Shameless, Utterly Shamless

Re Charles Krauthammer Editorial "Who Lost Iraq"

I cannot state how truly disgusting this is to me. These *&^%$ neocons were all over Bush for having the “courage” to go to Iraq. The months later when it was clear it was a complete disaster I read an article in Vanity Fair where the pig**** mice that they are they all tried to blame bad execution or misplaced policies or whatever. There was little remorse of shame for what they had been directly responsible for perpetrating. Now these same people want to suggest that the whole venture will come down to failure because Obama could not negotiate a deal to keep some soldiers there. This when the final sticking point was Obama’s unwillingness to trade National sovereignty to the Iraqis by refusing to give up the premise that crimes of US soldiers would only be tried by Americans in American courts.  The Iraqis wanted the power to have trails as they chose according to their laws. Obama, sensing the danger in that said no. If he had said yes, god forbid, the repubs would have pilloried him.

 There are two great, well probably more, but two great books that I read. Imperial Life in the Emerald City (Rajiv Chandrasekaran) and Fiasco (Thomas Ricks). I never supported the effort in Iraq, ever. But the history of the thing is that Bush, Rumsfeld and Cheney bollixed it up something terrible, and arrogance to an immeasurable extreme was at the root of much of the failure. All these neocons thought that they too knew better than all the critics—many of which were and are in the military. The waste in human life (both Iraqi & American) and national treasure is obscene.

 Now they have the nerve to come around after all that loss, after all the lies, after all of the failure and talk about how Obama is blowing it. Wow! That takes balls.

Barack Obama was a principled opponent of the Iraq war from its beginning. But when he became president in January 2009, he was handed a war that was won. The surge had succeeded. Al-Qaeda in Iraq had been routed, driven to humiliating defeat by an Anbar Awakening of Sunnis fighting side-by-side with the infidel Americans. Even more remarkably, the Shiite militias had been taken down, with U.S. backing, by the forces of Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. They crushed the Sadr militias from Basra to Sadr City.

Al-Qaeda decimated. A Shiite prime minister taking a decisively nationalist line. Iraqi Sunnis ready to integrate into a new national government. U.S. casualties at their lowest ebb in the entire war. Elections approaching. Obama was left with but a single task: Negotiate a new status-of-forces agreement (SOFA) to reinforce these gains and create a strategic partnership with the Arab world’s only democracy.

He blew it. Negotiations, such as they were, finally collapsed last month. There is no agreement, no partnership. As of Dec. 31, the U.S. military presence in Iraq will be liquidated.

And it’s not as if that deadline snuck up on Obama. He had three years to prepare for it. Everyone involved, Iraqi and American, knew that the 2008 SOFA calling for full U.S. withdrawal was meant to be renegotiated. And all major parties but one (the Sadr faction) had an interest in some residual stabilizing U.S. force, like the postwar deployments in Japan, Germany and Korea.

Three years, two abject failures. The first was the administration’s inability, at the height of American post-surge power, to broker a centrist nationalist coalition governed by the major blocs — one predominantly Shiite (Maliki’s), one predominantly Sunni (Ayad Allawi’s), one Kurdish — that among them won a large majority (69 percent) of seats in the 2010 election.

Vice President Biden was given the job. He failed utterly. The government ended up effectively being run by a narrow sectarian coalition where the balance of power is held by the relatively small (12 percent) Iranian-client Sadr faction.

The second failure was the SOFA itself. U.S. commanders recommended nearly 20,000 troops, considerably fewer than our 28,500 in Korea, 40,000 in Japan and 54,000 in Germany. The president rejected those proposals, choosing instead a level of 3,000 to 5,000 troops.

A deployment so risibly small would have to expend all its energies simply protecting itself — the fate of our tragic, missionless 1982 Lebanon deployment — with no real capability to train the Iraqis, build their U.S.-equipped air force, mediate ethnic disputes (as we have successfully done, for example, between local Arabs and Kurds), operate surveillance and special-ops bases, and establish the kind of close military-to-military relations that undergird our strongest alliances.

The Obama proposal was an unmistakable signal of unseriousness. It became clear that he simply wanted out, leaving any Iraqi foolish enough to maintain a pro-American orientation exposed to Iranian influence, now unopposed and potentially lethal. Message received. Just this past week, Massoud Barzani, leader of the Kurds — for two decades the staunchest of U.S. allies — visited Tehran to bend a knee to both President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

It didn’t have to be this way. Our friends did not have to be left out in the cold to seek Iranian protection. Three years and a won war had given Obama the opportunity to establish a lasting strategic alliance with the Arab world’s second most important power.

He failed, though he hardly tried very hard. The excuse is Iraqi refusal to grant legal immunity to U.S. forces. But the Bush administration encountered the same problem and overcame it. Obama had little desire to. Indeed, he portrays the evacuation as a success, the fulfillment of a campaign promise.

But surely the obligation to defend the security and the interests of the nation supersede personal vindication. Obama opposed the war, but when he became commander in chief the terrible price had already been paid in blood and treasure. His obligation was to make something of that sacrifice, to secure the strategic gains that sacrifice had already achieved.

