When I witness the hilarious mouth-frothing of the Foxes over the great ACORN scandal, my memory takes me back to a musical theater stage in post-riot Detroit. In John and Dorothy Ashby's splendid jazz play, "Three Six," the approach of the white police would be signaled by the distant sound of sirens, whereupon the black cast would break out into song: "Ring around the ghetto, keep the Niggers in. Let them knife each other, fighting' over gin."
As the police arrived onstage they heard a torrent of misinformation that sent them scurrying off on wild goose chases. Then their real prey, the king of the numbers books and his runners, emerged from hiding and resumed the day's business.
"Three Six" was a whimsical depiction of real life in the black ghetto as it existed on the evening when a white police raid on a black after-hours drinking and gambling dive set off the rampage that killed what was then America's fifth-largest city.
Against a similar backdrop, the Foxes are shocked, SHOCKED!, that some ACORN employees were receptive to and willing to help establish a house of ill repute suggested by the Fox scammers who set them up.
Fox conveniently did not mention the ACORN employees who saw through the ruse. One threw them out of the office. Another gave them some hum -- "Ah done kilt bof' ma husbins" -- which the big fools bit into and didn't even retract when the local sheriff reported that both men were alive and well and laughing like hell at Beck, O'Reilly and the other whiteys who were so easy to fool.
ACORN is a grassroots outfit that has tasked itself with showing ghetto residents how to lift themselves up by the bootstraps. One of its operations is a vast, nationwide effort to register poor blacks, hispanics and others as legal voters. To give them a voice in a government that otherwise is hostile to them. It recruits most of its employees and most of its fee-for-servicer voter registration workers off the streets of the ghetto.
Is it really shocking, SHOCKING ! that some of these people, approached by slick-talking dudes in fine threads and flashing very long green, might think that a nice, clean, well-run whorehouse could be good for the neighborhood? Bring in some tax-free white money, fix up a rundown place and make it look real nice, provide a few jobs. What's surprising is that so many of these rung-in "Niggers" were smart enough not to fall for the Foxes' hoax.
Virtually all of the legitimate voters enrolled by the ACORN workers vote Democrat, which is what really worms the Foxes.
The registration teams, recruited right off the ghetto streets and paid serious Johnny Walker Red money for each voter they signed up, of course gamed the system and registered thousands of non-existent voters, or ineligible ones. Grow up on the streets and that's what you know: game the system.
Who's guiltier, the ACORN dudes with sixth-grade educations in ghetto schools who enrolled fictitious voters, or the Yale and Liberty Law School educated lawyers and shills who disenfranchised thousands of legal voters in Florida, Ohio, Indiana and elsewhere to steal elections for the GOP?
American racism comes in subtle tones, not always in black and white. The hypocritical flap over ACORN is just one more racist bleat from the white far right.
They cannot get over the fact that there's a black man -- A BLACK MAN! -- in "their" White House.
"Don't tell Momma I'm a journalist; say I play the piano in a whorehouse."
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Friday, September 18, 2009
Why Are We Such Cowards?
Chris Hedges, whose work as a reporter and thinker I have long admired, has issued a call to anger to Americans outside the madness of the far right. Although our deluded national passion for war is an important target of his essay, citizen passivity that enables war and other government failures is what he's really railing against.
This is his concluding paragraph:
It is we who are guilty, guilty for sending (our) young men and women to wars that did not have to be fought. It is we who are guilty for turning away from the truth of war to wallow in a self-aggrandizing myth, guilty because we create and decorate killers and when they come home maimed and broken we discard them. It is we who are guilty for failing to defy a Democratic Party that since 1994 has betrayed the working class by destroying our manufacturing base, slashing funds to assist the poor and cravenly doing the bidding of corporations. It is we who are guilty for refusing to mass on Washington and demand single-payer, not-for-profit health care for all Americans. It is we who are guilty for supporting Democrats while they funnel billions in taxpayer dollars to sustain speculative Wall Street interests. The rage of the confused and angry right-wing marchers, the ones fired up by trash-talking talk show hosts, the ones liberals belittle and maybe even laugh at, should be our rage. And if it is not our rage soon, if we continue to humiliate and debase ourselves by begging Obama to be Obama, we will see our open society dismantled not because of the shrewdness of the far right, but because of our moral cowardice.
Why are we such moral cowards? Why do we permit parrots of the trash-talkers to perpetuate hateful myths and utter falsehoods in our local media? Why do we allow the far right to rewrite the political vocabulary, so that "liberal" becomes a term of derision, "pro life" becomes the euphemism for those who believe in killing abortion providers, and the moral imperative of government-guaranteed health care for every citizen becomes "socialism?" Why do we demean the handful of courageous members of Congress who saw through the emotionalism and deliberate falsehoods and dared to vote against the so-called Patriot Act, against the invasion of Iraq and against the Military Commissions Act that makes a mockery of our Constitution? Why were we not present in greater numbers than the confused and angry right-wing marchers, outshouting them and demanding that the failed policies of the preceding eight years be overturned, reversed, repealed, undone and that true reform begin to take place . . . .NOW!
Why not a better country? Why not NOW?
This is his concluding paragraph:
It is we who are guilty, guilty for sending (our) young men and women to wars that did not have to be fought. It is we who are guilty for turning away from the truth of war to wallow in a self-aggrandizing myth, guilty because we create and decorate killers and when they come home maimed and broken we discard them. It is we who are guilty for failing to defy a Democratic Party that since 1994 has betrayed the working class by destroying our manufacturing base, slashing funds to assist the poor and cravenly doing the bidding of corporations. It is we who are guilty for refusing to mass on Washington and demand single-payer, not-for-profit health care for all Americans. It is we who are guilty for supporting Democrats while they funnel billions in taxpayer dollars to sustain speculative Wall Street interests. The rage of the confused and angry right-wing marchers, the ones fired up by trash-talking talk show hosts, the ones liberals belittle and maybe even laugh at, should be our rage. And if it is not our rage soon, if we continue to humiliate and debase ourselves by begging Obama to be Obama, we will see our open society dismantled not because of the shrewdness of the far right, but because of our moral cowardice.
