I'll Talk to the Bad Guys

People say Barack isn’t clear on his policy statements. I think he is. Who else has said, “I’ll talk to the bad guys.” That’s earth-shakingly clear. So how is Barack going to talk to the bad guys? The vision is of a big round table. America will admit these people in in some fashion and they can move around freely. Even “our enemies” insofar as we host the UN. Muslims of the world, come to us, tell us your problems. He preps us as a people, says: Hey America. We’re going to have a live media event. One week long, at the UN, representatives from any organization that has as a grievance will be admitted and will be safe. We are going to hear them out and enter into a dialog.

Spiritual Activation

Normally when there's a good story, I just link to it. But this is so good, I am posting it here. I've been to a lot of "spiritual leadership retreats" where the leaders of the progressive or environmental or spiritual activism communities talk about how they wish they, or "the left," or "the movement" could claim the mantle of God from the Republicans et al. Well, read this little story people, and tell me what you think. I think it portends big things for our country, not to mention Obama's candidacy.

GREENVILLE, South Carolina (CNN) — After speaking to an evangelical church on Sunday in this traditionally conservative South Carolina city, Sen. Barack Obama said that Republicans no longer have a firm grip on religion in political discourse.

"I think its important particularly for those of us in the Democratic party to not cede values and faith to any one party," Obama told reporters outside the Redemption World Outreach Center where he attended services.

"I think that what you're seeing is a breaking down of the sharp divisions that existed maybe during the nineties, when at least in politics the perception was that the Democrats were fearful of talking about faith, and on the other hand you had the Republicans who had a particular brand of faith that often times seemed intolerant or pushed people away," he said.

Obama noted that he was pleased leaders in the evangelical community like T.D. Jakes and Rick Warren were beginning to discuss social justice issues like AIDS and poverty in ways evangelicals were not doing before.

"I think that's a healthy thing, that we're not putting people in boxes, that everybody is out there trying to figure out how do we live right and how do we create a stronger America," Obama said.

During the nearly two hour service that featured a rock band and hip-hop dancers, Obama shared the floor with the church's pastor, Ron Carpenter. The senator from Illinois asked the multiracial crowd of nearly 4,000 people to keep him and his family in their prayers, and said he hoped to be "an instrument of God."

"Sometimes this is a difficult road being in politics," Obama said. "Sometimes you can become fearful, sometimes you can become vain, sometimes you can seek power just for power's sake instead of because you want to do service to God. I just want all of you to pray that I can be an instrument of God in the same way that Pastor Ron and all of you are instruments of God."

He finished his brief remarks by saying, "We're going to keep on praising together. I am confident that we can create a Kingdom right here on Earth."

Asked by CNN if he talks about faith more in churchgoing South Carolina than he does in the other early voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire, Obama said: "I don't talk about it all the time, but when I'm in church I talk about it."

Hilary's Old Stuff

So who is going to be President? I know it's not going to be Joe Biden. But I am reasonably confident it's not going to be Hilary Clinton. There just aren't enough (any?) good reasons to vote for her. People need to connect with their President. Good or bad, it's absolutely got to be somebody millions of people are interested in staring at for an hour. Maybe if she kept going in the direction she's going, gained some weight, became more of a big tough old Mama figure, and worked that characature. You know, started wearing a mumu. But it can't be Barack Obama. It's not that he's black or did coke, it's that he's made it with white women. That is not OK. But newly or soon-to-be widowed John Edwards? Insane, vain and grieving don't go well together. But is it really going to be Rudy Guiliani?

From last 3 graphs of today's Reuters:

Biden suggested Clinton's experience as first lady in the administration of her husband, former President Bill Clinton, when she tried unsuccessfully in the 1990s to reform health care, would hamper her effectiveness as a U.S. president.

"I'm not suggesting it's Hillary's fault. I think it's a reality that it's more difficult, because there's a lot of very good things that come with all the great things that President Clinton did, but there's also a lot of the old stuff that comes back," Biden said.

As Clinton fixed a chilly stare on him, Biden hurriedly added: "When I say old stuff, I'm referring to policy, policy."

Hilary Needs a Veep

I got an email from Babe the Blue Ox recently, and he said:

I write about the fatal weakness in the hillary candidacy. My thinking is that people really will vote for a woman, and the opponent will be weak, and everybody in America wishes her husband was still president. But, there is one potentially insurmountable obstacle: she has to have a running mate, and the public is going to experience deep mental trauma at the prospect of a man, any man, playing #2 to a woman. The juvenile american mind will see them as a kind of "couple," and in that context she will be cemented as a ball-busting battle-axe, and the VP will carry a mantle of shame, and people will have a secret revulsion that will result in a last minute inability to pull the lever in the voting booth.

