The Dogs of War Howl at Iran

All around us now, the howls grow ever louder. We are told that if the Israelis don’t do it America will have to act in Iran. The Amen chorus on the right uses Iran as one if its principle Armegddon scenarios in trying to raise fear about the “dangerous” foreign policy of the Obama administration. The right is a bit isolated, but not completely alone in their amped up war hysteria. While editorial boards continue to urge caution, the paper themselves are full of doomsday scenarios, warnings that the “bunkers are impenetrable”, and the deadlines for action will soon pass. The inevitability of Iranian nuclear development is such that CNN reports that 71% believe that Iran already has the bomb, and 50% already believe military action is warranted if sanctions fail. As we know from our experience with Bush in Iraq shows, the trick is to make the case that all “reasonable efforts”have failed. After that America can be talked into almost anything. That is the case that the dogs of war are trying to make.

The Israeli’s appear ready to move by the summer, no later, and warnings appear everywhere that they are impatient with the American posture and American pressure to be patient. The Israeli PM, Netanyahu, met with a gaggle of Republican Senators last week, and is coming to Washington. Netanyahu has his own issues. The Jerusalem post reports that only 19% of Israelis want their government to act, if that means doing it without US support. Both the Senators’ visit and what will no doubt be a waterfall of opinion pieces by Israel’s so called friends in the US press coinciding with the Netanyahu visit are intended to put election year pressure on Obama to act.

There’s only one problem. While there is ample evidence that Iran is continuing to develop nuclear technology, the intelligence community both herein the US and elsewhere does not believe Iran has even decided whether or not to build a bomb. Last Friday the NY Times reported the consensus view of 16 separate intelligence agencies of the US government: “Recent assessments by American spy agencies are broadly consistent with a 2007 intelligence finding that concluded that Iran had abandoned its nuclear weapons program years earlier, according to current and former American officials. The officials said that assessment was largely reaffirmed in a 2010 National Intelligence Estimate, and that it remains the consensus view of America’s 16 intelligence agencies.”

Sound familiar? It ought to. The American public, half mad with grief and anger over 9-11, easily purchased the glossy lies and phantasmagorical fables Bush and the Intelligence communities were selling about WMD in Iraq. All of it turned out to be wrong, every last bit of it. David Kaye noted in last Friday’s Times article that the bar has been raised as a result of the Iraqi fiasco (my word, not his). Mr. Kay explained, “The amount of evidence that you were willing to go with in 2002 is not the same evidence you are willing to accept today.”

For weeks after the invasion right-wing radio abounded with stories of potential WMD finds, so hopeful were they that the fables would prove to be righteous. In absence of truths on the ground in Iraq, the American people were fed a steady diet of propaganda suggesting Iraqi involvement in 9-11. Even after the 9-11 Commission Report on the attacks was released in Nov-2004, Cheney in particular continued to hump the-- by then—obvious lie that Iraq was involved in the bombings at the WTC and the Pentagon.   

As we circle back to our current dilemma increasingly one begins to wonder if the real aim of the Iranians is to suggest that they are crazy enough to do it—to build a nuclear weapon within 500 miles of the Israeli capital--all the while taking in the world attention. Simultaneously they avoid what could be a catastrophically bad decision for them. Saddam Hussein tried this ruse with a half clever President. Hussein got to hide in a hole and eventually to be hung by his own people for his foolish bravado and that of his paranoid followers. The Supreme leader in Iran has ample reason to believe that his citizens would do the same to him given the opportunity. These are bad, bad guys with brutal records on human rights. The world may be better off without Saddam, but whether the world is better off as a result of the war that led to his ouster is another matter. One of the major consequences of the weakening of Iraq has been the strengthening of Iran.

North Korea has also been playing the “Look-At-Me” card. But in far more desperate circumstances that Iran, today the North Koreans folded to international pressure (even their sponsor China was antsy). In return for massive food aid North Korea claimed they would abandon both nuclear weapons and ballistic missile development. Time will tell if that new agreement stands. Others have not.

Meanwhile the world gets more complicated. The Arab spring has changed many facts on the ground. Hamas, Israel’s bitter and militant enemy in Gaza has moved from Syria and its orbit of Iranian influence there, to Doha. They have come out in favor of the civilian resistance to the Syrian government which aligns them at least in this instance with American policy. Hamas would destroy Israel without thought or reservation, but as with so many other foreign policy scenarios the complexity does not lend itself well to hysterical ramblings of ambitious politicians. Hamas is moving closer to reconciliation of the now far more moderate PLO. It remains to be seen if this is because the PLO is moving back towards radicalism and Infitada, or Hamas is moving towards some way out of the terrible hole it dug for itself. The pain of isolation and hunger and want in Gaza is matched only by the anger over lack of progress in the peace talks and the continued unilateral actions of the Israelis. Walls now enclose Palestinian communities and settlement activity goes on unabated and the Peace process is in cold storage. Whatever direction this takes, the Palestinians are now  a far more moderated force dependent on international recognition for their survival.

In Israel Defense Minister Ehud Barack has said the Iranians are "radicals but not total meshuginah (crazy)." The Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs has called the Iranians “rational actors”. These notes screw up the Amen chorus for military action and the Israeli PM and his media friends on the right are apoplectic with the diplo-speak. The Obama administration responding to Iranian signals they are ready to restart negotiations as recently enacted sanctions begin to take hold is urging Israeli restraint. Netanyahu is coming to push back and to gin up the first tool in machinery of war-- propaganda.  

The Israelis, in far more danger than America, of course see the Iranian situation playing out through glasses tinted with the colors of isolation and fear. Ahmadinejad, a Holocaust denier, has called for Israel’s complete destruction and made every effort to look slightly unhinged whenever he enters the world’s stage. But Israel’s friends do her no favors when they defend Israel no matter the course of action she chooses.

In the summer of 1982, prodded by an attempted assassination of an ambassador in the UK and rocket launches into their northern communities, Israel entered Lebanon to go after the PLO. Sharon, the then General of Israeli Defense forces and later Israeli PM, marched all the way to Beirut before getting bogged down with world opinion and close-quarters combat in the streets. Also looking for a victory over the PLO and its sponsor, the USSR, Reagan increased substantially the supply of weapons to our ally Israel. Soon enough the press was reporting questionable use of American made phosphorus charges and cluster bombs, both designed to inflict maximum civilian casualties and suffering.  Other than the pressure of the ensuing terror on its civilian population, none of the munitions had much effect on actual PLO fighters.

After much international pressure, Reagan sent 1,200 Marines to assist in an intentionally brokered evacuation effort designed to remove PLO leadership, save Israeli face, and stop the bombardment of Israeli and Lebanese civilian populations. What followed in short order was the murder of the Lebanese President, a Christian, the massacre of more than 800, and perhaps as many as 3,000 Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps at the hand of Israel’s Christian allies in Lebanon, and the bombing of the Marine barracks in in Lebanon in in which 241 Marines were killed. Time and time again we make the same mistake. That part of the world always looks simpler from the perch from which American politicians devise their simple solutions.

In 2004, in the face of continuing sectarian violence and a deteriorating political environment, Reagan ordered the evacuation of all American military personnel from Lebanon. The Israelis left in 2000 with inconclusive results and under pressure from a war-weary electorate. They invaded Lebanon again in 2006 and again left with inconclusive results and world-wide criticism.  

The criticism of course only reinforces the strain of the Israeli conscience which wallows in isolation and xenophobic fear. This is not as easy as “Give-Peace-A-Chance”. This is a fearful and anxious time and the Iranian actors are as batsh** as they come. Coolers heads need to prevail and the American public needs to question the obvious answers that are presented. President Obama needs to stay strong in the face of right wing attacks that encourage further militarism and further loss.  