He did not, failing at precisely what this administration so flatters itself for doing so well: diplomacy. After years of allegedly clumsy brutish force, Obama was to usher in an era of not hard power, not soft power, but smart power.

Which turns out in Iraq to be . . . no power. Years from now, we will be asking not “Who lost Iraq?” — that already is clear — but “Why?”

No Jobs, No Justice- Lies My Representative Told Me

I follow Cantor and Boehner on twitter. Both have them have been going crazy posting that the house has passed multiple bills to create jobs, but Reid won’t move the bills. Reid is sort of a milquetoast, but if he blocked this pile of crapola then my hats off to him.

Here is the list. Everything noted here is NOT proposed legislation. Everything here was PASSED BY THE HOUSE. Even if the Repubs won the Senate, I doubt that any of this would survive senate filibuster, but it is a stunning list of what they really want and a clear record of what they would do if given the chance. Is it deregulation or dismantlement?? Obama has been saying that none of this is serious job creation and especially not in the near to med term. If he's wrong someone needs to point out where that would be. The list comes directly from Cantor's site. The description of the legislation comes from www.govtrack.us. The full text of the bills is available there.

1) HR2018 Clean Water Cooperative Federalism-- The bill amends the Clean Water Act (CWA), which would allocate the primary responsibilities for water pollution control to the states- Holy crap! That's a whopper! This has passed and while not explicitly eliminating the EPA it would eviscerate it's authority in water pollution control. Water and airways do not stop at state borders. F***ing ridiculous!

2) HR72-- Review of Federal Regulations-Directing certain standing committees to inventory and review existing, pending, and proposed regulations and orders from agencies of the Federal Government, particularly with respect to their effect on jobs and economic growth. Obama is endorsing similar though more restrictive legislation.

3) HR 872 The Reducing Regulatory Burdens Act-To amend the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act and the Federal Water Pollution Control Act to clarify Congressional intent regarding the regulation of the use of pesticides in or near navigable waters, and for other purposes.

4) HR 910 The Energy Tax Prevention Act-- To amend the Clean Air Act to prohibit the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency from promulgating any regulation concerning, taking action relating to, or taking into consideration the emission of a greenhouse gas to address climate change, and for other purposes.

5) HJ Res 37 Disapproval of FCC's Net Neutrality Regulations- The specific decision the House Resolution is referring to is in relation to the FCC vote last December on a proposal stating that internet providers could not limit a consumers access to websites. Apparently some internet browser sites are limiting consumer access to sites of the competition, in some cases erroneously stating that the limit is a result of bandwidth restrictions.

6) HR 1315 Consumer Financial Protection & Soundness Improvement Act-- Amends the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act to authorize the Chairperson of the Financial Stability Oversight Council to issue a stay of, or set aside, any regulation issued by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) upon the affirmative vote of the majority (currently, two-thirds) of Council members, excluding the Chair of the Commission of the CFPB (as provided for in this Act). They ought to be ashamed of this one, a complete capituation to Wall Street.

7) HR2587 Protecting Jobs From Government Interference Act-To prohibit the National Labor Relations Board from ordering any employer to close, relocate, or transfer employment under any circumstance.

8) HR2401 Transparency In Regulatory Analysis Of Impacts On The Nation To require analyses of the cumulative and incremental impacts of certain rules and actions of the Environmental Protection Agency, and for other purposes.

9) H.R. 2681: Cement Sector Regulatory Relief Act of 2011 To provide additional time for the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency to issue achievable standards for cement manufacturing facilities, and for other purposes.

10) H.R. 2250: EPA Regulatory Relief Act of 2011 To provide additional time for the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency to issue achievable standards for industrial, commercial, and institutional boilers, process heaters, and incinerators, and for other purposes.

11) H.R. 2273: Coal Residuals Reuse and Management Act To amend subtitle D of the Solid Waste Disposal Act to facilitate recovery and beneficial use, and provide for the proper management and disposal, of materials generated by the combustion of coal and other fossil fuels. Sounds so innocuous…

12) H.R. 674: 3% Withholding Repeal and Job Creation Act  To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to repeal the imposition of 3 percent withholding on certain payments made to vendors by government entities, to modify the calculation of modified adjusted gross income for purposes of determining eligibility for certain healthcare-related programs, and for other purposes.

Now that’s a record of givebacks to industries of all sorts that you can run on if you’re a republican.

We need to register and then we need to vote.

A Letter to An Angry Woman

Bless you, Ms Hartle. I am fascinated by the demonstrations and counter moves happening in social media where everyone takes their crack. Would be fascinated to know who posted their pic and statement first, because it sure has morphed into a tactic for both sides. Understanding that no one is really talking to the other party at the moment—both right and left are largely speaking to their own constituencies—but the heightened sense of dialogue one would hope would be a good thing. That is so long as it does not devolve into the sickening ethos of the Loudoun County GOP in Virginia.

Of course you are right to point out how petroleum dominates our consumer culture and the myriad ways that it does that. It also cannot be argued how interdependent we are on each other.