But I think the solution really is Obama. The reason is, his blackness, jackie robinson-ness, his "rock star-ness" (why does everyone say this "rock star" thing about him? Does it just mean he's hot? He does have a kind of balls, I mean really in a sexual sense, that we haven't seen since Kennedy. But mainly, I think there is a subtle displacement here, where "rock star" stands for the real referent "sports star." The concepts of "Tiger Woods" and "Barack Obama" have secretly become confused in the collective psyche.), these category memberships overwhelm and obscure his "maleness," so that hillary can get away with it.

Imus is a *&%#!

Kinky, don't make me come kick your ass. Sorry you're close and personal with the big jerk there, but if you won't let sleeping dogs lie, I gotta come after ya. First of all, I view your charactarizing the name-calling of the Rutgers University black varsity basketball team as "nappy-headed hos" as ridiculous is the very problem we're trying to address here. They made it all the way to the finals on hard work, scholarship, integrity and guts. It's way beyond ridiculous. It's a national dialog we're in, we are trying to say it is not OK to knock people down like that. I don't care a whit about whatever extraneous information you're about to impart on me on what a righteous dude Imus really is, he's made a career of being a shock jock, and he was an asshole for doing what he did and you're one for trying to minimize it. It's not ridiculous to synthesize the key problem this country has in one offhand comment; it's criminal. And don't excuse it as an accident. The guy's a pro. It was calculated to hurt and to be funny, and it did and I'm sure to a few Bubba's it was, but the bottom line was that it revealed more than the guy bargained for. Don't make light of it. It made reference to a major belief in this country, that black people are scum. Remember Earl Butt's comment, which really was a joke, about black men wanting loose shoes and a warm place to take a dump? Or Buzzy Bavasi's comment that black people lack the fundamentals to be baseball managers? They both deserved to be fired for those comments, and were, but they aren't nearly as harsh as Imus's. Butt's was referencing an already existing joke. And Bavasi said he meant that blacks never got the education or training to be managers, which considering that he's the guy who brought up Jackie Robinson, I believe him. But tough; he still deserved to lose his job. Why? Cuz white people brought hundreds of thousands of black people over from Africa on slave ships, and you gotta deal with that fact. Whitey whipped and beat and sold human beings as property for hundreds of years, then treated them literally as 2nd class citizens for most of the remaining time. Once you've got that kind of a track record, you gotta skate on thin ice for awhile. It's only right. It's not ridiculous; it's deadly serious. And it's exactly what we don't need. It fuels the flames of hate, and it's not OK.

Your next point, that rappers make similar references, is actually not quite true, but anyway, so what? Two wrongs don't make a right. Who cares if there's a double standard.

Now on to your last point, raging against people (who are trying to protect people) as being PC. You write: "Political correctness, a term first used by Joseph Stalin, has trivialized, sanitized and homogenized America, transforming us into a nation of chain establishments and chain people." I beg to differ. I think political correctness, Stalin notwithstanding, has saved this country. Political correctness says it's not OK to rip people apart in public and deny them their humanity based on the color of their skin. America was created for the sole purpose of what today we would call being politically correct. Politically correct is one of those funny Republican words, like pro-life, or right to life, that makes you think you don't want to be on the wrong side of it. PC makes it sound like it's a sissy thing. An uptight thing. Freedom on one side -- PC on the other. But let's really look at what PC means.

Thanks to the constitution, and supreme court rulings upholding it, it's politically correct not to torture people. Also not to wiretap people, or search their homes without a search warrant. The Miranda Act, that forced cops to read people their rights before beating the shit out of them was one of the great politically correct acts of this country. Outlawing hate sppech: policitally correct The Emancipation Proclamation, saying black people were't actually 3/5ths a person: a great act of politicaly correctness. Giving women the right to vote: politically correct. Not calling Japanese people Japs, or outlawing signs that said: no jews, no dogs, no niggers, which my father remembers seeing all around Florida. That's the Policitaly Correct police doing their job. The voting rights act, saying you couldtn't administer a test to black people to see if they were allowed vote, also politically correct. It goes on and on. All the way back to the Pilgrims, coming to a new land where they could be free to worship as they wished, is really a desire to live in a land where there was respect for others, which is all the PC thing really amounts to.

See, PC is not about intolerance. It's about ensuring conditions where we actually can and do tolerate each other. PC is not about stopping people from being free. It's about stopping people who want to stop people from being free. To be PC is to question when we allow it to be OK to oppress each other. "The PC police are telling me I can't go fag bashing!" Yes! Exactly! They are limiting your freedom to be intolerant! This is a very complex notion in America, but it has a long philosophical background: you're free except to the extent you limit others' freedom. Or stating it backwareds, the only thing it's OK to hate is hate.