Why are we such moral cowards? Why do we permit parrots of the trash-talkers to perpetuate hateful myths and utter falsehoods in our local media? Why do we allow the far right to rewrite the political vocabulary, so that "liberal" becomes a term of derision, "pro life" becomes the euphemism for those who believe in killing abortion providers, and the moral imperative of government-guaranteed health care for every citizen becomes "socialism?" Why do we demean the handful of courageous members of Congress who saw through the emotionalism and deliberate falsehoods and dared to vote against the so-called Patriot Act, against the invasion of Iraq and against the Military Commissions Act that makes a mockery of our Constitution? Why were we not present in greater numbers than the confused and angry right-wing marchers, outshouting them and demanding that the failed policies of the preceding eight years be overturned, reversed, repealed, undone and that true reform begin to take place . . . .NOW!
Why not a better country? Why not NOW?
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Memo to Bill Moyers
FROM: Mort Persky
Dear Bill-- I learned some worthwhile things from your Nancy Youssef interview, but was troubled by most of what I heard. Aren't two of the most important things Ms. Youssef said at irreconcilable odds with virtually everything she says about the situation on the ground in Afghanistan, especially the war?
These are the two things I'm talking about:
1. She said Gen. McChrystle wants and needs more time to get it right, and that it would be a good thing if he gets that time. How much time? Years? Months? And more importantly, to do what, to achieve what? As far as I can tell, she doesn't know, nor does anyone else.
2. She said it was good news that the U.S. seemed on the verge of "committing itself" to the war. Can it be good to commit ourselves to a war that fits her description of it?
She describes a war and a country in which we aren't sure what we're doing or need to do, don't know who the enemy is even when we see him (or think we see him), a country so big and uncontrollable it resists any strategy we can execute or envision now (or with "more time"?) a country filled with people who want desperately to be left alone by us and the Taliban, who will never leave because it's their country and "they own it.".
Under these circumstances, how can it be good news that Gen. McChrystle might have "more time to get it right" or that our country would commit itself to doing the job? What job? Ms. Youssef either doesn't know or can't say, and she's hardly alone.
"We wanted that war to be relevant," she says, "and that's an important goal." Is that what we've got a "too small" contingent of 100,000 coalition troops fighting for -- the goal of being relevant when nobody knows what that means, much less what it requires of us?
Monday, September 14, 2009
Dealing with Race (Part II)
Three widely separated recent events underscore the insidious way in which racial tensions have risen in the United States to a point unequaled since Watts, Newark and Detroit exploded into deadly rioting.
One of them famously brought a white Cambridge policeman and a black Harvard professor to a beer-sipping truce talk at the White House. The sudsfest accomplished little except to bring a modicum of civility into the adversaries' agreement to disagree.
Another was the white South Carolina congressman's shouted insult, "You lie," on the floor of the House of Representatives during a joint session of Congress for a Presidential address on the most important issue facing the reppublic at this time.
The third was on a tennis court in Flushing, N.Y., when a white linesman made a call that triggered a profanity-laced rage by a black player at a critical point in a United States Open semifinal match.
There were different complexities surrounding each episode, but in each the first and most profound question was essentially the same.
Case No. 1: Would the white policeman have responded in the same manner if the Harvard professor breaking into his own home had been white?
Case No. 2: Would the white congressman have been treated with the same kid gloves, even hero worship in some quarters, if the President had been white?
Case No. 3: Would the tennis player have been treated so severely if she had been white?
I suspect that roughly 47% of Americans would answer those questions one way, and 53% would answer the opposite way. No, it is NOT coincidental that those were exactly the percentages of the votes cast last November for the Republican and Democratic candidates for president.
Rather than bringing us together in a new era of melting-pot American togetherness, the election of our first Black President has brought the dormant racism in the body politic to boil to the surface.
It is time for President Obama -- who has been a disappointment to me and many other supporters -- to dart into a phone booth, change clothes, and emerge as Candidate Obama. To punch out the lying villains with forthright, carefully engineered, moderately progressive policies on the economy, peace, justice, health care and civil liberties, and to lead us vigorously to their enactment.
And on race.
Mr. Obama should re-read the words he spoke to the nation on March 18, 2008, in the shadow of those icons of American democracy, Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell.
We have come far, he said, because "Americans in successive generations were willing to do their part – through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk - to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time."
Where are the risk takers now?
To the haters, the gun-and-sign-toters, he said: "we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together – unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction – towards a better future for our children and our grandchildren."
For that appeal to unity he got Rush Limbaugh pasting a Hitler mustache on his image, "birthers," tea-party nuts and Joe Wilson.
Candidate Obama pointed to his primary victories against a white opponent in states "with some of the whitest populations in the country" including Joe Wilson's South Carolina. He did not mention the deep racial divides revealed in any analysis of those votes.
Candidate Obama addressed the Christians on the other side of the divide:
"What is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world’s great religions demand – that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother’s keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister’s keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well."
Our politics. It's not a game wherein our better angels often prevail.
Take off the gloves, Mr. President. Take off the gloves and put on the brass knuckles and wade into the bigots and ignoramuses and draw some blood.
One of them famously brought a white Cambridge policeman and a black Harvard professor to a beer-sipping truce talk at the White House. The sudsfest accomplished little except to bring a modicum of civility into the adversaries' agreement to disagree.
Another was the white South Carolina congressman's shouted insult, "You lie," on the floor of the House of Representatives during a joint session of Congress for a Presidential address on the most important issue facing the reppublic at this time.
The third was on a tennis court in Flushing, N.Y., when a white linesman made a call that triggered a profanity-laced rage by a black player at a critical point in a United States Open semifinal match.
There were different complexities surrounding each episode, but in each the first and most profound question was essentially the same.
Case No. 1: Would the white policeman have responded in the same manner if the Harvard professor breaking into his own home had been white?
Case No. 2: Would the white congressman have been treated with the same kid gloves, even hero worship in some quarters, if the President had been white?
Case No. 3: Would the tennis player have been treated so severely if she had been white?
I suspect that roughly 47% of Americans would answer those questions one way, and 53% would answer the opposite way. No, it is NOT coincidental that those were exactly the percentages of the votes cast last November for the Republican and Democratic candidates for president.