Americans, long sympathetic to the point of having a near blind spot as it pertains to Israel, need to remember the lessons of Iraq. We need to demand proof and see the facts for what they are. For all of the heat in regards the Iranian Nuclear situation there is precious little light. The level of ignorance and misinformation as the US once again edges to the precipice of war is stunning. This time, we need to know. Nothing less will do.  

After Michigan and After Snow

Olympia Snow is out! Snow has moved right, from 48% to 64% Conservative Union grade in past two years. Wasn't enough for the right wing that now runs the party, and more would have boxed her out for mainstream Maine. Score another one for right wing reactionaries who allow no room for moderation. Score another one, for dems in the Senate-- beyond the Presidency the most crucial element of the 2012 campaign-- Dems if they put up decent candidate likely to carry the state. Bottom Line: No one wins. Story of American Politics these days.

Meanwhile gas prices could derail recovery. Obama already seeing slippage in the polls as a result. However, depending on how that plays out it appears that economy and jobs numbers are going to be better as we head into elections in the fall. Consumer confidence is up, and here again depending on gas, jobs numbers seemed poised for 100,000 to 200,000 per month growth through the election. Before you say it, Let me: It’s amazing what a trillion dollars in hot checks can do. The debt is a huge issue and Obama has done bupkus there.
There are reasons for dems to be optimistic about their chances, but giddy is just stupid at this stage. Santorum got what he asked for and deserved. I think he and Newt will split the vote in conservative south next week, and Romney may do better than people expect. Romney, who  is worse in front of people than Bush (with the exception of the immediate  post 9-11 period), can barely string two sentences together without exuding, “Look at me, I’m RICH!” Seems likely he'll face the President who killed yesterday in front of the UAW. It’s going to be ugly with  both parties spending too much corrupt and available Citizen’s United Cash and it’s going to be close.

Spare Us...

Death and injury toll from the Koran burning incident: 4 dead, 7 wounded. Death and injury toll from a similar 2009 Bible burning: 0.
Apologies from our President: 1.
Apologies from the Afghan President: 0.


I was trying to illustrate the contrast between the two religions in terms of response. The Christians were upset and let it be known, however there was no violence that erupted. The Afghans created total chaos and killed 4 people. It was our personnel who burned the Bibles, Dan, and I get the occupation part, but the burning was "inadvertent" and the President said as much. So where is the restraint and apology that should have come from President Karzai?


Andy, pray tell. Please enlighten us with your view of the whole sordid mess which is the history of the American interaction with Muslims in the Middle East and the US since 9-11. Of course the reaction is an overeaction. The way I hear it, the Muslims who wrote in the holy book were in fact desecrating it according to thier Muslim faith. But when you enlighten us, please also equalize the playing field of American soldiers peeing on dead Taliban, dehumanizing prisoners at Abu Ghraib, murdering innocents, massacring two dozen civillians in Haditha. Tell us again how we needed to dehumanize the prisoners and ourselves under the flow of water on the boards of Gitmo so we could save our country  and our democracy. Tell us, oh wise one, that these crimes don't matter. Share with us the splendid, and no doubt uplifting underlying rationale that make "us" better" than "them". Help us to remember that those Americans who perpetuated those hideous crimes are not representative of us as a people while you paint others with the broadest of brushes. Tell us again that sleepy time story with the enduring moral that says we ought not place ouselves and our sins above those of others. Look, man this is an ugly f***ing mess. Spare us...

Mike, you had it right almost from the beginning. The reaction was an overreaction. I wasn't making any kind of point about Abu Ghraib or any of the other atrocities/incidents (alleged or not) that our troops were involved in. (Some of that... is unsubstantiated, though there have been innocents that have been killed as a result of actions, granted.) BUT, since you brought it up, what about the 9/11 attacks themselves? The Taliban strongholds in Afghanistan, the Al Quaeda training camps there, that then Senator Obama and other lawmakers had favored going into Afghanistan rather than Iraq just after 9/11. It is an ugly mess, and all I'm saying is that if we're apologizing, I think the Afghanis owe us one for this "overreaction."

 

There is not  one "atrocity" to use your word mentioned in that post that is not proven. I defy you to tell me which exactly is. These are not  generalities (something you know alot about), these are facts. Since you chose to ignore the gist of my post, answer me this: Do you think the Safa Younis Salim, a 13 year old girl who hid under her dead brother's body to avoid near certain death at the hands of an American solider, feels better or worse te mother and father of Lisa and Samantha Egan who worked at Cantor Fitzgerald. I know you see yourself as some sport of a post political on-the-one-hand, but then on-the-other-hand sort of guy, but equivocating in matters of life and eath is more than worng, it is a desecration of the deceased. Those that look at 9-11 as an excuse for almost everything that has happened since are a pimary cause for the loss of life and trasure since. In general America would be far better off with a much more limited tolerance for violence, both ours AND others.

 

Reason for Hope

I know of someone who took the pill for a very long time, prescribed by her doctor for an entirely different matter other than birth control. For years it was a critical matter of a better quality of life having nothing to do averting pregnancy. It was either suffer greatly or take the pill. Since this person is close to me, I still worry about the long term effects and the certainty of the science. That being said no one wants to see someone suffer. It comes down to science, personal choice in medical care, and personal ethics.

While it is abundantly clear there is a solid minority of ill-informed, theologically driven, Americans who will never understand that, I think it is becoming ever clearer that there is an overwhelming majority of Americans that hold that decisions about women's health are deeply personal and not a matter for the state. Santorum has fired up his base with his shameless diatribe, but the view from here is that so long as Americans, women in particular, continue to speak at the ballot and elsewhere, the place that Santorum speaks from is an increasingly isolated island. The eye of public scrutiny has if anything exposed the narrow sliver of sand from which he preaches (not only on women's health, but other formally taboo social subjects such as gay rights).

Each year the waves of tolerance lap at their shore and erode the sand from beneath their feet. Speaking personally, while I am disgusted by much of the hate speech rhetoric of the right this election season, I am perhaps also more hopeful. The polls indicate that the public isn't buying it. To whatever extent there is a divide in the country on social issues there is much less of a gap in opinion among the young and as the generations change I have no doubt that we are headed for a more loving and tolerant society. As Dr. King said, “Arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”

Rather than allow the disease of his narrow-mindedness to hunker down in the heartland, Santorum has spoken the truths, as he sees them, of a cramped and frightened theology. He has made plain his bitter antipathy to liberals, theologians of any stripe other than Catholic, academia and higher education, and of course to gays. To watch the veins nearly bursting across his temple, one easily could come to rather hard opinions. While Santorum does not advocate violence, this is hate speech, just the same. And then as is so often the case the politician glides painlessly above the fray, accepting no responsibility, while the stench of their bile washes across a fearful public. We recall recently how Palin lined up her opponents in the sights of a pistol on her electoral map, and then declaimed responsibility for Loughner. We can agree that may be factually accurate, but the stench lingers.

Yet, as these things go, light is always better than dark. Once in the open people must choose sides, much the way they did in Birmingham and Selma and Montgomery.  The record of history shows people often solidify and then vocalize the opinions they hold in the quiet of their soul more forcefully once hate and intolerance is exposed to light and the need to speak in defense of love becomes a requirement. I know this is more flowery than politics demands or even deserves, but after all what is the need for for political dialogue if not for the goal of advancing the cause of humanity.

Santorum and all the Republicans really have tried to advance their tormented cause. In doing so, it appears they have solidified the informed and protective majority opposition. We have seen the outward vocalization of the inherent tolerance of the American people. Who besides a zealot suffers a turned stomach over the separation of our churches and our state? Santorum and the right have created an environment where science, and choice, and conscience have seen their honor defended fiercely in the public square. The right’s anti-intellectualism has been responded to energetically with reason and an assertion of long settled matters.

