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Germany under Hitler -
Russia under Stalin -
the US under Bush -
So many differences, but it's the similarities that are going down in history.
Today's Americans are seeing what it was like to be an ordinary German of the 30s and 40s. Like them, we cast votes on election day that have no influence on what the elected do, have no say in the direction the country goes.
Like the Germans under Hitler, like the Russians under Stalin, we vote and are ignored by a government fully aware it's insulated from our control, a government relishing its imbalanced power. A government possessing the reins of persuasion, confusion, control.
A Congress of egos addicted to re-election; an executive branch running on secrecy, security, and lies; a judiciary of cowardice, all merge into a government so involved with private industry as to be the poster boy for 21st century fascism.
And you know. And I know. Just as the Germans knew. How many of them do you think were, as they put it, kaknaiv (naive as shit?) How many of us are?
In 1940 we could ask the Germans but today we can ask ourselves: When your country is feared and your leaders loathed by much of the world, who is being served when your news media treat seriously only friendly viewpoints and belittle the rest?
We have as a press, and a TV press especially, an onrushing torrent of the basest human qualities: petty, gossipy, shallow, impolite, crass, biased, arrogant, devious, nosy, and desperate to please. Humans have hearts, the press does not, so there is nothing in the press credo about "doing no harm." Those are excellent tools of the trade but they deprive the press of authority to guide or chide.
When the laws of decency you breach, no one listens when you preach.
One wonders how much of this Thomas Jefferson would have endured before rebellion occupied his thoughts. Would he have sat idle watching liberty shrink, as we have? His was the credo: "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure."
On the other hand his successors, today's revisionist Americans, revile Jefferson and cling to the belief that artificial manure - the talk from politicians and pretentious patriots - is sufficient to preserve liberty.
Clearly it is not. Who do we see about that, if not you?
"British sports car: pretty to look at but built like crap."
Seeing this line by Tony Long, copy chief at Wired News, reminded me of the day I was to die.
It was in September of 1958. I had just bought a brand new MGA for $2300. It was two days old and I was on my way into town to buy anchor bolts for an aircraft seat belt, and car insurance. Seat belts weren't yet standard in cars but I was an early user, thanks to seat belt pioneer Dr. Fletcher D. Woodward, the father of a close friend.
I lived in a cottage on a Virginia farm six miles from town, a nice old place dating from 1775. I was 21 and in my third year of college.
As I motored toward town that Indian summer day, the top was down and my big old Zenith Trans-Oceanic vacuum tube radio was in the seat next to me, singing away.
Country roads in Virginia like the Stony Point Road saw little road improvement in the 1950s. Hell, they barely saw minimal maintenance. That didn't affect the speed limit. Roads in Virginia were all 55 mph unless posted otherwise, and this one wasn't.
So at 55 I entered a downhill decreasing radius left-hand bend. Not a sharp bend, just gradual. It didn't even call for down-shifting (though I'll never be sure of that.) The turn should have been no problem for a sports car.
Suddenly the MG front end turned sharply left, the car followed, the front wheels went into the ditch, and the roadster went flying up in the air and crashed upside down onto the road, and onto me. But I wasn't crushed.
As it overturned I was partially tossed out the back. Amazingly, the car came down with enough force on the front to keep the back from making contact with the ground or with me, who was lying under the trunk with my feet still in the cockpit inches below the rear cowl.
Above my face the gas tank cap was dripping on my nose. I crawled out, stood up, and realized that aside from a dirty sweater I was untouched.
As I turned off the key there was music coming from the meadow on the downhill side of the road. Walking over, I saw the Zenith lying on the ground, also unbroken.
People came by, we turned the car onto its wheels, and a bit later it was towed away to the local wreck repairer, the left front tire pointing left, the right front pointing straight ahead.
The car was uninsured. In Virginia then, if you bought a new car without selling your old one, as I had, there was no automatic insurance on the new one. I was out of luck. The local wreck repairer quoted $2400 to make things right. That's $100 more than the car had cost two days before, and $2000 more than I could afford. If it was to run again I'd have to fix it enough to drive it off his lot.
The first thing I found wrong was the steering arm. It was severely bent. I removed it, installed a new one, and brought the original to the engineering school of the local university.
I removed what was left of the windshield, hung the convertible top on a nail in the barn, and installed a racing windscreen my brother provided when he brought my old car down from Connecticut where it was left to be sold. The MG wasn't street-legal but it was drivable, and I had my old blue Chrysler convertible for transportation.
I took a full-time job as a radio announcer for $1 an hour, found a talented and fair body man, and within four months had the MG back looking like that day on the showroom floor. I never put seat belts in that car. They would have killed me. I never used the top. It would have killed me. In January I sold the Chrysler and used the MG for three years, 12 months a year, with no top, just a fitted tonneau cover. It happens that I love rain and snow. The only people who understand are other sailors.
