Oooh, that hurts. The two Democrats who still admit they're Democrats sittin' and jawin' about how Obama got it wrong and the Republicans got it right.
Okay, we know the message the Republicans have honed to perfection is this: Cut the budget and the taxes and keep Big Money happy and the government will fall and life will be good. It's a downright nutty message, considering the state of our economy and the pain that's been inflicted on the working class by the people who keep spreading it, but they get away with it because while we, the lousy, lonely hoi polloi, keep complaining about their cheating and their lying and their back-stabbing, Obama and the Dems in congress keep stroking them and feeding them in hopes that they'll lie down and sleep awhile.
They're animals, for chrissake. They're not going to do it!
Moore: "This is what I love about Republicans. I honestly secretly really admire them because, man, they have guts. They come in with both guns blazing; they take no prisoners. . . There's 420 bills that the house has already passed that the senate could pass right now because we have enough votes to do that. Yet they won't do it, I know they won't do it. Even the simple child nutrition bill. They won't do it. but I'll tell you what--if this was--the shoe was on the other foot--if this was the Republicans in a lame duck session, dammit, they'd be passing as much as they could because that's how they are. Because they believe in something. And that's why Americans love the Republicans. Because they just believe in something."
O'Donnell: "And their guts come from a very simple minded position: cut taxes. Which is their answer to everything, including job creation. I've asked Republicans, 'tell me how you would create jobs'. The answer is the same every time: 'I would extend the low tax brackets we currently have for everyone, especially and including the top tax brackets, because low tax brackets miraculously create jobs'. Though there is no evidence for that."
Moore: "There is absolutely no impirical evidence to support that position. . ."
O'Donnell: "But who cares? The Republicans hang in there."
In that video clip Michael Moore talked about a new website that lists Obama's achievements in a really clever way. I forgot to go to the website that night, but this morning I had an email from that very bunch. I've been getting a lot of emails with achievement lists lately, but this one is fun. (There are two versions, one using WTF and one using WTH. So you just know, don't you, that I'm going to use the "heck" version. But when you get there you can switch to the WTF version. It's exactly the same, but one is for me and one is for you.):
http://whattheheckhasobamadonesofar.com/
But we still haven't answered the question of how we light a fire under Obama and the Dems in congress. They're feeling dismal after the mid-terms when they should be feeling stupid. It's not like we haven't been trying to tell them.
*
Rise up, voices! Speak truth to power. Bark orders to justice. Sing praises to the good. Beg alms for the poor.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Friday, November 5, 2010
Give 'em Hell Harry's Mad Miracle
For most of the 1948 campaign season, the only person who believed Harry Truman could win an elected term was Harry himself. The politicians, the punditry, if not the entire country, thought poor Harry--who was not now and never would be FDR--was laughably unelectable. Not a chance in hell.
William Manchester recounts in his superb book, "The Glory and the Dream, a Narrative History of America, 1932-1972", in a chapter called "A little touch of Harry in the night", how little faith anyone had in the failed haberdasher saddled with no evident charisma, a high nasal voice, and a deadly, read-it-right-off-the-page speaking style:
Almost immediately after Truman announced he was going to run, on March 9, 1948, most of the party's leaders demanded that he withdraw.
The Bronx boss, Ed Flynn, refused to appear on the same platform with him and he literally had to be strong-armed into his seat. People who should have been by his side snubbed him.
The Southern delegation made plans to break away from the party and support their own candidate, Strom Thurmond. It threatened to be a four-party race, with two of them Democrats. (The Progressive Party was the fourth.)
A planned meeting of wealthy Democrats--potential supporters--had to be cancelled when only three of them agreed to show up.
When Truman's name was mentioned at a Los Angeles rally the speaker was booed.
Some of the big names, including Elliott Roosevelt, Claude Pepper, Walter Reuther and Hubert Humphrey came up with an "extraordinary idea". Why not draft General Eisenhower instead? (That idea went up the chain without anybody apparently knowing that Ike was a conservative Republican.) They went so far as to insult Truman further by sending him a telegram asking him to be chairman of the Draft Eisenhower Committee. (The Dem leaders had high hopes for Ike right up until the day before the convention, when he finally announced that he "would refuse to accept the nomination under any conditions, terms, or premises.")
So they were left with Truman. The Republicans and the press were having a field day, but what nobody knew was that Truman's aides had finally convinced him that he had to play the underdog and go on the attack. Truman hated PR and gimmicks and anything else that smacked of phony posturing, but he knew how to get mad. According to Manchester, the brilliance of his campaign from then on was that Truman was throwing out his canned speeches--he never could read them without sounding wooden and insincere--and replacing them with plain Missouri talk.
After a couple of successful off-the-cuff speeches to small groups, his aides started thinking big. Someone came up with idea of taking the Presidential train across country to go stumping. Truman dipped into his $30,000 travel allowance--clearly unethical in any sense of the word but ignored by the Republicans, who saw it as a quaint trip to nowhere--and used it to campaign in as many whistle-stops as he could manage in two weeks. By the time he got back to Washington he had covered 9,500 miles and had delivered 73 speeches in 16 states. He followed Clark Clifford's advice: "Be controversial as hell." He got the crowds riled and he liked what he saw. They were with him. "Give 'em hell, Harry!" got its start on that trip when someone in the crowd shouted it out, and he was wily enough to keep it going.
The Washington press corp, following him, had to admit "the President had almost made [us] forget that he didn't have a chance."
But it was back to humiliation again in Washington when he found his own party still working feverishly to find someone to take his place. Almost to the last minute he couldn't find anyone to run with him as vice president, until finally Alben Barkley said he would do it.
So on July 14, the night of the Convention, Truman found himself in a small, dank room under the platform with a balcony overlooking an alley, trains shaking the walls as they thundered by. He waited there for more than four hours, as the nominating speeches and voting went on above him. It was nearly 2 AM before he was finally allowed to give his acceptance speech.
I can only guess that spending four hours nearly alone in that empty, smelly, noisy room made him mad. When Alben Barkley was nominated by acclamation but he, Truman, had to share the votes with others, that must have made him mad. That nobody in that hall thought he had a chance in hell to win must have made him mad. Whatever the reasons, Harry Truman gave the speech of his political life and got those people up on their feet. In the middle of the night, when it was over, Convention Hall rocked with the sounds of a standing ovation.
This, in part, is what he said:
Later, on September 5, came the cross-country trip aboard the "Truman Special" (not the presidential car)--32,000 miles and 250 speeches. Manchester says this about the newly energized Truman:
You know the outcome. You know that every prognosticator gave Dewey the win. The Chicago Tribune wasn't the only news outlet to write their "Dewey Wins" leads ahead of time. When Truman got back to Washington, he passed a huge sign across the front of the Washington Post building that read, "Mr. President, we are ready to eat crow whenever you are ready to serve it."
Manchester writes: "In a letter to his own paper, Reston of the Times wrote that 'we were too isolated with other reporters and we, too, were far too impressed by the tidy statistics of the poll.' Time said the press had 'delegated its journalist's job to the polls.' Several angry publishers canceled their subscriptions to the polls. The pollsters themselves were prostrate. Gallup said simply, 'I don't know what happened.'"
What happened was that Truman didn't give up, he didn't compromise and he didn't conciliate. He went on the attack against the Republican-held 80th congress and whipped them to death with their own deeds (or non-deeds, as the case may be. The highlights of his stump speeches were his tirades against the "do-nothing Congress", and it worked. Along with Truman's victory, the Democrats took the majority in both houses).
One final footnote: After the election, the Survey Research Center of the University of Michigan conducted a poll of the polls and found that two weeks before the election a full 14 percent of the Truman voters hadn't yet made up their minds. Both Roper and Gallup did their own after-election research and found much the same conclusion: One voter in seven made up his or her mind within two weeks of the election. So, as Manchester points out, "Using either the Michigan figures or Gallup-Roper's, one finds that some 3,300,000 fence-sitters determined the outcome of the race in its closing days--when Dewey's instincts were urging him to adopt Truman's hell-for-leather style and slug it out with him, and when he didn't because all the experts told him he shouldn't."