Kinky's piece to me really misses the point. There's nothing in it that addresses the core issue: There are some lines that when you cross them, they stay crossed. My grandpa used to always say: you can't take back something you said. True enough.

Hoe-Headed Shock Jock

You know, I've never liked the shock jock world. Insulated as it is from the real elbow jabs of mixing it up that harshly in person, the radio version of being the biggest loudmouth is kind of like the raging drivers who only act that way because they're behind the wheel. No one can hit you back. And if there's one thing in the world of media communications that's consistently underestimated by those of us who lament the passing of planet earth, it is the degree to which all of us human beings continue to be operated by our lizard brain.

I'm not saying we have to run the world from the brain stem, it's just that without a lot of yoga and massage, in one form or another, that's where things normally end up. Not that it's all Lord of the Flies, but we better be honest here: we're capable of being the most horrible and brutally monstrous animal of all the animals. Slapstick, practical jokes, insult humor, mob mentality, lowest common denominator, the rat race, dog eat dog, the world is really not funny. Why? Because we so easily can put our whole brilliant apparatus - and by default usually do - at the service of a largely fear-based, dinosaur-style brain. So there's a lot at stake in stoking those fires.

They're cheap laughs. Hit 'em when they're up. Hit 'em when they're down. Just hit 'em. Me, I learned early on to check myself. What's so funny here, I would ask. I get no pleasure from seeing the kid end up crying and run off alone. I feel something really hollow inside when I join the bully on the block. I don't like Rush Limbaugh or Bill O'Reilly or Newt Gingrich or Jim Scarborough, and I'd even be willing to exile Howard Stern if I could lose the rest of them. I just think once they're gone we won't miss them. And while I'm still a few One-A-Day vitamins away from being a true blue-haired old lady, I am starting to agree with my Grandma Pearl that the biggest problem facing America is a lack of civility. We're just not nice. Whether it's the jerk who just stole my parking spot, or all of us collectively and how we act abroad, the image of the American as a total jerk is not doing hardly anybody much good any more. Like I say, we have to check ourselves.

So when this hater Imus spiels his spleen like he did, I am already predisposed to rule: "Dude. You are fired." But when I think about this country even a little, and think about what Rosa Parks or Jackie Robinson were able to accomplish, there is nothing I am more proud of America for than how our country managed to honor these heroes (except perhaps what they did in the first place). And there is nothing I am more ashamed of than how much racism has existed and continues to exist. It's a 300+ year old scandal and what we continue to see and see amplified is that it's killing our country, both figuratively and literally. And when you think of what it must take to be a young black girl in this country, and make it to the college basketball finals, only to have one of the most well-known, talented, articulate, highly-paid radio personalities call them "nappy headed hos (whores)" - well! It blows my mind that the discussion is about whether to fire this man! The discussion should be about whether to lynch him.

I know. Lynching is bad. Bad for black people. Bad for white people. OK. But at least somebody should hit him. I mean physically hurt him somewhat. He has a total bully pulpit, millions of dollars, he's king of the talkers, and this is what he uses his super powers for. That's a special violation. So please understand that it's for those reasons, in addition to the fact that he's made a career of being mean, that I say: Hang him! Exceptions are OK once in a while. It's fair turnaround.

Anyway, whatever, I give up on the physical violence. But he should pay for it, and we should not let him or the cultural zeitgeist move on until he does.

And what the hell is going on anyway? What evil voodoo are these old hippie-like pseudo-cool white men channeling?

Speaking of which, here are my votes on four public comments today regarding this issue:

YES = Hillary: 'I've never wanted to go on his show and I certainly don't ever intend to go on his show'...

YES = Obama calls for Imus to be fired...

NO = Rosie on Imus: 'Thought police' are coming...

NO = Edwards On Imus: 'I Believe In Forgiveness'...

And here is a transcript from a 60 minutes Mike Wallace interview:

MIKE WALLACE: You told Tom ANDERSON, the producer, in your car coming home that Bernard McGuirk is there to do "n-----" jokes.

DON IMUS: Well I've n-- I never use that word.

MIKE WALLACE: Tom?

TOM ANDERSON: I'm right here.

DON IMUS: Did I use that word?

TOM ANDERSON: I recall you using that word.

DON IMUS: Oh, okay, well then I used that word, but I mean-- of course that was an off the record conversation-- [LAUGHTER]

MIKE WALLACE: The hell it was!