After the wreck, one of Virginia's legendary deputy sheriffs, T.M. Mac Whitten, cited me for reckless driving. That was the beginning of a cherished 20-year friendship with Mac. RIP
My insurance agent suggested I have a defense attorney. He thought the judge might be harsh because of how I looked. In 1958 not many men or college boys had facial hair, let alone my wild, shaggy look. I hadn't touched a razor in two years.
The attorney I hired was brand new in practice. He told the judge my hairy face was for a play at the university. That worked. Then he asked that the charge be reduced to "Failure to slow down," an obsolete statute dating from the horseless carriage days. The judge went along with that and a $2 fine.
And what of that British-built steering arm? The engineering school reported the arm was not of uniform hardened steel and was easily bent. The strain of taking the car through the turn bent the arm, causing the car to go out of control. "Pretty to look at but built like crap."
You can still find that downhill decreasing radius left-hand bend but it's no longer officially the Stony Point Road. It's now a parallel road to a new quarter mile bypass.
And you can still find that lawyer who did such a good job as a fledgling. He made the grade. For years now he's been the most important partner in the largest firm in town.
Also not crap was the 1953 Zenith Trans-Oceanic radio that was flung from the car. A year later it was struck by lightning and nearly all the parts were fried. Zenith sent replacement parts, wire, and a diagram. Over a weekend I re-built it. Half a century later now, and the radio's in my den, still singing away.
And yes, it's true, in the 1950s in small southern towns a radio announcer even at the oldest, largest station in town got $1 an hour. But what doors it opened. And what a surprise to learn that desirable women find DJs an aphrodisiac.
Throw your money away on Rey's Puckish Tendencies creations
at Zazzle
An interesting sidelight on a US Senate race. Virginia Republican George Allen was denied a second term - and a shot at the GOP nomination for president in 2008 - by the people who know him best.
Jim Webb defeated Allen by 8,935 votes, at currrent count. Those votes to defeat him came from Allen's home base.
Allen entered politics by winning a seat in the state legislature from central Virginia. He lived in Albemarle County; he practiced law here in Charlottesville. And in the 2008 senate race, we who know him best delivered 12,256 more votes for his opponent. Had it not been for his home town voting against him, Allen would have been re-elected and bound for glory.
The vote
Albemarle: Webb 20,578 - Allen 14,906
Charlottesville: Webb 9,159 - Allen 2,575
One should not make too much of this, of course. In the presidential election of 1944 in which FDR creamed NY Gov Tom Dewey, Dewey won in Hyde Park - FDR's home town - and Independence, Missouri - running mate Harry Truman's home town.
The surest way to decrease Muslim terrorism is to decrease terrorists. There are big numbers involved. The role model, Osama bin Laden, sired more than 40 children whom he rears with old testament certitude. Some of his followers have more; the rest are trying to catch up.
The people in the best position to find terrorists are other terrorists. Beyond question, helping terrorists kill each other is in the world's interest. It's good news when we hear that some fundamentalist Imam sent his lackeys to shoot up the fundamentalist mosque across town. For the rest of us including moderate Muslims the only sane reaction is "Atta boy!"
So we should set a date to leave Iraq and get out of their way.
The United States is a warrior state. Waging war is what we do best. We are not diplomats. When not making open war we make back room war, destabilizing governments we don't like. When it's time to make peace we shower money on the side that gives us the best trade agreement.
That's the nature of Americans. That's US history without the patriotic rhetoric. We always return to it. We will in Iraq eventually, and it's time to compose the patriotic rhetoric this or the next administration will need to support "Mission Accomplished" and ticker tape parades for the troops.
We justified the Iraq incursion on the bogus evidence there were weapons of mass destruction. It worked; the lie reached critical mass. So it can be bogus evidence that lets us out. Ideal for the job is "We brought democracy to Iraq." We can point to their constitution; we can point to their elected leaders. Mission accomplished. Reach critical mass. Leave.
At the moment the press won't let us reach critical mass because of the mess over there, so we're going to need covert operations to take things in hand. Those familiar with America's clandestine services (or Stephen Kinzer's recent book "Overthrow") know the tool we use: money. We pay people on site to carry out a plan. In this case, an exit plan, a truce that brings a few months of stability to Iraq that lasts long enough for us to get out.
There's one problem with that: no one in Iraq is safe being associated with us. So we have to hire a conduit, a surrogate power to pass out our money and run our exit plan. Alas, any nation with positive influence in Iraq has so much oil money we can't hire them.
So don't hire a nation. Hire tribes. This isn't rocket science. These are, after all, Arabs. No group on earth is more associated with a characteristic nature than the Arab. Fortunately Arab nature is precisely the same as ours: pious self-interest. Grasp the unfair advantage and call it god's will. We talk the same language.