Is there something to be learned from this? I don't know. It's a different president, a different time and a different Democratic Party. What I do know as I'm writing this is that Mitch McConnell's speech before the Heritage Foundation is being played over and over again--the one where he says loud and clear, "we'll cooperate with you, Mr. President, when you give us everything we want".
In the background, in my head, I'm hearing our president's post-election speech--the one where he still thinks the answer is to make nice with those vicious megalomaniacs--and I want Give 'em Hell Harry to grab Obama the Oblivious by the scruff of his neck and whap him one upside the head.
If anyone could do it, Harry could. Harry was no angel; he was a politician, for god's sake--but he knew how to spot incorrigible rogues, and he knew how to destroy them with the truth. I doubt he stayed awake nights wondering if he was liked.
President Obama can't quite see the challenge in taking on his most relentless enemies. He's supposed to be working against them. They're supposed to hate him. He's supposed to be a Democrat and he's supposed to remember what that means. There's an employee handbook out there somewhere for Democrats but this new bunch refuses to read it. It says right on page 1, paragraph 2, they can be fired for that.
.
(Many thanks to my husband, who steered me to this chapter while we were talking about how Obama should handle a congress that just says no. It won't do a damned thing to change anything, but man, it felt good to be immersed in a story about a Democrat who wouldn't give up his principles.)
*
William Manchester recounts in his superb book, "The Glory and the Dream, a Narrative History of America, 1932-1972", in a chapter called "A little touch of Harry in the night", how little faith anyone had in the failed haberdasher saddled with no evident charisma, a high nasal voice, and a deadly, read-it-right-off-the-page speaking style:
It was going to be so easy. "Truman is a gone goose", said Congresswoman Clare Boothe Luce, the lovely blond lawmaker from Connecticut, and although Democrats flinched, no one contradicted her. Since the Republican sweep of the off-year elections in November, 1946, every public opinion poll, every survey of political experts had spoken with one voice: If Harry Truman ran for the presidency, he would be doomed. Gallup reported that between October 1947 and March 1948 the percentage of Americans who thought the President was dong a good job had dropped sharply--to 36 percent--and that if he ran then we would lose to Dewey, Stassen, MacArthur or Vandenberg.
"If Truman is nominated," Joseph and Stewart Alsop told their readers, "he will be forced to wage the loneliest campaign in recent history." Even he had misgivings. . .he asked Secretary of the Army Kenneth C. Royall to tell the general that if Ike would run for President on the Democratic ticket, Truman would be proud to be his running mate. Eisenhower asked Royall to convey his heartfelt gratitude to the President, but with it his regrets. Possibly he thought that with Truman as his vice-presidential nominee he would lose."
Almost immediately after Truman announced he was going to run, on March 9, 1948, most of the party's leaders demanded that he withdraw.
The Bronx boss, Ed Flynn, refused to appear on the same platform with him and he literally had to be strong-armed into his seat. People who should have been by his side snubbed him.
The Southern delegation made plans to break away from the party and support their own candidate, Strom Thurmond. It threatened to be a four-party race, with two of them Democrats. (The Progressive Party was the fourth.)
A planned meeting of wealthy Democrats--potential supporters--had to be cancelled when only three of them agreed to show up.
When Truman's name was mentioned at a Los Angeles rally the speaker was booed.
Some of the big names, including Elliott Roosevelt, Claude Pepper, Walter Reuther and Hubert Humphrey came up with an "extraordinary idea". Why not draft General Eisenhower instead? (That idea went up the chain without anybody apparently knowing that Ike was a conservative Republican.) They went so far as to insult Truman further by sending him a telegram asking him to be chairman of the Draft Eisenhower Committee. (The Dem leaders had high hopes for Ike right up until the day before the convention, when he finally announced that he "would refuse to accept the nomination under any conditions, terms, or premises.")
So they were left with Truman. The Republicans and the press were having a field day, but what nobody knew was that Truman's aides had finally convinced him that he had to play the underdog and go on the attack. Truman hated PR and gimmicks and anything else that smacked of phony posturing, but he knew how to get mad. According to Manchester, the brilliance of his campaign from then on was that Truman was throwing out his canned speeches--he never could read them without sounding wooden and insincere--and replacing them with plain Missouri talk.
After a couple of successful off-the-cuff speeches to small groups, his aides started thinking big. Someone came up with idea of taking the Presidential train across country to go stumping. Truman dipped into his $30,000 travel allowance--clearly unethical in any sense of the word but ignored by the Republicans, who saw it as a quaint trip to nowhere--and used it to campaign in as many whistle-stops as he could manage in two weeks. By the time he got back to Washington he had covered 9,500 miles and had delivered 73 speeches in 16 states. He followed Clark Clifford's advice: "Be controversial as hell." He got the crowds riled and he liked what he saw. They were with him. "Give 'em hell, Harry!" got its start on that trip when someone in the crowd shouted it out, and he was wily enough to keep it going.
The Washington press corp, following him, had to admit "the President had almost made [us] forget that he didn't have a chance."
But it was back to humiliation again in Washington when he found his own party still working feverishly to find someone to take his place. Almost to the last minute he couldn't find anyone to run with him as vice president, until finally Alben Barkley said he would do it.
So on July 14, the night of the Convention, Truman found himself in a small, dank room under the platform with a balcony overlooking an alley, trains shaking the walls as they thundered by. He waited there for more than four hours, as the nominating speeches and voting went on above him. It was nearly 2 AM before he was finally allowed to give his acceptance speech.
I can only guess that spending four hours nearly alone in that empty, smelly, noisy room made him mad. When Alben Barkley was nominated by acclamation but he, Truman, had to share the votes with others, that must have made him mad. That nobody in that hall thought he had a chance in hell to win must have made him mad. Whatever the reasons, Harry Truman gave the speech of his political life and got those people up on their feet. In the middle of the night, when it was over, Convention Hall rocked with the sounds of a standing ovation.
This, in part, is what he said:
I accept the nomination. And I want to thank this convention for its unanimous nomination of my good friend and colleague, Senator Barkley of Kentucky. He's a great man, and a great public servant. Senator Barkley and I will win this election and make these Republicans like it -- don't you forget that. We'll do that because they are wrong and we are right, and I'll prove it to you in just a few minutes.
This convention met to express the will and reaffirm the beliefs of the Democratic Party. There have been differences of opinion, and that's the democratic way. Those differences have been settled by a majority vote, as they should be. Now it's time for us to get together and beat the common enemy -- and that's up to you.
Confidence and security have been brought to the American people by the Democratic Party. Farm income has increased from less than 2 1/2 billion dollars in 1933 to more than 18 billion dollars in 1947. Never in the world were the farmers of any republic or any kingdom or any other country as prosperous as the farmers of the United States; and if they don't do their duty by the Democratic Party, they're the most ungrateful people in the world. Wages and salaries in this country have increased from 29 billion dollars in 1933 to more than 128 billion dollars in 1947. That's labor, and labor never had but one friend in politics, and that was the Democratic Party and Franklin D. Roosevelt.
And I'll say to labor just what I have said to the farmers; they are the most ungrateful people in the world if they pass the Democratic Party by this year. The total national income has increased from less than 40 billion dollars in 1933 to 203 billion dollars in 1947, the greatest in all the history of the world. These benefits have been spread to all the people, because it's the business of the Democratic Party to see that the people get a fair share of these things.
We have been working together for victory in a great cause. Victory has become a habit of our Party. It's been elected four times in succession, and I'm convinced it will be elected a fifth time next November. The reason is that the people know that the Democratic Party is the people's party, and the Republican Party is the Party of special interest, and it always has been and always will be.
The record of the Democratic Party is written in the accomplishments of the last 16 years. I don't need to repeat them. They have been very ably placed before this convention by the keynote speaker, the candidate for Vice President, and by the permanent Chairman.
This last, worst 80th Congress proved just the opposite for the Republicans.
