Against The Madness

Wow!

Barack Obama 3-18-08

“We the people, in order to form a more perfect union.”

 

Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America’s improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787.

 

The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation’s original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations.

 

Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution – a Constitution that had at is very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and should be perfected over time.

 

And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part – through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk - to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.

 

This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign – to continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America. I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together – unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction – towards a better future for of children and our grandchildren.

 

This belief comes from my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the American people. But it also comes from my own American story.

 

I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton’s Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas. I’ve gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the world’s poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slaveowners – an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.

 

It’s a story that hasn’t made me the most conventional candidate. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts – that out of many, we are truly one.

 

Throughout the first year of this campaign, against all predictions to the contrary, we saw how hungry the American people were for this message of unity. Despite the temptation to view my candidacy through a purely racial lens, we won commanding victories in states with some of the whitest populations in the country. In South Carolina, where the Confederate Flag still flies, we built a powerful coalition of African Americans and white Americans.

 

This is not to say that race has not been an issue in the campaign. At various stages in the campaign, some commentators have deemed me either “too black” or “not black enough.” We saw racial tensions bubble to the surface during the week before the South Carolina primary. The press has scoured every exit poll for the latest evidence of racial polarization, not just in terms of white and black, but black and brown as well.

 

And yet, it has only been in the last couple of weeks that the discussion of race in this campaign has taken a particularly divisive turn.

 

On one end of the spectrum, we’ve heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that it’s based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap. On the other end, we’ve heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike.

 

I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely – just as I’m sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.

 

But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren’t simply controversial. They weren’t simply a religious leader’s effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country – a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.

 

As such, Reverend Wright’s comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems – two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.

 

Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way

 

But the truth is, that isn’t all that I know of the man. The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God’s work here on Earth – by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.

 

In my first book, Dreams From My Father, I described the experience of my first service at Trinity:

 

“People began to shout, to rise from their seats and clap and cry out, a forceful wind carrying the reverend’s voice up into the rafters….And in that single note – hope! – I heard something else; at the foot of that cross, inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion’s den, Ezekiel’s field of dry bones. Those stories – of survival, and freedom, and hope – became our story, my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the story of a people into future generations and into a larger world. Our trials and triumphs became at once unique and universal, black and more than black; in chronicling our journey, the stories and songs gave us a means to reclaim memories that we didn’t need to feel shame about…memories that all people might study and cherish – and with which we could start to rebuild.”

 

That has been my experience at Trinity. Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety – the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity’s services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.

 

And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions – the good and the bad – of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.

 

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.

 

Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.

 

But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America – to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.

 

The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we’ve never really worked through – a part of our union that we have yet to perfect. And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.

 

Understanding this reality requires a reminder of how we arrived at this point. As William Faulkner once wrote, “The past isn’t dead and buried. In fact, it isn’t even past.” We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country. But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.

 

Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven’t fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today’s black and white students.

 

Legalized discrimination - where blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to African-American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force, or fire departments – meant that black families could not amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations. That history helps explain the wealth and income gap between black and white, and the concentrated pockets of poverty that persists in so many of today’s urban and rural communities.

 

A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one’s family, contributed to the erosion of black families – a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened. And the lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods – parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and building code enforcement – all helped create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us.

 

This is the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up. They came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted. What’s remarkable is not how many failed in the face of discrimination, but rather how many men and women overcame the odds; how many were able to make a way out of no way for those like me who would come after them.

 

But for all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a piece of the American Dream, there were many who didn’t make it – those who were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination. That legacy of defeat was passed on to future generations – those young men and increasingly young women who we see standing on street corners or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future. Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their worldview in fundamental ways. For the men and women of Reverend Wright’s generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician’s own failings.

 

And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright’s sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning. That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change. But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.

 

In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don’t feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience – as far as they’re concerned, no one’s handed them anything, they’ve built it from scratch. They’ve worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they’re told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.

 

Like the anger within the black community, these resentments aren’t always expressed in polite company. But they have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation. Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition. Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends. Talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism.

 

Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze – a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many. And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns – this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding.

 

This is where we are right now. It’s a racial stalemate we’ve been stuck in for years. Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white, I have never been so naïve as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy – particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.

 

But I have asserted a firm conviction – a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people – that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice is we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union.

 

For the African-American community, that path means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past. It means continuing to insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life. But it also means binding our particular grievances – for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs - to the larger aspirations of all Americans — the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man whose been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family. And it means taking full responsibility for own lives – by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny.

 

Ironically, this quintessentially American – and yes, conservative – notion of self-help found frequent expression in Reverend Wright’s sermons. But what my former pastor too often failed to understand is that embarking on a program of self-help also requires a belief that society can change.

 

The profound mistake of Reverend Wright’s sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It’s that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country – a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old — is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know — what we have seen – is that America can change. That is true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope – the audacity to hope – for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.

 

In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination - and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past - are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds – by investing in our schools and our communities; by enforcing our civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system; by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations. It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.

 

In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world’s great religions demand – that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother’s keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister’s keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.

 

For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle – as we did in the OJ trial – or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright’s sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she’s playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.

 

We can do that.

But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we’ll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.

 

That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, “Not this time.” This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can’t learn; that those kids who don’t look like us are somebody else’s problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time.

 

This time we want to talk about how the lines in the Emergency Room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care; who don’t have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who can take them on if we do it together.

 

This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn’t look like you might take your job; it’s that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.

 

This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag. We want to talk about how to bring them home from a war that never should’ve been authorized and never should’ve been waged, and we want to talk about how we’ll show our patriotism by caring for them, and their families, and giving them the benefits they have earned.

 

I would not be running for President if I didn’t believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country. This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected. And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is the next generation – the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have already made history in this election.

 

There is one story in particularly that I’d like to leave you with today – a story I told when I had the great honor of speaking on Dr. King’s birthday at his home church, Ebenezer Baptist, in Atlanta.

 

There is a young, twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley Baia who organized for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She had been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the beginning of this campaign, and one day she was at a roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they were there.

 

And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that’s when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.

 

She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat.

 

She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents too.

 

Now Ashley might have made a different choice. Perhaps somebody told her along the way that the source of her mother’s problems were blacks who were on welfare and too lazy to work, or Hispanics who were coming into the country illegally. But she didn’t. She sought out allies in her fight against injustice.

 

Anyway, Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they’re supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who’s been sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he’s there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, “I am here because of Ashley.”

 

“I’m here because of Ashley.” By itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl and that old black man is not enough. It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children.