Rather than bringing us together in a new era of melting-pot American togetherness, the election of our first Black President has brought the dormant racism in the body politic to boil to the surface.
It is time for President Obama -- who has been a disappointment to me and many other supporters -- to dart into a phone booth, change clothes, and emerge as Candidate Obama. To punch out the lying villains with forthright, carefully engineered, moderately progressive policies on the economy, peace, justice, health care and civil liberties, and to lead us vigorously to their enactment.
And on race.
Mr. Obama should re-read the words he spoke to the nation on March 18, 2008, in the shadow of those icons of American democracy, Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell.
We have come far, he said, because "Americans in successive generations were willing to do their part – through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk - to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time."
Where are the risk takers now?
To the haters, the gun-and-sign-toters, he said: "we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together – unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction – towards a better future for our children and our grandchildren."
For that appeal to unity he got Rush Limbaugh pasting a Hitler mustache on his image, "birthers," tea-party nuts and Joe Wilson.
Candidate Obama pointed to his primary victories against a white opponent in states "with some of the whitest populations in the country" including Joe Wilson's South Carolina. He did not mention the deep racial divides revealed in any analysis of those votes.
Candidate Obama addressed the Christians on the other side of the divide:
"What is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world’s great religions demand – that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother’s keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister’s keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well."
Our politics. It's not a game wherein our better angels often prevail.
Take off the gloves, Mr. President. Take off the gloves and put on the brass knuckles and wade into the bigots and ignoramuses and draw some blood.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
GOP Looks in Mirror, Sees Joe Wilson
The true nature of the opposition to health care reform was exposed on national television Wednesday night for all the world to see.
A South Carolina Republican leapt to his feet and shouted "You lie!" to the President of the United States during a special session of both houses of Congress.
It was an unprecedented breach of civility for such an occasion -- and a perfect demonstration of the tactics the Republican right wing has used over and over again to turn the public debate on the most important national issue of the day into a hate-spewing shouting match.
Joe Wilson was simply following the playbook.
The media bought, hook, line and sinker, the "spontaneity" of the shouts at the disrupted town hall meetings, where similar uncivility was directed at congressmen and senators. At that same time, the media ignored what was happening at free, public health clinics all around the country: the uninsured, and the under-insured, camped out and stood in line for eight to 28 hours, just to see a dentist or get a prescription for Grandma. There could be no more powerful case for significant health care reform -- now.
Yet it went unreported.
And we are left to realize that the president's eloquent and cogent and detailed message for health care reform is not carrying the day.
Joe Wilson is carrying the day.
To our everlasting discredit.
A South Carolina Republican leapt to his feet and shouted "You lie!" to the President of the United States during a special session of both houses of Congress.
It was an unprecedented breach of civility for such an occasion -- and a perfect demonstration of the tactics the Republican right wing has used over and over again to turn the public debate on the most important national issue of the day into a hate-spewing shouting match.
Joe Wilson was simply following the playbook.
The media bought, hook, line and sinker, the "spontaneity" of the shouts at the disrupted town hall meetings, where similar uncivility was directed at congressmen and senators. At that same time, the media ignored what was happening at free, public health clinics all around the country: the uninsured, and the under-insured, camped out and stood in line for eight to 28 hours, just to see a dentist or get a prescription for Grandma. There could be no more powerful case for significant health care reform -- now.
Yet it went unreported.
And we are left to realize that the president's eloquent and cogent and detailed message for health care reform is not carrying the day.
Joe Wilson is carrying the day.
To our everlasting discredit.
Saturday, September 5, 2009
A Tale for Texas Children
When the Texas schools decided to protect their students from the President's seditious teachings about responsibility and hard work, they offered readings of fairy tales instead.
This is one of them (translation from the original Algonquian Arapaho dialect by Ann White Feather):
A giant came into the forest and began to harvest all the walnuts. Soon, squirrels were starving.
The surviving squirrels summoned a council and elected one of their number, Bushy Tail, to appeal to the forest gods.
"Only you are powerful enough to control this giant," Bushy Tail told the gods. "Please save some walnuts for us to eat."
"The nut market regulates itself," the chief god said. "Stop whimpering."
And so all the squirrels in the forest died.
Another giant appeared in the forest and began to take all the berries and honey. Soon the bears were starving.
The bears summoned a council and elected one of their number, Smokey, to journey to the forest gods and appeal to them for succor.
"Only you are powerful enough to regulate this giant," Smokey said, "and save some berries and honey for us to eat."
"Sorry," said the chief god, "but it's not a bear market. Stop whimpering."
Soon all the bears in the forest were dead of starvation.
Another giant came into the forest. This giant dug up the bushes and small trees and sold them to landscapers in Las Vegas. Soon the deer were starving.
The surviving deer summoned a council and elected Bambi to appeal to the forest gods on their behalf.
"Only you are powerful enough to stop this giant," Bambi told the gods. "Please save some forage for us to eat."
"That would make you a welfare queen," the chief god told Bambi. "Stop whimpering."
Soon all the deer in the forest were dead.
Another giant came into the forest. Before this giant could decide what to take from the remaining resources of the forest, the surviving animals and birds and insects held a council.
"Let us organize," said Bobcat. "Yes," said Beaver, "together we can protect everyone's food supply and force the giants to go elsewhere." And so they formed a union.
When the giant went to harvest walnuts, Eagle clawed at him and Woodpecker drummed a Gene Krupa riff on his skull while Groundhog gnawed on his anklebone. So the giant left the walnut trees alone and went to harvest berries and honey. But the bees stung him and Skunk sprayed him and Turtle gummed him a wicked one on the great toe.
The giant appealed to the forest gods. "The animals formed a union and now they're stinging me, biting me, pecking me, clawing me and otherwise preventing me from pillaging the forest resources."
"This is socialism," the chief god decreed. "It must stop."
The giant summoned other giants and they took what they pleased from the forest.
All the birds and animals and insects of the forest died.
The giants called a meeting on the mountaintop and threw a grand old party.
"I've got more walnuts than any giant in the history of the world," the first giant declared.
"My supply of berries and honey is so large that I can charge any price that I want for them," the second giant said.