Elizabeth Warren made such a compelling argument this campaign season, dominated as it is by the various positions over who contributed and who didn’t and who is getting too much, and who needs to give something back. It seems to me that your point (from the right) is very similar to the argument that Warren makes, and in so doing you illuminate the absolute correctness of Warren’s central thesis which is that we all depend on each other on this world.

"There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own - nobody. You built a factory out there - good for you. But I want to be clear: you moved your goods to a market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory. Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific or a great idea. God bless! Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along."

Taken further one could also make the point that if we hope to continue to innovate and lead and create prosperity we need to continue to work together.

By the way I googled the salary of an average oil worker, came up with about $70,000. The President of Exxon Mobile, Rex Tillerson, in 2010 made in salary and bonus—which does not include the long list of additional perks and benefits-- nearly $6 million. He was also awarded 225,000 options of Exxon stock.  At the end of the 2010 when those shares were issued, Exxon’s share price was about $70, so the options awarded would have been about $18 Million, making his combined haul around $24 million.

So Exxon valued the contribution of the CEO at roughly 350 times that of your husband. On a tax basis, the shares are not taxable, so at max, Rex’s tax bill for 2010 would have only been calculated against his $6 million salary, and about 75% of his actual compensation would have been protected from taxation. We can be sure and take heart in the fact that you could have taken advantage of the standard deductions. However, all of that income would have been liable to taxation after deductions. Occupy.

I went to the 53% website. It seems to me that this sort of “democracy” serves the well to do, because it highlights and strengthens the schism between the middle and working class and the poor in this country. So long as these entities argue over where tax or health or jobs policy should be, the people with resources and the influence that purchases are free to legally use their immense wealth to continue to place a heavy thumb on the scales of justice. It really is stunning how many people on the 53’er site are struggling so mightily and yet direct all their anger to people that have even less than them. Actually, it seems that’s the whole point of the site.

I have no reason to doubt the sincerity of the original person who posted, your post, or those that responded in support. It cannot be denied that good corporate citizens pay taxes. I understand that contractors that build homes also often have to build roads and other infrastructure to support the families they hope to sell to. This is part of the investments these companies make to be good citizens in the community and so reach potential customers. Those contractors though did not build the interstate highway system. That was built on the collective tax base of the American public. We all know that much of our infrastructure is funded with federal tax dollars. 

But you seem well informed and must also know that many corporations have gamed the system up to and including the point of actually getting their paid lobbyists to help write legislation which is extremely favorable to them. In 2009 a total of $3.5 billion was spent on lobbying. That money was spent to support narrow economic interests. Almost 10% of it was spent by the healthcare and insurance industries alone, and their lobbying specifically was invested to protect their profits both now and in the future. I understand that there are those that think that their interests intersect with those of the industries, but capital unfettered by regulation tends to grow perversely. Corporations by their nature are there to create profits. They are not there to serve people.  I do not wish that they go away, but I do believe that an unregulated market ran amok.

The system is completely corrupted by this wash of cash, and it soils everything it touches. Perhaps the OWS crowd can’t articulate their rage well, but they know a rat when they see one and as with millions of other American’s there is such a general sense that power lies in someone else’s hands, just out of our line of sight or field of reach. It is the corruption of this money which led the SEC and the Fed to look the other way, which allowed all these firms to engage in a riotous Ponzi scheme investing in sub-prime loans and then bundling them as hi-grade derivative investments, insured by AIG, and sold to Fannie and Freddie. Just this week Citibank, a huge TARP recipient, admitted to and agreed to pay a fine for betting against the derivatives they sold.

The market, deregulated by Clinton, and heated up by low interest rates put in place right after 9-11 ran amok and everyone was making so much money no one wanted to look at the rot and corruption behind the curtain. Capitalism itself, always morally weak when left on its own, was corrupted by an overabundance of cheap money and lack of regulatory zeal. It seems to me that when the TEA Party crowd got started they were pretty angry about the corruption that TARP represented, especially the government bailouts of the big banks and financial institutions. That anger has now been displaced by ever more heated rhetoric against the poor or disenfranchised. Is it just a coincidence that this rhetoric parallels so nicely with the political needs and desires of the rich and super rich?

I see you’re retired now, and I’m sure put in your time. Do you really think that is a good thing? GE earned over $10 Billion and paid no taxes last year? Was there ever a year that you did not pay a dime? I know that since I was 17 there never was a year like that for me. Why all the anger and the poor and none at those with real wealth, those that have abused their power, and who it seems still hunger for a greater and greater piece of the pie, especially those that use taxpayer provided TARP money to start lobbying against any regulation of their markets before the ink was dry on the legislation???

I am confused about the Microsoft reference. Bill Gates is a brilliant guy and spends most of his time now doing good things. Great things even, as I am sure many of those do who made their fortunes on Microsoft. But does that mean that the CEO of Exxon is righteous in accepting compensation at a level 350 times that of the average oil field worker. Is it right that benevolent though he is Bill Gates should sit on a $50 billion pile of cash while a working mother of two has to decide between asthma medicines for her son, or new school clothes for her daughter. Should that mother who now may be exempt from paying taxes be forced to pay more than he Social Security payroll tax as many of these flt tax proposals would require? What message is that? Where is the morality of a country that demands that? Does the republican right really believe that 20 million unemployed and 10 million more underemployed are really just lazy? Is there no sense of the horrible thuggery of it all where selfishness masquerades as fairness?