Between the intelligence services, the academic specialists, and the indigenous implants, we have the tools to find clients who can bring a fleeting peace to Iraq and let us leave. Let's get on with it.
Back in the 30s song writers could write upbeat songs celebrating great things. It's different today. Everything's gone bad. Much of it we did to ourselves, or at least it happened on our watch, just as it happened in the 50s to the English. Here's how Noel Coward expressed it then. Notice how well his thoughts describe the US today:
"If only we were not so humiliatingly determined to uphold the mediocre with all our might, protect the fools and decry the intelligent, elevate the condition of ... the working man to such a point he becomes thoroughly dishonest and works as little as possible for as high wages as possible, and methodically destroys our prestige which for centuries has been the highest and most respected in the world."
Once Cole Porter could write songs like "You're the top." Today more likely he'd write "You're a flop."
Since Cole's not around I did it for him. The target of this is my pick for the lowest form of mass entertainment thus far, hip hop. Herewith, the Ode to Rappers. If you don't like that target, skip the Intro and chose any target you like for the verses that follow.
Intro ... with apologies to Cole.
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Ode to Rappers
At thoughts poetic
Words from the gutter So ...
You're a flop,
You're retards,
You disgust,
You are quits,
You're the pits,
You're the flu,
You're Iran
You're the worst,
You're the dregs,
You're a flop,
You're a fool,
You're the pits,
You're uncool,
You're deep in shit,
You're debauched,
You're a curse,
You are mud,
You are spams,
You're a slum,
You are flawed,
You're a flop,
You are smegma,
You're despoiled, Yes,
If the greatest thing in all the world is song, |
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Kermit Schaefer's "Blooper" re-creations of radio announcer goofs included one where the disk jockey mis-read the title of his next tune. It was supposed to be, "There's an Empty Cot in the Bunkhouse Tonight." What came out was, "There's an Empty Bunk in the Cathouse Tonight." Seemed to me that should be a song so I wrote one. Here it is, with the proper dedication.
An ode to President Bill Clinton by Rey Barry |
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There's an empty bunk in the cathouse tonight, Bill Clinton's not our President any more, There's an empty bunk in the cathouse tonight, And sadness has befallen every whore.
He was the smartest one since Jefferson
There's an empty bunk in the cathouse tonight,
He believed in being fair and just,
There's an empty bunk in the cathouse tonight,
They investigated his every move,
There's an empty bunk in the cathouse tonight,
They converted a plump and oafish troll
There's an empty bunk in the cathouse tonight, |
I'm just an ordinary retired guy in Virginia you never heard of who's had enough. It's time to do something about Big Oil.
Gasoline has been pushed to over $3 a gallon in most of the US this year due to the cost of oil. Every mile we drive or fly, every mile an 18-wheeler travels delivering goods, every watt of electricity generated from oil by the power company, national defense, medicine, every bit of plastic to wrap anything else in, each uses petrochemicals and cost more.
Everyone in the chain of manufacture and sales can pass the added costs along. The only ones with no one to pass the costs to are you and me. We are the ones the others pass them to. We reimburse everybody. Who do we see about this?
We can't expect anything but spin tokenism from the Bush-Cheney administration. Those families have been part of the oil industry since long before these men ran for office. We knew that all along.
We can't expect help from the best Congress money can buy. Someone can, just not us.
We can only do something about price gouging and excess profits ourselves. We can make intelligent choices. Here's who I'm not buying from.
Exxon-Mobil Corporation announced on April 27 that it had $86 billion income in the first three months of 2006, and that $6.9 billion was profit. There's probably a good reason for this. They may even be entitled to it. Wall Street was disappointed it was so little. I don't care.
Exxon-Mobil is the largest company in the U.S. as ranked on the Fortune 500 list. It's also the largest publicly traded oil and gas company in the world. And it's the most profitable. Its operating profit in 2005 was $36.13 billion, an all-time record for any publicly traded company, replacing Wal-Mart as the world's largest corporation by revenue.
Who does Exxon-Mobil blame for high oil prices? Car makers. John Whitehead of the Rutherford Institute notes that, referring to a recent Exxon Mobil ad that blamed auto companies for the rising price of gas, Chrysler chief spokesman Jason Vines said:
"Despite a documented history of blowing their exorbitant profits on outlandish executive salaries and stock buybacks, and hoarding their bounty by avoiding technologies, policies, and legislation that would protect the population and environment and lower fuel costs, Big Oil insists on transferring all of that responsibility on the auto companies."
Which could explain why US auto companies are losing billions while Exxon-Mobil is making them.
Exxon-Mobil is regarded by many environmentalists as an example of corporate irresponsibility and disregard for environmental concerns. The company has been a target of a number of campaigns by Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, and People and Planet.