"I've got the last remaining green things in the world," said the third giant.
When the party was over, the first giant, gorged on walnuts, began to suffer the worst symptoms of dyspepsia. Being near him was so unpleasant that the other giants shunned him.
The second giant tried to sell his berries and honey for a great deal of money, but there was no one to buy them.
The third giant had no place to plant his greenery, so it withered and died.
The giants asked the gods for help.
"Your walnuts are moldy," the chief god said, "your berries are rotten, your honey is stale and your plants have died. Why should we save you?"
"Because we're too big to fail," the giants said.
"OK," the chief god said. "Restore the forest to the way it was when you found it and you can have anything you want."
The giants agreed. By now they were very weak and hungry, but they stumbled down the mountain and made their way to the forest.
"What now?" asked one of the giants.
And that's when they realized they only knew how to take. They hadn't the foggiest notion how to give back.
This is one of them (translation from the original Algonquian Arapaho dialect by Ann White Feather):
A giant came into the forest and began to harvest all the walnuts. Soon, squirrels were starving.
The surviving squirrels summoned a council and elected one of their number, Bushy Tail, to appeal to the forest gods.
"Only you are powerful enough to control this giant," Bushy Tail told the gods. "Please save some walnuts for us to eat."
"The nut market regulates itself," the chief god said. "Stop whimpering."
And so all the squirrels in the forest died.
Another giant appeared in the forest and began to take all the berries and honey. Soon the bears were starving.
The bears summoned a council and elected one of their number, Smokey, to journey to the forest gods and appeal to them for succor.
"Only you are powerful enough to regulate this giant," Smokey said, "and save some berries and honey for us to eat."
"Sorry," said the chief god, "but it's not a bear market. Stop whimpering."
Soon all the bears in the forest were dead of starvation.
Another giant came into the forest. This giant dug up the bushes and small trees and sold them to landscapers in Las Vegas. Soon the deer were starving.
The surviving deer summoned a council and elected Bambi to appeal to the forest gods on their behalf.
"Only you are powerful enough to stop this giant," Bambi told the gods. "Please save some forage for us to eat."
"That would make you a welfare queen," the chief god told Bambi. "Stop whimpering."
Soon all the deer in the forest were dead.
Another giant came into the forest. Before this giant could decide what to take from the remaining resources of the forest, the surviving animals and birds and insects held a council.
"Let us organize," said Bobcat. "Yes," said Beaver, "together we can protect everyone's food supply and force the giants to go elsewhere." And so they formed a union.
When the giant went to harvest walnuts, Eagle clawed at him and Woodpecker drummed a Gene Krupa riff on his skull while Groundhog gnawed on his anklebone. So the giant left the walnut trees alone and went to harvest berries and honey. But the bees stung him and Skunk sprayed him and Turtle gummed him a wicked one on the great toe.
The giant appealed to the forest gods. "The animals formed a union and now they're stinging me, biting me, pecking me, clawing me and otherwise preventing me from pillaging the forest resources."
"This is socialism," the chief god decreed. "It must stop."
The giant summoned other giants and they took what they pleased from the forest.
All the birds and animals and insects of the forest died.
The giants called a meeting on the mountaintop and threw a grand old party.
"I've got more walnuts than any giant in the history of the world," the first giant declared.
"My supply of berries and honey is so large that I can charge any price that I want for them," the second giant said.
"I've got the last remaining green things in the world," said the third giant.
When the party was over, the first giant, gorged on walnuts, began to suffer the worst symptoms of dyspepsia. Being near him was so unpleasant that the other giants shunned him.
The second giant tried to sell his berries and honey for a great deal of money, but there was no one to buy them.
The third giant had no place to plant his greenery, so it withered and died.
The giants asked the gods for help.
"Your walnuts are moldy," the chief god said, "your berries are rotten, your honey is stale and your plants have died. Why should we save you?"
"Because we're too big to fail," the giants said.
"OK," the chief god said. "Restore the forest to the way it was when you found it and you can have anything you want."
The giants agreed. By now they were very weak and hungry, but they stumbled down the mountain and made their way to the forest.
"What now?" asked one of the giants.
And that's when they realized they only knew how to take. They hadn't the foggiest notion how to give back.
Friday, September 4, 2009
Civil Discourse. RIP.
Jonathan Daniels, the firebrand editor and publisher of the Raleigh News and Observer, so offended many readers with his views that the newspaper was widely known as "The Nuisance and Disturber." His wife, Lucy, used to say that periodically, she would "put on my bonnet and walk around downtown just to see who wasn't speaking to me."
Those were the days of civil discourse, before "concealed carry" laws and open sale of machine guns to yahoos.
As David Sirota put it the other day, "We are becoming a nation of haters."
The haters, he said, "have succeeded in turning political discourse into a war of attrition against their personal demons -a war won by those who can go nuclear the fastest. That's clearly been the story of the summer on health care - and it continues to be the story on most major issues. I mean, conservatives are quite literally calling the president's plan to promote the value of education to the nation's schoolchildren a secret socialist plot. All of it has convinced me we are living through one of the darkest periods in the last 50 years - one in which intense hatred has now become an accepted - even celebrated - part of our democracy."
The boorish goons who disrupted recent town hall meetings with Congressmen won admiring attention in the mainstream press. During this same period the media ignored several genuine news events that took place around the country: free public health clinics set up in some of the poorest areas of the U.S., both rural and urban. They were inundated beyond the capacity of the doctors and nurses who volunteered to conduct them. Thousands of people camped out in line for several nights to get a tooth fixed, a baby's cough treated, or medicine for grandma's arthritis. The clinics had to stay open round the clock and still couldn't give care to everyone who needed it.
Sirota and other real journalists are constantly subjected to really vile public insults by the parrots of Limbaugh, Beck, Dobbs, O'Reilly and their ilk -- overpaid performers, like dancing bears and trained seals, who dominate what broadcasters call "news." This is what passes for public discourse today.
Oh, for the good old days when a lady could put on her best bonnet and safely walk around town to find out who wasn't speaking to her.
Those were the days of civil discourse, before "concealed carry" laws and open sale of machine guns to yahoos.