I see devout Christians  speak in support of the original 53’er that started this all, but it seems to me  obscene to accept without  comment that so many of the least among us suffer so greatly while others amass unimaginable wealth. I am mystified that some with little real wealth of their own would from a Christian perspective defend that in any way. By the way I am neither unemployed nor poor. I am just angry at the absolute indecency of our current political and business environment.

It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God. Mark 10

But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. You will be repaid at the resurrection of the just. Luke 14

If Only The Whole World Was Watching

Sixteen cops were arrested Friday in NY and charged with ticket fixing. In addition to the more than 300 doctored ticket summonses involved, the indictments also include taking bribes related to drug dealing, hiding an assault, and leaking classified info. In response 100 cops and their Union leaders showed up at the Bronx Courthouse in Protest.

Carrying signs that mimicked what the mayor had said about the length of time it had been going on, many made the argument that “It’s a courtesy, not a crime”, and that this was the way business was done in the NYPD, saying it was part of the “NYPD Culture”.

While it is not clear that the protestors that showed up represent the entire force—it was after all an investigation maintained by the Internal Affairs Bureau (IAB) of the NYPD—it is very clear that the Union leadership is coming out hard saying the charges are illegitimate. When asked about the charges NYPD Benevolent Association Leader Pat Lynch said, “I say to them, in every profession there's professional courtesy," Lynch said. "In every profession your coworkers look out for you. I say they do that in their jobs. It's just a courtesy."

The head of the Union which now arrests OWS protesters for the nefarious crime of staying on the sidewalk indicates that he feels it’s only fair to have two sets of rules, one for his members and one for the public at large.

Interesting…

Multiple news outlets also reported that the demonstrating officers made demeaning and racially charged remarks to people in line nearby applying for welfare benefits.

This is not to indict the force of nearly 30,000 officers en masse, but the recent developments clearly indicate there are issues with at least some members, and those difficulties extend at least in some cases to contempt for the community which NYPD “serves and protects” as well as the law itself.

Seeing What is Left After All This Right

Hopefully, the country has gotten smarter after seeing their intentions.

You think so, Mark? I am asking sincerely. 20 years ago Romney, or at least the positions he claims to have would have been considered conservative. Today's conservative wants to dismantle the EPA, outlaw abortion, and cut taxes for the rich in ways that even Reagan would not have tried. They want an electrified fence and belittle each other for any policy of another candidate that espoused an ounce of human decency. Poor old Herman Cain comes out and says that a woman that is raped should have the choice to get an abortion though he would be personally opposed, and he is hounded by his opponents into an extreme position. Americans complain that they don't like the candidates, but in 1968, we had Bobby Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy, and McGovern competing for the dem nomination.

On the Republican side the conservative Nixon beat the East Coast Rockefeller. In Vietnam & Chile Nixon was pure evil, and domestically he was a creep, but he also created the EPA, signed the first Clean Air and Clean Water Acts, and signed off on OSHA, not to mention opening relations with China, and initiating détente with the Russians and signing the Ballistic Missile treaty. While running racially divisive campaigns in the south, Nixon also signed off on affirmative action programs at the federal level and supported the ERA. His record is to the left of Obama’s in most areas except foreign policy. Of course, he was a kook and a crook, but in exactly what ways has Obama led us into a more just progressive agenda. He has been stymied no question, but he has brought some of that on himself, by being astoundingly timid.

The whole country knows that Bush ran us into a ditch. If do-overs were allowed most Americans would judge Bush incapable of handling the office. But a scant three years later there is an enormous appetite to support far right candidates that would only provide more of the same, albeit with perhaps greater brain power.  Bush set that bar very, very low.

Polls, smolls, by the time we get to Election Day it will be a 51-49 vote, or maybe 52-48, and a very tight electoral college vote. I don't think we have learned s***, and that makes Americans the problem at least as much as our politicians.

It's My Rule Never to Lose My Temper Until It Would Be Detrimental to Keep It. Sean O'Casey

I have ignored the other candidates because other than Romney they ain’t going nowhere, although I had hoped we would have “the devil is in the details” Bachman to kick around for a bit longer.

I am not going to get into a back and forth on tax policy. Everyone knows the system is rigged to service special interests. My bottom line is that this gets better when we find some way to wring the obscene amount of money out of the electoral system. I would love to see the OWS crowd start banging that drum.

As long as Koch and others can find malleable boobs to carry their water arguing that dollars equals speech there will always be Herman Cain’s around. But the debilitating corruption in the system, which has to a great extent created this hard-right hard-left world we now operate in has affected both parties in very sinister ways.

Maybe it will never get better, I don’t know. I keep watching for that solitary figure, that political figure that shies from neither the poor or the well to do. We hoped Obama would be that leader that would make us want sacrifice and get us on a more correct path.

