Paine was an atheist.
Demographically, the tide is going against conservatives and their strange religious brethren. So far, we have been asked to endorse torture because Obama opposed, asked to keep Quantanamo open because closing will send a sign of weakness, asked to oppose the auto bailout because the car industry should fail, oppose the stimulus package because it would increase federal intrusion into the affairs of the states, support the 10th Amendment Movement because it will block Washington's--read Obama's reach, block health care reform (after bills have already been passed and simply have to be reconciled)because of --fill in the blank-- and protest Obama's tax increases, although people like myself have gotten tax cuts.
In my view, the Republican Party needs to develop an armed wing. I suggest calling it the Revolutionary Army of Baby Jesus after the terrorist group in the Luis Bunuel movie with Fernando Rey. This would allow them to at least exert some control over the people carrying arms into townhall meetings. There is a surreal--is the right word for it--triumphalism of the Right these days--a Devil May Care type of vanguardism, which used to show up in the Marxist Left, when they argued the greater repression by Nixon would lead to a general revolt. There is a lot of this going around and will lead to deadly events. The white masses will rise up and save the Christian nation. If you don't think this isn't being fomented, just wait and see the reaction to the immigration reform legislation when the draft bills are posted. The Left keeps thinking this is a reflection of racism and the fact certain people can't get over a black man--albeit one descended from the Mayflower--is President. Also, that white are seeking to preserve their privileged positions in society and now feel threatened.
It's far more complex than that. The radical religious right believes America is degenerate and must be purged ofits sinful nature. For them, the United States was created as a Christian nation and to lead to the triumph of Christianity across the globe. The last, best hope for mankind must impose its will across the globe and at home. When the Republicans lost power in both Congress and the Presidency, there was big bucks at stake. The Bush Presidency created $500 billions worth of grants for contractors and non-profits, which shared similar goals. It's no mistake that even the security contracts went to followers of the radical religious right. This has been unhinged and all these people have become unhinged as a result. Elections do have consequences but the radical religious right will not countenance this. Because they are Christianists, not Christians; they are in for the politics and the power.
Those like myself who believed the din would die down after a few months; that the Republicans would have been chastened by their role in creating the worst economic situation since the Depression and structurally probably worse; that they would sober up to play a constructive role as the loyal opposition, were the ones who are deluded. The endless deep pockets of the corporate world can pay for the teabaggers, the birthers, the deathers and all the extremes for a prolonged period of time. The question is whether the morale and stamina of the people being mobilized last that long. Will defeat after defeat finally break their morale? After if it does, then will this really lead to a new generation of Tim McVeighs?
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Let Us Now Praise Famous Men
If you are young and interested in human rights, I suggest you choose a country or people you are interested in and forget all about whether there is any political interest in the United States about their cause and just concentrate on them. Human rights as a field has become so institutionalized and corporatized and dominated by specialists ,sometimes we forget why we became involved in the subject at all and why it is paramount to maintain a deep empathy with those people to whom we relate. Many of the causes I am still involved in date back over twenty years, sometimes longer, and all have maintained their interest to me because of the marvelous people I have met and encountered. Even during very dark days for them, they have maintained relationships and often these have extended to families. In recent years, in fact, I have focused on causes and people that have never engaged the interest of political United States or are removed from some grand strategic design.
One example of how individual interest can make a difference was the case of East Timor. In the 1970s and 1980s, a Washington lobbyist on other matters took a deep and almost obsessive interest in the fate of East Timor. This man was named Bruce Cameron. He would slowly make contact with every possible congressional office of importance and distribute information about human rights violations in the former Portuguese colony, which had been annexed by Indonesia. It wasn't that he was met with hostility; he was met for years with indifference. But after a long time, suddenly the issue of East Timor's independence became the issue and the wider human rights community and foreign policy think tanks became involved. But alot of what was accomplished in large part I attribute to Bruce's lonely but pioneering efforts.
So, today we should honor another such person--Eric Reeves, a professor of literature at Smith College and author of "A Long Day's Dying: Critical Moments in the Darfur Genocide". A classmate of mine at William College, Eric was a supreme philosophy student and cut a figure like Ludwig Wittgenstein on campus. During the college year, our student body--despite being distracted by Cambodia and Vietnam--came the aid of a southern Sudanese student, whose father had been killed in the then civil war. Whether Eric's later interest in the Southern Sudan came from the plight of Mom Arou at Williams I do not know. Before the entire global community embraced the cause of Darfur, Eric was one of only a few voices sounding alarm about the deteriorating situation in southern Sudan and warning about imminent genocide. At one point, he took a leave of absence from his tenured position at Smith to write about the subject, cajole and plead non-governmental organizations and our government to take action.
In an op-ed in the Boston Globe www.boston.com on August 6, Eric warned about a false optimism on Darfur. He has been right so many times before on the issue so these warnings should be heeded. He notes that the policy debate within the Obama Administration is still intense and that US special presidential envoy Scott Gration, a person close to the President, had argued for the normalization of relations with Khartoum and lifting sanctions and removing Sudan from the State department list of terrorist-sponsoring states. In June Gartion had blundered in saying that genocide in Dafur had ended.
Reeves was alarmed by this testimony. He points out that Khartoum has never lived up to any of its agreements; Egypt and China are still both obstacles to progress; and any ceasefire would demand robust monitoring of the sort that can not be provided by the current UN/African Union peacekeeping force, which is undermanned, underequipped and now has lost the confidence of most Darfuris. On March 4, Khartoum expelled 13 vital international humanitarian organizations and the Obama Administration, according to Reeves and others I have talked to, sadly underestimates the difficulty in generating new capacity on the humanitarian front as we hit the high point in the rainy season and a number of the camps face grave health and sanitation crises. Even in the camps, security is a tenuous, women still face rape, men are tortured and murdered and looting is epidemic.
There simply is no capacity to oversee what Gartion has talked about the "voluntary" return of some 2.7 million dispalced persons languishing in the camps throughout Darfur. They are being asked to return to lands without any protection and land which has already been seized by Arab tribal groups. The infamous Janjaweed have not been disarmed and continue to pose a threat.
Finally, Eric Reeves argues that Gration himself shows absolutely no understanding through his public statements that he comprehends the brutal nature of the regime that rules the Sudan and that they simply can not be cajoled or rewarded to do the right thing. Eric concludes," Any rapprochment that is not preceded by clear and irreversible actions to establish unimpeded humanitarian access, create freedom of movement and deployment for peacekeepers, and meet the critical benchmarks of the north/south peace agreement is doomed to fail." Unfortunately, Eric is right.