As David Sirota put it the other day, "We are becoming a nation of haters."
The haters, he said, "have succeeded in turning political discourse into a war of attrition against their personal demons -a war won by those who can go nuclear the fastest. That's clearly been the story of the summer on health care - and it continues to be the story on most major issues. I mean, conservatives are quite literally calling the president's plan to promote the value of education to the nation's schoolchildren a secret socialist plot. All of it has convinced me we are living through one of the darkest periods in the last 50 years - one in which intense hatred has now become an accepted - even celebrated - part of our democracy."
The boorish goons who disrupted recent town hall meetings with Congressmen won admiring attention in the mainstream press. During this same period the media ignored several genuine news events that took place around the country: free public health clinics set up in some of the poorest areas of the U.S., both rural and urban. They were inundated beyond the capacity of the doctors and nurses who volunteered to conduct them. Thousands of people camped out in line for several nights to get a tooth fixed, a baby's cough treated, or medicine for grandma's arthritis. The clinics had to stay open round the clock and still couldn't give care to everyone who needed it.
Sirota and other real journalists are constantly subjected to really vile public insults by the parrots of Limbaugh, Beck, Dobbs, O'Reilly and their ilk -- overpaid performers, like dancing bears and trained seals, who dominate what broadcasters call "news." This is what passes for public discourse today.
Oh, for the good old days when a lady could put on her best bonnet and safely walk around town to find out who wasn't speaking to her.
Missing the Gunslinger, Sort of. . .
By Steve Klinger
I’ve been watching with a buttoned lip as Obama has had a town hall meeting with half the country and still found time to appear on every news show plus Colbert. I’ve watched him extend an olive branch to Republicans, sweet-talk blue dog Democrats and provide a collegiate lecture on everything from fiscal policy to health care. Every day I am thankful that we dodged the McCain Express and have a president who thinks rationally, solicits advice, considers alternatives and expresses reasons for at least some of his decisions. I remain convinced that Obama cares about ordinary Americans and believes in his heart he is doing his best by them.I don’t want to jump on the bandwagon of critics who will never be satisfied with anything short of absolute pacifism and total, instant redistribution of wealth, or the doomsayers who continue to predict societal collapse on a daily basis.
But all that said….don’t you miss Dubya the gunslinger even a little bit? There’s something about having a president swagger up to the podium, plant his hands on his hips and say, “I’m the decider!” that fills the belly with gross comfort, like eating a pound of chile cheese fries, even if you know they’ll do you in.
Of course, the kinds of things Bush decided almost destroyed civilization. Most of Obama’s problem is that he has inherited Bush’s infernal mess. But that’s not my point.
I am increasingly starting to believe that Obama underestimates himself. He needs to think back to LBJ and across the spam of generations to his role model, Lincoln. When he’s tempted to compromise on health care and back away from a public option (not to mention the single payer approach he knows in his heart is best), or when he pushes a watered down energy bill that perpetuates the coal industry, he needs to remember his own miraculous election campaign.
The man has public opinion on his side. His charisma (Republicans excepted, of course) is unparalleled in recent political history. He has science and history on his side to support arguments for stronger positions on global warming, against big banks and insurance companies, etc. He has the example of eight years of catastrophic failure by the very forces who oppose him now.
You can argue all you want that the votes aren’t there, that it’s all he can do to get weak legislation through because conservative Democrats and obstructionist Republicans – all bought and paid for by the obscene power of the corporate lobbyists – just won’t support progressive change. And it’s true from a certain perspective: mathematically, the votes aren’t there now indeed. But they weren’t there in 1965 either, when Lyndon Johnson hammered through civil rights legislation and Medicare, lacking even a shred of Obama’s personal appeal but knowing he held the high moral ground — and he could use his leverage as president to twist arms in Congress and win votes one by one. They weren’t there a century earlier when Lincoln determined he had to free the slaves to save the Union and then wage a war to restore it. And they weren’t there in 1933 when FDR envisioned the New Deal that produced the CCC, the WPA and Social Security.
I was resigned to the expediency of passing the wimpy energy/climate bill currently before Congress until I read Dennis Kucinich’s withering analysis of its shortcomings – on coal, on compromised timelines for greenhouse gas reductions, on all the pulled punches that undermine the good intentions of the original legislation. Even then, ordinary logic tells me a weak bill is better than none at all.
But are those really the alternatives when a leader as unique as Obama has the bully pulpit at his disposal and public approval ratings in the mid-70s? Just as he came from nowhere to beat a field of strong candidates, he has that rare capacity to captivate public imagination and support as chief executive, if he chooses to use it and does so with passion and conviction. Only his fear of failure can hold him back.
Ironically, and he’s way too smart not to realize this, it’s his lowered sights and his readiness to compromise that will likely produce failure in the longterm and provide the forces on the right with an avenue to regain power.
I’m not sure what tactics will best get his attention, though I can think of a few things I’d say to him at a town hall meeting. But I do know that those of us at the grassroots level must not buy into the conventional wisdom that compromise is better than gridlock. It’s a false equation, because strong leadership can change the dynamic and break the gridlock.
We must find a way to hold Obama’s feet to the fire on the crucial issues of global warming, health care, financial reform, nuclear disarmament and an end to empire building. But first we must reawaken his belief that together we can accomplish the change we know is desperately needed.
Steve Klinger posts regularly at http://www.grass-roots-press.com/
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Read the &*#@!*! Bill
Frank Luntz, the architect of the right wing strategy to deprive Americans of improved health care, has made it easy for the True Believers to frighten the ignorant. The strategy enables them to pretend to have read and understood the various bills under consideration in the House and Senate.
It feeds them page numbers and snippets of text to support their utterly false assertions about what the legislation would or would not do. One by one, these lies that were created by and distributed by the right wing have been discredited.
One such lie, however, dies hard. The lie contends that Section 102 (a) of the House bill specifically denies consumer choice. A screed in my local "news"paper went on and on about the dire effects of this alleged denial of choice. Another ranter simply quoted captions from the bill and said, in effect, trust me, these things will put Big Brother in charge of your every breath.