 

But it is where we start. It is where our union grows stronger. And as so many generations have come to realize over the course of the two-hundred and twenty one years since a band of patriots signed that document in Philadelphia, that is where the perfection begins.

Senator Clinton

Your insistence on playing the ‘politics as usual’ game in a vain attempt to gain the Democratic nomination is damaging both the party that you claim to be from and the nation that you claim to love.

As you have stated frequently and correctly, this election is a very important one.  The future of the country is at stake.  If we don’t put a Democrat in the White House in November, the Supreme Court will be lost to us for several generations.  Along with the Supreme Court, any chance of restoring Constitutional rule will be gone as well.  I have no doubt that you already know this.

Despite the seriousness of the situation, you persist in conducting a destructive and demeaning campaign.  A few examples:

Allowing your surrogates to accuse Obama of plagiarism for the use of an idea that one of his friends once used in a speech.  This despite that fact that  most of the quote was made up of easily recognizable phrases from famous people.

Implying that you and John McCain are the candidates that have crossed the “Commander in Chief threshold” whatever the hell that is.

Allowing Geraldine Ferraro to spout stupid and racist remarks with impunity is the final straw.  How you could allow her to remain on your staff after having made such a fuss over Stephanie Power’s use of the term “monster” shows what your true values are.  There really is no comparison.  If Power was correctly let go, then Ferraro should be let go and denounced!

When this campaign started, I was of the opinion that you or Obama would make a fine President.  You have brought me, a lifelong progressive and Democratic voter to the point where I will seriously consider staying home if you are the nominee.  I will actively campaign against you during the remainder of the nomination process and I will not contribute one thin dime to a Clinton for President campaign.

Your irresponsible, narcissistic behavior is despicable.

The time has past for you to concede this nomination and support the people’s choice, Barrack Obama. 

Stop destroying the Democratic Party and the Democrat’s chances at the White House merely to massage your own ego.

You may or may not be familiar with the troubles that were visited upon the Dixie Chicks after Natalie Maines told a London audience in March of 2003, just weeks before the invasion of Iraq, that "we’re ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas."

This moment of political honesty and free speech cost the band album sales, radio air time and incalculable stress due to everything from CD burnings and boycotts to death threats against them and their families.  After a three year hiatus from recording and the births of two sets of twins to sisters Emily and Martie, the Dixie Chicks are back and their first musical statement is an out of the park home run.

Available for listening at their website, www.dixiechicks.com, the song, entitled Not Ready To Make Nice,  is an unequivocal statement of personal courage and a spirit undeterred by the hatred that was unleashed on them.  One listen to this tune lays rest to the right-wing noise machine claims that Natalie’s band mates might be wanting to replace her.  There’s no question about the unity of this group of brave women and there’s no doubt about their increasing political awareness.  When the time came to take a stand, the Dixie Chicks did just that.

I’m not ready to make nice
I’m not ready to back down
I’m still mad as hell and
I don’t have time to go round and round and round
It’s too late to make it right
I probably wouldn’t if I could
‘Cause I’m mad as hell
Can’t bring myself to do what it is you think I should

So, turn up your speakers, click on www.dixiechicks.com and listen to music with integrity, grit and a real message about the times we live in.

Way to go Dixie Chicks!  Consider this the blog equivalent of a standing ovation.  I can hardly wait ’till May to hear the rest of this album.

Once in a while Bushco slips and reveals a little tidbit of truth.  These slips are most likely to occur when Bush himself is speaking ‘off the cuff’.

Yesterday, while waxing long and loose in response to questions in front of the City Club of Cleveland, Bush dropped the following minor bombshell:

But I don’t want to be argumentative, but I was very careful never to say that Saddam Hussein ordered the attacks on America.

The bombshell part is not the threadbare claim that he and the administration were not responsible for the public mis-perception, which persists to this day, that Saddam Hussein was a backer of al Qaeda and the 9/11 attack.  The real meat in this answer is his assertion that he was “very careful” not to specifically accuse the Iraqi dictator of such direct participation.

The only time one is “very careful” not to say something is while trying very hard to mislead, yet leave room for a later denial.  In other words, the reason Bush would have been “very careful never to say that Saddam Hussein ordered the attacks on America” was precisely because he knew he was trying to foster that belief while leaving himself room to later deny having said such a thing.

Note also that in the very same answer, Bush continued to equate the Iraq war with the so called “War on Terror”. 

The question that was asked of him was this:

Before we went to war in Iraq we said there were three main reasons for going to war in Iraq: weapons of mass destruction, the claim that Iraq was sponsoring terrorists who had attacked us on 9/11, and that Iraq had purchased nuclear materials from Niger. All three of those turned out to be false. My question is, how do we restore confidence that Americans may have in their leaders and to be sure that the information they are getting now is correct?

In answering this question, after stating that he had been “very careful”, Bush went on to once again blur the boundaries between Iraq and al Qaeda:

The war on terror requires the collection and analysis of good intelligence. This is a different kind of war; we’re dealing with an enemy which hides in caves and plots and plans, an enemy which doesn’t move in flotillas, or battalions.

(Note that the "enemy that hides in caves" was Bin Laden and the caves were in Afghanistan, not Iraq.) 

In an earlier answer yesterday, he even told us why he continues to be “very careful” to blur these boundaries and push us toward unfocused, and often irrational, fear.

I also knew this about this war on terror, that the farther we got away from September the 11th, the more likely it is people would seek comfort and not think about this global war on terror as a global war on terror.

Indeed, Bush knew that without the constant drumbeat of ‘be afraid, be very afraid’, many of us might relax a little and begin to think about 9/11 in a larger context, rather than passively watching a drama that often looks much like an episode of the TV series 24.  By constantly implying that most Muslims, and especially Arabic speakers, are somehow inter-connected in a web of hatred and deceit that may threaten us, Bush has managed to wrest unprecedented power away from the other branches of our government and to start us on a course in the world that will certainly invite additional attacks.

If one takes the time to study who has reaped the profits from our involvement in Iraq and the other aspects of Bushco’s “War on Terror”, it is easy enough to see why he has been “very careful” about many of the things he has said over the last 5 years.  The money is well worth the effort!

For over two weeks I have sat on the sidelines in stunned silence, paralyzed by the level and complexity of the manipulations that are being thrust upon us by the criminals who are stealing our nation’s treasures.  And, struck dumb by how easily the obvious can be obscured and forgotten.

About the time that Harry Whittington apologized for being in Cheney’s line of fire, something inside me clicked and I found myself virtually speechless.  Before I’d regained my balance from that mindmuck, the Dubai port deal emerged. 