Far from winning conversions, he has forced Americans, again women in particular, to say,” Go there at your peril,” and to restate with certainty the tolerant soeiety which is at stake.  With all that we suffer from, all the greed,  the lack of fairness and access, all the misinformation and lies, all the suffering and poverty in our society, and yes all the intolerance, the truth of that one fact alone gives me hope.

“Show a Little Faith, There’s Magic in the Night”… BS

Time to Leave Afghanistan

So then we agree, Time to leave Afghanistan. Progress... Of course the reaction to the burning is horrific.

What a great lesson about getting involved in places where we barely understand the facts on the ground. I understand why we are there, but the time to leave as long passed. Chalk another one up to civilian commanders totally snafuing a military effort. For all the talk about Obama's hatred of the military, he has approved a highly accelerated and effective drone effort across the horn of Africa. Against the advice of many advisors, your friend Biden for example; Obama green lighted the Bin Laden maneuver. By way of contrast, Bush, Rumsfeld Cheney and that whole clique completely (mis)managed the Iraq and Afghanistan efforts from the White House and Pentagon and in my view in Iraq  they took what at least could have been an effective (though totally unneeded and unwarranted) effort in Iraq and turned it into a clusterf***. 

Yes, this is coming from a "leftist" bla, bla, bla, but there are plenty of American generals that feel the same way. The reason that Iraq turned into such a sustained and tragic situation was not just the wildly misunderstood circumstances on the ground. Rumsfeld with his small and mobile ideology, (as opposed to Powell's doctrine of overwhelming force) dug the US forces into a hole that they were digging out of until they left at the current President's command a few weeks ago. In addition, domestic American political considerations (especially the Bush teams need to fire up conservatives like you) was an additional major cause for the disaster in Iraq. Finally, the appointed civilian commanders, especially Paul Bremer, caused the real calamity. In Vietnam the US entered with a large force, but met a larger force and left in stalemate verging on loss. The US had superior firepower (nukes) but using them presented a cost that even Nixon would not pay. This was not the case in Iraq where The Powell doctrine if executed likely would have carried the day. In Iraq the tragic results we saw were arrived at by virtue of the plan the civilian commanders developed. And as we know even among military leadership outside voices were not welcome. American turned on Bush because the cost of the war was too high and because they came to realize he lied to get the US in, but the military disaster there came about as a result of the way Bush and his team tried to run it as well as the poor tactics employed in some particular hot spots by a handful of generals which escalated a civil war into a complete insurrection. Petraeus in the theatre almost from the start, and always one of the Best and The Brightest save the country's (and Bush’s cookies). As ex military I assume you know that. And if you don't you should. Read Thomas Ricks "Fiasco".  Ricks is a Pulitzer Prize winning former reporter for the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post. He lectures widely to the military and is a member of Harvard University's Senior Advisory Council on the Project on U.S. Civil-Military Relations. He has reported on military activities in Somalia, Haiti, Korea, Bosnia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Kuwait, Turkey, Afghanistan, and Iraq. In addition Fiasco Ricks also wrote The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008, and Making the Corps. He is no enemy of the military and he has been around. I always marvel at conservatives that call Obama dangerous. After the twin military failures of Iraq and Afghanistan I continue to marvel at the Armageddon theories pushed on the current president. It should also be remembered that the failure and diversion of troops in Iraq led to a far less robust effort in Afghanistan, which no doubt extended the tragic loss and failure to complete that mission. Based on the silence about the real and spectacular failures in Iraq and Afghanistan, those on the right who fail to address them, while beating a paranoid drum of impending failure about Obama’s military philosophy and actions have zero credibility in this dialogue. What parades as sober assessment of military scenarios is nothing less than hack political analysis from people with no objectivity or credibility.  It is political noise and nothing more. If I was a Republican I would stick with the economy.

Is Obama a Communist?

Tony, I hate to disappoint. I have just reread this long string and I know this will raise feelings of both disappointment and frustration, and will undoubtedly infuriate you and others who posted here, but I do not think Obama is a Socialist or a Marxist or a Communist. With respect to you my friend, the suggestion at least to me is sort of preposterous. Some of us on the left actually feel that the president has been far too timid in fact.

And let me state clearly that I am not anti-business. I have been in business for my whole life and over the years have done quite a bit of it with the people down there in NW Arkansas. Walton was in my opinion a brilliant guy. Over the years his company has done much damage to small businesses and small towns themselves, but I do not see the big W, where Hillary Clinton once sat on the board of directors,  as some combination of child labor camp overseers and punitive robber barons. Many of the regional retailers that Sam competed with and eventually drove from the market were too sleepy and complacent for their own good. All of them, I am sure, would have followed the same path and developed the same business model if they were smart enough and visionary enough to have done so.

That being said there are many areas of concern and this is where government and the press has a role to play.  Conditions in some factories are and were atrocious. There has been more than adequate reporting on that. Business people of all stripes without regulation look to cut corners and increase profits. That is their reason to exist. Increased profits mean more opportunities for workers, more wealth for shareholders, and a better standard of living, both for consumers who have benefited from the low cost of good as well as the workers, especially in China which is where I have a lot of experience.  

There can be little doubt that the standard of living in China has benefited greatly in the past 20 years, and that some of that has come at the expense of American workers. But there also is little doubt that were it not for China some other low cost country would have developed the manufacturing base to meet the needs of a worldwide market in search of low cost consumer goods. The idea that America would continue to make 90% of all the manufactured goods in the world while two countries with a billion people were each waking from decades, centuries really, of feudal oversight is patently absurd. Through better education and investment—government and private-- America needs to pivot its manufacturing base to new technologies where it has a tremendous capacity to lead, not try to recreate something that is long gone.  In my view both the left and right have the argument about half wrong on that.

That does not make the argument for better working conditions in those factories any less powerful. I have been in dozens of factories in China and have seen the good and the bad. I have worked with many, many  Chinese business people, and I like a lot of the people I have met.  A lot. Many with their kids and their school woes and so forth have so often reminded me of the commonality of aspirations for people everywhere. I have heard their stories, but also seen their recognition that the cost of business is improvement conditions and worker safety. These are not American wages of course, but in their country and their culture they provide food and other non-essentials and the country has been transformed. There is an increasingly large middle class who no longer survive from meal to meal, and so look and seek from their government and business leaders cleaner government. There is growing environmental movement in China. Here the right considers environmental regulation some sort of commie plot. What would you call those in Communist China who advocate for similar goals. There is still much corruption, and the human rights record is still stuck in many ways in feudal times, but there is an increasingly vocal and active press.

Progress has been too slow, and the media spot light is as important as ever in bringing the truth to the world. Millions of yuppies are poorly informed about the troubling conditions in the Foxconn factories where their iPods and X-Boxes are built. That being said those who think protectionist measures or currency controls are going to bring back the days when Mattel made most of their toys in the US or most of the shoes in America were made in factories in New England are sadly mistaken. There is little doubt the Chinese are holding the value of their currency down to maintain the astonishing levels of exports. And there is little doubt that some factories are not doing the right thing by the workers in those factories, but I know from experience the efforts of many good people to address those concerns both here in the US at the companies and outside organizations, and in China and other manufacturing countries. Ironically, the free market, and as importantly a free press, have done much to benefit the efforts for improvement. Whatever the right says WM competes in the free market and people who believe their consumer goods are produced in factories with slave conditions will quickly go elsewhere.