In 1989 the tanker Exxon Valdez spilled approximately 10 million gallons of oil into the waters of Alaska's Prince William Sound, the most devastating oil spill of all time in U.S. waters. 34,000 people, most of them touched by the fisheries industry, were harmed by that spill. In 1995 a court fined Exxon $5 billion in damages. How much has the company paid? Zero. Exxon has been working the legal system all it can filing appeals and delays.
This is a bad corporate citizen, one of the worst. For window dressing they donate a smidgen of their monster profits to charitable causes. A little here for Little League, a little there for the opera company. It gives them something cheerful to blurt about in full-color, full-page magazine ads.
Expensive ads are a powerful influence on magazine and newspaper publishers not to take a hard look at a generous supporter like Exxon-Mobil. That's the American Way. But YOU don't have a magazine. I don't have a newspaper. We have no reason to look the other way. Except that we were taught to turn the other cheek when we encounter abuse.
Abusive companies like Exxon-Mobil act like we have no end of cheeks to turn. I've reached the end, and now is when I stop supporting Exxon-Mobil. There's nothing special about their gasoline. There are plenty of other filling stations with fuel of the same quality. In fact the two best German car companies say other brands have better additives, but that's not the issue here.
The issue is that for the rest of my life, none of the four cars in my family will be gassed up at stations selling Exxon-Mobil products.
I hope you do the same, if not avoiding Exxon-Mobile than whatever company you prefer. I hope you send this email to everyone you know. If enough people in America have backbones, the monster corporations might learn there are limits to the corporate abuse we will tolerate.
Or maybe there aren't any limits to the abuse you'll take? That's your decision.
Nothing is without fallout. It's unfortunate that filling station operators must suffer, but we can support them with car repairs and other automotive needs.
You can expect to read newspaper stories and hear TV interviews attacking this idea. That's why corporations have public relations departments. Enjoy it; ignore it.
The Kelo decision was a triumph of a basic plank of the Democrat Party, my party.
Kelo put us face-to-face with a cherished Democratic Party belief: that social planning can accomplish public good. Kelo affirmed the good of the community over the property rights of the individual.
Removing urban blight, protecting an unspoiled environment, and yes, tearing down private homes and businesses to replace them with something creating jobs and generating taxes - like it or not - are what my party stands for.
We Democrats have maintained for generations that forced sale of private property to enable economic development will, if done properly, benefit all. That's _our_ trickle down theory. Help the overall community and the benefits trickle down.
Does it work? Did benefits trickle down after urban renewal bulldozed away neighborhoods in your town? I guess that depends on your point of view.
Kelo originated in the town of New London, CT. Democrats dominate the New London city council. Democrats should think twice, at least twice, before wringing their hands and back-peddling from a Supreme Court decision that reinforces what the party has stood for and fought for all our lives.
It has a dark side? Well now you know.
Could that dark side have anything to do with why there are more red states than blue states?
If you're from the government, I'm here to help you.
I'm here to help you increase your tax base and provide jobs in your community.
But not all communities. Specifically the communities where five Supreme Court Justices reside, have vacation retreats, or own investment property. These are the five Justices who agreed to let government take our property and give it to any developer who offered greater economic benefits.
Lucky you if David H. Souter, John Paul Stevens, Anthony M. Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, or Stephen G. Breyer owns property in your jurisdiction.
This isn't a bloggy promise. I've been a real estate broker for 30 years and I'm familiar with drawing up development plans. I can show you how to bulldoze Ruthie Ginsburg's home sweet home and replace it - and her penny-ante real estate taxes - with the greatest boost to the local economy known in America.
Who pays more local sales taxes than anyone else in the US? Who provides more jobs to Americans than anyone else?
Wal-Mart. No one else comes close on either count. Whatever their faults, they pay the most taxes and provide the most jobs, and that's what it's all about now. A Supreme Court majority of one said that's the law of the land.
If you will write me and invite me, I will come to your community and draw up, in Justice Stevens's words of blessing, "carefully considered development plans" to replace the properties of those five Justices with efficient, economy boosting Wal-Marts.
It's the American way. God, do I feel patriotic.
Rey Barry
from the shadows of Monticello
(Someone else had this idea first but it was sophomoric, defensive, and over-board. You'll like my version better; it's sophomoric and over-board but not defensive.)
A day in the life of Joe Doe, Conservative
Joe gets up at 6 a.m. and fills his conservative coffeepot with water to prepare his conservative coffee. The water is clean and pure because liberals fought for minimum water-quality standards. (It was Joe's conservatives they fought against.)
With his first swallow of coffee he takes his daily medication. His medicine is probably safe because when Democrats were the majority they fought to insure drug safety, and that drugs actually work as advertised. It was Joe's party they fought to get this. Now that Joe's conservatives are running the show, drugs like Vioxx are coming to market that have to be pulled a few years later after people die from them.