But we would not know this or have such advocates for the people of Darfur if Eric Reeves many years ago did not throw himself into the issue. What is most troubling is Washington's endless blindness to how crucial it is in zones of humanitarian crises to insert,sustain and maintain a capacity for humanitarian organizations to service the needs of the displaced, the refugees, the threatened. It is a sure recipe for more death and disaster.
One example of how individual interest can make a difference was the case of East Timor. In the 1970s and 1980s, a Washington lobbyist on other matters took a deep and almost obsessive interest in the fate of East Timor. This man was named Bruce Cameron. He would slowly make contact with every possible congressional office of importance and distribute information about human rights violations in the former Portuguese colony, which had been annexed by Indonesia. It wasn't that he was met with hostility; he was met for years with indifference. But after a long time, suddenly the issue of East Timor's independence became the issue and the wider human rights community and foreign policy think tanks became involved. But alot of what was accomplished in large part I attribute to Bruce's lonely but pioneering efforts.
So, today we should honor another such person--Eric Reeves, a professor of literature at Smith College and author of "A Long Day's Dying: Critical Moments in the Darfur Genocide". A classmate of mine at William College, Eric was a supreme philosophy student and cut a figure like Ludwig Wittgenstein on campus. During the college year, our student body--despite being distracted by Cambodia and Vietnam--came the aid of a southern Sudanese student, whose father had been killed in the then civil war. Whether Eric's later interest in the Southern Sudan came from the plight of Mom Arou at Williams I do not know. Before the entire global community embraced the cause of Darfur, Eric was one of only a few voices sounding alarm about the deteriorating situation in southern Sudan and warning about imminent genocide. At one point, he took a leave of absence from his tenured position at Smith to write about the subject, cajole and plead non-governmental organizations and our government to take action.
In an op-ed in the Boston Globe www.boston.com on August 6, Eric warned about a false optimism on Darfur. He has been right so many times before on the issue so these warnings should be heeded. He notes that the policy debate within the Obama Administration is still intense and that US special presidential envoy Scott Gration, a person close to the President, had argued for the normalization of relations with Khartoum and lifting sanctions and removing Sudan from the State department list of terrorist-sponsoring states. In June Gartion had blundered in saying that genocide in Dafur had ended.
Reeves was alarmed by this testimony. He points out that Khartoum has never lived up to any of its agreements; Egypt and China are still both obstacles to progress; and any ceasefire would demand robust monitoring of the sort that can not be provided by the current UN/African Union peacekeeping force, which is undermanned, underequipped and now has lost the confidence of most Darfuris. On March 4, Khartoum expelled 13 vital international humanitarian organizations and the Obama Administration, according to Reeves and others I have talked to, sadly underestimates the difficulty in generating new capacity on the humanitarian front as we hit the high point in the rainy season and a number of the camps face grave health and sanitation crises. Even in the camps, security is a tenuous, women still face rape, men are tortured and murdered and looting is epidemic.
There simply is no capacity to oversee what Gartion has talked about the "voluntary" return of some 2.7 million dispalced persons languishing in the camps throughout Darfur. They are being asked to return to lands without any protection and land which has already been seized by Arab tribal groups. The infamous Janjaweed have not been disarmed and continue to pose a threat.
Finally, Eric Reeves argues that Gration himself shows absolutely no understanding through his public statements that he comprehends the brutal nature of the regime that rules the Sudan and that they simply can not be cajoled or rewarded to do the right thing. Eric concludes," Any rapprochment that is not preceded by clear and irreversible actions to establish unimpeded humanitarian access, create freedom of movement and deployment for peacekeepers, and meet the critical benchmarks of the north/south peace agreement is doomed to fail." Unfortunately, Eric is right.
But we would not know this or have such advocates for the people of Darfur if Eric Reeves many years ago did not throw himself into the issue. What is most troubling is Washington's endless blindness to how crucial it is in zones of humanitarian crises to insert,sustain and maintain a capacity for humanitarian organizations to service the needs of the displaced, the refugees, the threatened. It is a sure recipe for more death and disaster.
Follow-up tributes to Doug Payne
Thanks to all who responded to the news of Doug Payne's death. In the world of the internet, some of the responses were surprising, especially the locations. A colleague of ours, remembering Doug's human rights work in Central and Latin America, e-mailed me from an out island of the Phillippines as a typhoon hit. The name for the typhoon Doug would have appreciated--Angela Jolie. Moose Kaplan called from Paris to recall Doug visiting his English class in the Bronx and entering his primarily Hispanic classroom, who enjoyed Doug's stories. One e-mail was from Singapore.
Calling through his laptop was George Zarycky, the current USAID Director for Democracy Programs in Armenia. George for many years wrote all the country reports on Central Europe and the former Republics of the Soviet Union for Freedom House's Survey of Freedom. I guess he had survived his work in the Ukraine, probably stirring up the Orange Revolution.
Others e-mailed about his work for indigenous people and particularly those marginalized or dispossessed in our world. And of course mention was made to his comprehensive view of the Caribbean and its politics.
I tried to tally up the number of heads of state Doug and I had met either separately or together. This did not include guerrilla leaders or opposition political party leaders. I stopped at four dozen a piece. What was striking about this was that I don't recall Doug ever expressing any admiration for any of them. And to be frank, I can only think of Vaclav Havel and the Dalai Lama as the two admirable figures I have met and for whom I have continued respect. I think alot of it has to do with a mutual awareness that politics is by nature corrupt and corrupting.
A few things I omitted in my tribute to him. I forgot he organized the improbable trip of Mayor Ed Koch through Central America in support of the Arias Peace Plan. Nobel Peace Prize winner Oscar Arias thought it was hilarious that Mayor Koch showed up at the presidential palace wthout any socks on, while wearing dress shoes. He had run out of clean socks but that didn't deter Hizzoner. I was also called to task by one of Doug's friends for not mentioning that Doug visited Cuba to assist the democratic underground and human rights activists there by travelling through the Bahamas as a tourist. In the process, he decided to travel throughout the island, particularly the rural areas.
In my last e-mail to him, I sent a declaration by Eden Pastora, "Commandante Cero"the famed Sandinista guerrilla, then anti-Sandinista guerrilla and shark hunter, who vowed to come out of retirement to liberate Honduras from the golpistas. He quipped,"Whose going to be Commadante Uno?" We sponsored a trip for Eden Pastora to New York and Washington during the heat of the Central American wars and Doug and I had to finesse Pastora away from running off for dalliances with some of the female journalists, whom he was always trying to seduce. We caught the Commandante flagrante delicto with a journalist on top of the conference table in a small meeting room at Freedom House.