You see things; and you say, 'Why?' But I dream things that never were; and I say, "Why not?” George Bernard Shaw wrote it, but Bobby Kennedy ran on it. What did we get? Two parties arguing over what levels to subsidize the out of control conglomerate of insurance companies and the medical establishment. 50 million uninsured and the dems want to solve it by giving the insurance companies, that already exert too much control, even more power and wealth while the other party essentially says f*** them, offering no real solution to the crisis. Good things were in the bill I won’t argue that, but the real deal is how the lobbyists will mold the final execution—IF we ever get that far—and as we can see with the with the reregulation of Wall Street money talks and B*S* walks.

But I digress…

Cain has engaged in religious bigotry, proposed a tax policy which has a catchy name, but which everyone knows (including the entire republican field) would further exacerbate the transfer of wealth in America (just a huge problem in the US and around the world for that matter), and because he has shamelessly shilled for wealthiest and most powerful and had the unmitigated balls to blame the country’s problems on the unemployed, immigrants and so forth. He is not new. He is just the last in line. I didn’t like it in 1980 and I sure as hell don’t like it now.

The elements of this story are imaginary, but we all know there are millions like this. There is an unemployed mother of two. She has two kids and is trying to raise them well. Every day she makes decisions between rent & food, maybe medicine for an asthmatic boy, or clothes for a teenage daughter trying to find her way through the first year of middle school. The rich f*** millionaire that arrogantly sits back and says defiantly on national TV that her struggles are her fault, and that the fat bastards on Wall Street had nothing to do with her circumstances or millions of others with similar stories, deserves all the outrage any of us can muster. His statement is wholly and completely immoral.

The debates have shown the dark underbelly of the body politic. We have seen boos for a gay soldier, religious right nut-jobs cheering for the execution of 200-plus in Texas, and people shouting out that a hypothetical guy with no health insurance deserves to die if he gets sick and cannot pay for a doctor. None of the candidates, most especially Romney have acquitted themselves particularly well, each time standing in stony silence or claiming they couldn’t hear what was said, never once challenging the thuggery behind it all. And now we have this figure joking about executing desperate aliens on the border with electric fencing. Actually he said he was joking, but did want the electrified fence.

Yet they all court the religious right, god fearing people who are so happy with an eye for an eye, but ignore the teachings to feed the hungry, and care for the least among us. I am not particularly religious, but those on the religious right that claim all this in the name of some distorted God are neither religious nor right.

$5 bil is proposed for disaster relief. Now they argue for fiscal restraint, but a few years ago they were authorizing 5.0 bil a week to prosecute two wars, one of which was certainly engaged in for wholly unethical reasons.

So yeah, I’m spitting mad. At the moment Cain is the flag bearer for this whole parade of sycophants and criminals, so he gets all my bile. To speak to that with moderation- to me at least- his cowardly. Perhaps we cannot change all this, but we start by calling that which is immoral exactly what it is. I hope the bastard lives to be a hundred, I could care less, but I oppose everything he and those like him stand for.

Herman Cain is Brilliant!

Just check this copyrighted article from the North Star Writers Group dated Sept-01, 2008 in which in his own words Cain presents his prescient views on the state of the economy. This was written two weeks before the bankruptcy of Lehman and the whole spiral of AIG, Freddy & Fannie, TARP, etc.

Herman Cain:

“Once again, when Democrats don’t like the facts, they just ignore them with the help of the mainstream media.

“On August 26, Investor’s Business Daily reported data from the Internal Revenue Service showing that the average U.S. income had increased every year for five straight years through 2006...

“The following day, Sen. Joe Biden declared in his vice-presidential acceptance speech that ‘John McCain thinks that during the Bush years we’ve made great progress economically, I think it’s been abysmal!’ Great progress or abysmal, you make the call…

“... The supposed failure of Bush’s economic policies has been a constant theme of the Democrats since the 2006 elections, when the Democrats regained control of the House and Senate by convincing enough of the voters that the economic sky was falling, and that the war in Iraq could not be won. Based on all of their convention speeches, they plan to continue those themes right through Election Day on November 4.

“They are counting on a gullible and uninformed electorate to win the White House and a larger majority in Congress.”

Seven weeks later on Oct-20,2008, Cain wrote a second article for the Northstar Writer’s Group. This article, also copyrighted by Cain, offered full throated support for the creation of the TARP program enacted Oct-08, 2008 and signed into law by Bush. This legislation the soul of the US government’s efforts to protect those too big to fail while letting thousands lose their homes and millions fall into unemployment and poverty, is at the heart of WHAT OWS anger is about. TARP was first installment of $300 billion in what would become a multi trillion aid effort. The programs, too timid in their execution and too top heavy in their formulation, did save US & world from economic catastrophe, primarily be propping up big banks, Wall Street trading firms, insurance giants, and the auto companies, but left millions more in dire financial straits. The inequitable distribution of those monies along with the certain knowledge that tax payer monies used to bail out these firms is now being used to lobby to weaken regulations to prevent this sort of calamity again is what OWS all about.