All but $10 of Joe's medicine is paid for by his company medical plan because Democrat unionists negotiated with employers to provide medical insurance. Joe - who won't join no stinkin' union - gets the benefits just the same.
He prepares his morning breakfast of bacon and eggs. Joe's bacon is safe to eat because liberals fought laws through Congress to regulate the meat-packing industry. Joe's conservatives want to abandon government meat inspection and let the meat packers regulate themselves. They believe Joe can find out perfectly well on his own if the meat is safe by eating it. If it's not and he gets sick or dies, he or his survivors can buy a different brand next time. They call that the power of the marketplace. And if they must, his survivors can sue the packer of bad meat, though Joe's conservatives are trying to cap the value of any award at $200,000.
In the shower Joe reaches for his shampoo. His bottle is labeled with the ingredients because liberals fought for his right to know what he's putting on his body, and for food labeling to let him know what's going IN his body. If Joe has an allergy, he doesn't have to break out in hives to learn the product contained what he's allergic to. Democrats saw to that over Republican objections.
Joe walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air is cleaner than it would be otherwise because liberal environmentalists fought for laws to curb industry pollution. It could be a lot cleaner but Joe's Republican party represents the industries, rather than Joe and his air. Thanks to Joe's vote his party controls the government now. Cleaner air costs the industry money, so higher standards are watered down and postponed.
Joe walks to the subway station for his government-subsidized ride to work. He saves parking and transportation fees because liberals fought for affordable public transportation. Joe has a good job with decent pay, medical and retirement benefits, paid holidays, and a vacation because Democrat unionists fought and even died to get these basic working standards. Joe's employer meets these standards because, and only because, the union sees to it.
Joe has been working here 12 years. He doesn't know it yet but he will lose his job the week before Christmas. His boss is moving Joe's plant to Mexico. Joe's Republican party gave the employer a tax incentive to shut down and move out of the country. Conservatives tell Joe that moving American jobs offshore is good for our economy, so even after he loses his job Joe will go right on voting Republican.
If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed, he'll get worker compensation or unemployment benefits because liberals didn't think he should starve and lose his home because of temporary misfortune. If there are no jobs for Joe because employers moved off-shore to get the tax incentives, he will lose his home because unemployment compensation abandons him after a few months. Democrats tried to extend benefits when the economy crashed after 9/11 but the Republican majority voted no.
When noon comes, Joe leaves to make a bank deposit. Joe's deposit is federally insured by the FSLIC because Democrats fought Republicans to protect Joe's money from bankers who wiped out the savings of earlier generations. Joe will use this deposit to pay his FHA federally underwritten mortgage and his low rate, federally insured student loan. Liberals provided these programs under the theory that the nation is stronger if more Joes are college educated and own their own home.
After work Joe visits his father out in the country. He gets there by car. His car is among the safest, cleanest-operating in the world because liberals fought conservatives to get car safety and environmental standards through Congress. His father is the third generation to live in the house financed by the Farmers' Home Administration, a program created by Democrats because bankers balked at making rural loans.
Dad's farm didn't have electricity until liberals provided rural electrification. He told Joe how that came about, but Joe is convinced that electricity, no less than the country's national treasures like oil and coal, belong in private hands. Joe thinks conservatives are probably right when they say water and sewer services should be spun off from government and privatized.
Joe enjoys visiting his retired father, who receives enough money to get by and not be a burden to the kids. His father lives on Social Security, a program liberals created. He also gets a union pension because it was part of the employment package back when he worked. Coming along later, Joe was never offered a retirement package. Decades of successful Republican union busting saved Joe's employer from having to offer a pension.
Pensions cost employers money and Joe doesn't feel that's fair. After all, who knows, someday he, himself, might be an employer.
In his car Joe turns on a talk radio show. The radio host tells him "liberals" are bad and "conservatives" are good. He's extolling the side that tried to block every protection and benefit he and Joe enjoy, and Joe goes along with that.
Joe tells everyone he knows, "We don't need tax-and-spend liberals ruining our lives! I take care of myself. If I can do it, you can. Everyone should look after himself, like I do."
Forlorn more years.
They affirmed they want a police state. What does that tell us about respect for the Constitution? They affirmed they want a theocracy. What does that tell us about respect for a pluralistic society? The great experiment in self-government showed as always that in a democracy, everyone gets the government the majority deserves.
Nov. 1, 2004
It's always instructive to let conservative Republicans who quote Thomas Jefferson guide our voting.
Charlie Reese writes for the Orlando Sentinel. He's a Conservative Republican.
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Vote For A Man, Not A Puppet
Orlando Sentinel
Charlie Reese
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Americans should realize that if they vote for President Bush's re-election, they are really voting for the architects of war - Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and the rest of that cabal of neoconservative ideologues and their corporate backers. I have sadly come to the conclusion that President Bush is merely a front man, an empty suit, who is manipulated by the people in his administration. Bush has the most dangerously simplistic view of the world of any president in my memory.