So, no I do not hate business, big or small. And no I do not think our President is a Marxist, Socialist, Commie whatever. But I do think over these past twenty years the country has seen carnival of de-regulation and tax policy that has greatly tilted the playing table. The middle class and the working poor (notice I said working) have gotten screwed and are coming up short as a result, really short.  Meanwhile, conservatives act as if millions are happy to live off the dole. Unemployment before Bush got hold of the economy was 4%. Does Gingrich really believe that all those people who worked when jobs were available really want to live off food stamps? Do you?  

Obama has tried to do some things and I recognize the right sees most of those efforts as something verging on revolutionary class warfare. But the rich get richer and the gaps between them and the rest of the country grows at a staggering pace. If there is a war between classes I’m hard pressed to suggest the rich aren’t doing really well at it. Far from reigning in Wall Street, bonuses and other compensation are back to all-time highs and there can be little doubt Obama will raise hundreds of millions there for his reelection bid this fall. Rhetoric is one thing, but lots of people on the Street do not see Obama has the enemy. I’m sure you’re aware that Obama has up until a month or so ago raised more money on Wall Street then the entire Republican field combined.

I hold the river boat gamblers down on Wall Street and the government regulators who looked the other way whole they mortgaged and the country’s entire financial future directly responsible for the calamity of 2008. As with the elements in the US Government that approved and sustained  torture and rendition policies totally contrary to our laws I believe there should have been prosecutions. In both cases   Obama chose to let sleeping dogs lie. I did not agree, but the right responds as if to some alternate history.  

Still, I have heard what you have been saying. The disconnect between the perceptions of right and left is deeply troubling. I worry for my country, and the bitter dialogue that now envelops us all. Not because we are going Socialist or because Capitalism is the root of all evil, but because the opportunity for reconciliation and compromise and real solutions to real problems seems nearly impossible. I write about that in the blog today. I hear you, brother, but I suppose I will have to disappoint.

A Fearful America Rises to Mediocrity

I believe Santorum blew his chance in the debate the other night. There was just too much, I voted for this or that in loyalty to the party or the president, but I wouldn't do it again. Ironically, he gave us too much honesty about the fact that governing is compromise. No one wants to see sausage being made and certainly no one on the right today even wants to hear about it. Somewhat shockingly he was booed repeatedly. The Conservative “Chickens Came Home to Roost” as Matt Taibi wrote. It is more than clear that for conservatives no candidate is pure enough for this year’s electorate of true believers.  

That being said, Santorum himself is sort of batsh** crazy, but I don’t  believe all who support him are. People are frightened, about the future of the country, genuinely so.

There are two reasons for this, one sort of easy to dismiss and the other more troubling. The first—the one easier to dismiss-- is the “Armageddon is Close” argument that’s out there, full of paranoia, lies, exaggerations, and visions of doom. Jon Stewart played a long litany of this fretful paranoia going back to the 2008 campaign a few nights ago. If it weren’t for the country’s long history of virulent political dialogue and the professional certainty of the Secret Service one would be tempted to worry about some guy with a screw loose and easy absurdly access to a weapon. Fear and Loathing rules. Conservatives portray this President as the worst that ever was, but that does not go far enough for many. They trade apocalyptic ends of days fear on every talk show and at every Conservative gathering.

Wayne LaPierre of the NRA says he’s coming after your guns, though Obama has not lifted a finger on the issue of control. Limbaugh wildly claims that the President is “seizing private sector property”, while Hannity claims that “It’s end time in America” if Obama is reelected. Santorum, whipping his contraception crusade like a jockey coming ‘round the bend ten lengths back, claims that Obama is “…Basically making the argument that Catholics had to, you know, maybe even had to go so far as to hire women priests to comply with employment discrimination issues”. He goes on to say, “This is a very hostile president to people of faith”.

Yet as is so often the case rhetoric camouflages action, Mother Jones reports  “Under Obama, Catholic religious charities alone received more than $650 million… (from) the US Department of Health and Human Services”. The United States Catholic Conference of Bishops “has seen its share of federal grants from HHS jump from $71.8 million in the last three years of the Bush administration to $81.2 million during the first three years of Obama”. Last year they received $31.4 million.

So yes, there is a lot of hysterical talk out there. Thus it has always been on the campaign trail. While I do think there is a racial element to at least some of the criticism, it’s worth remembering the broadsides that Clinton endured, not only Whitewater, Travelgate, and so forth, but also stories that we he was responsible for murder and other dark sins promulgated by billionaire Richard Scaife’s endless funding. Back in those innocent times a billionaire couldn’t just buy a candidate or an election like they can in today’s Citizen’s United circumstances, so they were left to push anything they could to damage the president’s agenda. And they did. Obama is seeing these same forces do the same thing to him.

But there is another element, this one not so easy to ignore. Not ALL of the conservatives and those planning to vote that way are  batsh**. Many are just scared. Republican hysteria is not the only thing driving fear in the land. For virtually the first time in America’s modern history and certainly the first since the depression and WW II, most American parents doubt whether their children will advance to a higher step on the ladder than they. College is harder and harder to pay for, and a lot of kids get out of college with debts they will owe for 20 years or more. By overwhelming majorities, Americans think the economic game is rigged in a way that they cannot master or even navigate.  There is paralysis on almost every subject of critical “kitchen table” urgency. This is whether one is talking about employment, or gas prices, or the cost of medical care.

Even on medical care where legislation was passed, most citizens don’t yet understand the benefits of ObamaCare, and even for those that do understand the legislation somewhat there is fear about the uncertainty of costs down the line. Concern about costs weighs at some level on almost everyone earning less than a king’s ransom, particularly in the senior years. While I do think there is much to praise in the legislation Obama got passed (speaking of sausage making), in the last couple of generations medical costs as a share of GDP have gone from less than 10 to 17%. I, for one, doubt the legislation contains enough meaningful cost constraints. Obama’s milk-toast plan, now under relentless assault and more conservative hysteria about death panels and so forth can be blamed for that.  Perhaps he got the best he could, but there is legitimate concern even among his supporters that it will be close to enough.

Meanwhile, Congress in a state of near paralysis, speaks much, but does little. The Republicans in the House pass legislation with no chance in the Senate. Much of what they do pass—Jobs bills which would eviscerate the EPA-- have little chance of accomplishing goals they claim to meet. They fire up the base, but have little other practical effect. Even if God forbid, the Republicans retake Senate control in 2012, their majority will be narrow enough that this will remain so as a result of filibuster rules. The Senate passes virtually nothing of consequence, especially on fiscal matters except through temporary appropriations. Republicans on the trail note repeatedly that no budget has been passed in three years, but of course with the filibuster and narrowly divided chamber, no budget could be passed. There is a standard of brinksmanship that truly frightens people. As a liberal I certainly don’t want to see the Democrats crumble in the face of Republican refusal to consider any tax increases for the wealthiest Americans, even as they try to raise costs or eliminate programs for the poor and middle class almost across the board.  But in quiet moments we know this means gridlock and no path to accommodation or progress seems clear.

Americans disapprove of the job Congress is doing by a ratio of 9 to 1, but through gerrymandering, political accommodation at the state level, and wildly out of control campaign finance regulations, there is near certainty that somewhere about 90% of incumbents that run will be re-elected. Americans may not know that or believe it, but they have every reason to expect that not much will change in Washington after the election in terms of this paralysis on the congressional stage. And really if polled I have a pretty strong impression that most people doubt that much will change in their lives regardless of who the new president is. This has not been a campaign of Hope and Promise, and Reagan’s Shining City on the Hill (I always disliked that phrase) is a smoldering ruin at the moment. In the end America gets the Congress and the leadership they elect, and to some extent that they deserve. In fairness though, big money has soiled and distorted everything, so it is all not all the fault of a frightened and battered electorate. For all of the heat generated in this election cycle any talk about throwing-the- bums-out, or taking-back-our-country is just that.  It is hollow and phony and false. Progressives know this better than anyone. Obamas talk of Hope and Change has been reduced to hunkering down in the bunker fighting off catastrophe.