It's important to remember that when Doug started work on Latin America he knew next to nothing about it, except his fine appreciation of magical realism, and in a few short years became an authentic expert with a comprehensive knowledge of its politics and culture. He was sought out over the years for background briefings by many well-known journalists, some of whom capitalized on his knowledge and his contacts to keep their sputtering careers going. He was widely quoted and interviewed on television and radio. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, he and I recorded a series of radio shows for syndication covering a range of topics from democratization, the revolutions in Central Europe, the progress in Central and Latin America and issues facing American foreign policy. One wonders what we could have done if the world wide web existed at its present capacity.
Calling through his laptop was George Zarycky, the current USAID Director for Democracy Programs in Armenia. George for many years wrote all the country reports on Central Europe and the former Republics of the Soviet Union for Freedom House's Survey of Freedom. I guess he had survived his work in the Ukraine, probably stirring up the Orange Revolution.
Others e-mailed about his work for indigenous people and particularly those marginalized or dispossessed in our world. And of course mention was made to his comprehensive view of the Caribbean and its politics.
I tried to tally up the number of heads of state Doug and I had met either separately or together. This did not include guerrilla leaders or opposition political party leaders. I stopped at four dozen a piece. What was striking about this was that I don't recall Doug ever expressing any admiration for any of them. And to be frank, I can only think of Vaclav Havel and the Dalai Lama as the two admirable figures I have met and for whom I have continued respect. I think alot of it has to do with a mutual awareness that politics is by nature corrupt and corrupting.
A few things I omitted in my tribute to him. I forgot he organized the improbable trip of Mayor Ed Koch through Central America in support of the Arias Peace Plan. Nobel Peace Prize winner Oscar Arias thought it was hilarious that Mayor Koch showed up at the presidential palace wthout any socks on, while wearing dress shoes. He had run out of clean socks but that didn't deter Hizzoner. I was also called to task by one of Doug's friends for not mentioning that Doug visited Cuba to assist the democratic underground and human rights activists there by travelling through the Bahamas as a tourist. In the process, he decided to travel throughout the island, particularly the rural areas.
In my last e-mail to him, I sent a declaration by Eden Pastora, "Commandante Cero"the famed Sandinista guerrilla, then anti-Sandinista guerrilla and shark hunter, who vowed to come out of retirement to liberate Honduras from the golpistas. He quipped,"Whose going to be Commadante Uno?" We sponsored a trip for Eden Pastora to New York and Washington during the heat of the Central American wars and Doug and I had to finesse Pastora away from running off for dalliances with some of the female journalists, whom he was always trying to seduce. We caught the Commandante flagrante delicto with a journalist on top of the conference table in a small meeting room at Freedom House.
It's important to remember that when Doug started work on Latin America he knew next to nothing about it, except his fine appreciation of magical realism, and in a few short years became an authentic expert with a comprehensive knowledge of its politics and culture. He was sought out over the years for background briefings by many well-known journalists, some of whom capitalized on his knowledge and his contacts to keep their sputtering careers going. He was widely quoted and interviewed on television and radio. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, he and I recorded a series of radio shows for syndication covering a range of topics from democratization, the revolutions in Central Europe, the progress in Central and Latin America and issues facing American foreign policy. One wonders what we could have done if the world wide web existed at its present capacity.
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Doug Payne 1951-2009
We've lost our most critical reader. Poet, writer and human rights activist. Doug Payne wrote prose with a style tight as a drum and with a fluency in images that brought issues home with an impact. Doug was my friend for 53 some odd years and died on Wednesday July 29th from a two-year struggle against lung cancer. First diagnosed in 2007, he underwent surgery and chemo and had a positive prognosis. On July 19th I e-mailed him a clip about the famous Commandante Cero--Eden Pastora--threatening to invade Honduras to free it from the golpistas. Apparently in the ensuing week his condition deteriorated and finally he died in the Bronx.
His last monicker was "author lives in the Adirondacks". For me he will always be associated with my childhood on the Jersey Shore where we went to grade school in Asbury Park and later with Manhattan, where he lived for over a quarter of a century before he and his wife bought a home near Saranac Lake. By coincidence both of us ended up at William College, where we found ourselves as roommates. Now it can be told, Doug was involved in the capture of the Administrative Building during the protest by black students and comveniently stole the files secretly maintained on his friends, including me. During the protests against the invasion of Cambodia during 1970, Doug spoke at local colleges in Western Massachusetts and participated in the strike movement. He began writing poetry at Williams and won honors from the Yale Younger Poets program.
When I was at Harvard, Doug drove a cab and lived in Belmont, Massachusetts. We later rented a house in Newton with my wife and an actor Ed Barron. Doug and I "tutored" a young man, whom Harvard Medical School literally called "the sickest human being we have ever examined." A man prone to violence, incoherent ravings who communicated in pop lyrics. We convinced his mother to let us ween him away from the massive doses of thorazine. The experiment ended with a semi-articulate man, who no longer punched through the mindclouds created by the drug. At his worst, Richard could knock you out while you drove him in a car or break a solid oak desk in half during one of his rages. Our experience with him would provide a catalog of private phrases and codewords we would use to communicate in the years ahead.
With my wife at Duke and me at the University of Chicago, Doug moved to Manhattan and worked first in the mailroom of a law firm to allow himself time to write. He was assembling a book of poetry with another Williams Alum Jamie James entitled "Today's Problems",the title of a well-known history and civics book used in the 1950s. The book had such classic images as Hitler riding in a car with the caption "Not Our Style". Doug started writing sports columns for Andy Warhol's Interview magazine. After I moved to New York in the mid-1970s, we had lunch with Andy who graciously showed us his silk screening technique and proudly showed off to Bob Collicello several pages of his book--a single page xeroxed several times.
Together we created Pachyderm Productions, a multimedia company that sought to publish Today's Problems, write screenplays and produce documentaries. I went off to Angola with David Smith to produce a documentary on the UNITA guerrilas fighting the Cubans in southern and central Angola. The film "Bullets into Rain" was shown at MOMA and caught the eye of the now late Walter Cronkite, who showed it on the CBS Evening News, which we all watched at a neighborhood bar. We also wrote a screenplay with David Shepard and Jamie James called Zungu Whiplash, a spaghetti Western set in Kenya, which was supposed to be a vehicle for the late Tony Perkins. Years later, I thought I saw a grade C production of it on television overseas. After a few years, we abandoned our 26nd Street offices with a second-story picture window that showed a parade of streetwalkers late at night and moved everything into Doug's apartment.