Utter nonsense. Here is the pertinent text:
TITLE I—PROTECTIONS AND STANDARDS FOR QUALIFIED HEALTH BENEFITS PLANS
Subtitle A—General Standards
SEC. 101. REQUIREMENTS REFORMING HEALTH INSURANCE MARKETPLACE.
(a) PURPOSE.—The purpose of this title is to establish standards to ensure that new health insurance coverage and employment-based health plans that are offered
meet standards guaranteeing access to affordable coverage, essential benefits, and other consumer protections.
SEC. 102. PROTECTING THE CHOICE TO KEEP CURRENT COVERAGE.
(a) GRANDFATHERED HEALTH INSURANCE COVERAGE DEFINED.—Subject to the succeeding provisions of this section, for purposes of establishing acceptable coverage under this division, the term ‘‘grandfathered health insurance coverage’’ means individual health insurance coverage that is offered and in force and effect before the first day of Y1 if the following conditions are met:
10 (1) LIMITATION ON NEW ENROLLMENT.—
11 (A) IN GENERAL.—Except as provided in this paragraph, the individual health insurance issuer offering such coverage does not enroll any individual in such coverage if the first effective date of coverage is on or after the first day of Y1.
LIMITATION ON CHANGES IN TERMS OR CONDITIONS.—Subject to paragraph (3) and except as required by law, the issuer does not change any of its terms or conditions, including benefits and cost-sharing, from those in effect as of the day before the first day of Y1.
8 (b) GRACE PERIOD FOR CURRENT EMPLOYMENT
(1) IN GENERAL.—Individual health insurance coverage that is not grand -fathered health insurance coverage under subsection (a) may only be offered on or after the first day of Y1 as an Exchange-participating health benefits plan.
Read it carefully. Here's what it says: An existing plan can be continued as long as it remains exactly the same when the new law takes effect. Employees who choose to may remain covered by it. The insurer may not continue to enroll new people in the plan after the reform law takes effect. If it wants to continue to enroll people it has to move the plan into the exchange where it will compete with all the other approved plans, including the public plan. This in no way limits consumer choices; it in fact expands them and prevents insurers from "dodging" the more stringent consumer protections of the exchange by continuing to enroll people under the old plan. It also prohibits stealthy changes in benefits, rates and provisions in a grandfathered plan.
Indeed, the legislation explicitly protects full and free choice for consumers in Sec. 202 (B):
EMPLOYEE CHOICE.—Any employee offered Exchange-participating health benefits plans by the employer of such employee under subparagraph (A) may choose coverage under any such plan. That choice includes, with respect to family coverage, coverage of the dependents of such employee.
It feeds them page numbers and snippets of text to support their utterly false assertions about what the legislation would or would not do. One by one, these lies that were created by and distributed by the right wing have been discredited.
One such lie, however, dies hard. The lie contends that Section 102 (a) of the House bill specifically denies consumer choice. A screed in my local "news"paper went on and on about the dire effects of this alleged denial of choice. Another ranter simply quoted captions from the bill and said, in effect, trust me, these things will put Big Brother in charge of your every breath.
Utter nonsense. Here is the pertinent text:
TITLE I—PROTECTIONS AND STANDARDS FOR QUALIFIED HEALTH BENEFITS PLANS
Subtitle A—General Standards
SEC. 101. REQUIREMENTS REFORMING HEALTH INSURANCE MARKETPLACE.
(a) PURPOSE.—The purpose of this title is to establish standards to ensure that new health insurance coverage and employment-based health plans that are offered
meet standards guaranteeing access to affordable coverage, essential benefits, and other consumer protections.
SEC. 102. PROTECTING THE CHOICE TO KEEP CURRENT COVERAGE.
(a) GRANDFATHERED HEALTH INSURANCE COVERAGE DEFINED.—Subject to the succeeding provisions of this section, for purposes of establishing acceptable coverage under this division, the term ‘‘grandfathered health insurance coverage’’ means individual health insurance coverage that is offered and in force and effect before the first day of Y1 if the following conditions are met:
10 (1) LIMITATION ON NEW ENROLLMENT.—
11 (A) IN GENERAL.—Except as provided in this paragraph, the individual health insurance issuer offering such coverage does not enroll any individual in such coverage if the first effective date of coverage is on or after the first day of Y1.
LIMITATION ON CHANGES IN TERMS OR CONDITIONS.—Subject to paragraph (3) and except as required by law, the issuer does not change any of its terms or conditions, including benefits and cost-sharing, from those in effect as of the day before the first day of Y1.
8 (b) GRACE PERIOD FOR CURRENT EMPLOYMENT
(1) IN GENERAL.—Individual health insurance coverage that is not grand -fathered health insurance coverage under subsection (a) may only be offered on or after the first day of Y1 as an Exchange-participating health benefits plan.
Read it carefully. Here's what it says: An existing plan can be continued as long as it remains exactly the same when the new law takes effect. Employees who choose to may remain covered by it. The insurer may not continue to enroll new people in the plan after the reform law takes effect. If it wants to continue to enroll people it has to move the plan into the exchange where it will compete with all the other approved plans, including the public plan. This in no way limits consumer choices; it in fact expands them and prevents insurers from "dodging" the more stringent consumer protections of the exchange by continuing to enroll people under the old plan. It also prohibits stealthy changes in benefits, rates and provisions in a grandfathered plan.
Indeed, the legislation explicitly protects full and free choice for consumers in Sec. 202 (B):
EMPLOYEE CHOICE.—Any employee offered Exchange-participating health benefits plans by the employer of such employee under subparagraph (A) may choose coverage under any such plan. That choice includes, with respect to family coverage, coverage of the dependents of such employee.
Monday, August 31, 2009
Someone asked . . . WHY? WHY? WHY?
By MORT PERSKY
"Why would so many people be against something as reasonable as the Dems all say it is?" (Asks another Salon letter-writer about Healthcare 2009.)
One absolutely correct but insufficient answer is that the Republicans and their big-money base have spent so much time, effort and cash-cash-cash to turn we-the-people against our very own interests.
Which, as history shows, is an old specialty of theirs -- a dirty job, but according to them, somebody's got to do it. And it's not like they don't enjoy it. Watch their eyes. Watch their lips.