Meanwhile, at some level Americans know that much of what they hear from the Republican candidates sounds an awful lot like hard for a lot people. 20 million have been foreclosed, but the Republicans—across the board--propose eliminating any government efforts to prevent more. Let the Free Market act they say. Repeal ObamaCare is a mantra on the right and it will no doubt fire up millions to vote this fall. Even the provisions requiring portability and allowing for kids to be covered on parent policies until 26, which has already resulted in millions of insured kids for families at all income levels, will go. Let the Free Markets work, they say.

Romney and the rest continue to tell Detroit that rather saving jobs, America should have turned its back, or as they say allowed for a Managed Bankruptcy. That this would have required private financing which was not available in 2008 is not mentioned. Gingrich notes fairly that auto makers beyond the Big Three the US were doing Ok, but he neglects to point out the industry wide requests back in 2008 for auto bailouts. Why no mention you may ask? Because without government money the three would have likely perished, and if that would have happened the supplier network supporting both the Big Three as well as the US operations of Toyota and Honda and BMW would have been decimated. The choice was devastation or recovery. Obama chose recovery. Bush did too, and reiterated that in the last few weeks, but let’s not talk about that now. Let the Free Markets work they say.

Wealth has concentrated in a smaller and smaller group of hands with the much spoken of 1% controlling 35% of the nation’s wealth. The robber barons of the late 19^th and early 20^th century were pikers compared to this crowd. The Republicans will tell you that too is a result of the Free Markets, not tax Policy which taxes Romney’s $25 million at 13%, but a family of four at an income of $100,000, over 20%. Even some Conservatives get the inequality of the equation, and I think back therein the recesses know that there’s no chance they will ever see that. Still, they play the lottery (a total legitimate form of tax I guess), and if they hit they want to get that deal themselves.  At night, after their working day, with money stretched tight, and gas, food, and medical bills on the rise, though fear slips down the walls and envelops the chair where they catch a few minutes of the news from Spring Training on ESPN.

There are tens of millions who will never turn out for Obama. Yes, some of them are frightened by the apocalyptic rhetoric, and some are true believers like my Friend Tony but some are just frightened by the reality of their lives. Many voted for the President back in ‘08, voted for Change with a capital “C” and all that. But what they got was the worst gridlock imaginable. Unemployment is high, and whatever the rhetoric, the 8% number does not begin to touch the millions of additional workers underemployed and stuck in jobs that provide little future or mobility. I remember making this case to friends in the early 80’s when Reagan was touting incremental improvements in unemployment after his tax-cut recession initially stalled. The economy still sucks.  The country has no fiscal plan, educational reform agenda. Most Americans also know that gridlock has led to a non-existent energy and environmental policy that still does not invest enough in infrastructure and a clean energy future. The Chinese are investing trillions in both infrastructure and green energy. Those investments will be the reason twenty or thirty years from now the Chinese economy will still have vibrancy, even after low wage jobs have moved to less restrictive environments.

Sure as sh** the Republicans have no answers, or what they can offer are narrowly defined, previously disproved ideological ones—tax policy for example—but what is the Democratic response? Hunkering down in the bunker to fight off a catastrophe is not a policy and it will not address the rampant anxiety in the electorate.

Entitlements will have to be reformed. Benefits, especially the retirement age itself will need to be adjusted over time to fit the new demographics for our slow growth population. Taxes will have to be raised on those most in a position to pay. Some, even in the upper middle (starting at $200 to $250K or so) will need to pay more.

Energy policy will have to balance greater production with greater measures of conservation and substantial investments in alternatives. Bill Gates, a thoughtful guy and no fan of pie-in-the-sky solutions, has made some legitimate criticisms of current investments in energy research, especially those made for political rather than scientific reasons. Everyone needs to focus more on the practical rather than the political. Personally, I don’t support additional investments in nuclear. I do believe the plants are safer, but everyone who knows anything about the nuclear industry knows the real issue is the tons and gallons of waste, some with half-life counted in tens of thousands of years.  But I am not an across the board, believer in restrictions on domestic drilling.  BP has shown that the companies can’t be trusted but more drilling can help and practical political trade-offs are required. Permits which attach 100% responsibility to the companies for clean-up, and assign the government the primary role in directing those efforts when they are required seems a fair trade-off. However, no one should mistake domestic drilling for a real solution to an 80 billion barrel a day world-wide demand and an 84 billion barrel a day capacity. And the other side needs to stop lying and obfuscating on the real issue of Global Climate Change. When I saw Santorum the other night talk about the politization of the Climate Change science, I nearly coughed up my dinner.  Conservative principles on energy and the environment are not remotely serious, but that does not negate the need for a balanced approach.

There are middle ground solutions to all the issues we face, including education where the Chinese are also making great strides, but none of them are possible without campaign finance reform. Count me among those who are scared of the awesome power of SuperPACs, but Obama was wrong to pursue that cash. I question Obama’s statement that he needed the money to get his message out. He raised a billion dollars in 2008 and he has the bully pulpit. A fearless leader would have announced with much hoopla and fanfare that he would forgo the billionaire hyper cash, capable as he was to settle for the semi-hyper millionaire cash, and then relentlessly pushed an agenda of reform, but Obama let fear guide his reasoning . Nothing changes so long as a few dozen billionaires control the political dialogue and that is true for both parties.

These are tough times in America. The Republican nominating process has been a carnival orgy of half- truths and fear mongering, but that does not release the President of his responsibility to lead. Those of us on the left who see so much wrong with the other side would be wise to see the truth about ours, and to call for more problem solving leadership. Fear and excuse making is not a policy for either party and speaking personally there is way too much out there already.

Rick Santorum for President (Of Branson Missouri)

Saw an overheated argument last night about Santorum's Satan Comments and went to look to see what he said...

Following is the Text of the Speech at Ave Maria University in 2008. Santorum does more than say Satan, The Father of Lies as he calls him has his eyes on US. Apparently the ole boy is a cause for what every Republican alive claims is a liberal academia. Not that surprising, as Academia is a not unusual right wing target. But Santorum pivots from there an remarks that have not gotten enough attention he calls the state of mainstream Protestantism a "shambles". This deserves way more interest than it has generated. Bush was a religious nut, but generally he did not pick sides and he advanced religious causes across the board -- specifically through his Faith Based Initiative. Santorum is a whole other kettle of fish, and truly believes his side, not just Christians, but specifically Catholic Christians have it all figured out.

If he was to run for President let it be the town board in Branson. Other than that he needs to just go away.

"This is not a political war at all. This is not a cultural war. This is a spiritual war. And the Father of Lies has his sights on what you would think the Father of Lies would have his sights on: a good, decent, powerful, influential country – the United States of America. If you were Satan, who would you attack in this day and age? There is no one else to go after other than the United States and that has been the case now for almost two hundred years, once America’s preeminence was sown by our great Founding Fathers.

 "He didn’t have much success in the early days. Our foundation was very strong, in fact, is very strong. But over time, that great, acidic quality of time corrodes even the strongest foundations. And Satan has done so by attacking the great institutions of America, using those great vices of pride, vanity, and sensuality as the root to attack all of the strong plants that have so deeply rooted in the American tradition.

 "He was successful. He attacks all of us and he attacks all of our institutions. The place where he was, in my mind, the most successful and first successful was in academia. He understood pride of smart people. He attacked them at their weakest, that they were, in fact, smarter than everybody else and could come up with something new and different. Pursue new truths, deny the existence of truth, play with it because they’re smart. And so academia, a long time ago, fell.