Later, on September 5, came the cross-country trip aboard the "Truman Special" (not the presidential car)--32,000 miles and 250 speeches. Manchester says this about the newly energized Truman:
"Much that Truman said was absurd or irresponsible and some of it mischievous. Harried and forlorn, supported by only 15 percent of the nation's newspapers, told on every side that he was wasting his time and everyone else's, he was capable of delivering demagogic lines. "The Republicans," he said, "have begun to nail the American consumer to the spikes of greed." He called them "gluttons of privilege," called Dewey a "fascist" and compared him to Hitler, and to over 80,000 listeners at the National Plowing Contest in Dexter, Iowa, he charged that "This Republican Congress has already stuck a pitchfork in the farmer's back."Even after his staff showed him an October Newsweek cover that read, "FIFTY POLITICAL EXPERTS UNANIMOUSLY PREDICT A DEWEY VICTORY", Truman believed he was going to win. He spent hours working the electoral numbers and finally put his predictions in an envelope, sealed it and gave to someone to hold until after the election. When they opened it later, they saw that he had predicted 340 electoral votes for himself, 108 for Dewey, 42 for Strom Thurmond and 37 marked "doubtful". He was so sure he was going to win he never flinched, no matter how bad it looked to everyone else. (The final electoral votes for Truman were 304, 189 for Dewey.)
You know the outcome. You know that every prognosticator gave Dewey the win. The Chicago Tribune wasn't the only news outlet to write their "Dewey Wins" leads ahead of time. When Truman got back to Washington, he passed a huge sign across the front of the Washington Post building that read, "Mr. President, we are ready to eat crow whenever you are ready to serve it."
Manchester writes: "In a letter to his own paper, Reston of the Times wrote that 'we were too isolated with other reporters and we, too, were far too impressed by the tidy statistics of the poll.' Time said the press had 'delegated its journalist's job to the polls.' Several angry publishers canceled their subscriptions to the polls. The pollsters themselves were prostrate. Gallup said simply, 'I don't know what happened.'"
What happened was that Truman didn't give up, he didn't compromise and he didn't conciliate. He went on the attack against the Republican-held 80th congress and whipped them to death with their own deeds (or non-deeds, as the case may be. The highlights of his stump speeches were his tirades against the "do-nothing Congress", and it worked. Along with Truman's victory, the Democrats took the majority in both houses).
One final footnote: After the election, the Survey Research Center of the University of Michigan conducted a poll of the polls and found that two weeks before the election a full 14 percent of the Truman voters hadn't yet made up their minds. Both Roper and Gallup did their own after-election research and found much the same conclusion: One voter in seven made up his or her mind within two weeks of the election. So, as Manchester points out, "Using either the Michigan figures or Gallup-Roper's, one finds that some 3,300,000 fence-sitters determined the outcome of the race in its closing days--when Dewey's instincts were urging him to adopt Truman's hell-for-leather style and slug it out with him, and when he didn't because all the experts told him he shouldn't."
Is there something to be learned from this? I don't know. It's a different president, a different time and a different Democratic Party. What I do know as I'm writing this is that Mitch McConnell's speech before the Heritage Foundation is being played over and over again--the one where he says loud and clear, "we'll cooperate with you, Mr. President, when you give us everything we want".
In the background, in my head, I'm hearing our president's post-election speech--the one where he still thinks the answer is to make nice with those vicious megalomaniacs--and I want Give 'em Hell Harry to grab Obama the Oblivious by the scruff of his neck and whap him one upside the head.
If anyone could do it, Harry could. Harry was no angel; he was a politician, for god's sake--but he knew how to spot incorrigible rogues, and he knew how to destroy them with the truth. I doubt he stayed awake nights wondering if he was liked.
President Obama can't quite see the challenge in taking on his most relentless enemies. He's supposed to be working against them. They're supposed to hate him. He's supposed to be a Democrat and he's supposed to remember what that means. There's an employee handbook out there somewhere for Democrats but this new bunch refuses to read it. It says right on page 1, paragraph 2, they can be fired for that.
.
(Many thanks to my husband, who steered me to this chapter while we were talking about how Obama should handle a congress that just says no. It won't do a damned thing to change anything, but man, it felt good to be immersed in a story about a Democrat who wouldn't give up his principles.)
*
Friday, October 29, 2010
Amid the Sturm und Drang, a Moment Sublime
This was a week of dizzying visuals--Christine O'Donnell flubbing a radio interview and then threatening to sue the station if they air it. A reporter being strong-armed and handcuffed for questioning a candidate. A woman being thrown to the ground and head-clamped by a jack-booted patriot who now wants an apology from her. A Democrat thrown to the ground and body-slammed at an Eric Cantor rally.
And just when I thought things were getting about as disturbing as they could get, up pops Charlie Sheen in another installment of his Hey wait! Watch this! crash and burn melodrama.
Add to all of that the incessant news that the Republicans (now an arm of the Tea Party) are likely going to take over the house and possibly the senate, and I had every good reason to hate this week. I didn't realize, when I kept going back again and again to immerse myself in the few magnificent moments from an earlier "Last Word"where Lawrence O'Donnell apologized to RNC chairman Michael Steele for comments he had made the night before, that this was my therapy, my solace, my way of establishing that there are, in fact, some remnants of humanity still struggling to grab hold.
I missed the original program, but I heard about it the next day, when the blogosphere was abuzz with the news that Lawrence, just days into his new MSNBC show, had made what looked a whole lot like racial slurs toward Michael Steele in a pre-recorded intro. This is what Lawrence said:
Okay, that wasn't good. I'm a huge Lawrence fan, going back to his days with The West Wing, my favorite TV series of all time, but this--coming so soon after his icky, un-Lawrence-like interview with Alvin Greene, where O'Donnell's main concern seemed to be the origin of Alvin's nick-name, Turtle, and whether or not the poor man was a witch.
I look at the hapless Alvin Greene, the unlikely and astonishingly inarticulate and unprepared Democratic senate candidate from South Carolina, and see someone who needs protecting. Alvin Greene needs a mom out there. Whatever his original reasons for running for high office, he's finding himself the laughing stock of an entire nation, and yet he plugs on. Time and time again his handlers set him up for the worst kinds of abuses, and he obediently goes out there and does the job as well as he's able. That he can't now and probably never will be anything other than poor Alvin doesn't seem to phase either his handlers or the members of the media who see his fumblings as great sport.
I sincerely expected better of Lawrence O'Donnell. And just when I was ready to concede that even someone with Lawrence's integrity can sell out to popularity-grab and celebrity-lust, he makes a dazzling come-back with his apology to Michael Steele:
I'm not a huge fan of Michael Steele, truth be told, but that was about as classy an act as I've seen from a Republican in a long time. I want to believe, after watching that clip over and over again, that we have a chance.
If, on Wednesday, November 3, we wake up to a whole new world of the same old crap, I'll somehow manage to get through the day by remembering that fleeting moment of political man's humanity to political man.
*
*
And just when I thought things were getting about as disturbing as they could get, up pops Charlie Sheen in another installment of his Hey wait! Watch this! crash and burn melodrama.
Add to all of that the incessant news that the Republicans (now an arm of the Tea Party) are likely going to take over the house and possibly the senate, and I had every good reason to hate this week. I didn't realize, when I kept going back again and again to immerse myself in the few magnificent moments from an earlier "Last Word"where Lawrence O'Donnell apologized to RNC chairman Michael Steele for comments he had made the night before, that this was my therapy, my solace, my way of establishing that there are, in fact, some remnants of humanity still struggling to grab hold.
I missed the original program, but I heard about it the next day, when the blogosphere was abuzz with the news that Lawrence, just days into his new MSNBC show, had made what looked a whole lot like racial slurs toward Michael Steele in a pre-recorded intro. This is what Lawrence said:
As the first congressional election during his party chairmanship approaches, Michael Steele is dancing as fast as he can trying to charm independent voters and Tea Partiers while never losing sight of his real master and paycheck provider, the Republican National Committee.
Okay, that wasn't good. I'm a huge Lawrence fan, going back to his days with The West Wing, my favorite TV series of all time, but this--coming so soon after his icky, un-Lawrence-like interview with Alvin Greene, where O'Donnell's main concern seemed to be the origin of Alvin's nick-name, Turtle, and whether or not the poor man was a witch.