The harder question is this: "Why isn't the plan as good as Obama and the Democrats promised? Why are Americans yet again NOT getting our absolutely essential Universal Health Care?"
And the answer? Because not only have the Republicans, spurred along by the fat wallets of their beloved Big Pharma and Big Insurance, sold their country down the river for many, many millions of shekels, but so have enough Democrats to clinch the deal.
And what about Mr. Hope-and-Change, who lives in the White House? Jury's out on him too, says this old Obama donor. And if that's true, I think we can write off the after-effects of Teddy Kennedy, who lived just long enough to see it all happening before his disappointed eyes.
After which they unhappily closed for the last time. As will so many other eyes, old and young, before such health care arrives. If it ever does.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
He Was a Kennedy
A friend roused me from my bed to deliver the news of Robert F. Kennedy's assassination. We mourned together. We wondered together what kind of mindless hatred fosters the vile murders of not one, but two, Kennedy brothers. We wondered about the playboy kid brother, the last prince of the American Camelot. Should he retire from public life, build a Maginot Line around the Hyannisport complex, and shield himself from the forces of ignorance and hate? Or did he have the stuff in him to carry the torch?
Ted Kennedy's life, which ended just before midnight Tuesday, gave us our answers. As John M. Broder wrote in his excellent New York Times obituary:
"He was a Rabelaisian figure in the Senate and in life, instantly recognizable by his shock of white hair, his florid, oversize face, his booming Boston brogue, his powerful but pained stride. He was a celebrity, sometimes a self-parody, a hearty friend, an implacable foe, a man of large faith and large flaws, a melancholy character who persevered, drank deeply and sang loudly. He was a Kennedy."
When the large flaws cost him the opportunity to seek the presidency, as his brothers had done, his large faith in himself drove him to become the most effective senator of his century. In the last 46 years, no piece of legislation to help the the sick, the poor, the wretched masses yearning to breathe free has become law without his stamp upon it. When President Obama signed the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act last April 24, we inaugurated the largest expansion of civilian service since the Depression Era Civilian Conservation Corps.
I hope legislation that establishes quality health care for every American will be enacted, and will bear his name, as well, for it was probably the greatest cause of his long and distinguished career.
Journalists' memories of Teddy tend to be associated with the Large Flaws. I directed a team of superb journalists, including the two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Gene Miller, covering Apollo 11. On the day before Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldren were scheduled to fly down to the moon, Miller told me that the bosses had ordered him off the moon flight. What could possibly be more important in July of 1969 than the first moon landing? "They want me to go to Martha's Vineyard," Miller said. "Teddy Kennedy's got himself into another mess. A young woman's dead." We expected "another mess" for the playboy brother. He was a Kennedy.
Similarly, we were not surprised when a Kennedy nephew hit the supermarket tabloids after a night of drinking with Uncle Ted. He was accused of rape by a woman he picked up in a bar after what he said was consensual sex on the beach at the Kennedy estate in Palm Beach. A New York editor remarked to me, "it wasn't the kids who suggested that they go out bar-hopping. It was the 60-year-old guy." He was a Kennedy.
Another journalist friend remembers walking into the Sherry Netherland bar in midtown Manhattan late one night. "I sat down about three barstools from Teddy, then married to Joan," he recalls. "He was in the enthusiastic company of several girls, and surrounded as well by a band of dark-suited protectors. Everybody in the place was watching the Kennedy action, in which the three or four ladies were all vying for his attention. No mystery there, as beyond being Teddy, he was the best-looking guy in the place. " He was a Kennedy.
I remember a guy so focused on the legislative process that as he strode across the Russell Senate Office Building Rotunda one day in the 70s, two of the bevy of aides jogging to keep up with him had to steer him by his elbows to prevent his walking into a pillar. He seemed to be conducting four or five conversations at once, barking orders, questions, thoughts, dictating memos. . . .until he spotted my companion, David Rosenbaum of the New York Times. Instantly he was transformed. His smile lit the hall. He thrust out his hand in welcome in that vigorous Kennedy style. "DAY-vid, " his brogue roared. "How ARE you?" He was a Kennedy.
But what I will never forget is the venom and bile he inspired in the Republican right.
A confession: In my college days I was an officer in the campus Young Republicans. My roommate then -- and lifelong dear friend thereafter -- was chairman of the organization.
Over the years we drifted in opposite directions politically. A few years ago we had dinner in Los Angeles. As usual, we agreed to disagree, in gentlemanly fashion, on the political topics of the day. Until Teddy's name came up.
John fulminated so apoplectically that I feared he'd have a stroke. "Why do you hate Ted Kennedy so much?" I asked when he'd calmed down.
John, one of the fastest thinkers and most articulate speakers I've known, sputtered briefly. Finally he blurted:
"Because he's a KENNEDY!"
Ted Kennedy's life, which ended just before midnight Tuesday, gave us our answers. As John M. Broder wrote in his excellent New York Times obituary:
"He was a Rabelaisian figure in the Senate and in life, instantly recognizable by his shock of white hair, his florid, oversize face, his booming Boston brogue, his powerful but pained stride. He was a celebrity, sometimes a self-parody, a hearty friend, an implacable foe, a man of large faith and large flaws, a melancholy character who persevered, drank deeply and sang loudly. He was a Kennedy."
When the large flaws cost him the opportunity to seek the presidency, as his brothers had done, his large faith in himself drove him to become the most effective senator of his century. In the last 46 years, no piece of legislation to help the the sick, the poor, the wretched masses yearning to breathe free has become law without his stamp upon it. When President Obama signed the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act last April 24, we inaugurated the largest expansion of civilian service since the Depression Era Civilian Conservation Corps.
I hope legislation that establishes quality health care for every American will be enacted, and will bear his name, as well, for it was probably the greatest cause of his long and distinguished career.
Journalists' memories of Teddy tend to be associated with the Large Flaws. I directed a team of superb journalists, including the two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Gene Miller, covering Apollo 11. On the day before Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldren were scheduled to fly down to the moon, Miller told me that the bosses had ordered him off the moon flight. What could possibly be more important in July of 1969 than the first moon landing? "They want me to go to Martha's Vineyard," Miller said. "Teddy Kennedy's got himself into another mess. A young woman's dead." We expected "another mess" for the playboy brother. He was a Kennedy.