 "And you say “what could be the impact of academia falling?” Well, I would have the argument that the other structures that I’m going to talk about here had root of their destruction because of academia. Because what academia does is educate the elites in our society, educates the leaders in our society, particularly at the college level. And they were the first to fall.

 "And so what we saw this domino effect, once the colleges fell and those who were being education in our institutions, the next was the church. Now you’d say, ‘wait, the Catholic Church’? No. We all know that this country was founded on a Judeo-Christian ethic but the Judeo-Christian ethic was a Protestant Judeo-Christian ethic, sure the Catholics had some influence, but this was a Protestant country and the Protestant ethic, mainstream, mainline Protestantism, and of course we look at the shape of mainline Protestantism in this country and it is in shambles, it is gone from the world of Christianity as I see it. So they attacked mainline Protestantism, they attacked the Church, and what better way to go after smart people who also believe they’re pious to use both vanity and pride to also go after the Church.

 "After that, you start destroying the Church and you start destroying academia, the culture is where their next success was and I need not even go into the state of the popular culture today. Whether its sensuality of vanity of the famous in America, they are peacocks on display and they have taken their poor behavior and made it fashionable. The corruption of culture, the corruption of manners, the corruption of decency is now on display whether it’s the NBA or whether it’s a rock concert or whether it’s on a movie set.

 "The fourth, and this was harder, now I know you’re going to challenge me on this one, but politics and government was the next to fall. You say, ‘you would think they would be the first to fall, as fallible as we are in politics,’ but people in political life get elected by ordinary folks from lots of places all over the country where the foundations of this country are still strong. So while we may certainly have had examples, the body politic held up fairly well up until the last couple of decades, but it is falling too."

For GB...

Spiritual leaders made of the same clay as you and I often disappoint. None of us I know are perfect, and whatever faith anyone has is twisted and corrupted into a vile mash of culture, narrow-mindedness, and personal selection—“Pro-Life” supporters of Capital punishment, or aggressive militarism for example. This is so much unevenness, so much inconsistency that I tend sometimes not to trust those who mark the “word of God” in any way, especially when they contort it to fit their convenient and selective ideology. To say I despise some of those in the corruption of their endeavors is not strong enough to really evidence my complete disgust.  For if that is faith, then the word holds no meaning, or practical purpose, and certainly not a shred of real love.

 My own faith is no longer strong. I no longer rationalize the hurt that I see in the context of a loving and especially engaged God.  Church people have done horrific things just in my time on this planet. While I comprehend the human failure there, and understand the blamelessness a conceivable  almighty has in places like Cambodia, Congo, Burma, South Africa, or Birmingham, Alabama, the logic in my mind does not attach well to a loving God who does not intercede to save those who cannot save themselves. People will say God answers your prayers, and when he does not well, that is just the mystery of “his” ways, but I find that so dissatisfying, even up to the point of absurdity.

So maybe I do not believe.

Yet there remains a faith thread, perhaps a strand of my evolutionary DNA, that vibrates with uncertainty just as I want to cast my lot full in with Christopher Hitchens, the recently deceased writer  and provocateur, who even in the hold of inoperable brain cancer with all around him advising otherwise, held to his belief that since God does not wait on the other side. Hitchens saw no reason to change what he believed, or said, or wrote and made that abundantly and repeatedly clear in his last months.  From a distance, I applauded his courageous and rational mind.

For the rational me, the thread of faith stretches to its maximum tension when I consider the scope of our known universe the near impossibility that our galaxy among the millions holds the theological secrets to every human, let alone every living creature across all the universes. The concept that the three “great” religions all sprung from a small scrap of our world and from that corner of desert wars have been waged for nearly all of recorded human history does not translate to me in any way as something aspirational. To the contrary, it is the history  of human narcissism and of course failure.

They says ashes to ashes and dust to dust, and I think, yes, I know, we are all made of the same dust, and when we die we will all go back to that same state. And then, from that same dust, the scraps of our existence, a new person will rise. So on the surface of it, the teachings of my youth, the repeated dogma, in the suffocating and suffocated church no longer hold any power over my intellect or my heart.  Sometimes, I think for all our human progress as creatures of this earth we are just such complete failures, and religion and religious pursuit is often at the top of our misguided efforts, Dr. King, and Mohandas Gandhi notwithstanding. All too often we act out of a sense of fear rather than one of love, and when fear rules the heart humans can rationalize almost anything. It has been said so often that has reached the point of extreme cliché, but the Jesus of the bible would not recognize the hateful distortions in his name, now 2,000 years later.

There are some that would call these views cynical, but I will tell you that I have grappled with this DNA for all my years. I was raised after all by a mother, who believed in the Almighty and “his” ability to transform lives. She took it as her mission to love her brother and sister as herself. That is part of who I am also. That is an example that sometimes shames me and my resurgent and often darkly held views. Too often I know that hope is barely alive, and optimism is only tentatively held in my psychic grasp. I know that shame offers nothing to build on, nothing really to hold or nurture, and optimism some days may be all you got to carry to tomorrow.  So here I sit on the razors edge of certainty, almost sure that there is a beginning, a middle, and an absolute end, almost sure that my rational mind can no longer connect to or understand faith in the spiritual sense. Like a dandelion seed on the wind I am almost cut loose to a narrative that is all more logical, and comprehensible, and random.

But alas, my seed has yet to sail. It is the one lone white stem still connected to this particular stalk. Perhaps there is an inevitability in the final result, but perhaps not. Maybe I hang on still to that thread of my DNA, because there are others around me, people who mean so much to me and who I am, who without guile or pretense talk of what they believe to be “good, fair, just, and Godly”. It makes me think. It made me think. It meant a lot to me in quiet times this weekend.

Letter to Joe

Regarding Katrina there is absolutely blame to be had all round. I personally think Ray Nagin was criminally incompetent and ran a criminally incompetent city. Nagin’s police murdered innocents in the chaotic aftermath of Katrina, and in my view were personally involved in looting and other lawlessness. Though he no doubt luxuriates in retirement or whatever living off the ill-gotten gain of his public service life, in my view life in prison would be too good for him. Governor Landrieu comes out a bit better, but only barely. The Bush administration was a complete failure.

But we were not talking about local leadership I was referring to the reprehensible job done by the Commander in Chief at the National level and the ridiculous suggestion that Obama is the worst president in the nation’s history. I follow Tony’s posts, sometimes with amusement and sometimes with anger, but I get the point. This was just too juicy to pass up.

Anyone who does not see or will not admit the complete failure of national leadership in New Orleans and the cost in human life that resulted from that failure is just not being honest.  Responsibility for the flooding was laid squarely on the Army Corps in January 2008 by Judge Stanwood Duval, US District Court.  The Army Corp of Engineers f***ed up the entire construction of the system of levees  they built to protect the city. Apparently levees should not be secured to sand berms. The Federal Government over many administrations failed completely in their task to protect the City. How ill-informed are you, Joe?

People died on the street for lack of water. Give Bush a pass on this and give up any creditability. The Federal, State, and local government didn’t do a thing to resolve the matter for three days until news footage shocked the nation. How far lost in the recesses of your political posturing is that simple fact lost? In my mind’s eye I can still conjure the image of an elderly wheel-chair bound lady, slouched over the edge of a lawn chair, dead. Is that one of the “ignorants” you refer to?

To place the blame on those who failed to leave and so “created their own mess” is repugnant. I know you are so tuned into your pre-arranged thought pattern that you will deny this so we’ll have to disagree, but your argument sounds as if it comes from someone that would deny any cost and deflect any blame so long as how it did not interfere with a carefully crafted narrative on which a fragile house of ideological cards is built. Good luck with that, but excuse me if your morality rings hollow.