The Great Memory Hole of China

I highly recommend the story Kremlin, Inc. in last week's New Yorker. It's a very good piece, and it awakens me to the corrosive by degrees nature of our own compliance in corporate evildoing. If this age truly is the age where the most technically useful aspects of all the previous ages are gathered up and re-used, then the practice of dealing with ones' enemies by simply having them killed, which here and there throughout history has enjoyed some popularity, would certainly be central to the combo platter of options considered available to today's leaders. And while we may be correct in saying: we can't fight them, the fact that we likewise refuse to protest in small ways seems the most disingenuous of all.

I'm thinking specifically of Google, both the richest company and the first to ever adopt as its mission statement "Don't be evil." I'm thinking of hanging out with Sergei Brin, which I actually did a couple of weeks ago at a party, and what we talked about. And I'm thinking of Professor Ding Zilin, whose son was shot dead protesting freedom on the night of June 3rd, 1989, and who since has been collecting names of those who were killed around that night. At the end of June 2006, she was able to confirm 186 deaths. But when she logged onto the Internet and went to Google.cn, which began operating in China in January of 2006, and typed in Tienanmen Square, zero results showed up. She typed in her son's name. There was no such person. In exchange for what could be billions of dollars of revenue, Google agreed to censor all of its Chinese searches to exclude, how did the Nazis put it, "any unpleasantness."

How many people died at Tienanmen? According to Wikipedia: "Estimates of civilian deaths vary: 23 (Communist Party of China), 400–800 (Central Intelligence Agency), 2600 (Chinese Red Cross). Injuries are generally held to have numbered from 7,000 to 10,000." Wow. That’s a lot of human sacrifices for freedom, in a country without, shall we say, a history of strong protest movements. These people were killed or injured for doing nothing but peaceably assembling, one of the cornerstone reasons for why there is an America. And while it was American freedom that gave birth to the Internet, ironically none of these people will ever turn up on a Google search in China. Look it up. It never happened. Imagine being someone who knew them, loved them, someone like their mother, like Professor Ding.

The BBC wrote: "Google's launch of a new, self-censored search engine in China is a 'black day' for freedom of expression, a leading international media watchdog says. Reporters Without Borders joined others in asking how Google could stand up for US users' freedoms while controlling what Chinese users can search for." The article continues: "The BBC news site, for example, is inaccessible, while a search on Google.cn for the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement directs users to a string of condemnatory articles." Please keep in mind: this isn't the fascist Chinese government building these algorithms; it's Google! Big Brother says these people are disappeared, and Google complies. They fix it so these trouble makers never existed. I know it sounds shocking, but this is the deal Google made.

Microsoft and Yahoo!, by the way, do the same thing. Big surprise, but they aren't run by two Jews who founded a company with an ethical imperative. The lame argument they make is: "They would do it anyway, so why not make money on it?" What would happen though if the big search engines refused to play China's game? Government's wage war but if the soldiers won't pull the trigger there isn't much of a war. Is it really better to assimilate and hope for the best? What possible motive would China have for changing? But unless we as Web users agree not to support them, which is almost impossible, why would they ever feel the need to change?

I'm only 230 years old, a young adult in Nation Years, but I remember being a grown teenager and coming out of the shadow of the Cold War, with Rod Serling and Hannah Arendt and Mad Magazine and Edward R. Murrow and Elie Weisel laying bare the cultural shame surrounding what it means to be silent. It was as if a generation of WWII survivors were dedicated to teaching the next generation never to stand by as they come for your neighbors, for they will soon be coming for you. I witnessed a tremendous amount of science fiction and social fiction and social analysis, created in the aftermath of WWII. What Americans learned about human nature after WWII was unprecedented, and there was an unprecedented effort then made to ensure that a society would be able to identify it when the powers that be start to wear these freedoms down. Through melodrama and satire, a new and clear picture was painted of what constitutes an unacceptable un-human response. And yet that is the picture I see today.

It's tough to watch it all go to hell. I have a particular soft spot for that generation that received giant cultural inoculations of this freedom virus. I am still moved by all the TV shows that have the lone man stand up and shock the community and say, "But I saw what happened..." or who refuses to pretend that all is well. And yet I see virtually none of my fellow 'liberals' and 'activists' paying attention to this pernicious threat. Indeed, I did all my research for this article on Google. And so when should you begin to doubt its complete objectivity?

For more on the subject, here is Human Rights Watch's take:
http://hrw.org/englishwr2k7/docs/2007/01/11/china14867.htm

And here's the original New Yorker story: http://royaldutchshellplc.com/2007/05/31/the-new-yorker-kremlin-inc-why-are-vladimir-putin%E2%80%99s-opponents-dying/

Osama, Obama, what's the diff?