The premise that, somehow, it was OK to let a company, owned by the royal family of the Emirates, manage up to 21 of our port facilities was so truly bizarre I was once again struck dumb.  The idea that such a deal would get support from a majority of Americans after five years of Bushco fear-mongering was so absurd that all I could do was wonder why it had be thrust in front of us?

Now, after watching and listening for two weeks I’d like to share some of the theories I like best.

When I heard that the sale to Dubai Ports World actually closed late last week, and that they had paid a premium to clinch the deal, I began to see one potential motivation for flaunting this in front of the public.  Profit!  If  DPW in fact already owns the ports and is forced to surrender them, they might demand a healthy profit for their brief ownership.  With the public overjoyed at avoiding the potential security risks, there might be no attention paid to the level of “compensation”.  There is also the possibility of stockholders placed throughout our government, poised to make a tidy profit.

Today, DPW announced it is not going to retain the ports.  The announcement said they would be transferred “to a United States entity.”  What that really means and the exact terms of the deal have not been disclosed.  If we ever hear the details, I’m looking for a large profit for DPW.  If this theory is correct, the deal amounts to a shakedown of the U.S. government by DPW and their allies in the Bush crime family.  (for background you might look into the Carlyle group or the business dealings of Neil Bush for starting points)

Another compatible theory, espoused by radio host and author Thom Hartman, is that this whole thing was timed to give House Repuglicans a way to look separate from Bush for the mid-term elections.  This makes sense to me because this sudden surge of Repug independence is concentrated in the House – where every member is up for re-election this year and the specific to this issue only.  So far, there are no signs of any Repuglican “mutiny” on any other fronts.  For instance, the same House members had no trouble passing a ban on State level food labeling that will ensure that we remain in the dark on what we are eating. 

Finally, the DPW issue has occupied much headline space and air-time.  The ongoing debate over whether American’s reaction to this deal was justified or we are just racist has served to divert attention from the Patriot Act, which was re-authorized this week with what the ACLU has termed “cosmetic changes” that do not protect the fundamental rights of U.S. citizens.  It has also served to obscure Bushco’s assault on journalistic freedom in the form of a ‘leak investigation’ which is interested in every leak but the one identifying Valerie Plame. 

But perhaps most importantly, the DPW port deal has served to obscure the machinations of the Senate Intelligence Committee who’s Repuglican members have chosen to ignore the Bush crime family’s obvious, wholesale disregard for both the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution and the FISA law by operating an NSA SPYING and data mining operation against U.S. citizens without any judicial oversight.  Not only will these toadies in the Senate create a new structure to allow Bushco to do whatever it wants, they will, in effect, retroactively forgive whatever has already happened.  Does this look like a partisan mutiny?  I think not.

So, to sum this up, the DPW port deal looks a whole lot like a confidence game designed to fleece the U.S. taxpayer out of a lot of money, timed to overshadow several larger and more serious breaches of public trust as well as supply an opportunity for a show of pseudo-independence by House Repuglicans who are worried about Bush’s poll numbers.

So you say, this all sounds really far-fetched, like something one of those ‘conspiracy theorists’ would come up with.  Well how far fetched is it that the U.S. government can enter my house without my knowledge, snoop through my belongings and personal papers and never tell me they’ve been here?  How far-fetched is it that my phone conversations, emails and internet browsing may be watched over by the NSA without any justification being made to any neutral body?  How far-fetched is it that the right-wing-noise-machine is allowed to blast us with propaganda and distraction 24 hours a day and turn a tidy profit for their efforts?  Conspiracy?  You’re damn right it’s a conspiracy and it’s pretty obvious to any reasonable person!

(Special Thanks to N.M. for "needling" me on this!)

Strange isn’t it - that Mary Matalin can accuse reporter David Gregory and the White House press corps of waging a four day jihad because they called BS on all the contradictory and vague statements made by dead-eye-Dick Cheney’s defenders about the shooting of Harry Whittington -  but if I were to use that word in an email I would most likely catch the attention of the NSA’s DOMESTIC SPYING/DATA MINING PROGRAM!

Another example of the consistently despicable tactics of Repuglican thuggery has gained some prominence in recent days.  This is almost a textbook example of how these creeps throw political feces like a bunch of caged monkeys and how the technique itself can be successful even when the facts say otherwise.

A look at news headlines this morning show hundreds of sources touting "news" that implies that Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid is just as corrupt as the Repuglicans and was just as involved in the Abramoff scandal.  Probably the number one way this smear is being conducted is through headlines like the following samples:

Dem Senate chief aided tainted lobbyist’s clients
Democratic leader Reid aided Abramoff clients
Reid Aided Abramoff Clients, Records Show
Lobbyist Confirms Talks With Reid‘s Office
AP: Sen. Reid helped Abramoff’s clients

Notice that in each of these cases, there is only an implication of wrong doing, not anything substantive.  As a simple example, imagine that you were driving home from work and you spotted someone alongside the road with a flat tire.  Being a kind person, you decide to help them change the tire and get on their way.  Unbeknownst to you, the person with the flat tire had just that very afternoon robbed a bank and escaped with 2 million dollars.  The next day, the following headlines appear in the papers:

Unknown collaborator helps bank robber escape.
Local person involved in bank heist.
Tire change serves as cover for robbery assistance.
Etc., etc., etc.

This is exactly what is happening with Harry Reid.  All of these articles, almost entirely based on one faulty AP report, are keying off of the fact that some people who knew Abramoff, also know Harry Reid.  And some people who did business with Abramoff also had contact with Reid or contributed to his campaigns.  So what!  The extremely important part of these allegations would involve what kind of influence these contributions and contacts had on Reid’s legislative agenda.  The answer, when properly researched, is none!

Both Media Matters and Talking Points Memo have done a thorough job of exposing the slime in this AP story and how it is being used.  Any reasonable person who reads these accounts will see that Reid’s conduct was above suspicion.

The problem is that many, many people read only headlines.  Many, many more will read only the article that appears in their particular new source of choice.  So, this little episode of feces flinging by the Repugs will leave many people with the impression that Reid is as dirty as any of those involved in the Abramoff scandal.  The proofs offered by Media Matters and Talking Points, among others, will only reach a fraction of those impacted by these biased and dishonest headlines.

In a nutshell, this is a Repug technique.  The amount of energy and time used up by people of good will who earnestly seek the truth in these situations is incalculable.  In terms of just plain energy and time available, the Repugs have a distinct advantage here because they get to go first in this kind of cycle and they have the corporate media in their pockets, leading to headline saturation like this.  And, while we are working to untangle and clarify what really happened, they are off creating the next bald-faced lie to blanket the country.  It seems as if we progressives are always playing catch-up!