Similarly, we were not surprised when a Kennedy nephew hit the supermarket tabloids after a night of drinking with Uncle Ted. He was accused of rape by a woman he picked up in a bar after what he said was consensual sex on the beach at the Kennedy estate in Palm Beach. A New York editor remarked to me, "it wasn't the kids who suggested that they go out bar-hopping. It was the 60-year-old guy." He was a Kennedy.
Another journalist friend remembers walking into the Sherry Netherland bar in midtown Manhattan late one night. "I sat down about three barstools from Teddy, then married to Joan," he recalls. "He was in the enthusiastic company of several girls, and surrounded as well by a band of dark-suited protectors. Everybody in the place was watching the Kennedy action, in which the three or four ladies were all vying for his attention. No mystery there, as beyond being Teddy, he was the best-looking guy in the place. " He was a Kennedy.
I remember a guy so focused on the legislative process that as he strode across the Russell Senate Office Building Rotunda one day in the 70s, two of the bevy of aides jogging to keep up with him had to steer him by his elbows to prevent his walking into a pillar. He seemed to be conducting four or five conversations at once, barking orders, questions, thoughts, dictating memos. . . .until he spotted my companion, David Rosenbaum of the New York Times. Instantly he was transformed. His smile lit the hall. He thrust out his hand in welcome in that vigorous Kennedy style. "DAY-vid, " his brogue roared. "How ARE you?" He was a Kennedy.
But what I will never forget is the venom and bile he inspired in the Republican right.
A confession: In my college days I was an officer in the campus Young Republicans. My roommate then -- and lifelong dear friend thereafter -- was chairman of the organization.
Over the years we drifted in opposite directions politically. A few years ago we had dinner in Los Angeles. As usual, we agreed to disagree, in gentlemanly fashion, on the political topics of the day. Until Teddy's name came up.
John fulminated so apoplectically that I feared he'd have a stroke. "Why do you hate Ted Kennedy so much?" I asked when he'd calmed down.
John, one of the fastest thinkers and most articulate speakers I've known, sputtered briefly. Finally he blurted:
"Because he's a KENNEDY!"
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Don't Dare to Call it Torture
Very little of what the Associated Press sends from Washington these days is journalism in the sense the term once conveyed.
Yet the wire service is the sole source of national news for hundreds of local papers throughout the United States -- just one more factor in the American public's vast wasteland of ignorance.
Occasionally, the AP's reportage descends to the level of unintended irony, as in the following example (emphasis, of course, is mine):
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Obama administration launched a criminal investigation Monday into HARSH QUESTIONING of detainees during President George W. Bush's war on terrorism, revealing CIA interrogators' threats to KILL ONE SUSPECT'S CHILDREN and to FORCE ANOTHER TO WATCH HIS MOTHER BEING SEXUALLY ASSAULTED.
One presumes that after this bit of "harshness" they all went out for ice cream.
For reasons known only to its reporters and editors, the AP chose to focus on what some might consider the most "lenient" of the "harsh" interrogation tactics. After all, nobody was actually shot, raped or assaulted with a power drill.
Aside from the fact that the threats themselves are barbaric acts and violations of the Geneva Convention to which the U.S. is a signatory, it would be well to consider some of the other interrogation tactics divulged in official reports:
--Applying pressure to the detainee's carotid artery to the point of losing consciousness , then shaking him awake to repeat the process.
--Twice striking a detainee with a rifle butt, then knee kicking him three times.
--Forcing smoke into a detainee's lungs until he vomited.
--Using a waterboarding technique more severe than the one for which Japanese soldiers were prosecuted after World War II , under the Geneva Convention.
--Hanging detainees by their arms until interrogators believed their shoulders had been dislocated.
--Dousing detainees with water, then shackling them to a cold concrete floor in cold temperatures to induce hypothermia.
The IG report concluded that "unauthorized, improvised and inhumane detention and interrogation techniques were used." It said many of the detainees were subjected to this treatment because of "assessments that were unsupported by credible intelligence."
"Harsh?"
As kids used to be taught in Reporting 101, "if you can't characterize it accurately, don't characterize it at all. Let the facts speak for themselves."
Yet the wire service is the sole source of national news for hundreds of local papers throughout the United States -- just one more factor in the American public's vast wasteland of ignorance.
Occasionally, the AP's reportage descends to the level of unintended irony, as in the following example (emphasis, of course, is mine):
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Obama administration launched a criminal investigation Monday into HARSH QUESTIONING of detainees during President George W. Bush's war on terrorism, revealing CIA interrogators' threats to KILL ONE SUSPECT'S CHILDREN and to FORCE ANOTHER TO WATCH HIS MOTHER BEING SEXUALLY ASSAULTED.
One presumes that after this bit of "harshness" they all went out for ice cream.
For reasons known only to its reporters and editors, the AP chose to focus on what some might consider the most "lenient" of the "harsh" interrogation tactics. After all, nobody was actually shot, raped or assaulted with a power drill.
Aside from the fact that the threats themselves are barbaric acts and violations of the Geneva Convention to which the U.S. is a signatory, it would be well to consider some of the other interrogation tactics divulged in official reports:
--Applying pressure to the detainee's carotid artery to the point of losing consciousness , then shaking him awake to repeat the process.
--Twice striking a detainee with a rifle butt, then knee kicking him three times.
--Forcing smoke into a detainee's lungs until he vomited.
--Using a waterboarding technique more severe than the one for which Japanese soldiers were prosecuted after World War II , under the Geneva Convention.
--Hanging detainees by their arms until interrogators believed their shoulders had been dislocated.
--Dousing detainees with water, then shackling them to a cold concrete floor in cold temperatures to induce hypothermia.
The IG report concluded that "unauthorized, improvised and inhumane detention and interrogation techniques were used." It said many of the detainees were subjected to this treatment because of "assessments that were unsupported by credible intelligence."
"Harsh?"
As kids used to be taught in Reporting 101, "if you can't characterize it accurately, don't characterize it at all. Let the facts speak for themselves."
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