I couldn't have seen it until I saw it but now here it is. They’re going to try to take down Obama by tarring him as a Muslim. Say it enough and it will stick, especially with a scandal-hungry press ready to report every rumor and lie as a “controversy.” Obama’s only hope of survival is to meet the charges head on, exactly as he would have to if the charges were actually true. He must realize, as Kerry was to dim to understand, that it simply doesn’t matter whether a political attack has any basis in truth. TV creates the reality; the truth is whatever is on TV.

It was reported the other day that Barack means 'Blessed' in Arabic, and that Barack's grandpappy was a hard core Muslim. That means in the minds of most Americans he was hanging out fighting whitey with Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden's grandpappy. And Barack's middle name is Hussein, and his first name rhymes with Osama, so that’s that. He might as well be wearing a turban and carrying a scimitar.

OK. There's only one way to handle this. Right here, right now, big throwdown. Obama has got to hold a Checkers-style, prime-time 1/2 hour of plain speaking about himself and his God-blessed American-ness. And at the end he's got to cry about how much it hurts him to have anyone cast aspersions about how much he loves this country. He's got to detail everyone in his family's lineage that was Muslim, and tell the heartwarming story of their conversion to God’s real religion, and how converting is part of what a free nation allows its free people to do.

But mainly, he's got to say that we're not in a war against Islam, we're in a struggle for the hearts and minds of a billion Muslims. He's got to say that our leadership, by making this moral struggle a shooting war on terror, has terrorized the Muslim base, which is at it's core actually quite conservative and religious, and apt to be friendly to good American Heartland people. Obama has to compile a list of all the great people who say that we are not at war with Islam and read it to us. He's got to paint a devastating, super-scary and super-detailed picture of what's going to happen if we keep treating this like it is a war--really paint the full-on doomsday scenario. And all the while he does this he must wrap himself in the flag.

He has to explain that we can't militarize our way out of this situation, and that while we will go after specific people who are known to be bad, we have created a global war out of our conflict with a few small and isolated bands of fanatics. It is only a global war because we made it one. And he's got to make it look bad. Really bad.

Then he's got to offer us a way out. Instead, he would say, we will play the long game, using our real strengths: our moral vision, our honesty, our can-do attitude and good old American ingenuity. And we're going to do what half a trillion dollars has been (intrinsically) unable to do: we're going to calm these people down. We're going to get enough of them back on our side that we aren't doomed. How? Well, he'll explain, we're going to try to become as energy independent as is reasonable, we are going to reach out to the international community, we are going to try to work with the world to stabilize this region, we are going to try to figure out what the source of disaffection among the populace at large is such that we can help address their grievances in ways other than having them blow themselves up and us with them. Subtext: I can deal with these people.

So he gives this talk and the whole thing shifts. Imagine the headline: Presidential Candidate Denies US In War on Terror! It would make worldwide news. Can you imagine Obama in the follow up interview: "Look, one crazy guy with a few crazy followers managed to do something very smart and cunning, but the cleverness of the hijackings doesn't prove that entire countries and their populations were behind it. Indeed, prior to the bombings, only 3% of the Muslim populations advocated bombing US soil. Now 56% do! It wasn't the bombing of Americans that made their world hate us. We had their sympathy! It was our idiotic and indiscriminate response. We have to undo some serious damage here, and you are lucky you have me at your disposal to do it."

Then, by not fighting, we win. In summary: if Obama creates a strong enough cognitive dissonance, and makes it utterly clear at the outset that the problem is that we've ignited a world to hate us, and that only a guy with an Islamic inoculation can address the situation, we win. Though not a Muslim, Obama has Muslim antibodies. It's not a liability. He's our secret weapon. If Obama flips his Muslimness thus, in essence saying: “I can get these guys off your back,” then with each subsequent attack he only gains strength.

Is Democracy the Highest Good, or is Being Free?

Every Thursday night I have my General's Ghosts poker night, and last Thursday I had the pleasure of sharing some fine Kentucky Bourbon and Cigars with the ghosts of Generals Sherman, Pershing and Patton, and herewith is my best transcript of some of the ideas these good old boys were kicking around. Not saying I agree with them now, but last night they looked pretty good:

Solutions to the US-created quagmire in Iraq are being entertained with an unprecedented sense of urgency, and yet they range in a narrow band from slightly decreasing troops to slightly increasing them. No proposed solution discusses the root causes of the problem, namely a culture that has had its institutions literally ripped from it, plagued by an inherently unjust and decrepit infrastructure, with a wholesale lack of tools and resources to address day-to-day, and historical, grievances. Sectarian infighting has begun in earnest, and no government, as imagined by the US or anyone else, stands half a chance of stemming the violence.