Even if we eventually show the majority of people what really happened in this particular case, we have burned lots and lots of our valuable resources doing so.  I am absolutely convinced that this use of dis-information to burn our resources is a distinct technique used by the Repugs to deplete and weaken the progressive movement. 

Whether it leaves us depleted or the public confused, either way it has served the Repug goal of winning at all costs.  It is painfully clear at this point that these people have no respect for truth, justice, democracy, human dignity or anything else save raw power and the accumulation thereof!

In recent years someone has developed a means of attempting to deal with those who frequent public trails with their dogs but don’t clean up after them.

The method involves placing a small flag on a stick into the offending pile with the message: "You forgot something".

Imagine my surprise (and mirth) when I discovered the following variation on that theme while on a recent walk.  I just had to take a picture and share it with my readers.  This is truly a creative means of protest.  I would guess that, so far, it is not covered in the many restrictions in the new Patriot Act.

          

In a bizarrely political move that shows just how co-opted the higher echelons of the military are under Field Marshall Rumsfeld, the Joint Chiefs of Staff have affixed their signatures to a letter complaining about a Tom Toles cartoon that was published in the Washington Post on Sunday.

First, take a look at the cartoon if you have not seen it.  It seems really clear to me that the cartoon takes aim squarely at Herr Rumsfeld and the civilian leadership at the Pentagon who are, by all appearances, running our once fine all-volunteer military into the ground in service of Hollywood style fantasies about a "leaner, meaner fighting machine" and, more tellingly, the unabashed greed of their corporate cronies. 

David Morse - Salon.com - Sept. 18, 2003

From the beginning, Rumsfeld assumed the role of a corporate CEO, downsizing the infantry and outsourcing many of its logistical functions in an attempt to create a more nimble and cost-effective fighting force that could be deployed in multiple hot spots around the globe. Some corporations may serve as better models than others, however. It is telling that Rumsfeld has clung to the fantasy of a "fast" war, ignoring history and the advice of seasoned generals, and running the Pentagon along lines better suited to a fast-food franchise than to the complex task of nation building. His choice of the fast-food model of warfare exposes several fallacies that underlie the administration’s ideology of privatization.

Lately there have been a plethora of reports, including one commissioned by the Pentagon, that have laid out in stark terms just how badly our military has suffered and deteriorated due to Rumsfeld’s insistence on staying the course.  (remind you of anyone?)

A retired Army officer, Andrew Krepinevich, was contracted by the Pentagon to study and report on the condition of the military.  According to AP writer Robert Burns, Krepinevich’s report describes the military as a "thin green line" that may break at any time.  He said that the Army is "in a race against time" and that if it does not adjust there is a risk of "breaking’ the force in the form of a catastrophic decline".  The language of this report adds to the credibility of critics like Congressman John Murtha who have been warning of just such a military melt-down.

Toles’ cartoon is obviously aimed squarely at Rumsfeld and his bizarre, Orwellian-language based approach to running the military.  Rumsfeld’s response to the Krepinevich study was predictable.

Though he hadn’t read the reports by Perry and Krepinevich, Rumsfeld took issue with their analysis and called them at various turns "out-of-date or misdirected," "a misunderstanding of the situation" and "not consistent with the facts."

Noting the current force is "battle hardened," Rumsfeld derided comparisons with a peacetime force or the implication that the current force had been weakened as a result of its combat experience. "The implication is almost backward in a sense, for the world saw the U.S. go halfway around the world … they saw what the U.S. military did in Iraq and the message from that is not that this armed force is broken but that this armed force is enormously capable," he said.

Of course, even today we get further evidence of the decline that Krepinevich, Murtha and others are warning about. An article published on Salon.com tells us of yet another technique being used to meet military recruiting goals, namely the recruiting of criminals, by issuing what is known as a waiver.  Traditionally, criminals have been ineligible for military service.  Perhaps because we were smart enough in days gone by not to want armed criminals mixed in with our troops.  Perhaps because we recognized that those who had exhibited criminal behavior were more likely to exhibit it again.

According to Salon:

Waivers, which are generally approved at the Pentagon, allow recruiters to sign up men and women who otherwise would be ineligible for service because of legal convictions, medical problems or other reasons preventing them from meeting minimum standards.

According to statistics provided to Salon by the office of the assistant secretary of defense for public affairs, the Army said that 17 percent (21,880 new soldiers) of its 2005 recruits were admitted under waivers. Put another way, more soldiers than are in an entire infantry division entered the Army in 2005 without meeting normal standards. This use of waivers represents a 42 percent increase since the pre-Iraq year of 2000. 

In fact, even the already high rate of 17 percent underestimates the use of waivers, as the Pentagon combined the Army’s figures with the lower ones for reserve forces to dilute the apparent percentage. Equally significant is the Army’s currently liberal use of "moral waivers," loosely defined as criminal offenses. Officially, the Pentagon states that most waivers issued on moral grounds are for minor infractions like traffic tickets. Yet documents obtained by Salon show that many of the offenses are more serious and include drunken driving and domestic abuse.

One simple question occurs to me.  If these criminal and moral failings don’t matter, then why were these restrictions created in the first place.  Rumsfeld is clearly continuing to try to sell his ‘leaner, meaner fighting machine’ by the use of Orwellian smoke screens and outright lies.  Toles cartoon, which features Rumsfeld by name, quotes his remark about the Army being "battle hardened" and portrays graphically how far from common usage Rumsfeld’s language has strayed.  In another jab at Rumsfeld’s fantasy military, Toles adds a reference to torture in the small print at the bottom of the panel.

Now comes the Joint Chiefs of Staff with all their considerable gravitas to condemn the Toles cartoon as:

". . . a callous depiction of those who volunteered to defend this nation and, as a result, suffered traumatic and life-altering wounds."

Are the Joint Chiefs really so stupid that they took this cartoon to be a criticism of wounded troops?  I think not!

The Chiefs continue:

Those who visit wounded veterans in hospitals have found lives profoundly changed by pain and loss. They also have found brave men and women with a sense of purpose and selfless commitment that causes battle-hardened warriors to pause.

That is precisely the motivation behind Toles cartoon and the message in Krepinevich’s study and Murtha’s remarks.  No person of conscience can stand to see the devastation being wrought on thousands of our troops and their families for the rest of their lives in service of a lie by a criminal President that is being disastrously executed by a caricature of a Defense Secretary.

Anyone who truly supports the young men and women who volunteer to serve in our military wants to see their precious gift used only when all other means have been exhausted and then only in ways that keep the loss, and suffering they incur to an absolute minimum. 