I look at the hapless Alvin Greene, the unlikely and astonishingly inarticulate and unprepared Democratic senate candidate from South Carolina, and see someone who needs protecting. Alvin Greene needs a mom out there. Whatever his original reasons for running for high office, he's finding himself the laughing stock of an entire nation, and yet he plugs on. Time and time again his handlers set him up for the worst kinds of abuses, and he obediently goes out there and does the job as well as he's able. That he can't now and probably never will be anything other than poor Alvin doesn't seem to phase either his handlers or the members of the media who see his fumblings as great sport.
I sincerely expected better of Lawrence O'Donnell. And just when I was ready to concede that even someone with Lawrence's integrity can sell out to popularity-grab and celebrity-lust, he makes a dazzling come-back with his apology to Michael Steele:
I'm not a huge fan of Michael Steele, truth be told, but that was about as classy an act as I've seen from a Republican in a long time. I want to believe, after watching that clip over and over again, that we have a chance.
If, on Wednesday, November 3, we wake up to a whole new world of the same old crap, I'll somehow manage to get through the day by remembering that fleeting moment of political man's humanity to political man.
*
*
Monday, October 25, 2010
Still looking for the WikiLeaks Heroes
*
While nearly everyone in my world is cheering the release of a staggering 400,000 classified U.S documents by the website, WikiLeaks, in order to expose war crimes and atrocities by the U.S and its allies during both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, I can't help but dread the direction in which we're heading.
There are so many whistle-blowers I admire. It takes great courage to go against the wind and do what's right. Many of them have suffered mightily for their bravery. (I would hope I could be as brave if the time came.)
Leaks have come in handy at times when the truth refused to surface without them. (But even the seemingly benign can be destructive. Ask Valerie Plame.) This is not an indictment of either method of letting the sunshine in. Sunshine is good. It warms us all. But the flip side of sunshine is that if we're not careful it'll burn us.
My problem with this story is the cavalier approach to the theft of thousands of pages of classified government documents by a person who took an oath to guard them with his life, if necessary. I've lived with, and known, people who held high security clearances, so it could be that I'm more sensitive than some to the obligations and fidelity a security clearance requires. There is a long process of life-scrubbing scrutiny before a security clearance is awarded. It can often take months of investigation, delving into every aspect of an applicant's life, past and present. No one I know who ever went through it took the designation lightly. I haven't asked them, but I think I can safely say that none of them would consider the acts of either WikiLeaks or Bradley Manning, the soldier who leaked an un-named number of documents, as anything other than acts of treason.
I hate war. I hate everything about the bloody, messy reality of war-- the lies, the propaganda, the cover-ups, the lives lost in the name of honor or vengeance or blood-lust or money. So, having said that, it seems reasonable that I should be rejoicing in the release--even the unauthorized release--of the unavoidable truths of the messes we've gotten ourselves mixed up in. I'm not. I can't.
There is no doubt that there have been cover-ups in the numbers of casualties on both sides in both current wars. There is no doubt that there have been atrocities and killings, with thousands of innocents caught in the cross-fire--and with each revelation we react with a kind of impotent fury that has become all too familiar. So when whistle-blowers like Bradley Manning or Julian Assange come along with undeniable proof that we have good reason to distrust our own government, a nation as battered and war-weary as ours is going to let loose and hail them as heroes.
It's easy to forget in the heat of it that what we have here is a security breach of massive, unprecedented proportions, with unimaginable repercussions.
We know that Bradley Manning, a 22-year-old intelligence analyst stationed in Iraq found himself with way too much time on his hands and started "rummaging" through computer files he knew full well were off limits to unauthorized PFCs--even ones with secret security clearances.
Whatever the answers, I won't be celebrating the release of those documents. It sets up a whole new dangerous phase for us--where the ideals of free speech and transparency trump the security of our country. When the wholesale theft of mountains of classified documents becomes a heroic deed, it sends a signal that anarchy is now the favored act of rebellion.
I guess I would be careful what I wished for. This is what the Tea Party wants, too.
*
*
There are so many whistle-blowers I admire. It takes great courage to go against the wind and do what's right. Many of them have suffered mightily for their bravery. (I would hope I could be as brave if the time came.)
Leaks have come in handy at times when the truth refused to surface without them. (But even the seemingly benign can be destructive. Ask Valerie Plame.) This is not an indictment of either method of letting the sunshine in. Sunshine is good. It warms us all. But the flip side of sunshine is that if we're not careful it'll burn us.
My problem with this story is the cavalier approach to the theft of thousands of pages of classified government documents by a person who took an oath to guard them with his life, if necessary. I've lived with, and known, people who held high security clearances, so it could be that I'm more sensitive than some to the obligations and fidelity a security clearance requires. There is a long process of life-scrubbing scrutiny before a security clearance is awarded. It can often take months of investigation, delving into every aspect of an applicant's life, past and present. No one I know who ever went through it took the designation lightly. I haven't asked them, but I think I can safely say that none of them would consider the acts of either WikiLeaks or Bradley Manning, the soldier who leaked an un-named number of documents, as anything other than acts of treason.
I hate war. I hate everything about the bloody, messy reality of war-- the lies, the propaganda, the cover-ups, the lives lost in the name of honor or vengeance or blood-lust or money. So, having said that, it seems reasonable that I should be rejoicing in the release--even the unauthorized release--of the unavoidable truths of the messes we've gotten ourselves mixed up in. I'm not. I can't.
There is no doubt that there have been cover-ups in the numbers of casualties on both sides in both current wars. There is no doubt that there have been atrocities and killings, with thousands of innocents caught in the cross-fire--and with each revelation we react with a kind of impotent fury that has become all too familiar. So when whistle-blowers like Bradley Manning or Julian Assange come along with undeniable proof that we have good reason to distrust our own government, a nation as battered and war-weary as ours is going to let loose and hail them as heroes.
We know that Bradley Manning, a 22-year-old intelligence analyst stationed in Iraq found himself with way too much time on his hands and started "rummaging" through computer files he knew full well were off limits to unauthorized PFCs--even ones with secret security clearances.
"If you had unprecedented access to classified networks 14 hours a day 7 days a week for 8+ months, what would you do?" he asked.We know that before he was caught he managed to download thousands of text and video files and pass them on to WikiLeaks for unauthorized publication.
"Hillary Clinton, and several thousand diplomats around the world are going to have a heart attack when they wake up one morning, and find an entire repository of classified foreign policy is available, in searchable format, to the public," he wrote to a hacker friend.What we don't know yet is why this young soldier was allowed access to such sensitive documents and given so much time alone. It must have seemed unreal, even to him, as he bragged about how easy it was to accomplish such an unbelievable breach. (That's the rest of the story. How could this happen when they're so security-conscious we still have to take our shoes off at the airport?)
Whatever the answers, I won't be celebrating the release of those documents. It sets up a whole new dangerous phase for us--where the ideals of free speech and transparency trump the security of our country. When the wholesale theft of mountains of classified documents becomes a heroic deed, it sends a signal that anarchy is now the favored act of rebellion.
I guess I would be careful what I wished for. This is what the Tea Party wants, too.
*
*
Monday, October 18, 2010
The GOP's big plan: Yell "taxes" in a Crowded Theater, Send in the Clowns, Boffo Box Office*
I woke up this morning with a mad, radical thought in my head: What if I'm wrong and those damned Republicans really are right? What if, after all their clowning around, it turns out they actually have what it takes to allow us to pack up our troubles in our old kit bag and smile, smile, smile?
It sat me right up, this thought that I've been fighting against that bunch for so long I've completely lost sight of what they might actually stand for. Ye gads, what if Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin are just the kind of visionaries it takes to shock us into lasting prosperity?
I can't say my eureka moment energized me enough to cause me to leap out of bed, but around my third cup of coffee it came to me that in order to understand my potential new pals I must go to the source and see what they have in mind for us once they've regained control of congress and have set to work fixing all of the things they so successfully screwed up in the first place.