Many of us on the left are stunned and confused with absolute vitriol directed at this president. The near irrational hatred runs from absurd conspiracy theories to birthers to zealots who are sure Obama is a Muslim (despite the Drone programs in Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan and so forth which have killed hundreds, some of them Muslim-American citizens without charges or trial), to the Socialist-Commie- Sympathizer crowd (Right, Tony?), to the death panels. Now with Santorum we hear attacks on Obama’s theology. Recognizing that s** won’t play with anyone but the right wing nut brigade he backtracks into a lie about environmental polices. Brilliant, just brilliant, and totally unelectable. The litany has been relentless and to all but the true believers on the extreme right, hysterical and to some measure silly.

So, liberals ask, “What has Obama done.” Well let’s see. He bailed out the auto companies, made a huge investment, bought a ton of stock and sort of out-right owned them for a while, but he saved over a million jobs. A fair argument can be made that the government ought not to picks winners and losers, and I for one believe the administration exaggerates when it claims it has or will get all the money back. But to call those of us who favored the government investment in saving a million jobs “Socialists” seem a bit extreme. Fair enough, pretty sure Obama will live with the label rather than the loss of American manufacturing jobs. I noticed though that Santorum’s manufacturing tax policy also picks winners and losers, but I guess that’s something different than Obama’s government engineering Socialism.

ObamaCare is of course another boogeyman to the right with Palin’s rattling death panels and government take-over of healthcare. So seldom does anyone on the right admit that the insurance companies already ration healthcare, based on cost,  that people die as a result of their inability to pay. Those I guess aren’t death panels. Private enterprise, free markets and all, guess we’ll have to call them something else.

Of course villainizing Obama over the Healthcare plan makes pleasing rhetoric to white-hot ears on the right, but in the end this was a huge gift to the insurance industry. The requirement that everyone needs to buy health care may not pass constitutional muster, but it can hardly be argued that those who can afford it and choose not to own it are a burden and pass their costs onto those that do buy insurance. Politicians have been grappling with this for decades.

At 17% of GDP, the quality of healthcare and the number of uninsured in America is a national disgrace. The suggestion that the government should require everyone that with the resources to do so to buy insurance is has been pushed before by Newt, The Heritage Foundation and of course Romney. That was not Socialism apparently. Obama’s legislation apparently is. Ok, so maybe I don’t see the opposition posture as being particularly credible on this.

TARP, the bailouts on Wall Street, and the $85 billion gift to a corrupt and failing AIG and so forth was all initiated under Bush to the tune of nearly a trillion, and then sustained by Obama. Wall Street got a big pass. F***ers! No limits on bonuses, no clearly called for criminal prosecutions, Dodd-Frank is a near joke. As of this writing hundreds of regulations have yet to be written. The right acts like Obama has nationalized Chase, Citibank, Wells Fargo and the other big banks. Bush, the Fed and Treasury made each of these banks gigantic, by pairing them one by one with weaker insanely leveraged investment banks and then investing $700 billion with no strings in the hope that it would spur lending. It did not. That Obama has done little to rein in or regulate these behemoths represents a failure on his administrations part to regain some measure of control over the capital markets.  Bonuses are sky high. Glass-Steagull remains in repeal and the beat goes on. If this is socialism where do I sign? To many of us on the left including the Occupy Wall Street crowd this looks like party time. For me, the limited actions on Wall Street are more baffling in terms of the Socialist argument than almost anything else. Christ,  his rhetoric was hot, but the actual fix was way too f***ing cool. Thanks to campaign cash, and tax payer bought and paid for lobbyists Wall Street made out like the bandits they are. Congress, buried under a $4 billion pile of cash, folded and Obama barely put up a fight. Perversely, in what we are now told is Socialist America, Citibank and Chase rule the world.

There was a time the Tea Party cared about this, but I guess once it got coopted by big business and the Republican establishment elites, not so much. Too bad, for a few minutes there both the active left and the active right in the US were pretty pissed off at a round of corruption and Government intercession on behalf of the rich and powerful not seen or so well understood for 80 years.

What changed? Power and wealth is concentrated in even fewer hands. Thanks to Citizens United huge chucks of that wealth pour, with few controls or regulation, into extreme and supercharged campaign expenditures, both democratic and republican. It may take a decade but both parties will come to regret the day that a handful of billionaires were allowed to control the national dialogue in this way. A few dozen people have contributed nearly half of the $100 million raised so far. Billions more will be raised in this election cycle. This is not what democracy looks like. This is Potterville.

Progressives despised Bush because he did clearly measureable bad things. On the flipside, as the country meanders through the extreme charges of the current presidential field of Republican candidates what most of us see as it regards the charges against Obama is insanity masked as political dialogue. The sagging poll numbers of the Republicans at the National level, along with the deep disregard for the extreme and elitist, bought and paid for Congress , indicate that the right may eventually get their candidate, but in the general that candidate may garner something just north of 45% which will be disastrous for the GOP at all levels. We can only hope. Can you say so long independents, especially suburban women? You boys are sinking and water to your eyeballs you don’t even know it. Egged on by a wild-eyed conspiratorial Santorum, Romney, trapped by his record of venal line crossing and far from sensing the political breeze, does not adjust. Rather he doubles down as a “severe” conservative. What, pray tell, is that?

But back to Bush…

Progressives despised Bush because he and his inner circle of war criminals, Cheney &  Rumsfeld, entered into two wars, one of which through arrogant hubris wasted trillions of dollars and thousands of lives.  I was angry and fearful like most Americans and thought Afghanistan was unavoidable. Iraq was another matter. Generals who questioned the Iraqi strategy and warned of the results we eventually saw were fired or transferred. The whole go-small thing was a complete military disaster, and what America got, what the Iraqis got, was chaos, failure, and lost human treasure, and that little pr***, Rumsfeld, telling everyone who would listen that “Democracy is messy”. Meanwhile, Bush appointed one civilian leader after another to oversee America’s rebuilding effort. Each failed completely at their appointed job, topped off by Bremmer who without doubt pushed the Sunnis into Civil War and created the real crisis that engulfs Iraq even uo to today. I know after this lengthy piece no one wants to get a history of Iraq, but Bush and his team fouled Iraq up at every level, even after at certain junctures they had opportunities to step back and reassess. Failure is not a strong enough word to convey the Shakespearean majesty of their ineptitude. I could recommend half a dozen books, that tell this sordid history, but those on the hysterical right can’t be bothered with anything not endorsed by Rush, or Sean, or Mark Levin, or O’Reilly… Christ, the list goes on and on. So many people, so little real information, but one thing we can be sure of is this: The US military will not soon enter a war under such poor circumstances.  

I did not support the surge. I thought it would lead to more senseless death. Militarily I was wrong. The surge, allowed the US to retain a hold on a thread of dignity, but it pulled loose from a weeping chasm of defeat. The world knows that the war itself was entered into under a dishonest and rigged intelligence propaganda war that proved in every way to be dishonest. That is no longer conjecture. Powell now calls his appearance at the UN one of the biggest failures of his long career. Everyone knows. Only the Republican right disputes the truth.

On the economy those on the right that project the entire disaster on Obama with no acknowledgement at all of the deep crisis which hit the Bush administration at the end of their jobless, tax cut and spending binge, crisis mystify progressives.  

The point is that progressives hold Bush deeply responsible for the disasters for which he is directly responsible and for those things that happened on his watch. This is not worry for what might be, but anger for what was. Conservatives it seems make a boogeyman of every Obama action, and project death panels and Armageddon for every result which is yet to be seen. I respect those that raise Constitutional concerns about some of these policies, but take them less than seriously when this same crowd argued and argues today that the Patriot Act did not go far enough.