Cain both suggested that the potential for catastrophe was small, and then weeks later came out in favor of the TARP bailout funds. The Tea Party types, initially outraged by the bail outs, now hold Cain as their champion. The level to which we are ill informed even with the multitude of information and media outlets available to us is truly stunning. And the speed at which Tea Party has been coopted by big biz interests and the conservative repub machine is mind boggling.

Herman Cain:

“Earth to taxpayers! Owning stocks in banks is not nationalization of the banking industry. It’s trying to solve a problem.

“The unprecedented financial crisis has caused the Treasury of the United States to take unprecedented measures to help solve the problem of frozen credit and cash flow for U.S. businesses.

“Most of us had dreams of what we wanted to be when we grew up as children. Some of us wanted to grow up and become a fireman, a policeman, a doctor, a nurse, a lawyer, a teacher, an actor, an engineer, a writer, a dancer, a chef or any number of other professions.

“But some of us wanted to own a bank because that’s where the money is!

“Wake up people! Owning a part of the major banks in America is not a bad thing. We could make a profit while solving a problem.

“But the mainstream media and the free market purists want you to believe that this is the end of capitalism as we know it. It is not for several reasons that they have conveniently not explained.”

I would love to see Cain make this speech again. Perhaps at tonight’s debate.

Post Script: Cain did defend his posture on TARP. Socialism is only really bad and can only really be called that when the government uses its resources to help the poor. TARP was crisis management. That's a whole different deal!

Herman Cain Defends America

Herman Cain is catching up with Bachman in the loonie kazoonie department. Last night on Jay Leno he again “clarified” remarks on his the Sharia law and the prospects of Muslim Americans joining his cabinet or administration. Many state legislatures have passed bans against Sharia law, including some where the percentage of Muslims is microscopic. Most of the republican candidates have also gone “on record” in their opposition to Sharia law as well, all too happy to jump on an unconstitutional McCarthyite bandwagon which demonizes all Muslim Americans in a least common denominator chase for conservative votes. There is of course zero chance that Sharia law will be incorporated into the laws of any state or the federal government.
But Cain tried to do them one better by saying that he would not appoint a Muslim in his administration and telling Christiane Amanpour that “I get upset when the Muslims in this country, some of them, try to force their Sharia law onto the rest of us.”

Though Cain later apologized to Muslim groups, he has continued to spout his anti-sharia law rhetoric on the campaign trail. The issue came up with Jay Leno last night.
After Leno suggested the position “didn’t seem very American” Cain clarified his remarks. "I wanted to drive home the point that there are peaceful Muslims, and then there are those that want to kill us. And I basically, when I was asked that question, I did answer, would you appoint a Muslim, and I said no. I was thinking jihadist, and I did not qualify that point, but I qualified it later." Oh, so now I understand, he did not mean to cast all Muslims in the role of terrorists for the chance to chase votes, what he was really saying was that he would not appoint a jihadi terrorist-- “those that want to kill us”-- to his cabinet. Apparently some of other candidates think it would be OK. Well, that is very clear and does not sound like pandering to the Tonight show audience at all.

In fairness, not all of the republicans are xenophobic hotheads. Chris Christie appointed a Muslim Judge, Sohail Mohammed, a lawyer with long history of defending the civil rights of those in his community, like civil rights lawyers have done since the founding days. Few remember that as a lawyer John Adams defended a British Soldier in a capital case long before he was a founder, but I digress.
Forced to defend the nomination at a town hall meeting Christie said, “If it is disqualifying for the bench to be an Arab-American in New Jersey who represents innocent people and gets them released, then this isn’t the state I believe it is,” Christie said. “I’ve known this man for 10 years. He’s a good, decent American and New Jerseyan, he’s an outstanding lawyer, and he deserves the opportunity to be on the bench. I am proud to have nominated him.”

If Christie refused to take the “not one dollar in taxes for ten dollars in spending decreases” pledge as all the others have done, and actually proposed policies designed to unite rather than play to the narrow minority it might have been interesting. As Tom Friedman wrote today, it would have likely forced Obama into a more conciliatory centrist posture. As a liberal that is pretty sick of that posture, I am not sure that would have been a good thing, but I do think this campaign would have been much more about ideas than slogans.

Now we’re stuck with a Texan that can put a sentence together, a patrician New Englander that hates most the policies he himself proposed and authorized while Governor of Massachusetts , Ron Paul, and a cast of wing nuts, extreme in their positions, bizarre in their statements, safely unelectable. And Herman Cain. At least we know he will not appoint any “people that want to kill us” to his administration. Whew… That was close.

Justice Day

"The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice..." MLK
With his position still undeclared, Senator Mark J. Grisanti, a Republican from Buffalo who had sought office promising to oppose same-sex marriage, told his colleagues he had agonized for months before concluding he had been wrong.
“I apologize for those who feel offended,” Mr. Grisanti said, adding, “I cannot deny a person, a human being, a taxpayer, a worker, the people of my district and across this state, the State of New York, and those people who make this the great state that it is the same rights that I have with my wife.”

Just one lawmaker rose to speak against the bill: Rubén Díaz Sr. of the Bronx, the only Democratic senator to cast a no vote. Mr. Díaz, saying he was offended by the two-minute restrictions set on speeches, repeatedly interrupted the presiding officer who tried to limit the senator’s remarks, shouting, “You don’t want to hear me.”
“God, not Albany, has settled the definition of marriage, a long time ago,” Mr. Díaz said.