We are suffering from a classic and yet at the same time perhaps unprecedented failure, mainly a failure of imagination. And so we are trying to solve a problem with the symbols that created it, and find ourselves in a sort of paradox in reverse. Either the US pulls out and the fighting gets worse, since leaving would then result in even poorer security, or it adds more troops and the fighting gets worse, since at the core of the current state of terrorism in Iraq is the highly convenient resentment of the US presence there.

Perhaps we need to think outside the falafal, and start with a vision of what the solution could look like, with the only requirement that a heavy and wet blanket be thrown over the red hot violence. What would it take to tamp down the rampant shootings and bombings?

The premise we are operating under is that no matter what the US does, Iraq will continue to disintegrate. And what if that's true? What if, due to all the forces of history and geography and fate, based on all that has led us to this moment, Iraq is intractably heading towards an unchecked rampage that will end with a Rwanda-level genocide? Assuming that's true, and I think most analysts now believe it certainly could be, what in the world could the US do?

There is an unexamined assumption that we are not willing to wake up to and acknowledge and put back on the table. It's that the government in Iraq needs to be a democracy. But what if that's the thing we have to give up?
What if the US was premature in its assumptions about regime change, and a democracy for Iraq can't work? Or, more aptly stated, can't work under the present conditions? Or, at least given the way the US went about foisting it, it can't work any more? What if there is no way now - no matter how many troops the US sends and how much money it pours into the black hole - for there to be democratic institutions in place that are compatable with peace?


The answer is actually simple then. The US needs to install a dictatorship in Iraq. Not just a secret dictatorship, a de facto dictatorship, but an honest-to-God dictatorship, one in name as well. A real, old-fashioned Franco or Pinochet-style dictatorship. Why not? The US could say it was wrong, that it screwed it up, and that in the name of all that is decent, it is going to do the one thing it still can do to save the lives of average Iraqi citizens.

Sorry for the confusion folks, but the United States is now going to impose a fascist dictator on the people of Iraq, train him and his army, aid and arm him, and get out. He will brutally surpress all opposition, assassinate his enemies, and create order. How bad could that be? I mean, consider the horror of how things are now. He would need to be a native Iraqi, and as friendly a person to the US as the US could get who would still be cruel enough and smart enough to rule with an iron fist. I happen to not think there's any shortage of these people in Iraq.

The US forces there could even allow the Iraqi people to vote for him.
Occupation troops could bill it as "One last election -- Vote for your new dictator!" No more phony legislature, no more infighting and lack of clarity about who is working for whom, or whether this province is in cahoots with the Americans, that one still tied to a warlord. The US needs to give the Iraqi people what they want, or if not what they want, at least what they are used to. If the US does this, I believe we can have peace, and can provide Iraqis with some stability.

Yes, a fascist dictator would have to do some bad things. He would have to execute people, sometimes without trial, with no due process. He would have to supress public assembly, freedom of the press, and any right to dissent.
All those cherished "freedoms" would be sacrificed for law and order. But the number of innocent people who would die would be 1/10,000th of how many innocent people are dying today. And isn't that the metric to be employeed?


To the objection that freedom in some abstract sense would be sacrificed, I
say: so what?! The fact that Iraqis can now write tepid editorials, purchase alcohol, watch M*A*S*H, use profanity, see a prostitute, or whatever pathetic and miniscule elements masquerading as freedom they, or we, affix to the bone crunching miasma of pain that is day-to-day life in 2006 Iraq, is so much less freedom than at least the freedom to walk down the street at night, there really is no comparison.

Democracy is not the highest good. And freedom is just an abstraction.
There
is being free, which is an actual thing, and that surely is the highest good, but that is not what the people in Iraq are. With certain preconditions, it is possible, but by no means guaranteed, that democracy leads to the most freedom. But without those preconditions, as we are seeing, democracy actually leads to the least freedom. And so in the name of being free we must now change course and impose a brutal, military dictatorship in Iraq. Look at the bright side. At least that's something the US has some experience doing.

Hilary - O Say What You See

So now Hilary is in. And she's leading in the polls. I'm interested to see what she says. I've always liked Hilary, mainly enjoyed watching her talk - watching the way her mind works is fascinating - and now I'm interested in what actual ideas she's going to come up with to straddle the hawks vs. doves divide.

I think it's fitting, and wonderful, that this is the first presidential election with a major candidate who is a woman, and at the same time the first one with a serious contender who is black. Despite their differences, there will be a lot that Barack and Hilary will agree about, and even more than that, a lot that they will share in terms of editorial style and world view.