I went to GOP.com, the one-stop-shopping place for all things Republican, and wasn't a bit surprised to see Sarah Palin waiting for me at the door. I got past her, side-stepping the booth where they're lining up to get on the Get Pelosi Fired bus, then found myself in some pretty nasty alleys and a few dead ends, but I forged on, looking for the magic portal marked "Solutions", the entrance into proof-positive that the Republicans have only our best interests at heart and are working feverishly toward making America the Land of Plenty for more than just the ultra- über- super-rich.
So. You're pretty sure I found it, right? You can't wait to read concrete evidence that the Republicans have actually come up with better recovery plans than anyone could even have imagined--that a miraculous fix is in the works, ready to be implemented as soon as they're in power again.
I'll bet you're thinking I'm going to have to eat a whole field full of crow after all the naughty words I've used against them.
Not so fast, mateys. This is all I found: A six-part section called "Issues".
The first, National Defense, is the longest, at 177 words, and starts out, "President Ronald Reagan's approach to America's national defense, which successfully confronted the Soviet Union and ended the Cold War, is as essential today as it was then."
Okay. Nothing new there.
Issue number 2 is Health Care: "We support common-sense health care reforms that would lower costs, preserve quality, end lawsuit abuse, and maintain the health care that Americans deserve. We oppose government-run health care, which won't preserve the physician-patient relationship, won't promote competition, and won't promote health care quality and choice."
Americans deserve this kind of health care? And this wins you brownie points?
Third issue, Energy: "We believe in energy independence. We support an 'all of the above' approach that encourages the production of nuclear power, clean coal, natural gas, solar, wind, geothermal, hydropower, as well as off-shore drilling in an environmentally responsible way. We oppose so-called cap and trade legislation that would impose a national energy tax on families and small businesses that would kill jobs and raise utility prices."
Just kidding about that Green energy stuff. We're not really going to push that.
Education is number 4: "We believe that maintaining a world-class system of primary and secondary education, with high standards, in which all students can reach their potential, is critically important to American's future. We believe in the power of school choice, that giving parents the ability to send their children to better schools--not keeping them trapped in failing schools--is an important way to enable children to get the quality education they deserve."
Okay, public ed, the jig's up. You're outta here.
Issue number 5 is Economy: "We believe in the power and opportunity of America's free market economy. We believe in the importance of sensible business regulations that promote confidence in our economy among consumers, entrepreneurs and businesses alike. We oppose interventionist policies that put the federal government in control of industry and allow it to pick winners and losers in the marketplace."
In other words, carry on, O Leaders of the Pack. Your money is safe with you.
Number 6, the final issue, is the Courts: "Republicans believe a judge's role is to interpret law, not make law from the bench. Judges in our court system, from district courts to the Supreme Court, should demonstrate fidelity to the U.S. Constitution. We trust the judicial system to make rulings on the law and nothing else."
Phew, glad this one was last. Sure stinks up the place, doesn't it?
So that's it. There's nothing else. Notice what's missing? There's not a single solitary mention of the need to protect American workers or the need to create American jobs. Not a thing about the poor and middle classes, who are suffering the most in this depression masquerading as a recession. Nothing about bankruptcies or foreclosures or people lining up at job sites, at food banks, at homeless shelters. Nothing about vets living on the streets. Nada bout kids having their health insurance canceled out of spite. Nothing in there to sully their devotion to the Fat Cat sponsors who count on them to keep the "You line our pockets and we'll line yours" roundelay going.
Okay, they're as bad as I thought they were only just yesterday. But I should sleep well tonight, ready for battle again tomorrow, because I've seen the nightmare and it is them.
But in case you're still leaning toward voting the bums back in because the Democrats just aren't doing it for you, you might want to read "The 'Teach-the-Dems-a-Lesson' myth" by Robert Parry. It's an eye-opener.
(*Boffo box office: Old Variety headline meaning a film, play or performance has raked in the big bucks.)
*
*
It sat me right up, this thought that I've been fighting against that bunch for so long I've completely lost sight of what they might actually stand for. Ye gads, what if Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin are just the kind of visionaries it takes to shock us into lasting prosperity?
I can't say my eureka moment energized me enough to cause me to leap out of bed, but around my third cup of coffee it came to me that in order to understand my potential new pals I must go to the source and see what they have in mind for us once they've regained control of congress and have set to work fixing all of the things they so successfully screwed up in the first place.
I went to GOP.com, the one-stop-shopping place for all things Republican, and wasn't a bit surprised to see Sarah Palin waiting for me at the door. I got past her, side-stepping the booth where they're lining up to get on the Get Pelosi Fired bus, then found myself in some pretty nasty alleys and a few dead ends, but I forged on, looking for the magic portal marked "Solutions", the entrance into proof-positive that the Republicans have only our best interests at heart and are working feverishly toward making America the Land of Plenty for more than just the ultra- über- super-rich.
So. You're pretty sure I found it, right? You can't wait to read concrete evidence that the Republicans have actually come up with better recovery plans than anyone could even have imagined--that a miraculous fix is in the works, ready to be implemented as soon as they're in power again.
I'll bet you're thinking I'm going to have to eat a whole field full of crow after all the naughty words I've used against them.
Not so fast, mateys. This is all I found: A six-part section called "Issues".
The first, National Defense, is the longest, at 177 words, and starts out, "President Ronald Reagan's approach to America's national defense, which successfully confronted the Soviet Union and ended the Cold War, is as essential today as it was then."
Okay. Nothing new there.
Issue number 2 is Health Care: "We support common-sense health care reforms that would lower costs, preserve quality, end lawsuit abuse, and maintain the health care that Americans deserve. We oppose government-run health care, which won't preserve the physician-patient relationship, won't promote competition, and won't promote health care quality and choice."
Americans deserve this kind of health care? And this wins you brownie points?
Third issue, Energy: "We believe in energy independence. We support an 'all of the above' approach that encourages the production of nuclear power, clean coal, natural gas, solar, wind, geothermal, hydropower, as well as off-shore drilling in an environmentally responsible way. We oppose so-called cap and trade legislation that would impose a national energy tax on families and small businesses that would kill jobs and raise utility prices."
Just kidding about that Green energy stuff. We're not really going to push that.
Education is number 4: "We believe that maintaining a world-class system of primary and secondary education, with high standards, in which all students can reach their potential, is critically important to American's future. We believe in the power of school choice, that giving parents the ability to send their children to better schools--not keeping them trapped in failing schools--is an important way to enable children to get the quality education they deserve."
Okay, public ed, the jig's up. You're outta here.
Issue number 5 is Economy: "We believe in the power and opportunity of America's free market economy. We believe in the importance of sensible business regulations that promote confidence in our economy among consumers, entrepreneurs and businesses alike. We oppose interventionist policies that put the federal government in control of industry and allow it to pick winners and losers in the marketplace."
In other words, carry on, O Leaders of the Pack. Your money is safe with you.
Number 6, the final issue, is the Courts: "Republicans believe a judge's role is to interpret law, not make law from the bench. Judges in our court system, from district courts to the Supreme Court, should demonstrate fidelity to the U.S. Constitution. We trust the judicial system to make rulings on the law and nothing else."
Phew, glad this one was last. Sure stinks up the place, doesn't it?
So that's it. There's nothing else. Notice what's missing? There's not a single solitary mention of the need to protect American workers or the need to create American jobs. Not a thing about the poor and middle classes, who are suffering the most in this depression masquerading as a recession. Nothing about bankruptcies or foreclosures or people lining up at job sites, at food banks, at homeless shelters. Nothing about vets living on the streets. Nada bout kids having their health insurance canceled out of spite. Nothing in there to sully their devotion to the Fat Cat sponsors who count on them to keep the "You line our pockets and we'll line yours" roundelay going.
Okay, they're as bad as I thought they were only just yesterday. But I should sleep well tonight, ready for battle again tomorrow, because I've seen the nightmare and it is them.
But in case you're still leaning toward voting the bums back in because the Democrats just aren't doing it for you, you might want to read "The 'Teach-the-Dems-a-Lesson' myth" by Robert Parry. It's an eye-opener.
(*Boffo box office: Old Variety headline meaning a film, play or performance has raked in the big bucks.)