I Love New York

I saw Paul Simon last night at the Beekman, a classic Art Deco Theatre on Broadway in the 70’s in New York.

My brother called about 4:00 with an extra ticket, so I hustled into New York’s Penn Station and then walked almost 40 blocks uptown to the theatre. I have been working in New Jersey for years, and when I get the chance to get back on the streets in the city, there is a part of my that rises to it, embraces its rhythm, wants to ingest its pure essence in massive doses. I love New York.

I grew up here really, arriving like a 21 year old hick with a dumb cowboy hat which attracted all manner of miscreants and was soon purposefully lost. But the stink of my small-town-ness lingered on me, codified who I was even as I adapted completely to the habitat. There is something comforting and same about the metropolis even as it is morphs slowly and at times with great speed into something again, unrecognizable.

Walking through Penn Station, you see them in rather large numbers. Not sure if they are Army or National Guard, but they are unavoidable. Soldiers, mostly men, in full camo, and I think body armor, and even for me unmistakable, The M-16’s. M-16’s!!! And no doubt radiation detectors. This, too, is what we are now, or at least it is the sea we traverse across each day. They are there for our protection, I know this. But one has to wonder what became of the dream, more than 40 years after the summer of love, almost 50 years after I Have a Dream, this is our world. The whiff of failure looms in their presence.

Penn Station is a bustling place, but it has weird dark blue lighting and one cannot escape the hollow, vacant faces of those that are hurting, so reaching the street is a relief. Marc Cohen’s Walking In Memphis is on my IPod, as I come up the stairs on Seventh Avenue across the Street from the Penta, Formerly the Stadler where I landed in 1978. It has had three owners since. But when I arrived and stayed in that old monster that August, it often seemed like the streets around that hotel would melt from the heat.

New York was dirty then. And dangerous. And I know this is wrong, but I loved it. The energy attacked your nervous system. There was sensory overload. Hot, crowded, impossible to absorb or comprehend what was around you.

Some of that is still there. I started up 7th Avenue as I have so many times, weaving thru the rush hour crowd, mostly moving in the opposite direction of the hordes hustling towards Penn Station and their trains home. I am a pinball, bouncing back and forth between the suits, tourists, and immigrants. Mink Deville’s Mixed Up, Shook Up Girl comes in with the slapping guitar and triangle. I see a young woman with flip flops and a business suit, and I think, “Really? Still?” Two teenagers with funny glasses, announcing themselves as prey, are stuck on the corner of 34th looking at their map.
7th Avenue north of 34th quiets down quite a bit until you approach 40th and get close to the new Times Square.

In Times Square, business people evaporate, excepting a few suits with their jackets off, over their shoulders, escaping their midtown hotels. Crowds are lined up here and there, for reasons one cannot know. A big Jewish crowd is gathered at the entrance to the Radison. Everywhere there are handbills. My family could recycle for a decade and never compensate for the waste.

Back in the day Time’s Square was bright at night, but now it is a wildly lit media center. TV newspeople stare down at the masses from their studios, and about half way up Times Square there is a nearly half block long screen with a camera shot of those below. Everyone waves to see themselves on the big Screen above the square until they realize that they have been suckered when their image is replace by a half block long advertisement. I stop and look, but don’t wave. In the Theatre District the women are dressed in their finery, the men compliantly matched, for their evening on the town. Steely Dan’s Haitian Divorce sneaks through the buds in my ears.

People complain about the encumbrances to traffic in the Square now, but to me it is neither better nor worse. Like much of the change on this hard to hold place, it just is. But is massively easier to walk through now and I make good time.

From the late 70’s to the mid-80’s Times Square was a mosh pit of danger, tourists and culture. The Clash played at the Bond Night Club there, and even for me the place was too big, dark looking and foreign to venture in. To the New York of drag queens, hard core club kids, and danger I was still a frightened little tourist with a map, but no guide, but Oh Lord how I loved it. Springsteen played Max’s Kansas City in early 1978. Just before me, but I probably would have missed it anyway for similar reasons. It takes a while when you arrive to not feel and act like a tourist or a transient.

I continue with a swift step uptown. Avoid unnecessary eye contact, keep moving, and disregard or refuse the ubiquitous handbills, all classic maneuvers. Cat Steven’s Father and Son lingers with me as I walk. I use to hear this as the son, but now both my daughter and my son age too quickly, and I am the father trying to sort things out.

“I was once like you are now, and I know that it’s not easy
To be calm when you’ve found something going on
Take your time, think a lot,
Why, Think of everything you got
You may still be here tomorrow, but your dreams will not…”

But then I am rattled out of my nostalgia and longing by a women wearing leg warmers, sandals, and a skirt and blouse. A Madonna convention? Perhaps I was too hard on the flip flop girls. I am mesmerized and consider the fashion choice for a quarter block as she approaches. The couple draws near arm in arm. I see now, she is of that age that would have worn the leg warmers when Flashdance was in the theatres. I saw it, in New York in a movie theatre back when it came out. Can’t recall for sure, but I think I took my friend Calvin.