It's no wonder the president avoids press conferences like the plague. Take away his cue cards and he can barely talk. Americans should be embarrassed that an Arab King (Abdullah of Jordan) spoke more fluently and articulately in English than our own President at their joint press conference recently.
John Kerry is at least an educated man, well-read, who knows how to think and who knows that the world is a great deal more complex than Bush's comic-book world of American heroes and foreign evildoers. It's unfortunate that in our poorly educated country, Kerry's very intelligence and refusal to adopt simplistic slogans might doom his presidential election efforts.
But Thomas Jefferson said it well, as he did so often, when he observed that people who expect to be ignorant and free expect what never was and never will be.
People who think of themselves as conservatives will really display their stupidity, as I did in the last election, by voting for Bush. Bush is as far from being a conservative as you can get. Well, he fooled me once, but he won't fool me twice.
It is not at all conservative to balloon government spending, to vastly increase the power of government, to show contempt for the Constitution and the rule of law, or to tell people that foreign outsourcing of American jobs is good for them, that giant fiscal and trade deficits don't matter, and that people should not know what their government is doing. Bush is the most prone-to-classify, the most secretive president in the 20th century. His administration leans dangerously toward the authoritarian.
It's no wonder that the Justice Department has convicted a few Arab-Americans of supporting terrorism. What would you do if you found yourself arrested and a federal prosecutor whispers in your ear that either you can plea-bargain this or the President will designate you an enemy combatant and you'll be held incommunicado for the duration ?
This election really is important, not only for domestic reasons, but because Bush's foreign policy has been a dangerous disaster. He's almost restarted the Cold War with Russia and the nuclear arms race. America is not only hated in the Middle East, but it has few friends anywhere in the world thanks to the arrogance and ineptness of the Bush administration.
Don't forget, a scientific poll of Europeans found us, Israel, North Korea and Iran as the greatest threats to world peace.
I will swallow a lot of petty policy differences with Kerry to get a man in the White House with brains enough not to blow up the world and us with it.
Go to Kerry's Web site (http://johnkerry.com) and read some of the magazine profiles on him. You'll find that there is a great deal more to Kerry than the GOP attack dogs would have you believe.
Besides, it would be fun to have a president who plays hockey, windsurfs, rides motorcycles, plays the guitar, writes poetry and speaks French. And . . it would be good to have a man in the White House who has killed people face to face. Killing people has a sobering effect on a man and dispels all illusions about war.
Daddy Warbucks said it when Orphan Annie came into his household: "Isn't it strange when fate takes a hand."
Historians of the future will tell our descendants that the Presidential election of 2000 was stolen for the Republican candidate by his brother. Jeb Bush, as governor of Florida, had the rolls improperly purged of tens of thousands of legitimate voters in Democratic precincts. That turned out to assure victory for brother George.
Of all the ways this changed the course of history one has been ignored, and to one group of people it's the most important.
Ponder what would have happened if Al Gore had won, Joe Lieberman became vice president, and a year later the World Trade Center was destroyed by Arab muslims.
No matter how wrong, the conclusion would have been immediate, universal, and inescapable that 9/11 happened because the US elected a Jewish vice president.
There would have been no way to shake that belief. How could there be? The circumstantial evidence was elementary and convincing. That conclusion would have seemed obvious. No facts could have been found to refute it. Osama Bin Laden himself, a cagey strategist, might have claimed it was true.
The ramifications would have been huge. For starters, there would have been a widely held conclusion - held world-wide - that 9/11 would not have happened had a Jew not been elected. The Jews would have suffered a massive blow to electability everywhere.
Jeb Bush was the reason that didn't happen.
Further, every single thing the US did in response to 9/11 would have its motivation questioned at home and abroad. "Is this a US response, or the result of zionist pressure?"
Certainly US military retaliation against the Taliban for shielding Bin Laden would have been available to Gore. From there the Bush and Gore paths diverge.
Bush family ties to the Saudi royal family combined with Republican party obligations to big oil, when combined with the neo-conservative drive to alter world order, made the attack of convenience on Iraq imperative.
But if Gore had wanted to take down Saddam, could he? The Democrats also have obligations to big oil, and neo-conservative arguments would have been aggressively trying to shape public opinion.
But under Gore-Lieberman, attacking Iraq in the face of overwhelming international opposition would invite the claim the US was waging a war, and Americans were dying, as a result of zionist pressure to rid Israel of a threatening neighbor. That would not have sat well anywhere with anyone, and would have ruled perceptions for generations.
The fact that Saddam was not part of Al-Quada or involved in 9/11 would have played a much larger part in public discourse under Gore-Lieberman. Wild claims from the vice-president, so influential from Chaney, would have been counter-productive coming from Lieberman.