*
*
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Shut your damned Enthusiasm Gap and get out there and DO something
We all know that certain people who make it a practice to depreciate the accomplishments of labor - who even attack labor as unpatriotic - they keep this up usually for three years and six months in a row. But then, for some strange reason they change their tune- every four years- just before election day. When votes are at stake, they suddenly discover that they really love labor and that they are anxious to protect labor from its old friends.
I got quite a laugh, for example - and I am sure that you did - when I read this plank in the Republican platform adopted at their National Convention in Chicago last July: "The Republican Party accepts the purposes of the National Labor Relations Act, the Wage and Hour Act, the Social Security Act and all other Federal statutes designed to promote and protect the welfare of American working men and women, and we promise a fair and just administration of these laws."
You know, many of the Republican leaders and Congressmen and candidates, who shouted enthusiastic approval of that plank in that Convention Hall would not even recognize these progressive laws if they met them in broad daylight. Indeed, they have personally spent years of effort and energy - and much money - in fighting every one of those laws in the Congress, and in the press, and in the courts, ever since this Administration began to advocate them and enact them into legislation. That is a fair example of their insincerity and of their inconsistency.
The whole purpose of Republican oratory these days seems to be to switch labels. The object is to persuade the American people that the Democratic Party was responsible for the 1929 crash and the depression, and that the Republican Party was responsible for all social progress under the New Deal.
Now, imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery - but I am afraid that in this case it is the most obvious common or garden variety of fraud.
FDR, September 23, 1944
Okay, I feel like the mother hen here--the dotty old mother hen who keeps repeating herself, even when it's clear that nobody wants to listen. We mother hens do this, not because we're so keen on being royal pains-in-the-ass, but because we're keen on looking at the big picture and keeping it real. So, yes, I've said this before and I'll say it again: We Dems/Libs/Progs need to do everything we can to keep the Democrats in control. If we don't, the Republicans win and their gloating will take the form of locking us in towers and throwing away the keys. They haven't even won yet, but on the strength of polls and pundits telling them they will, they're already planning ways to kill the few puny safety nets we've been able to jimmy into place.
So along with the satisfaction you get from gunning for the Democrats who in your view are either clueless or cowardly or in bed with the corporates, you might want to give a thought to how all that griping is fueling the other side. They're loving these little internecine battles, because while all that spitting and hissing is going on, they can move on down that low road with nary a care in the world.
I'm not going to rehash the horrors that will be unleashed if the Republicans take over congress, because there are others who have done it much more thoroughly already. It will be bad. You know that. It will be so bad, we'll wonder how we could have let it happen again. We'll pretend we didn't have anything to do with it--that the Big Money/Tea Party juggernaut was just too much for us. But we'll be lying to ourselves, won't we? All of this energy going toward attacking our own should be going toward attacking them. They are the enemy of the people, the destroyers of the universe (given half a chance), and we have an obligation to heal the wounds, not make them deeper.
The One Nation rally should be enough to convince us that we have the power if we'll only just use it. It's a lie that we are a right-leaning country. We couldn't have accomplished as much as we did if we had historically followed the dictates of the right. We would never have had a healthy labor movement, a vibrant middle class, a claim to the title of greatest power on earth, without liberal pressure and sweat. We built this country; they tore it down. Now we're trying to rebuild and they're on the fast-track to tearing it down again.
The press is profiting from the looniness of the Right Wing and spends almost all of their time mooning over them. Meanwhile, the good folks with mountains of practical, beneficent ideas but no talent for hawking them sit around and wait their turn. Still, I'm seeing encouraging signs of a momentum building. The Huffington Post, for example, has a new page called "Third World America", where real people talk about real problems and real solutions. Elizabeth Warren finally has the president's ear, and someone is actually quoting the irrepressibly sensible Bernie Sanders. Al Franken's heart is a hit on the senate floor. Rachel Maddow has become an unlikely and refreshingly brilliant star. Lawrence O'Donnell--smart guy in his own right--has his own show. Michael Moore gives the Dems five steps to a win and in his follow-up he sees some progress. And President Obama is beginning to sound like his old self.
It's a start.
So what's it going to be? The Republicans taking over congress and making sure none of our programs ever see the light of day? Or the Democrats winning a clear majority, sending a message to the entire country about where our priorities must lie?
I'm declaring a moratorium on Democrat-bashing until the elections are over. If you're not willing to get on board, I'm blaming you for everything that happens from here on out.
Have a nice day.
Ramona
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Fox News and the C of C thank you for voting Republican. But don't call us, we'll call you.
So, all you "Mad as Hell" people who idolize Fox "News" and their partners in crime, the Koch Brothers, the Chamber of Commerce, and the Republican Party, let's hear what you've learned from that bunch you've been following so religiously. What's the plan? What's marvels are in store for you when they take out the government and make it obsolete?
Wait a minute--you haven't asked? Okay, then. Obviously you haven't been thinking about it, but I have. I've made up a list of questions for you to ask as soon as you've put all those constitution-loving patriots back in the cat-bird seat:
How soon will all the jobs be back?
What's the forecast for a booming housing market?
Can we stop paying taxes now?
When will all wars end?
Can we get the the gays and liberals and non-Christians and brown-skinned people out of our sight ASAP?
Now can we force all kids to pray in school?
How soon before the poor aren't among us?
Do we have to take our guns to town?
When you outlaw abortions are you going to expect me to take care of those little brats?
When DC is a ghost town will the rents go down?
Why is Obamacare bad again?
and last but not least (because this one is very, very, very important):
Do you like me? Do you really, really like me?
Ramona
Wait a minute--you haven't asked? Okay, then. Obviously you haven't been thinking about it, but I have. I've made up a list of questions for you to ask as soon as you've put all those constitution-loving patriots back in the cat-bird seat:
How soon will all the jobs be back?
What's the forecast for a booming housing market?
Can we stop paying taxes now?
When will all wars end?
Can we get the the gays and liberals and non-Christians and brown-skinned people out of our sight ASAP?
Now can we force all kids to pray in school?
How soon before the poor aren't among us?
Do we have to take our guns to town?
When you outlaw abortions are you going to expect me to take care of those little brats?
When DC is a ghost town will the rents go down?
Why is Obamacare bad again?
and last but not least (because this one is very, very, very important):
Do you like me? Do you really, really like me?
Ramona
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Liberals for Obama: What a Concept!
Yesterday Maureen Dowd devoted an entire column to why her Republican sister is angry that she voted for Obama:
Give credit to Peggy for dismissing Palin as President, but really--what would a Republican who loved George W want from someone like Barack Obama anyway?
No credit, however, to her sister, who either panicked at deadline or thought another jab at Obama was just the ticket on 9/11. (I would say to Mo "Are you nuts?", but I don't want to be a copycat.)
I'm watching what's happening these days, with friend and foe alike turning against the president, and I'm starting to think like a fiercely protective mother here. Just as with my own children, when they did wrong I'd let them know, and I expected a ready fix, but I wasn't about to go out into the neighborhood telling everybody what rotten little brats they sometimes were. I didn't want the whole neighborhood to think they were rotten little brats.
Same with my president. I'm not happy with the way things are going, either. At risk of sounding like a broken record, I wanted a New Deal/WPA/CCC approach to fixing our nation. I wanted every leader in the Democratic Party to thumb their noses at the outgoing regime on Day One by coming up with creative ways of creating economy-sustaining American jobs, hang the cost or the damage to the Fat Cats.
I thought bank bailouts without gajillions of strings attached would fail almost as badly as they did. I hate the idea of still having a military presence in both Iraq and Afghanistan. I've never been happy about the Wall Street and Chicago guys Obama chose to help with his "Hope and Change" program.
That he reads from a teleprompter or acts "lawyerly", thus boring us to tears when he's explaining his plans to us, bothers me not, and I wish everybody would just shut up about it. It's the actions, not the delivery, that counts. Concentrate on the big stuff, and screw the small stuff.
Every time Obama's allies make fun or go on the attack they've put one foot into the enemy camp. There are enough enemies there already, but believe me, they'll welcome those they see as turncoats with open arms. And pretty soon they've won and we've lost and we'll be on the outside looking in, bitching about our loss more than we're bitching now about how Obama has let us down.