On a dare by a publisher--could we produce a book in a month--Doug and I wrote "Where have They Gone--Rock and Roll Stars". The Tempo paperback made the bellseller list for a month on the West Coast. The project entailed tracking down old time pop stars and interviewing them about their lives. A few moments were worth it. Herman of Herman's Hemits--Peter Noone told us he actually had saved all his money from those years, lived in Malibu, had a studio built near the pool and was enjoying life. Tony Williams would call and talk for hours on heroin, asking us to get royalities for him. And we met Ronnie Spector at a diner near the old Coliseum Bookstore where she told us she couldn't be interviewed for fear of her ex--Phil. Friends of ours heard about this and suggested the both of us contribute to a book on Fast Food. This led to our interview with Parliment and Funkadelic leader George Clinton and the strange graphic of the United Nations made from chocolate that appears in the book.
After a few years of freelance writing, I went onto Freedom House and became the resident scholar. After a stint as a bartender, Doug called me from the train station to say he was going into rehab after a a ten day bender, which nearly killed him. What's amazing today is that he stayed absolutely straight for over a quarter of a century and smoke free for the last fourteen years or so. As events were happening in Latin and Central America, I hired Doug first as my assistant and then later he took my position as head of Latin America at Freedom House. After I left there, he eventually served for a short time as the executive director.
He became a regular contributor to Freedom at Issue and for many years virtually wrote up the country reports for all of Latin America, the Caribbean and Central America for the Survey of Freedom, something unheard of today when academics produce the reports.
During these years, Doug and I travelled alot--often together. For years, we basically commuted to El Salvador. He was a popular speaker at labor union functions in the region. We were together at the historic elections in Chile, which saw the end of the Pinochet regime. We also travelled to Suriname where we had the bizarre moment of watching missionaries baptize locals in the motel swimming pool. Paraguay was probably the strangest trip because of the country itself. Prior to an audience with then General Rodriquez, who had toppled Stroessner, we found ourselves in a British beef house decorated with English prints and ghastly furniture. But it was Haiti where Doug got into his old revolutionary spirit. This was before Rev. Aristide got corrupt and it was in the middle of the popular revolution against the military government. He spent hours on the street becoming involved in the demonstrations and parading around Port-au-Prince.
After both of us left Freedom House in the 1990s, Doug developed the dossiers for political asylum cases from Central America and actively persuaded the INS to become more deliberate and moral on these issues. He also began to write for Dissent and new magazines on topics ranging from the border wars along the Mexico-Texas frontier to the corruption in our native Asbury Park. For years, he worked closely with the Socialist International secretariat crafting their position papers and making the arrangements for their meetings. During these years, he finally got to travel to Africa and to India. His analysis of Caribbean politics for CSIS provoked the ire of the Bird family in Antigua as Doug detailed the levels of their corruption. In the last few months, we have shared a few e-mails over the arrest of the ponzi scheme artist, Sir Stanford, and the complete collapse of the Antiguan banks and the total impoverishment of the local citizens.
Shortly after 9/11, he and his wife Nancy, who is a licensed vet, bought a home in upper New York State. Nancy was one of the vets who took care of the dogs during the immediate aftermath to the Twin Tower collapse. You can see some of Doug's last works on http://www.wordriot.org/ . With my dreams of moving to Maine, Doug exchanged his views on wood-burning stoves, the proper snowshoes to buy and the problems of getting wired in rural America. He loved where he lived, except when all the yuppies would fly up for summer days on Saranac Lake. Over the last few years, he travelled to Oklahoma to meet with distant relatives to study the outlaw background of some of his family in the 19th century. He went fly-fishing in Montana and Pennsylvania with his brother Roger, and would alert me to his travels to the Jersey Shore where he loved to stay in a motel run by a Hindi couple.
Doug took time to critique my son's band and forward his recommendations of favorite old bluesingers, which he listened to. He was looking toward Ian's new CD to be cut this month. He thought Ian had wrongly moved from a punk-style, which reminded Doug of the days going to CBGB's and listening to the Ramones, to a more jazzy style, which he always called noodling. He preferred the unvarnished rock without decoration--much like his prose style.
Years ago, we said when our rides were about over we would get together again and compare notes. Unfortunately, it won't happen. There were a lot of hits and moments. An endless stream of memories. As our favorite phrase coined under the influence of acid, it was a 'remembered state of mind that has never been."
Goodby, old friend.
His last monicker was "author lives in the Adirondacks". For me he will always be associated with my childhood on the Jersey Shore where we went to grade school in Asbury Park and later with Manhattan, where he lived for over a quarter of a century before he and his wife bought a home near Saranac Lake. By coincidence both of us ended up at William College, where we found ourselves as roommates. Now it can be told, Doug was involved in the capture of the Administrative Building during the protest by black students and comveniently stole the files secretly maintained on his friends, including me. During the protests against the invasion of Cambodia during 1970, Doug spoke at local colleges in Western Massachusetts and participated in the strike movement. He began writing poetry at Williams and won honors from the Yale Younger Poets program.
When I was at Harvard, Doug drove a cab and lived in Belmont, Massachusetts. We later rented a house in Newton with my wife and an actor Ed Barron. Doug and I "tutored" a young man, whom Harvard Medical School literally called "the sickest human being we have ever examined." A man prone to violence, incoherent ravings who communicated in pop lyrics. We convinced his mother to let us ween him away from the massive doses of thorazine. The experiment ended with a semi-articulate man, who no longer punched through the mindclouds created by the drug. At his worst, Richard could knock you out while you drove him in a car or break a solid oak desk in half during one of his rages. Our experience with him would provide a catalog of private phrases and codewords we would use to communicate in the years ahead.
With my wife at Duke and me at the University of Chicago, Doug moved to Manhattan and worked first in the mailroom of a law firm to allow himself time to write. He was assembling a book of poetry with another Williams Alum Jamie James entitled "Today's Problems",the title of a well-known history and civics book used in the 1950s. The book had such classic images as Hitler riding in a car with the caption "Not Our Style". Doug started writing sports columns for Andy Warhol's Interview magazine. After I moved to New York in the mid-1970s, we had lunch with Andy who graciously showed us his silk screening technique and proudly showed off to Bob Collicello several pages of his book--a single page xeroxed several times.