Obviously the Joint Chiefs, while still in uniform, are politicians in service to the criminal and the caricature.

I awoke this morning heartsick and weary.  For the first time ever, I feel I am a man without a country.

As a baby-boomer, I was raised with the old fashioned American values of fair play, equality, hard work and an overriding sense that the law, above all else, stood as a protection against the vagaries of humanity.  In that world, even though it might take years and years of struggle, the justice system would eventually decide in the interests of all of the people and the rights of minorities of all types would be protected.

As a young child, I participated in ridiculous civil defense drills, hiding under my grade school desk and practicing covering my face so as not to be blinded by a nuclear blast.  I was thoroughly indoctrinated with fear and loathing for the “godless communists” of the Soviet Union.  Despite the platitudes offered by the current occupant of the White House, I never felt that the “oceans protected us.”  I remember clearly feeling that my world could literally evaporate in an instant.  But I never remember feeling that my freedom or the structure of my society were at stake.

The long and terrible journey through the Vietnam war heavily colored my initial years as an adult.  When I was turning 18, the draft was in full force.  Before the draft lottery added a measure of predictability to the process, virtually every young man was destined to serve in the armed forces.  There were deferments available, but only for those who were married with children or found continuing education to their liking. 

Like the current resident of the White House, I chose the National Guard as a legitimate way to avoid potential death in a South East Asian jungle.  Like many who serve today, I accepted the Guard’s offer of education and skills in trade for six years of my availability in case some real catastrophe were to strike.  Unlike the current resident of the White House, I qualified for the Guard on my own merits, without help from friends or family, and I served every last hour of my commitment.  Thus, like the generation before me, I felt I had earned my place in a democratic society that was striving to better itself as time went on. 

As I watched the Watergate scandal, from my viewpoint as a young adult, it seemed that, although it involved high crimes and misdemeanors of all sorts, it never really threatened the basic  framework of my country.  Throughout that torturous process, the sense of an over-arching framework of rules was unmistakable.  I also naively assumed that once it was demonstrated that our leaders could be corrupt just like the leaders of other countries that we would never again make the same mistakes.

Throughout my early years, Supreme Court decisions like Brown v Board of Education and Roe v Wade, left me with the belief that I lived under system that constantly strove  to improve itself and how it treated minorities and the less-fortunate members of society.  It seemed that my childhood values of freedom and fair play were real and part of the bedrock of our society.

But this morning, I awoke on the first day of life in Alitoland and realized that all bets are off.  For the first time in my life I feel vaguely afraid for my own future, let alone that of my children and grandchildren.  For the first time in my life, I feel that merely expressing my opinion might lead to the loss of my own personal freedoms as well as those of many of my peers.  For the first time in my life, the rational, reasonable, forward looking structure of the system I live within appears to have been only an illusionary concept that occupied a moment in history and then vanished, without a trace.

I am now feel threatened for failing to express loyalty to a government that employs brute-force, torture and intrigue as it’s standard modus operandi, without any hope that internal checks and balances will one day move us back on course.  I am now living in a land where anyone at any time in any place on the planet may be whisked off to a secret prison, tortured and perhaps killed without any legal recourse, representation or hope – and without the knowledge of friends or family .  Just as it was in Guatemala, in the 1980s, the stage is set here for “the disappeared”. 

I am now living in a land where the court of last resort has become a rubber stamp for the whims of the criminal thugs who work the levers of power.  Instead of high-minded ideals like personal freedom,  equality and tolerance, the place where I live now values winning, greed, deception, intimidation and threats.

Perhaps saddest of all for me at this point in time is the realization that many, if not all, of the hopes that I and my peers had for this society are now out of reach for the remainder of our lives.  Although I am sure we will continue to struggle for reason and fairness, the chances of our prevailing any time soon have just significantly decreased.

The grassroots and Internet push to filibuster the Alito nomination has made quite a bit of progress since it began in the middle of last week.

The N.Y. Times has an article this morning outlining how the Alito nomination is the culmination of decades of conservative strategy by organizations like the Federalist Society. 

If you have not called your Senators ( and others who need a push on this issue) yet, please do not delay any longer.  The crucial vote is likely to take place later today or tomorrow.

You can track the latest developments, find out which Senators have committed and which still need pushing and get contact information from Democrats.com and The Alito 48.

People for the American Way has set up a system to send faxes to the Senators that are still "on the fence" about this.

Call Senators toll free: 1-888-355-3588  and  1-888-818-6641

Reports from the belly of the beast are that there are still enough potential votes to filibuster the Alito nomination.  The backroom arm twisting must be reaching an unbearable level by now.

Democrats.com is doing a virtual play by play of who stands where on this thing and so far it’s not a done deal by any means.  We have all weekend to twist arms and we should use it.

So far this morning I have called:

Ken Salazar - Demo - Colorado
Lincoln Chafee - Repub - Nebraska
Susan Collins - Repub - Maine
Ted Stevens - Repub - Alaska
Barrack Obama - Demo - Illinois
Diane Feinstein - Demo - California
Tim Johnson - Demo - South Dakota - has announced support for Alito - change his mind!
Byron Dorgan - Demo - North Dakota
Danial Akaka - Demo - Hawaii
Jim Jeffords - Indi - Vermont
Mark Pryor - Demo - Arizona - voice mailbox full  - I’ll keep trying. contacted
Mary Landrieu - Demo - Louisiana - I have yet to get through after 12 attempts due to busy lines at her office - this is a good sign.  See Update II below.

I am keeping a piece of paper on my desk and adding names to it from the Democrats.com website.  When one Senators lines are busy, I ask for another. 

It appears, from how difficult it is to get through to some of these people, that the campaign to call is having an effect.

The only way we can possibly prevail against this nomination is to call and call and call this weekend.

Go to Democrats.com and check out their latest update.  As of this writing it was called The Alito 48.  There you can find crucial Senators, their current status and who is most important to call.

Please, try to get anyone you know to call.  If you know someone who lives in Maine or Nebraska or one of the other states with an uncommitted Senator, contact them and ask that they call.

UPDATE: I just sent an email to numerous friends and family requesting their help on this.  Also still trying to reach Mary Landrieu and Hillary Clinton.

Also, toll free numbers for the Capitol switchboard are: 1-888-355-3588  and  1-888-818-6641

Here is the text of my email if you would like to use it for your own friends and family:

Hi,
I am writing to ask that you consider spending a little bit of time this weekend on the phone in hopes of avoiding a catastrophe for your children and grandchildren.