There are enough real issues we can use against the Republicans without wasting valuable time reinforcing the prevailing opinion that Obama is the baddest of the bad guys. Come on. We know better. Go on the attack against Obama's dithering and doddering and seeming bad judgment if you must, but do it as a family member--as an ally. He may be a disappointment, but he is the least of our enemies. Stop making him into one, even and especially from our side.
Just today Dick Armey ruffled his breast feathers and cackled to CNN's Candy Crowley about how the Democrats are "confused and demoralized" and are going to lose in November. That's the weapon the Republicans and the new Tea Party party are going to be using against us--that we don't know what the hell we're doing and we don't like each other much--and unless we prove them wrong it's going to work.
I want Obama and the Democrats to do better, but they can't do better if they don't have the chance. They have to win in November because it'll be just insane if they don't. So, yeah, let's knock their heads together and twist their arms until they holler "uncle", and then let's get this show on the road. But we have to get them elected first and we have less than two months to do it.
Here's a parting thought:
In the Nevada Senate race Harry Reid and Sharron Angle are running neck and neck.
Let me repeat that: Harry Reid and Sharron Angle are running NECK AND NECK.
In the California Senate race Barbara Boxer and Carly Fiorina are running neck and neck.
Again--Boxer and Fiorina, NECK AND NECK.
And so it goes.
So unless you want the Republicans to give you something really bad to bitch about, I would suggest you tuck any gripes you have about Obama and the Dems behind your left ear (as my Aunt Ingrid used to say--meaning they'll still be there, festering), and get on with keeping in place the only party in office that has any hope of getting us out of this mess.
It's not a matter of rewarding them, it's a matter of protecting us. All of us. Every single one of us.
Ramona
One of the independent voters Obama will be trying to charm over the next two years is my sister, Peggy, a formerly ardent Obamican (a Republican who changed spots to vote for Obama).
Disillusioned with her beloved W. over Iraq and Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld and the disdain for bipartisanship, she gave her affections — and small cash infusions — to Barack Obama in 2008.
Despite being a Washington native, Peggy believed that the dazzling young newcomer could change Washington.
But she has lost a lot of faith now, saying she might vote for Mitt Romney over Obama if Romney is the Republican nominee in 2012. (Sarah Palin shouldn’t count on her vote though. In Peggy’s words, “Are you nuts?”)
Give credit to Peggy for dismissing Palin as President, but really--what would a Republican who loved George W want from someone like Barack Obama anyway?
No credit, however, to her sister, who either panicked at deadline or thought another jab at Obama was just the ticket on 9/11. (I would say to Mo "Are you nuts?", but I don't want to be a copycat.)
I'm watching what's happening these days, with friend and foe alike turning against the president, and I'm starting to think like a fiercely protective mother here. Just as with my own children, when they did wrong I'd let them know, and I expected a ready fix, but I wasn't about to go out into the neighborhood telling everybody what rotten little brats they sometimes were. I didn't want the whole neighborhood to think they were rotten little brats.
Same with my president. I'm not happy with the way things are going, either. At risk of sounding like a broken record, I wanted a New Deal/WPA/CCC approach to fixing our nation. I wanted every leader in the Democratic Party to thumb their noses at the outgoing regime on Day One by coming up with creative ways of creating economy-sustaining American jobs, hang the cost or the damage to the Fat Cats.
I thought bank bailouts without gajillions of strings attached would fail almost as badly as they did. I hate the idea of still having a military presence in both Iraq and Afghanistan. I've never been happy about the Wall Street and Chicago guys Obama chose to help with his "Hope and Change" program.
That he reads from a teleprompter or acts "lawyerly", thus boring us to tears when he's explaining his plans to us, bothers me not, and I wish everybody would just shut up about it. It's the actions, not the delivery, that counts. Concentrate on the big stuff, and screw the small stuff.
Every time Obama's allies make fun or go on the attack they've put one foot into the enemy camp. There are enough enemies there already, but believe me, they'll welcome those they see as turncoats with open arms. And pretty soon they've won and we've lost and we'll be on the outside looking in, bitching about our loss more than we're bitching now about how Obama has let us down.
There are enough real issues we can use against the Republicans without wasting valuable time reinforcing the prevailing opinion that Obama is the baddest of the bad guys. Come on. We know better. Go on the attack against Obama's dithering and doddering and seeming bad judgment if you must, but do it as a family member--as an ally. He may be a disappointment, but he is the least of our enemies. Stop making him into one, even and especially from our side.
Just today Dick Armey ruffled his breast feathers and cackled to CNN's Candy Crowley about how the Democrats are "confused and demoralized" and are going to lose in November. That's the weapon the Republicans and the new Tea Party party are going to be using against us--that we don't know what the hell we're doing and we don't like each other much--and unless we prove them wrong it's going to work.
I want Obama and the Democrats to do better, but they can't do better if they don't have the chance. They have to win in November because it'll be just insane if they don't. So, yeah, let's knock their heads together and twist their arms until they holler "uncle", and then let's get this show on the road. But we have to get them elected first and we have less than two months to do it.
Here's a parting thought:
In the Nevada Senate race Harry Reid and Sharron Angle are running neck and neck.
Let me repeat that: Harry Reid and Sharron Angle are running NECK AND NECK.
In the California Senate race Barbara Boxer and Carly Fiorina are running neck and neck.
Again--Boxer and Fiorina, NECK AND NECK.
And so it goes.
So unless you want the Republicans to give you something really bad to bitch about, I would suggest you tuck any gripes you have about Obama and the Dems behind your left ear (as my Aunt Ingrid used to say--meaning they'll still be there, festering), and get on with keeping in place the only party in office that has any hope of getting us out of this mess.
It's not a matter of rewarding them, it's a matter of protecting us. All of us. Every single one of us.
Ramona
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
What's the Matter with the Media? Or, What if they gave a Quran-Burning and Nobody Came?
A wacky preacher in a tiny "church" in a rinky-dink town comes up with the idea to burn a dozen or so Qurans, the Islamic holy book, and chooses the rife-with-symbolic-symbolism of September 11 as the date for his glorious bonfire. Somebody gets wind of the story and thinks it would make good copy. Christians burning the Muslim holy book! It can only mean that Armageddon is next.
That was a few weeks ago. Today, three days before the ritual burning of the books, the media circus is outdoing itself in a rending-of-the-garments, frothing-at-the-mouth, what-does-it-all-mean yakkity-yak.
All it means, when all is said and done, is that a wacky preacher in a tiny "church" came up with a really dumb, irrelevant idea for drawing attention to 9/11. It goes without saying that burning holy books is disgraceful and disrespectful and blasphemous and sacrilegious. But it's one wacky preacher in a little, tiny "church" and. . .yeah.
The little story surfaced at the same time as fuss was being made over the building of a supposed "mosque" right exactly ON the Twin Towers site (or so it was reported early on), and the tie-in was just too delicious to pass up. So now it's gone international and every politician who can get near a megaphone is weighing in and everybody is apalled, just appalled, but freedom of speech and all that--and now comes the wringing-of-the-hands.
What to do, what to do? The president needs to do something! (And while we're at it, what's he doing about anything? More talk, few answers, so let's get back to the real story: The wacky preacher in the tiny "church". )
Meanwhile, every mortal media personality is running after the wacky preacher to see if he can't be dissuaded from burning those holy books. But God has answered his prayers! He's on TV! So, no, he hasn't changed his mind. Because if he changes his mind he's just another wacky preacher in a tiny "church" and his 15 minutes are up.
Now, because the story has grown to humongous proportions, the religious leaders of all faiths are asked to weigh in, and if there's anything good about this story, it's that: There is a place for conversation about religious tolerance and it can't be discussed enough these days. But--I don't know--it feels like gathering the best of the best and setting them up in a trash-strewn alley. Their reasons for being there might make sense, and of course we want to hear what they have to say, but, really--you couldn't find a better room?
Much has been written about the excesses of the 24-7 controversy-driven media and their lust for juicy media-driven stories, and none of it really bears repeating, but am I alone in wanting enough to finally be enough?
How many stories have pounded us day after day that started out as nothingburgers and should have stayed that way? This man Terry Jones and his idiotic hate message would have wafted into the wallpaper and disappeared if not for the gossip-lust of an entire industry that originally took pride in reporting and analyzing the news.