It's not likely Gore would have had much support to launch a war on Iraq, not in Congress, not in public opinion. Not that he would have wanted to launch the war.
So because Jeb Bush finagled Florida's 21 Electoral votes for brother George, the Jewish people, those victims of harrowing threats century after century, escaped their first harrowing threat of the newest millennium.
Coincidence, cause and effect, fate, randomness, deviltry, divine intervention ... if you need a reason, choose whichever you like.
Oct. 14, 2004 Quote of the Day
Who said this:
"Let us not dominate others with our power - or betray them with our indifference. And let us have an American foreign policy that reflects American character. The modesty of true strength. The humility of real greatness. This is the strong heart of America. And this will be the spirit of my administration."
It was said in 2000 by the man who did precisely the opposite, the man who will say anything to get elected: George W. Bush.
The uniter who deliberately divided us. The self-proclaimed "compassionate conservative" who turned the United States into a police state. How anyone can vote for this liar is beyond me, but a majority will do so next month.
People who depend on having a job and vote Republican are like chickens who vote for Col. Sanders. They get what they deserve, the party beholden to the wealthy, but it's only small comfort to hear them whine when they get laid off.
Simpletons who don't recognize what's in their own interest harm more than just themselves. Here is what a Christian conservative has to say about that.
Alexander Pope said "The proper study of Mankind is Man." It's certainly the most convenient. You don't have to look far to find one. To many it's the most fascinating study. How can we be so stupid and so smart at the same time?
Cats can't learn the common tricks dogs can. Does that make them dumber than dogs? Or is it a reminder that intelligence takes many forms. One of our curious abilities is an astounding capacity to accept ideas that contradict each other and never realize it.
Last year I read an internet chat group conversation where three women were gossiping about someone none of them knew. It lasted several days. A week later another member of the group, writing on an unrelated topic, said that one thing that disgusted her was idle gossip. Almost immediately came the reply "I'm with you 100%!" It was from one of the idle gossipers, and she was serious.
Over 40, college educated, a published author of detective stories, intelligent enough yet she didn't have a clue to her own behavior.
Many decades ago I overheard a phone call that obviously I can't forget. The caller was objecting to seeing an acquaintance eat a candy bar. She then carried on about her acquaintance's acne condition. Her sentences were filled with "ought" and "should." This person was known for that, constantly making judgments of others. The topic moved on to other things and suddenly she said something that leaped out: "Well, live and let live, I always say."
Indeed she always did say it. She believed it described her, and she practiced it never.
The mind's ability to embrace contradictory dogma is astounding. I was asked to edit a book titled "What I Believe." The author spent a decade gathering what he thought were brilliant things he agreed with and lived by. It reeked of astounding inconsistency.
People love to quote Emerson's line about consistency and "little minds" but almost invariably misunderstand him. Emerson's comment related to an adjective, not a noun. "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." Emerson would be the first to say that behind a total lack of consistency stands an unexamined life.
On adjacent pages of "What I Believe" were these thoughts. First the advice from an important psychologist that you should strive to live your life being happy with who you are and what you are. His point being you cannot appreciate and love others fully until you appreciate and love yourself.
On the next page was a set of ten steps to take to become a "good person" you could respect. This came from the Old Testament and like everything in that book, was a "must and should" lesson designed to create guilt for being normal.
It would be hard to find two less compatible approaches to life, yet this author would have us believe he embraced both. What he had was an unexamined life and a schizophrenic one. That seems to be the norm for western man since the 18th century Age of Enlightenment.
What is more common than for us to raise hell because someone else did what we do. The conversation interrupter is the loudest to object when someone interrupts him. The egoist objects the most to someone else wanting their way. The inconsiderate driver sees only the inconsiderations of other drivers, never his own. The dominator denounces others as control freaks.
How curious that mankind should have the ability to analyze and understand others, yet at the same time know so little of himself. I see it in me; we see it in nearly everyone.
We see it in professionals. Child psychologists we trust to readjust our children often do poorly parenting their own. Marriage counsellors can be veterans of one or more divorces. Lawyers are the first to admit that a lawyer who represents himself in a legal matter has a fool for a client.
Perhaps we should all be given a year's vacation from life for self-analysis. I suggest the 50th year. By then we have established patterns to look at but still plenty of time left to break them.
Fred had it right. 50 is a good age. According to this 1967 newspaper clipping from Miami, when pharmacist Frederick Kleinschmidt passed his 102nd birthday he said, "I'd like to be a little younger. Fifty is a good age. A man is settled down by then."
Is it possible we have anarchists working for the Social Security Administration? I ask because nothing else explains what follows as compellingly as the chance some bureaucrats are randomly screwing up just for fun.