You no doubt are aware that Samuel Alito has been nominated to replace Sandra Day O’Connor on the Supreme Court.  You quite possibly have not heard about some of the possible ramifications.

Alito is one of the backers of a legal theory called the Unitary Executive.  That theory says that the President, acting as Commander in Chief, is above all the laws in the country, including the Constitution.  While to many of us this seems patently absurd, placing this man on the Court could insure George W. Bush complete immunity from any restrictions on his so called "war on terror".  The administration is already engaged in large-scale domestic spying through the NSA, they have incarcerated U.S. citizens for years without representation and they continue to engage in torture all of which they justify as powers of the Unitary Executive.

Alito was also the originator of the idea of signing statements.  A signing statement is issued by the President to clarify his understanding of a law as he is signing it.   George Bush has used signing statements to declare himself unencumbered by the laws he is signing.  Most notably, he did this with the McCain torture bill that recently passed despite vigorous White House objections.  Essentially, Bush declared that he reserved the right to torture, if he felt it was necessary, despite overwhelming Congressional support for a total ban.  If this signing statement, and the attendant attitude, are to be challenged, the last word on the subject would come from the Supreme Court.  With Alito on the Court, Bush will get a pass.

Unfortunately, the mainstream media in this country is not fulfilling it’s traditional role of informing the public.  So it is quite possible that some of you have heard none of the truly serious reasons to deny Alito this nomination.  Much of the coverage has revolved around Roe v. Wade which is a red herring being used to distract from the real problems with this nomination.

Please join with many other of your fellow citizens who are desperately concerned about the very structure of our democracy and make a few phone calls this weekend.  You can get the names of Senators that need to hear from you at the www.democrats.com   Don’t be afraid to call Senators from other states.  These are national issues and in some ways Senators are national figures so they will accept your input.  Urge these Senators to join in filibustering this nomination.  This is, quite possibly,  the biggest issue of our lifetime. 

There are toll free numbers for the Capitol switchboard from which you can ask for any Senator or Representative, so this is a low-cost, no-cost activity.  All it requires is a little time.  These calls average around 1 minute apiece, so 10 or 15 minutes will have some affect. 
Two of the toll free numbers are 1-888-355-3588  and  1-888-818-6641

Thanks for whatever help you can offer,

UPDATE II - I have now called 20 Senate offices - I finally gave up on Landrieu’s Washington office and called her New Orleans office.  The number is (504) 589-2427 - she also has offices in Shreveport - (318) 676-3085,  Baton Rouge (225) 389-0395  and  Lake Charles  (337) 436-6650

UPDATE III - The rumor is that Harry Reid has said there aren’t enough votes for a filibuster but that he will vote for it.  If he knows what Democrats are not willing to stand up, he should tell us their names so that pressure can be applied. 

I just called Reid’s office and told them just that.  I am having more and more trouble with the DC phones which is a good sign.  Other’s must be calling as well!  I have a cheap phone card from Costco so I just called one of the regional offices again. 

Reid’s non-Washington offices are Carson City - 775-882-7343,  Las Vegas - 702-388-5020,  Reno - 775-686-5750.

The struggle over Alito’s nomination is going right down to the wire.  For some reason, unfathomable to many of us, the push against it is almost entirely from outside Washington.  While some Senators are making historical speeches on the Senate floor, way to little about this nominee has been said in public. 

This morning, the N.Y. Times editorial urges the Senate to grow some backbone.  A few excerpts from the Times follow:

Judge Samuel Alito Jr., whose entire history suggests that he holds extreme views about the expansive powers of the presidency and the limited role of Congress, will almost certainly be a Supreme Court justice soon. His elevation will come courtesy of a president whose grandiose vision of his own powers threatens to undermine the nation’s basic philosophy of government — and a Senate that seems eager to cooperate by rolling over and playing dead.

It is hard to imagine a moment when it would be more appropriate for senators to fight for a principle. Even a losing battle would draw the public’s attention to the import of this nomination.

The Alito nomination has been discussed largely in the context of his opposition to abortion rights, and if the hearings provided any serious insight at all into the nominee’s intentions, it was that he has never changed his early convictions on that point

But portraying the Alito nomination as just another volley in the culture wars vastly underestimates its significance. The judge’s record strongly suggests that he is an eager lieutenant in the ranks of the conservative theorists who ignore our system of checks and balances, elevating the presidency over everything else.  He has expressed little enthusiasm for restrictions on presidential power and has espoused the peculiar argument that a president’s intent in signing a bill is just as important as the intent of Congress in writing it. This would be worrisome at any time, but it takes on far more significance now, when the Bush administration seems determined to use the cover of the "war on terror" and presidential privilege to ignore every restraint, from the Constitution to Congressional demands for information.

His much-quoted statement that the president is not above the law is meaningless unless he also believes that the law requires the chief executive to defer to Congress and the courts.

A filibuster is a radical tool. It’s easy to see why Democrats are frightened of it. But from our perspective, there are some things far more frightening. One of them is Samuel Alito on the Supreme Court.

For once, the Times nailed it.  I couldn’t say it better myself.  If you haven’t called any Senators yet, there will never be a more important time to do so than the present.

If you have called, consider calling again - 1-888-355-3588 - consider calling some other Senators that you haven’t contacted.

Some of the more "moderate" Republicans might be a good place to start.  Senators such as:

Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island
Susan Collins of Maine
Chuck Hagel of Nebraska
Olympia Snowe of Maine
Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania
George Voinovich of Ohio
John Warner of Virginia

I realize that you may not agree on the "moderate" status of these Republicans, however they are people that have, at one time or another, shown the ability to break with the enforced party line. 

Of course your own two Senators can use all the push they can get and don’t forget Jim Jeffords the Independent from Vermont

If there ever was a time for God to bless America, this is it!  However, I remember being taught that God helps those who help themselves.  So let’s get started!

 

 

.

There are still indications that a filibuster of the Alito nomination is a possibility.  In fact, it looks slightly better than it did a week ago with some Democrats announcing their opposition.  However, the pressure from us must continue.

Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska has announced he is planning to vote for Alito’s confirmation.  I have already called his office again and let them know that I will work to see him replaced if he continues with that course.  I reminded them that this is a national issue and that, in many ways, Senate elections are national as well.  I told them that I could just as easily contribute to Nelson’s opponent’s campaign as to one in my own state and that I would urge all friends and family to do the same.

I urge you to call Nelson’s office with a similar message.  This is hardball and the game is for all the marbles.