Together we created Pachyderm Productions, a multimedia company that sought to publish Today's Problems, write screenplays and produce documentaries. I went off to Angola with David Smith to produce a documentary on the UNITA guerrilas fighting the Cubans in southern and central Angola. The film "Bullets into Rain" was shown at MOMA and caught the eye of the now late Walter Cronkite, who showed it on the CBS Evening News, which we all watched at a neighborhood bar. We also wrote a screenplay with David Shepard and Jamie James called Zungu Whiplash, a spaghetti Western set in Kenya, which was supposed to be a vehicle for the late Tony Perkins. Years later, I thought I saw a grade C production of it on television overseas. After a few years, we abandoned our 26nd Street offices with a second-story picture window that showed a parade of streetwalkers late at night and moved everything into Doug's apartment.
On a dare by a publisher--could we produce a book in a month--Doug and I wrote "Where have They Gone--Rock and Roll Stars". The Tempo paperback made the bellseller list for a month on the West Coast. The project entailed tracking down old time pop stars and interviewing them about their lives. A few moments were worth it. Herman of Herman's Hemits--Peter Noone told us he actually had saved all his money from those years, lived in Malibu, had a studio built near the pool and was enjoying life. Tony Williams would call and talk for hours on heroin, asking us to get royalities for him. And we met Ronnie Spector at a diner near the old Coliseum Bookstore where she told us she couldn't be interviewed for fear of her ex--Phil. Friends of ours heard about this and suggested the both of us contribute to a book on Fast Food. This led to our interview with Parliment and Funkadelic leader George Clinton and the strange graphic of the United Nations made from chocolate that appears in the book.
After a few years of freelance writing, I went onto Freedom House and became the resident scholar. After a stint as a bartender, Doug called me from the train station to say he was going into rehab after a a ten day bender, which nearly killed him. What's amazing today is that he stayed absolutely straight for over a quarter of a century and smoke free for the last fourteen years or so. As events were happening in Latin and Central America, I hired Doug first as my assistant and then later he took my position as head of Latin America at Freedom House. After I left there, he eventually served for a short time as the executive director.
He became a regular contributor to Freedom at Issue and for many years virtually wrote up the country reports for all of Latin America, the Caribbean and Central America for the Survey of Freedom, something unheard of today when academics produce the reports.
During these years, Doug and I travelled alot--often together. For years, we basically commuted to El Salvador. He was a popular speaker at labor union functions in the region. We were together at the historic elections in Chile, which saw the end of the Pinochet regime. We also travelled to Suriname where we had the bizarre moment of watching missionaries baptize locals in the motel swimming pool. Paraguay was probably the strangest trip because of the country itself. Prior to an audience with then General Rodriquez, who had toppled Stroessner, we found ourselves in a British beef house decorated with English prints and ghastly furniture. But it was Haiti where Doug got into his old revolutionary spirit. This was before Rev. Aristide got corrupt and it was in the middle of the popular revolution against the military government. He spent hours on the street becoming involved in the demonstrations and parading around Port-au-Prince.
After both of us left Freedom House in the 1990s, Doug developed the dossiers for political asylum cases from Central America and actively persuaded the INS to become more deliberate and moral on these issues. He also began to write for Dissent and new magazines on topics ranging from the border wars along the Mexico-Texas frontier to the corruption in our native Asbury Park. For years, he worked closely with the Socialist International secretariat crafting their position papers and making the arrangements for their meetings. During these years, he finally got to travel to Africa and to India. His analysis of Caribbean politics for CSIS provoked the ire of the Bird family in Antigua as Doug detailed the levels of their corruption. In the last few months, we have shared a few e-mails over the arrest of the ponzi scheme artist, Sir Stanford, and the complete collapse of the Antiguan banks and the total impoverishment of the local citizens.
Shortly after 9/11, he and his wife Nancy, who is a licensed vet, bought a home in upper New York State. Nancy was one of the vets who took care of the dogs during the immediate aftermath to the Twin Tower collapse. You can see some of Doug's last works on http://www.wordriot.org/ . With my dreams of moving to Maine, Doug exchanged his views on wood-burning stoves, the proper snowshoes to buy and the problems of getting wired in rural America. He loved where he lived, except when all the yuppies would fly up for summer days on Saranac Lake. Over the last few years, he travelled to Oklahoma to meet with distant relatives to study the outlaw background of some of his family in the 19th century. He went fly-fishing in Montana and Pennsylvania with his brother Roger, and would alert me to his travels to the Jersey Shore where he loved to stay in a motel run by a Hindi couple.
Doug took time to critique my son's band and forward his recommendations of favorite old bluesingers, which he listened to. He was looking toward Ian's new CD to be cut this month. He thought Ian had wrongly moved from a punk-style, which reminded Doug of the days going to CBGB's and listening to the Ramones, to a more jazzy style, which he always called noodling. He preferred the unvarnished rock without decoration--much like his prose style.
Years ago, we said when our rides were about over we would get together again and compare notes. Unfortunately, it won't happen. There were a lot of hits and moments. An endless stream of memories. As our favorite phrase coined under the influence of acid, it was a 'remembered state of mind that has never been."
Goodby, old friend.
Monday, July 27, 2009
The Quittah from Wasilla, Birther Madness and America the Stupid
We are now definitely in the dog days of summer. A few days in New Jersey, where fears of Obama's health plan are high, and birther nonsense seems to win favor, it dawned on me that I can't listen to these people anymore. Basically, healthcare will pass in some form that will ameliorate the present crisis and Obama will have another domestic triumph of some sort. Sotomayor will be confirmed, despite the racist positions of Sessions, Hatch and Kyle. And we remain in Afghanistan and Iraq is acting independently. Newsweek reports the recession is over--not for some of us. Recovery will be long and hard and I doubt whether the old economy will remain the same.
While away, the birthers got wall-to-wall media coverage from CNN, FOX and NBC. Of course, the big fly in their oinment is the fact Barack Obama's mother was an American. All the rest of the nonsense about birth certificates, live births, the rumors about Mombassa (which would have been in Zanzibar when he was born) and his mother renouncing her American citizenship in Indonesia (extremely doubtful as she was a U.S. government employee in a country in the middle of a civil war), is just that nonsense. Huffingtonpost.com actually had a person videotape answers of House Republicans about whether Obama was a U.S citizen. Only one very conservative representative from Arizona answered in the affirmative.