My question for Hilary will address the the transcendent issue of our times, peace. Can we recast the United States at this dire juncture to stand for more than consumption and killing? What is the vision for America? Tell us Hilary, what do you see?

Ford Eulogy

Yes, he was kind of dumb and fell down a lot, but what people don't know about Gerry Ford is that in the very heart of the 70's, just when we needed it, he ended Watergate, the Vietnam War and the recession. And he was a lot cooler than people realize.

Pardoning Nixon was at the time considered traitorous. But we now view this act as not so bad. Ford wasn't so wrong that lynching Nixon, fun as it would have been, would have dragged all of us through the muck of retribution and it probably would have gotten out of hand. So good Ger, we did actually need a final cleansing to move past Watergate and heal. And history certainly judged Nixon as harshly as his critics would have wished.

Vietnam had dragged on for over a decade. But it was Ford's seeing the writing on the wall, and using his leadership and time in the House that finally influenced Congress to sufficiently withhold funding to let the war end. In September 1974, just a month after Ford assumed the Presidency, Congress appropriated only $700 million for South Vietnam. This left the South Vietnamese under-funded and resulted in a rapid and steep decline of military readiness and morale. In December, when North Vietnam violated the Paris peace treaty by attacking Phuoc Long Province in South Vietnam, Ford responded with diplomatic protests but no military force. The end came soon thereafter.

And while Ford got a lot of crap for Nixon's pardon, the flip side to that was a blanket pardon to over 100,000 draft evaders and military deserters. The amnesty offered was very far reaching, and covered convicted draft violators, convicted military deserters and AWOL's, draft violators who had never been tried, and veterans with less than honorable discharges for absence offenses.

Ford did much to contribute to a stronger US economy. When Ford came into office inflation was over 12 percent. He came up with the WIN (Whip Inflation Now) program and those cute WIN buttons and by 1975 inflation had dropped to 7 percent and was down to 4.6 percent by mid '76 when he was running for re-election. Unemployment dropped during his presidency as well. In March of '75, a total of 84.1 million persons had jobs. In July, 1976, employment had risen to an all-time high of 87.9 million, an increase of 3.8 million jobs in a little over a year. Unemployment was 8.9 percent in May 1975, but by July 1976, it was down to 7.8 percent.

Ford accomplished this by tightly controlling spending. Despite being from the House, he vetoed more legislation - percentage-wise - than just about any president. He wielded the power of the Presidential veto 55 times, citing the need to battle inflation. The total dollar savings from his vetoes was about $10 billion, as Congress upheld 45 of the vetoes.

More than all this, he restored honesty and integrity to the executive branch. The guy really had no guile. I met him once, and I could see it right away. He was like my grandpa. He came from that last generation of Americans that could afford to be honest.

The sense of stability he transmitted was another reason the economy improved. But the other benefit from Ford's nature was the era of Good Times that swept the land once Nixon left the stage. For Ford had that greatest of great presidential qualities. He was a hands off guy. He knew our country was enjoying the biggest party in the history of the world, and he let us get on with it. Once Nixon was gone, and Rock Music and disco and glam and popularization of the 60's as the 70's and everything that went with it had arrived, mid-70's America became what we all now know it to have been: the zenith of Western civilization. Time will vindicate those who believe it that that was the peak. And Gerry was our absentee landlord. Thank you Gerry.

Of course, he was also a pretty tough dude. He survived 2 assassination attempts, as well as hitting his head and tripping a lot. LBJ once said, "That guy's played too many football games without his helmet," but 93 years old is a testament to some pretty healthy living. And let's not forget the bravery of his wife Betty, who was the first first lady alcoholic in a long and tawdry history of several first lady alcoholics to admit it and go into rehab. But what we don't normally appreciate is that Betty invented rehab. The Betty Ford Clinic formed the basis for the recovery movement that continues to this day.

A little known fact is that once Ford got into office, he did pretty good for the environment too. Though never ratified by congress, in 1975 he proposed an energy program that would have given the US energy independence by 1985. He did put the Energy Research and Development Administration into law which provided for the creation of alternative energy supplies such as solar and geothermal energy.
He also got passed the Energy Policy and Conservation Act, which among other things set up the now well-known national gasoline emergency reserves system.

During his presidency, there were no Americans fighting other nation's wars. Ford was the first President since Eisenhower who ran for election without a single American fighting overseas. And he gave us the first mini-military victory after a losing war, successfully sending Air Force and Marines to take back the freighter Mayaguez, seized by Cambodian Commies.