Also, it is rumored that Harry Reid, while not ruling it out, is showing little enthusiasm for a filibuster.  I called his office this morning and said that this seemed to me to be the biggest issue before us in recent memory.  This nomination would affect many of us for the rest of our lives, thus if there ever was a time for a fight, this is it.  If they don’t use the filibuster now, what are they saving it for?

Please call these two Senators and express your opposition to Alito.  This is very important.  If you’ve never done a political thing in your life, now is the time.

The toll free number - 1-888-355-3588 - call now!

Here’s the story according to the Thom Hartmann radio show.

There are reportedly 4 Democratic Senators standing in the way of a filibuster of the Alito nomination.  Calls to these four could tip the balance and bring about the resistance to this awful nominee that so many of us want.

Please call today - I just finished calling all 4 in under 5 minutes!  This is not a big time commitment.  It’s a numbers game - the more that call the more influence we have.

The Senators are:

Mary Landrieu - Louisiana

Ben Nelson - Nebraska - not Bill Nelson of Florida - though calling him would probably be all right as well.

Mark Pryor - Arkansas

Blanche Lincoln - Arkansas

The toll free number is 1-888-355-3588

Please call now!

UPDATE!!!!!  I just re-called my own Senators’ offices and they confirmed neither had "made up their minds" on a filibuster and that the phones are ringing a lot!  This is not a wasted effort.  They are waiting to see if we are behing them!

Several times in recent days I have jumped into the comment discussions on various websites out of absolute frustration.  It seems that the majority of these discussions end up being about how lame the mainstream media (MSM) is or how ineffective the Democratic leadership is.  They frequently have a strong undercurrent of "guess who the closet republicans are, fueled by speculation that anyone who disagrees with the ongoing whining must be a "plant" or a "troll".  My contention is, who cares?

This morning, I posted the following in the comments on an article at the Huffington Post.  The article, by Peter Daou, outlines the problem the Dems have with getting media coverage.  With all due respect to Daou, who has earned his stripes in the trenches, I think we understand that problem.  What we need are proposed actions we can take toward solutions.  As you will see in the quotes from Mr. Gore at the end of my post, it is up to us to find the ways to influence the situation.

If you have not, be sure to read or listen to Al Gore’s address yesterday.  You can read the speech here.-Thanks to rawstory.   You can view it here using RealPlayer- Thanks to Americablog and CSPAN.

After you’ve listened to Gore, call your Senators (1-888-355-3588) about the Alito nomination.  IT AIN’T OVER ‘TILL IT’S OVER!.

The following is a comment I posted on the Huffington Post article, The Gore Example: Does the Democratic Establishment Get the Traditional Media Problem? by Peter Daou.

What seems to be missing from the overwhelming majority of these discussions, here and on other web sites, is the idea that grass roots citizen action is the only real answer to these problems.  It seems evident to me that at least 50% of the voters were opposed to Bushco policies in 2000 and 2004.  With the addition of the increased debacle in Iraq, the Plame leak and the Abramoff scandal, just to mention the high points, there have to be more people opposed to this administration now than ever before.  So the question follows, how do we exert our influence.

The overwhelming majority of internet discussions, and even well written and well thought our commentary, seem to be about how the MSM doesn’t cover anything and how the Democratic leadership doesn’t get it.  Get what?  Only if Gore had appeared naked yesterday would he have stood a chance of interrupting an overturned tanker truck.  And even then, only his nakedness would have been talked about, not his ideas. 

If we want to affect this situation, we need masses of people to start calling and or writing their representatives every day with the progressive/liberal message.  While email has some effect, snail mail and telephone will have more.  The problem I see is with apathy/resignation.  Many of the good hearted, liberal folks I know say they don’t write or call because it doesn’t do any good.  I guess that’s because they called once and the issue didn’t fall their way or ???

Right now, while this discussion is considering the foibles of the MSM, whether Gore is a suitable spokesperson and who among our fellow commentors is a right wing troll, the nomination of Sam Alito is creeping along the path to confirmation. 

As the quotes below from Al Gore’s speech yesterday illustrate, it is up to us - the people - to stand up and be heard.  As a voice on the net, I now see pushing my fellow citizens to speak out as my highest calling.  So, I challenge everyone reading this to call your Senators and voice your opinion on Alito first, then see that your friends and neighbors know about the Gore speech and have a chance to hear/read it.  Become the media!

From Al Gore’s address at the Constitution Center, Jan. 16, 2006:

"The revolutionary departure on which the idea of America was based was the audacious belief that people can govern themselves and responsibly exercise the ultimate authority in self-government"

"The intricate and carefully balanced constitutional system that is now in such danger was created with the full and widespread participation of the population as a whole."

"Indeed, when the Convention had done its best, it was the people - in their various States - that refused to confirm the result until, at their insistence, the Bill of Rights was made integral to the document sent forward for ratification."

"And it is "We the people" who must now find once again the ability we once had to play an integral role in saving our Constitution."

"We have a duty as Americans to defend our citizens’ right not only to life but also to liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

Al Gore quoting Bob Barr:

"The President has dared the American people to do something about it. For the sake of the Constitution, I hope they will."

I am so pissed I can’t even see straight.

Cruising around the blogosphere today, all I seem to find is analysis and criticism of the Democratic Senators and their poor performance this week and lots of moaning about how awful Alito will be if confirmed.

Yes!  I said IF - the f**cking vote is over a week away.  HE HAS NOT BEEN CONFIRMED YET!

Do we really have to throw up our hands and give up because the "liberal media" says so??????????  I for one refuse.

Everyone seems to be looking for someone else to do the work.  The Dems in the Senate were supposed to stop this.  They didn’t.  BooHooHooHooHoo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am absolutely certain that if all the progressive bloggers and all their readers, friends and acquaintances were to call Senators and express their opposition to Alito, his nomination would fail! 

When Social Security Reform was mentioned a while back, phone calls to Congress derailed it in record time.  That shows where the power is and how to use it. 

Expecting the Dems in the Senate to take this on without the strong backing of rank and file is absurd.  We’ve seen, time and time again how vicious the Repuglican attack machine is and they basically control most mainstream media.  The only thing that can trump that is a grass roots outcry.

I feel like I’m watching a slow motion train wreck and my warnings are unheard, even by my fellow watchers.  If only I could watch this from the outside, it would be interesting.  Since my children and grandchildren are going to be directly affected, I cannot. 

Please, please, please nag at least one of your friends, acquaintances, neighbors or even a total stranger to call their Senators now!

A story is told about Franklin Roosevelt that, true or not, captures the essence of the dilemma we find ourselves in today.