Republicans believe they can play the race card to win the 2010 by-elections. That's why they don't want to alienate the birthers. In fact, Republicans didn't even respond to the prime-time press conference by President Obama on health care. Instead, the RNC and the NRSC rifled off denunciations of Obama's criticism of Cambridge, Mass police arresting Harvard professor Gates while in his own home. Now House Republicans want to pass a resolution calling on Congress forcing him to apologize because he said the police acted stupidly. Arresting a black man entering his own home with suitcases might be called stupid in the world of reality. But this flap served to get the media off the healthcare debate. In other words it served the Republicans short-term purpose. Now the new argument about healthcare reform is that illegal immigrants will receive free healthcare. Maybe this will all pay off for the Republicans but how it serves the country is beyond me.
Howard Kurtz reported that he had made frequent inquiries to Republican offices about the GOP ideas about healthcare reform and found out they have no such plan,although Roy Blunt, the leading Republican on healthcare had previously claimed a plan would be forthcoming. So in terms of policy initiatives, the GOP remains without a single idea except to race bait on every issues. Even the cancellation of the F-22 is now made into an issue of trying to prevent the Hate Crime Bill from being passed in the Senate. From healthcare to defense, it's all about race and gays. We also know the health insurance industry--the last standing prosperous financial sector in America--has bought and sold the Republicans and many of the Blue Dog Democrats like Max Baucus. If nothing happens on healthcare, the number of uninsured is expected to raise to 66 million and insurance rates for the rest of us are expected to double.
The Grifter from Wasilla or the Quittah from Wasilla turned her farewell week into a series of picnics. She isn't even funny anymore. The Fox News poll today showed a plurality of Americans believe she should have a new life as a housewife, followed by being a TV announcer. Her stature among Republicans has dropped so that she is in fourth place with about 17% for the 2012 presidential nomination. Her farewell speeches were incomprehensible to me somehow linking honoring the troops by urging the press not to make things up. A Tenth Amendment follower she warned about ever-expanding federal control over state affairs. Although she was a recipient of federal largesse during her short tenure as was fellow Tenth Amender Rick Perry of Texas who has filled in his budget gaps with stimulus money.
The best fun was the internet rumors that Rupert Murdoch's yacht and private plane had showed up in Alaska during Palin's last week. Using Google Earth they were there in living color. I would imagine to finalize deals with the Palin family on her memoirs and possible Fox appearances. Hopefully, Sarah Palin has transcended to celebritydom where she will now be the filler for tabloids, which will chronicle her marital ups and downs and her latest fashion styles.
Which brings me to real Harold Bloom theme of the Real Closing of the American Mind. Having treated myself to Stacy Keach's landmark performance as King Lear at our local Shakespeare theater, I feel an authority today on this issue. The greatest danger to the United States is the willful embrace of ignorance. We saw alot of this during the Bush-Cheney years and during Sarah Palin's Vice Presidential bid in 2008. Ideology alone triumphed over competence. Success was and is solely defined as wealth and a lack of education is considered a virtue and a sign of one's basic honesty. The more ignorant one's positions the more honest one is perceived.
The election of Barack Obama spurred this embrace of the stupid so that it is an arch leading to our destruction. Let's take Glenn Beck. Having defeated his drug and alcohol abuse, his Mormanism and his libertarianism, he has warned about the inherent fascism of the Obama Administration. A strange thing for a person earning $25 million a year to say. He pointed to the fasces decorating the podium of the Speaker of the House and its appearance on the dime. He told his viewers that appeared because of Woodrow Wilson, one of the so-called progressive leaders around the time of WWI. Actually, before the fascists coopted the symbol, it represented a Republican form of government. The right has embraced this theme of fascism as being leftist, despite all the historical evidence to the contrary. They flog Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism as the definite statement on this subject.
If anyone has any doubt on this issue, a good introduction to fascism's rightist orientation can be found in Kevin Passmore's Fascism, a very short introduction in the Oxford series on various ideologies and philosophies. Passmore has it his study to examine emerging fascism--that is, fascism before it reaches the mature states of Mussolini's Italy and Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany. Dysfunctional democracies allow for fascist openings and fascist leaders form alliances with conservative business interests to propel and sustain themselves in power. The whole theme is to renovate the nation as an organic, racial entity and not embark on a set of economic policies. They tend to be the cultural warriors par excellence. As we saw in the Holocaust, the idea is to purge the body politic of "foreign" influences and peoples considered as racially alien to the country. I would suggest some parts of the Republican base share much with early fascists.
This week we received news that the Obama Administration will release U.S. Government photographic evidence about climate change that had been suppressed during the Bush-Cheney regnum. This was an Administration which had enormous trouble coping with science. Probably the next revelations will be the release of recent dinosaur discoveries which the Bush Administration feared would prove evolution.
We end today's entry with Rush Limbaugh, the 50 million dollar man, warning about dictatorship and torture to be carried out by the Obama Administration. During Abu Ghraib, he said all this was like a frat party and he touted with great humor Club Gitmo, as the Muslim resort. Why the sudden darkness? A 2% income tax hike might cause him another $1 million. His audience probably can understand that.
Today's quiz is "Who is the most educated? Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh or Sarah Palin? The answer is--it's a she.
While away, the birthers got wall-to-wall media coverage from CNN, FOX and NBC. Of course, the big fly in their oinment is the fact Barack Obama's mother was an American. All the rest of the nonsense about birth certificates, live births, the rumors about Mombassa (which would have been in Zanzibar when he was born) and his mother renouncing her American citizenship in Indonesia (extremely doubtful as she was a U.S. government employee in a country in the middle of a civil war), is just that nonsense. Huffingtonpost.com actually had a person videotape answers of House Republicans about whether Obama was a U.S citizen. Only one very conservative representative from Arizona answered in the affirmative.
Republicans believe they can play the race card to win the 2010 by-elections. That's why they don't want to alienate the birthers. In fact, Republicans didn't even respond to the prime-time press conference by President Obama on health care. Instead, the RNC and the NRSC rifled off denunciations of Obama's criticism of Cambridge, Mass police arresting Harvard professor Gates while in his own home. Now House Republicans want to pass a resolution calling on Congress forcing him to apologize because he said the police acted stupidly. Arresting a black man entering his own home with suitcases might be called stupid in the world of reality. But this flap served to get the media off the healthcare debate. In other words it served the Republicans short-term purpose. Now the new argument about healthcare reform is that illegal immigrants will receive free healthcare. Maybe this will all pay off for the Republicans but how it serves the country is beyond me.