In August I opened a new bank account, then phoned SSA via the toll free number to have direct deposit moved from the old account to the new. It was a welcome surprise to talk with an informed, friendly government clerk who understood immediately, took down the information and got it right, and assured me this would be taken care of.
I was emboldened to ask, "Would this happen in time for the September check, or will it not kick in until October?"
"When do you get your deposit?"
"In the third week. It arrives between the 17th and the 21st."
"I will take care of this today, and it will apply to the September check."
Wow. A bureaucracy dreams are make of. A world upside down. It was like Lucy said, "Come kick the football, Charlie Brown" and when Charlie ran up, the ball was there and he kicked it a mile.
Forgive my surprise when on Sept. 10 - a week early for the first time ever - a social security direct deposit was made to my bank account. Not the new one, the old one.
A week later I was chatting about this with another surprisingly informed, friendly clerk, this one in the local SS office. She offered to check the records. She found they were unchanged. The first clerk had never accessed them. There was nothing there about the new bank account. And there was no indication why the payment was sent in the week two cycle rather than the usual week three.
While I watched she made the changes the first clerk failed to make. (Any bets?)
Was the first clerk an anarchist screwing up for the fun of it? Consider this.
When a letter arrived years ago saying a portion of the SS payment was to be deducted for Medicare, the letter clearly said the amount was to be added to the monthly payment. Added, not deducted. Dead wrong.
This was a form letter from a regional office in far off Rhode Island. My letter asking them how this could happen went unanswered.
I prefer thinking we're dealing with anarchist sociopaths rather than dumb as dirt fuck-ups. The result is the same but I respect anarchists.
----------------
Do you still go to movies in theaters? We don't, my wife and I, but for different reasons. She's averse to paying to see now what we can see on TV for free in six months. I have an additional reason. Predictability is boring.
The stars are not going to die until the end, if then. We know this because the exceptions are as rare as a Miami snowfall. When it happens, such as Janet Leigh dying 20 minutes into Psycho, it's not mere surprise; its unhinging.
It's not just a matter of economics. It's economics and ego. Producers need the stars to attract ticket sales. Stars want their films to showcase them. No one gushes about your performance as a corpse. Stars don't take roles where they die early. It's bad for the image.
So when the two male and one female star lying on the beach are set on by men in choppers shooting machine guns at them when the film still has an hour to run, the scene bores the hell out of you because you know that 1,000 bullets are about to miss.
The director will not find some ingenious way to make it believable. We don't have that level of director anymore. Today's hacks just ignore it. These people should be dead; they weren't even touched; get over it.
At the end one star shooting a short barrel 6-shot 32-calibre police special, accurate to 12 feet, will fire 50 rounds without reloading and will destroy a patrol of men in body armor firing machine guns. Heavily armed hordes drop like flies to a police special in the hands of a star protected by this (tap tap) invisible shield.
For eight bucks a ticket? We'd rather doze at home.
I've become convinced Kerry will lose the popular vote, that Bush will easily exceed 50%. Three reasons for this.
One, Kerry has just appointed to high positions on his campaign staff the man sharing the responsibility for the Dukakis fiasco and the man carrying the responsibility for the Gore loss. That's his last shot at campaign management and it's the wrong turn. New blood from a tainted supply is not the road to health.
Two, surveys recently taken show well over 50% of Americans don't trust the news media. ie. they are shooting the messenger because they don't like the message. They are being told truths they don't want to hear. They will believe reassurances and reject nay-sayers. You can't win the game when the ace, king, and queen of truth are trumped.
Three is the focus of the Kerry campaign itself. It is offering up serious, analytical, speeches and press releases to an electorate with no attention span. That's preaching to the choir. His one attempt to broaden his appeal with a simple, effective message was to attract veterans, and the GOP successfully blunted that. Now there's nothing but oratory over the heads of the voters.
I directed and managed political campaigns for decades. Nothing has changed. If you haven't got a simple message to accompany the issue speeches, you cannot win an election.
It didn't have to be this way. A good, focused campaign staff could have won. But for losing, I'd much rather have lost with Dean. He never stood a chance but he had a more important message for America.
I do not have a license to fish. I never had; I never will. To buy a license to fish means granting government the right to say I can't. I will not concede government that right.
They have the right to fine me for breaking their laws. They have the right to rule certain waters off-limits to fishing, or certain seasons. They have the right to set minimum sizes to keep. I have no quarrel with the needs of management.
Fishing is my right, not something needing government permission. Do you know what that makes me? Unamerican by today's standards, just like the people who founded this country.
When I first learned the "Big Bang" theory my response was Bah, creationism in a lab coat. As the evidence of movement piled up, it appeared no one was finding the real reason. No one saw ripples in a pond. No one saw attraction or centrifugal force rather than repulsion. No one saw a time slice of ebb and flow. No one saw. We have such a long way to go before the truth of relativity replaces the faith in absolutism.
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