As some tell it, he was being pressed by activists for various progressive causes, in others it was when Frances Perkins introduced the idea of Social Security to the President.  Either way, Roosevelt’s purported reply is what really matters.  He is reported to have said:  “I’m convinced, now go out and make me do it.”

The point is that even strong, popular Presidents cannot really lead sweeping changes in the status quo without a strong push from the grassroots.  It’s called political capital and it’s a must have for any significant course corrections.

In the post-depression era of large-scale changes in everything from labor laws to civil rights, the energy to create change came, in large part, from citizens who organized and pressed for the changes.  During much of that time, labor was a major driving force.

Throughout much of our history, when citizen pressure wasn’t available, the built in checks and balances in our system tended to dampen radical movements in any direction.

But all that has changed.  Currently, we have no checks and balances.  Currently, the criminal, corporate cabal that has taken over the Repuglican party has, through manipulation, outright dishonesty and pure bullying seized control of both the legislative and administrative branches of government.  Through the confirmation of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court, the seizure of the judicial branch will be complete.  The seriousness of this situation cannot be over-stated.

Throughout our history, the Supreme Court has served as the final check and balance on such significant issues as the limits of executive power.  Alito has already told us that he believes in the “unitary executive” principal which essentially gives the President unlimited power when acting as Commander in Chief.  Since Bush has already stated that we are at war and that the war will continue indefinitely, it follows that he claims this unchecked power and the court, with Alito on board, will be unlikely to step in his way.

Despite the magnitude of this threat to our basic freedoms, indeed to our very way of life, the public conversation on the Alito nomination has revolved around two things, abortion and bigotry.  The Democrats on the Senate Committee for the Judiciary, have struggled all week trying to find some kind of issue that would resonate enough to get some press coverage and some grass-roots attention for the Alito debacle.  This struggle, while performed in public, has been grossly hampered by a mainstream press that has become completely obsessed with the unimportant.  Highlights of the Alito hearings from a mainstream perspective include a squabble between committee chair Arlen Specter and Senator Ted Kennedy, the apparent lack of fashion sense displayed by Martha Alito and her now infamous rush from the hearing room in tears as Senator Lindsay Graham praised her husband and apologized as if the very asking of questions was somehow an incalculable insult to the nominee.

Beginning last Monday morning, Bush himself set the tone for the Repuglican spin that would dominate the week.  The dignity of the process and the relative performance of the Democrats in terms of dignity were the dominant concerns.  Martha’s tearful outburst was seen as proof positive that they had failed the ‘dignity challenge’.

When not actively participating in the abortion, bigotry, dignity charade, the mainstream regaled us with further tales of trapped miners, missing women, cruise ship mysteries and Jennifer’s projected reaction to the Brad/Angelina pregnancy.

So, I guess that lets us off the hook, right?  If the media won’t disseminate the important information, then there’s nothing we can do, right?  I suppose, if you don’t mind living in a fascist police-state where your communications can be monitored, your possessions can be pawed through without cause, your ten year old daughters can be strip-searched, and any one of you can be sent to a secret prison to rot without legal recourse or representation, then there’s no problem!

As I called various friends and acquaintances yesterday to urge them to contact their Senators, I ran into the same theme over and over.  It’s hopeless – it doesn’t matter what we do – the thugs are in charge and that’s that.  And those reactions are among a group that is much more informed than the average citizen.  Among the average, if the polls are to be believed, many more are concerned about the coal mines than about the Supreme Court.  Of course that is in no small part due to what they have been spoon-fed every day for the last two weeks.

So what we have here is the perfect situation for abdication of responsibility.  The media only covers things because people want to see them, and besides, they are manipulated by the Repuglicans.  The people aren’t responsible because they aren’t adequately informed.  And progressives, well they’re just tired.  After reading and discussing and whining and bemoaning for over five years, they’re just tired.  So there you are, there’s nothing to be done!

This morning’s headlines say that a filibuster of Alito’s nomination is “highly unlikely” and that his confirmation looks like a “shoo-in”.  Yet, if you look closely, the Democrats seem to be saying they are almost uniformly against it.  So why is there no great “hue and cry” to derail this nomination?  Quite simply because we haven’t “made them do it”.  The Democrats look around and see that they don’t have the political capital to take this on.

Why?  Because too many of us have thrown in the towel and decided that “there’s nothing we can do”.  That’s bull!

In 2004, at least 50% of those who voted, voted against Bush.  It is inconceivable that, given the disaster in Iraq, the disaster following Katrina, the official sanctioning of torture and what looks like wholesale spying on U.S. citizens that the percentage of us that disagree with these fascists is not much larger than 50%.  So, quite simply, if anywhere near that number were to call their Senators and voice strong objection to Alito, his nomination would die quicker than the bloom on a day Lilly!

If that doesn’t happen, then every one of us who chose to watch from the sidelines while excusing ourselves for being ‘too busy’ bears equal responsibility for the coming age of fascist oppression that will make this country unrecognizable, if it survives.

If you haven’t called your Senator to voice your objections to Alito, do it now.  There has never been a time when your voice was more important.

After sitting quietly and watching Sam Alito avoid any kind of answer to any kind of question that would give us a clue about his positions on any issue.

After listening to him spin ‘answers’ that are pure content free B.S., just to ‘burn up the clock’ during this ridiculous excuse for a hearing.

After watching the Repuglicans, once again, define the discussion with their absurd insistence on "dignified" hearings, and watching the Democrats, once again, struggle to prevail on Repuglican terms, while even Alito’s wife plays a role in the orchestrated charade with her grade B performance of "they’re picking on my husband - boo hoo".

After hearing Alito talk about the Constitution as if it were a detailed list of dos and don’ts that a judge merely had to read and enforce, rather than an intentionally vague document intended to be interpreted in light of current understandings.

After listening to discussions of the "unitary executive", a theory Alito supports that is more accurately called the "imperial presidency". 

After realizing that none of the Democrats will even come close to illustrating what a smarmy ’used-car-salesman’ this guy really is.

After reading enough and listening enough to realize that what happens to Roe v. Wade is probably one of the least serious consequences that will stem from an Alito confirmation. (Today’s N.Y. Times for example)

I’m left with only one idea.  In the interest of maintaining hope in a brighter, more tolerant future for us and our children and their children -

 Just Say No To Alito!

Even if you’ve never called your Senator before, please call now and urge a, no vote, a filibuster, or whatever it takes to stop this critical swing vote for the reactionary, corporate, theocratic right from taking a seat on our nation’s highest court!

Call 1-888-355-3588 and ask the operator for your Senator’s office.  If you don’t know who your Senators are, go to Thomas and look them up.

This is, as Ed Shultz says, "is for all the marbles".  Do it now!

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