In absence of any rational critique of the president many of us assume that there is deep strain of racism in the opposition to the President. The images of Tea Party rallies filled with white folk carrying either the Confederate flag or racist signs such as, “The Zoo has an African (picture of a lion) and The White House has a Lyin’ African” do little to dispel that notion. A simple google search produces dozens of additional images with monkeys, tribesman, and so forth. Both sides use Nazism sloppily to make their ill-defined case as if anything in our current dialogue could measure up to genocide of six million. Santorum pulled that Nazi s*** just a couple days ago. And before you say it, yes, Bush too was subjected to vile rhetoric too. Protesters often referred to him as a fascist (and a Nazi), but being white race never entered into it.

And here I do not even mean to suggest that Bush was the worst president ever, though short of Hoover, I’m hard pressed to come up with another choice. But to call Obama the worst, or as Tony did yesterday or day before not really even the president. Well, sh**, you’re just wrong. Hold onto that anger though. Get out to that Santorum rally. Let’s hope he nominates Herman Cain for Vice President and announces he’ll name one of the Koch brothers as Secretary of the Treasury, or maybe for HHS, and Trump as Secretary of State. As a commie-socialist-liberal-progressive-race-baiter I’m all in with that. Pulling for you….  

Religion and the State

 “The measure, proposed by Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) would amend the Affordable Care Act to allow any employer to exclude any health service coverage, no matter how critical or basic, by claiming that it violates their religious or moral convictions.”-- Huffington Post

The right is nuts. How quickly they went from be outraged on first amendment grounds to Obama’s contraception plan to a full frontal attack on employer requirements to carry health insurance for their workers. Working from the playbook we are offered a glimpse into how and why things work the way they do. Here we see proposed legislation, on the surface claiming to speak to religious freedom, which would allow employers to opt out of any insurance regulation that runs counter to their religious beliefs. These “religious” or “moral” beliefs would be defined by the employer.

Conservatives believe the government has no role in requiring health insurance. Ultimately this would be something that some misguided businesses might want, but Blunt humps it for the masses in a blanket of religious freedom. Thoughtful business owners would do well to remember how foolish and costly it would be to add more people to the roles of the uninsured.

Of course the Catholic hierarchy, exposed as hopelessly corrupt over the past decade and so searching for righteous legitimacy, would endorse this hogwash. Ironically, at the same time the airwaves were filled with the self-righteous bloviating on separation of church and state, and first amendment infringement, the institution which they ostensibly stand to protect, the Vatican, was making other news. Reuter’s reported on Feb-04 that Vatican intrigues have led to charges of corruption, “nepotism and cronyism”, and the transfer of the Vatican Secretary of State. In this climate, it would be worth noting that Pope Benedict has called access to affordable healthcare a “human right”, except for the fact that Benedict and the Church leadership in general have ceded any claim to morality with the  handling of the pedophilia crisis. As many have noted the fact is the church has been surpassed by her children. 98% of Catholic women use contraceptives and 2/3 of Catholic employers already provide access to contraceptives to their (in many cases) non-Catholic employees via health plans as a result of state-level regulations.

Of course, Blunt’s legislation extends far beyond Catholics. As Jon Stewart pointed out last night, Scientologists due to their religious beliefs have the right to refuse medical attention and tragically as we have seen from time to time for their children. This legislation would make it possible for them to deny insurance to their employees. Blunt’s legislation as Stewart pointed out is a prescription for chaos. How would Mr. Blunt assume people would get coverage if any religious nut, for any reason, can deny care or coverage?

For a country forever talking about the separation of church and state, we are a people strangely corrupted and constrained by our obsession with religion. Santorum talks about freedom and religion as if his religious dogma is a devotion to freedom itself. Santorum defines freedom in almost every sense as a devotion to a god-centered religion that he believes and sounds much like a man who honors neither freedom nor humanity. Santorum extends this quasi-religious quasi-statist belief system well beyond hot-button issues of abortion and homosexuality and extends it to his cramped view of the roles of women in society as well as anti-scientific anti-intellectual views on global warming and stem cell research.  These positions, held and propagated by Santorum and the religious right in general, overlap almost everywhere in our complex and changing country.  If this is One-God spiritualism I can only say I must be a pagan.

But Santorum of course parts ways, especially with much of the Catholic Church hierarchy and other progressive Christians, as they all do when it comes to his heavy handed approach to American exceptionalism and militarism, and of course the death penalty. Santorum and all the conservatives see no role in government to aid the poor, or care for the sick. No reason for those most blessed among us to share the blessings of their bounty with the least among us. In addition to the inevitable tax cuts which have led to historical separation between the haves and have nots in America conservatives like Santorum argue for a single three word solution to everything: The Free Market. Jesus enters this market as his peril.  

Every problem can be solved if we just get out of the way and let the free market operate. Not a word spoken about the deep immorality that free markets have evidenced over these past few years, or the deep societal problems they have unleashed. The cure for all the country’s hurt is more of the same selfish, me for me, you for you, winner-take-all exceptionalism. Homeless? Hungry? Scared and alone and in need of help? The free market will be there soon, and if that doesn’t work we can still build more jails.

We criticize our politicians for the harshness of their views, but the reality is that the Republican field has been pandering to what they perceive as the views and demands of their electorate. There is a deep stain of bitterness to the poor in America that stains our body politic. Our politicians, often with the tax-protected assistance of the nation’s religious leaders, cast blame on the weakest among us, the poor, minorities, immigrants, for the hurt of the middle class. The rich in contrast are always benevolent, always ready to allow the slop-over of their wealth to trickle down to the wretched refuse, the huddled masses.  

Watch Romney as he pushes further and further, now calling himself a “severe” conservative. What the f*** does that mean? More severe like the proud Governor of Texas with 200+ death penalty executions, or the heartless and Isolationist Ron Paul, who sees no role for America domestically or internationally to solve any human problem. He feels bad and all that, but Dr. Paul and his ideologue son would not left a finger to help the most in need among us. The Civil Rights act of 1965 and the Voting Rights Act of 1964 were misguided pieces of legislation to this family.

This, then, is the corruption at the core of the American Heart of Darkness. This is the caldron to which Blunt would release any employer to avoid offering health insurance to his employees. Religion is deeply entwined in that story, and it is not just the religious right. I acknowledge that Catholic Church and its charitable arm, Catholic Charities,  serve millions of people in need, but some parts of these entities are very similar to  for profit enterprises with employees and payrolls and tax deductible funding. So excuse me if I want to throw a shoe at my TV when yet another politician expounds on the separation of church and state, and freedom of religion. Seldom mentioned in the battle over the contraceptive policy was the basic law of it: The US funds Catholic Charities to a great extent. These charities cannot survive without that funding, but they employ millions of non-Catholics. The Government was saying if you want the federal funds you must follow the law. I would have been fine with that, but also understand the compromise. But the result in plane terms is the government subsidizing societally beneficial religious endeavors.  The issue is not whether or not the church would have the right to pursue its core beliefs; it is to say that if it wanted to feed at the federal trough it would have to do so under certain guidelines.

This is a country whose political life is absolutely corrupted by the forceful role of religious advocates.  The US government subsidizes with tax laws hundreds of millions of charitable contributions which go to political activity. What looms is not a battle between morality and immorality; it is an argument between a democratic republic with separation between church and state and neo-fascism. At the moment the secular society and the religious institutions with massive property holdings and business before the state live in an uneasy truce. But the goal of some on the right is to substantially tip the balance.

I really don't think America, even at this late date, understands how truly radical the American right is. We do well to remember that they control without encumbrances such as the filibuster one half of the legislative branch of government.  The right is f***ing nuts.