It masqueraded as a chic flick, notwithstanding the famous dance scene with the water cascading down Jennifer Beals. The woman approaching me wanted to be the maniac, check that, wants to be the maniac. Crazy how some things will make one chuckle inwardly. The horns in Al Green’s I Can’t Get Next to You pelt my brain.

North of the Square I pass the bar I paused at on 9-11. Literally outside the Sullivan theatre where Letterman has been doing his thing for years. The bar where I first saw the videos of the towers coming down is gone. I had stopped in for a drink, in grief and I think shock, walking towards the George Washington Bridge from 33rd street. 180 blocks. That was my plan. In its place, the bar has been replaced by another faceless pizza parlor. An irreverence to me, is a convenience for those that replace me in this space.

The acoustic guitar opening from Pete Townsend and Ronnie Lane’s Street in the City builds as I approach Columbus Square, forever transformed by the new Warner building complex. I worry as I walk about my employment situation, but my thoughts do no stay there long.

I keep passing Muslim women. I don’t recall seeing many in the 70’s. Now I see some with just headscarves. Then I pass a couple, the man walking with the woman, but a pace or two ahead, accident of the crowd or expected I wonder. Headscarves I can absorb. So many religions and cultures cover their head’s to please the heavenly god they worship. But the absolute fear of women that inspires the burka or the Hassidic wig and headscarves I cannot fathom. These are the days of miracles, wonder and primitive fear. And then right in front of that glistening tower, I see a woman in a burka, hailing a cab, complete head to toe covering, carrying a brightly covered book bag, with the slogan “2 Teach a child is to affect them 4ever”.

Getting ready for Paul Simon, I click the IPod to Graceland and then Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes, Ta Na, Na, Na Na, Ta Na Na Na Na…

Lincoln Center now. The cultural Mecca of the city. I have walked though the courtyard dozens of times. Recall vividly more than once drifting into the background of tourist photos there, an old trick that used to amuse me. Still does. I always hoped that people would get home from their trips, scattered to the four corners, and wonder, “Who's that guy?”I have used the interior facilities, pristine as Seinfeld’s George noted, but never once entered to see a concert. But the massive Chagall, The Triumph of Music, is still there. The angel blesses those who stand in the greatness of her beauty. Just to the west, on that apartment building on 64th street, the other statue of liberty.

Here and there ballet dancers pass, hair drawn tightly into a bun, rail thin and athletic. Dance studios still abound in the area for smallish young men and women with biggish dreams. Back then I used to love to have breakfast in one of the nearby diners and watch them come and go. Calvin lived on 66th Street, so I came though here often in the late 70’s and early 80’s. From the projects you could see the Hudson and dream of escape across the river or anywhere. But now one of Trumps piggish castles blocks the sun. And the view of escape. The projects now bounded on all sides by opulence, pointing the neglect inward, so those on the edges can easily look away and ignore it. In another block or two I pass the Museum of Modern Commerce, the Apple store, all slick surfaces and minimalist displays, but every gadget has a customer fiddling with it.

I Get the news I need on the weather report
I can gather all the news I need on the weather report

The Only Living Boy in New York, with Garfunkel’s soaring harmony carries me the rest of the way to the Beacon. Out front I find Mark quickly and we both note that we are younger than the average audience member. People arrive in walkers, and as we wait a van pulls up and the back door slides open as Grandma de-vans with her wheel chair. Sidewalk Stub-Hubbers pedal their wares.

Inside the retirees are a surprisingly lively bunch. Next to us a contemporary of my mother sings quietly to almost every song. But her version of Here Comes the Sun, one of Simon’s encores raises the most longing in me. She sings neither well or poorly, but there is something in there of the guitar masses from 1969, something in the way my Mom sung those secular songs, reverently, joyfully, and yet somehow flatly, something about not wanting to stick out in the crowd I think. Sometimes made you wonder if they ever understood the profound affect they had on us and the changes we were going though and what the country was going through as well. Not just the Beatles and Simon and Garfunkel, but all of it. From the Kinks to the Clash. Dylan and Ian Drury, Stokely and King.

Around here it’s still the ’69 Mets, the joyous miracle. But in my memory, it will always be the ’69 Cubs, the wretched collapse. Lost something then. Learned something too. Sometimes life is loss, sometimes even when it seems you are close, you are so much farther then you know.

On the way home it lingers with me until I have to acknowledge it. We grew up. I grew up. Of course Mom knew, because she had to travel the same road of change, and loss, and hopefully, finally acceptance.

And all at once I just want the change to stop. That engine that has propelled me and this great city has gone too far, and something that I needed is gone. I forgot something back there, and I just need to sneak back in to get it. You know that feeling you just feel instinctively you’ve left something so you start patting the pockets, and as I do the space below my neck where I always sling my reading glasses. I want to go back. I need to go back. Alright maybe I’ll lose that hat.

But I want to go back. I Just want… I Just want… I Just want to do it all over again.

Peace, and many thanks and muich love to Brother Mark...