Unbelievable that today what should have been a non-story has grown into an ugly international incident and could have ramifications for years to come. So please, illustrious members of the Fourth Estate, guardians of a free and honest press, graduates of the best J-schools in the land--do a little soul-searching here and drop this story like a hot potato. I'm begging you.
Do your best to wake up on Saturday morning and pretend there's no such thing as a wacky preacher at a tiny "church" preparing to burn the holy books of another religion. Do not get dressed in your best, do not write impassioned copy designed to further enrage, do not deliver it in your usual breathless fashion. Do not go there.
I'm begging you.
Ramona
Monday, September 6, 2010
Labor in America: Those were the Days
Every year for the past two dozen or so, I've felt less and less like celebrating Labor Day and more and more like forgetting the whole damned thing. It used to be that we actually set aside that day to acknowledge and pay tribute to our vast labor force. We had parades and speeches and presentations all across the country, with union leaders sticking verbal pins in the Big Guys, and the Big Guys pretending not to notice as they got ready to hold their noses and gush over the workers who made their products and sold their products and fixed their products (and--it should be noted--bought their products).
Labor and management have always had a love-hate relationship but there was a window--a brief window in time--when nearly everybody was making money and spending money and for most Americans life was good. Cheap goods were coming in from the slave-labor countries but we still made enough to be self-sustaining and proud.
A chicken in every pot.
"Made in America".
"Look for the Union Label".
Then came government-approved off-shoring and outsourcing, along with cheap labor and non-regulation, and suddenly the Big Guys saw gold in them thar hills and weren't even our pretend friends anymore. We stopped making things and became the poor step-satellite of industrialized nations like China, Taiwan, Japan, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Korea, Macau (I'm reading labels here in my house).
And now here we are, looking at another Labor Day and wondering how the hell we got ourselves into this fix, considering the rich history of the labor movement and what those people put themselves through in order to make life fair for all of us. I'm glad they're not here to see this. On the other hand, we could use their fierce commitment to us right about now:
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| Cesar Chavez - Si Se Pueda |
There has never been a law at the state or national levels that has ever been enforced for farm workers and against growers: child labor, minimum wage and hour, occupational health and safety, agricultural labor relations._________________________________
Now will agribusiness protect farm workers from pesticides?
The agrichemical industry won't do it.
It's out to maximize profits. Using smaller amounts of safer chemicals more wisely is not in the interest of chemical companies and agribusiness groups like the Farm Bureau that have heavy financial stakes in maintaining pesticide use.
There is nothing is wrong with pesticides, they claim; the blame rests with abuse and misuse of pesticides.
It's like the N.R.A. saying, 'guns don't kill people, people kill people.'
Universities won't do it.
America's colleges and universities are the best research facilities in the world. But farm workers are of the wrong color; they don't speak the right language; and they're poor.
The University of California, and other land grant colleges spend millions of dollars developing agricultural mechanization and farm chemicals. Although we're all affected in the end, researchers won't deal with the inherent toxicity or chronic effects of their creations.
Protecting farm workers and consumers is not their concern.
Doctors won't do it.
Most physicians farm workers see won't even admit their patients' problems are caused by pesticides. They usually blame symptoms on skin rashes and heat stroke.
Doctors don't know much about pesticides; the signs and symptoms of acute pesticide poisoning are similar to other illnesses.
Doctors who work for growers or physicians with close ties to rural communities won't take a stand.
Two years ago in Tulare County, California 120 orange grove workers at LaBue ranch suffered the largest skin poisoning every reported. The grower had changed the formulation of a pesticide, Omite CR, to make it stick to the leaves better. It did.
It also stuck better to the workers. Later they discovered the reentry delay had to be extended from seven to 42 days.
After the poisoning, the company doctor said workers should just change clothes and return to work. When we demanded the workers be removed from exposure, the doctor replied, "Do you know how much that would cost?"
Workers endure skin irritations and rashes that none of us would tolerate. They continue to work because they desperately need the money. They don't complain out of fear of losing their jobs.
Farm workers aren't told when pesticides are used. They have no health insurance. They are cheated out of workers compensation benefits by disappearing labor contractors or foremen who intimidate people into not filing claims.
In the old days, miners would carry birds with them to warn against poison gas. Hopefully, the birds would die before the miners.
Farm workers are society's canaries.
ADDRESS BY CESAR CHAVEZ, PRESIDENT
UNITED FARM WORKERS OF AMERICA, AFL-CIO
Pacific Lutheran University
March 1989-Tacoma, Washington
As a nation, we need to work out a list of national priorities. We need to sharpen our vision and we need to rededicate ourselves to the basic human and democratic values that we believe in, and we need to put first things first. We need to overcome the serious deficit in education, which is denying millions of our children their rightful opportunity to maximum growth. The American labor movement can be proud that it was among those who pioneered for free public education. American labor shares the belief that every child made in the image of God is entitled to an educational opportunity that will facilitate the maximum intellectual, cultural and spiritual growth. We need to wipe out our slums and build decent, wholesome neighborhoods. We need to provide more adequate medical care available to all groups. We need to improve social security so that our aged citizens can live out their lives with a fuller measure of security and dignity. We need to provide all of our citizens, without regard to race, creed, or color, equal opportunity in every phase of our national life. We need to develop more fully our natural resources so that continued neglect will not put in jeopardy the welfare of future generations.______________________________
Walter Reuther, Labor Day speech, September 1, 1958
____________________________________No tin-hat brigade of goose-stepping vigilantes or bibble-babbling mob of blackguarding and corporation paid scoundrels will prevent the onward march of labor, or divert its purpose to play its natural and rational part in the development of the economic, political and social life of our nation.Unionization, as opposed to communism, presupposes the relation of employment; it is based upon the wage system and it recognizes fully and unreservedly the institution of private property and the right to investment profit. It is upon the fuller development of collective bargaining, the wider expansion of the labor movement, the increased influence of labor in our national councils, that the perpetuity of our democratic institutions must largely depend.The organized workers of America, free in their industrial life, conscious partners in production, secure in their homes and enjoying a decent standard of living, will prove the finest bulwark against the intrusion of alien doctrines of government
______________________
We want eight hours and nothing less. We have been accused of being selfish, and it has been said that we will want more; that last year we got an advance of ten cents and now we want more. We do want more. You will find that a man generally wants more. Go and ask a tramp what he wants, and if he doesn’t want a drink he will want a good, square meal. You ask a workingman, who is getting two dollars a day, and he will say that he wants ten cents more. Ask a man who gets five dollars a day and he will want fifty cents more. The man who receives five thousand dollars a year wants six thousand a year, and the man who owns eight or nine hundred thousand dollars will want a hundred thousand dollars more to make it a million, while the man who has his millions will want everything he can lay his hands on and then raise his voice against the poor devil who wants ten cents more a day. We live in the latter part of the nineteenth century. In the age of electricity and steam that has produced wealth a hundred fold, we insist that it has been brought about by the intelligence and energy of the workingmen, and while we find that it is now easier to produce it is harder to live. We do want more, and when it becomes more, we shall still want more. And we shall never cease to demand more until we have received the results of our labor.
Samuel Gompers, Address to workers, Louisville, KY 1890
President Obama talked about the needs of workers and the declining middle class in his Weekly Address. If he lets us down this time, I'm going to go out and find me my own bibble-babbling mob and take action.
And maybe I missed it, but whatever happened to the Employee Free Choice Act?
(Oh, and did you catch "Sunday Morning" on CBS yesterday? Did you see their tribute to Labor? It was about German workers in a BMW factory. Management came up with the idea to put older, more experienced workers in one section on one shift and let them come up with ways to improve productivity. At their suggestion the company put in wooden floors, gave them more comfortable shoes, gave them hairdressers chairs to sit in, increased the size of the computer fonts, and fixed up places for them to stretch. Over time productivity went up 7%, absenteeism went down, and the assembly line defect rate was non-existent. Damned Socialists. . .)
Enjoy our day. Keep the light shining. Solidarity.
Ramona
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