Howard Kurtz reported that he had made frequent inquiries to Republican offices about the GOP ideas about healthcare reform and found out they have no such plan,although Roy Blunt, the leading Republican on healthcare had previously claimed a plan would be forthcoming. So in terms of policy initiatives, the GOP remains without a single idea except to race bait on every issues. Even the cancellation of the F-22 is now made into an issue of trying to prevent the Hate Crime Bill from being passed in the Senate. From healthcare to defense, it's all about race and gays. We also know the health insurance industry--the last standing prosperous financial sector in America--has bought and sold the Republicans and many of the Blue Dog Democrats like Max Baucus. If nothing happens on healthcare, the number of uninsured is expected to raise to 66 million and insurance rates for the rest of us are expected to double.
The Grifter from Wasilla or the Quittah from Wasilla turned her farewell week into a series of picnics. She isn't even funny anymore. The Fox News poll today showed a plurality of Americans believe she should have a new life as a housewife, followed by being a TV announcer. Her stature among Republicans has dropped so that she is in fourth place with about 17% for the 2012 presidential nomination. Her farewell speeches were incomprehensible to me somehow linking honoring the troops by urging the press not to make things up. A Tenth Amendment follower she warned about ever-expanding federal control over state affairs. Although she was a recipient of federal largesse during her short tenure as was fellow Tenth Amender Rick Perry of Texas who has filled in his budget gaps with stimulus money.
The best fun was the internet rumors that Rupert Murdoch's yacht and private plane had showed up in Alaska during Palin's last week. Using Google Earth they were there in living color. I would imagine to finalize deals with the Palin family on her memoirs and possible Fox appearances. Hopefully, Sarah Palin has transcended to celebritydom where she will now be the filler for tabloids, which will chronicle her marital ups and downs and her latest fashion styles.
Which brings me to real Harold Bloom theme of the Real Closing of the American Mind. Having treated myself to Stacy Keach's landmark performance as King Lear at our local Shakespeare theater, I feel an authority today on this issue. The greatest danger to the United States is the willful embrace of ignorance. We saw alot of this during the Bush-Cheney years and during Sarah Palin's Vice Presidential bid in 2008. Ideology alone triumphed over competence. Success was and is solely defined as wealth and a lack of education is considered a virtue and a sign of one's basic honesty. The more ignorant one's positions the more honest one is perceived.
The election of Barack Obama spurred this embrace of the stupid so that it is an arch leading to our destruction. Let's take Glenn Beck. Having defeated his drug and alcohol abuse, his Mormanism and his libertarianism, he has warned about the inherent fascism of the Obama Administration. A strange thing for a person earning $25 million a year to say. He pointed to the fasces decorating the podium of the Speaker of the House and its appearance on the dime. He told his viewers that appeared because of Woodrow Wilson, one of the so-called progressive leaders around the time of WWI. Actually, before the fascists coopted the symbol, it represented a Republican form of government. The right has embraced this theme of fascism as being leftist, despite all the historical evidence to the contrary. They flog Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism as the definite statement on this subject.
If anyone has any doubt on this issue, a good introduction to fascism's rightist orientation can be found in Kevin Passmore's Fascism, a very short introduction in the Oxford series on various ideologies and philosophies. Passmore has it his study to examine emerging fascism--that is, fascism before it reaches the mature states of Mussolini's Italy and Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany. Dysfunctional democracies allow for fascist openings and fascist leaders form alliances with conservative business interests to propel and sustain themselves in power. The whole theme is to renovate the nation as an organic, racial entity and not embark on a set of economic policies. They tend to be the cultural warriors par excellence. As we saw in the Holocaust, the idea is to purge the body politic of "foreign" influences and peoples considered as racially alien to the country. I would suggest some parts of the Republican base share much with early fascists.
This week we received news that the Obama Administration will release U.S. Government photographic evidence about climate change that had been suppressed during the Bush-Cheney regnum. This was an Administration which had enormous trouble coping with science. Probably the next revelations will be the release of recent dinosaur discoveries which the Bush Administration feared would prove evolution.
We end today's entry with Rush Limbaugh, the 50 million dollar man, warning about dictatorship and torture to be carried out by the Obama Administration. During Abu Ghraib, he said all this was like a frat party and he touted with great humor Club Gitmo, as the Muslim resort. Why the sudden darkness? A 2% income tax hike might cause him another $1 million. His audience probably can understand that.
Today's quiz is "Who is the most educated? Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh or Sarah Palin? The answer is--it's a she.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Saturday Afternoon--Shards of Summer
President Obama pushed Gibbs out of the way and gave his own Friday press briefing recapping the progress toward Health Care reform and promises that his plan will not affect the deficit. he seems to have some fire over from his trip to New Jersey and the NAACP speech. Luckily for him the new Congressional Budget Office report backs him up and supports the House bill. Blue Dog Democrats wanting to postpone the health reform are going to be disappointed.
Senator DeMint of South Carolina declares this "Obama's Waterloo" and if health care reform is stopped, it will break his presidency. Which would lead 3 1/2 years left. And then what wait for the Republicans to conjure up some ideas? The awe-inspiring lack of any consideration for the public good still amazes me about the Obama-era Republicans.
Meanwhile Dick Lugar was the first Republican to announce his support for Sotomayor--Mel Martinez and Olympia Snowe were soon to follow. So, it's 63 so far and at least 1 Republican has to vote for her on the Judiciary to get the nomination to the floor. I think Grassley and Hatch will go for her. I am tired of hearing how the Republican strategy was to set the markers for the next nominee, not Sotomayor, who I insist is a moderate. I am more convinced than ever Obama should invite a donnybrook for the next nominee and name Laurence Tribe--with both men recognizing it might be a losing struggle. At least we might have hearing where constitutional issues might be openly debated--and it would be worth it. Tribe would probably not be long on the court but I would pay to hear a debate between him and Sessions.
The Obama era has not been kind to the Free Republic. Several bloggers have made the news--the Holocaust Museum killer, the Pittsburgh cop killer and the killer of Dr. Tiller. A few comments had brought the Secret Service around. Sarah Palin quits--despite the false bravado on the website about what a righteous move this was. Mitt Romney supporters purged and the quest to exterminate the RINOS continues. Now Jim Robinson has called for a revolution and armed resistance if----health care reform is passed. A curious thing since both he and his wife are wheelchair bound. Medicaid, Tricare --they must have something that the rest of don't have. For years I have been a lurker at the site and lament this descent into a certain lunacy. Before other sites covered certain topics on the right they did without the heightened religious content and now the vitriol over Obama.
Birthers are now being covered on television as sort of the Moon landing deniers and 9/11 truthers. The Young Turks this week covered the great Obama birth certificate flap with their sense of humor--they even showed a tape of the original certificate--creased with all the appropriate seals and signatures. They even quoted the harassed Hawaiian government officials about "how many times do we have to say it is authentic and he was born in Hawaii". Birthers made it on the Worse Persons of the World for encouraging serving military men to join in their suits to avoid service in Afghanistan. Another federal judge had to rule against an Army Reserve Major who protested his impending call-up--he volunteered after signing on as a plaintiff to this case--alleging Obama was not eligible to be Commander-in-Chief. After declaring a victory of sorts, when the case went against him and his lawyer and the military withdrew his call-up, CENTCOM had to make announcement calling their calls ridiculous.
Not to be outdone by Pat Buchanan, Rush Limbaugh seems to be stirring the racial war pot himself. Frankly, I haven't seen blacks getting much advantage from the Obama Administration and especially during this depression. I'm wondering where the great grievances of Rich White Men are coming from. Even with a surtax for health reform, both men will be earning in a month more than the average American couple earns in a year or two. I think it's unseemly for the very wealthy to be bitter and angry. As the Bible says, From those who have received much, much is expected.
The gnostic cult here in D.C., the Family seems to be breeding more adulterers by the minute. Former Republican Congressman Pickering of Missippi apparently joins the list with Sanford and Ensign of those with Family connections who seemed to have gone soft on some of the 10 Commandments. His wife is suing the mistress for causing "alienation of affection"--I like that. Apparently, Pickering actually conducted the affair in the "C" Street house itself. It's cool to be one of God's Chosen--the rules don't apply. Meanwhile Gov Sanford seems to have misused state funds to facilitate his love affair--he at least fell in love.
Obama needs to go for the gold on health care reform right now or it will slip,slide away and , for get the political consequences, the economic effects will be devastating. With unemployment rising, those without health insurance increases, personal bankruptcy increases and the impact on the national deficit increases. The only other domestic reform Obama will be able to get out of Congress will be Immigration Reform. The Republicans know that health care reform, immigration reform and their opposition to Sotomayor and they are doomed. That's why Republicans are fighting tooth and nail over these things. Party uber alles--country last.
Senator DeMint of South Carolina declares this "Obama's Waterloo" and if health care reform is stopped, it will break his presidency. Which would lead 3 1/2 years left. And then what wait for the Republicans to conjure up some ideas? The awe-inspiring lack of any consideration for the public good still amazes me about the Obama-era Republicans.
Meanwhile Dick Lugar was the first Republican to announce his support for Sotomayor--Mel Martinez and Olympia Snowe were soon to follow. So, it's 63 so far and at least 1 Republican has to vote for her on the Judiciary to get the nomination to the floor. I think Grassley and Hatch will go for her. I am tired of hearing how the Republican strategy was to set the markers for the next nominee, not Sotomayor, who I insist is a moderate. I am more convinced than ever Obama should invite a donnybrook for the next nominee and name Laurence Tribe--with both men recognizing it might be a losing struggle. At least we might have hearing where constitutional issues might be openly debated--and it would be worth it. Tribe would probably not be long on the court but I would pay to hear a debate between him and Sessions.
The Obama era has not been kind to the Free Republic. Several bloggers have made the news--the Holocaust Museum killer, the Pittsburgh cop killer and the killer of Dr. Tiller. A few comments had brought the Secret Service around. Sarah Palin quits--despite the false bravado on the website about what a righteous move this was. Mitt Romney supporters purged and the quest to exterminate the RINOS continues. Now Jim Robinson has called for a revolution and armed resistance if----health care reform is passed. A curious thing since both he and his wife are wheelchair bound. Medicaid, Tricare --they must have something that the rest of don't have. For years I have been a lurker at the site and lament this descent into a certain lunacy. Before other sites covered certain topics on the right they did without the heightened religious content and now the vitriol over Obama.
Birthers are now being covered on television as sort of the Moon landing deniers and 9/11 truthers. The Young Turks this week covered the great Obama birth certificate flap with their sense of humor--they even showed a tape of the original certificate--creased with all the appropriate seals and signatures. They even quoted the harassed Hawaiian government officials about "how many times do we have to say it is authentic and he was born in Hawaii". Birthers made it on the Worse Persons of the World for encouraging serving military men to join in their suits to avoid service in Afghanistan. Another federal judge had to rule against an Army Reserve Major who protested his impending call-up--he volunteered after signing on as a plaintiff to this case--alleging Obama was not eligible to be Commander-in-Chief. After declaring a victory of sorts, when the case went against him and his lawyer and the military withdrew his call-up, CENTCOM had to make announcement calling their calls ridiculous.
Not to be outdone by Pat Buchanan, Rush Limbaugh seems to be stirring the racial war pot himself. Frankly, I haven't seen blacks getting much advantage from the Obama Administration and especially during this depression. I'm wondering where the great grievances of Rich White Men are coming from. Even with a surtax for health reform, both men will be earning in a month more than the average American couple earns in a year or two. I think it's unseemly for the very wealthy to be bitter and angry. As the Bible says, From those who have received much, much is expected.
The gnostic cult here in D.C., the Family seems to be breeding more adulterers by the minute. Former Republican Congressman Pickering of Missippi apparently joins the list with Sanford and Ensign of those with Family connections who seemed to have gone soft on some of the 10 Commandments. His wife is suing the mistress for causing "alienation of affection"--I like that. Apparently, Pickering actually conducted the affair in the "C" Street house itself. It's cool to be one of God's Chosen--the rules don't apply. Meanwhile Gov Sanford seems to have misused state funds to facilitate his love affair--he at least fell in love.
Obama needs to go for the gold on health care reform right now or it will slip,slide away and , for get the political consequences, the economic effects will be devastating. With unemployment rising, those without health insurance increases, personal bankruptcy increases and the impact on the national deficit increases. The only other domestic reform Obama will be able to get out of Congress will be Immigration Reform. The Republicans know that health care reform, immigration reform and their opposition to Sotomayor and they are doomed. That's why Republicans are fighting tooth and nail over these things. Party uber alles--country last.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)