Crime was increasing at a rate of 18 percent a year when Ford took office. The rate of increase went down to 9 percent the following year, and in the first quarter of '76 had dropped to 4 percent.

The thing that always nailed him, his infamous quote that "There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe and there never will be under a Ford administration," sounds less asinine when you read his follow up to the moderator's request for clarification:

"I don't believe, Mr. Frankel, that the Yugoslavians consider themselves dominated by the Soviet Union. I don't believe that the Romanians consider themselves dominated by the Soviet Union. I don't believe that the Poles consider themselves dominated by the Soviet Union. Each of those countries is independent, autonomous: it has its own territorial integrity and the United States does not concede that those countries are under the domination of the Soviet Union. As a matter of fact, I visited Poland, Yugoslavia and Rumania to make certain that the people of those countries understood that the president of the United States and the people of the United States are dedicated to their independence, their autonomy and their freedom."

I get and appreciate his point here. And it was proved true 12 years later. So thanks Gerry. You were a helluva guy. You stood up for what was right, and you did it with humility, and without a single vote being cast.

It's the Stupidity, Stupid!

I really think John "I botched the joke" Kerry may be a robot programmed by Richard Nixon to destroy the Democratic party. Why on earth is he apologizing for trying to tell the truth? Everybody says that a politician can’t get elected if he or she speaks honestly about hard issues. But how can we know if no one ever tries it?

If I were John Kerry, I would fight back with the whole truth, and it would go something like this:

Former GOP congressman Mac Collins, who is trying to oust Democratic Rep. Jim Marshall, attacked what I said about how stupid we are to be in Iraq by saying: "The men and women who serve in our all-volunteer armed forces are plenty smart." I have no problem with that. But I said if you don't study and don't do your homework, you end up in Iraq. And indeed, that is why we are there. This is a stupid war, and anyone responsible for getting us into it is stupid.

Now, Mr. Collins won’t admit it, but you and I know that joining the Army is pretty much the only way for the poor and uneducated to get out of poverty and get an education in our country anymore. But no one believes it was our troops’ decision. We are in Iraq because our government is stupid. And the rest of us are all just stupid for letting it happen.

Since we’re talking about stupidity, however, I would speculate that the average intelligence in the USA of people who support the war is far lower than those who don't. And there's a very interesting reason as to why this is. Because the war is stupid! For those who did not understand my comments the first time, let me elaborate. We are stupid to be in Iraq! Dumb. Not smart. Being stupid and being in Iraq are synonymous.

Simply stated, it is commonly recognized that favoring brute force versus attempting to use reason to work things out generally reveals a lack of intelligence. And yet, despite all our ideals and so-called values, our country, the one we're supposed to believe in, the good ole USA, out of the blue, totally unprovoked, started bombing innocent people in Iraq. You can lay a story over it but the story doesn’t stick. You can say that it was because there was an immediate threat, but it's been very clearly shown that that was a made up lie.

The reality is that a day came where we just started bombing and invading Iraq, causing a world of pain and suffering, and unleashing untold violence that did not exist until we forced ourselves upon them. And you are not smart, and you did not study or do your homework, if you can't, don't or won't see that. By the way, a country is not just stupid if it denies or ignores this reality, it is in big trouble. So the real discussion to have here is how are we going to come to terms with the fact that our country has caused tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of innocent people to be killed and to suffer.

So when I say we are stupid to fight the way we are, I refer to the uneducated and thoroughly discredited opinion that the US can and should militarize its way out of the threats our country faces from the Muslim world. Even the US Army now admits that our policy has increased terrorism and hugely increased anti-US sentiment. Stupid is the old paradigm: "Arabs only understand violence." The idea that Bush and his cronies continue to push, that our only hope is to crush them, is racist and dead wrong. It's racist because it implies they can't respond to anything short of the logic of being crushed, and it's wrong because you can't crush a billion people. You can only win them over. Once the USA realizes that our only hope for winning is to win people over, we will stop trying to hurt them and make them cry uncle. They're not going to cry uncle. They're going to get more angry and become more willing to resort to more extreme methods of self-expression that reach more and more into our own world.

So let’s take a lesson: If you don't do your homework and you aren't smart, you get stuck in Iraq! Really! Really stuck! Really really dumb. Thank you.

I'm Jewish and So Am I

Probably won't come as a big shock to anybody, but my real name is Samuel and I'm a Jew. That's because all Americans are Jews, and not just because the same spirit that posited the Jewish idea also posited the American idea. Because the world is going to start treating the Americans the way they treat the Jews. that's the real reason. But that's a discussion for another day. I'm coming out here though, because I just read an article in Sunday's New York Times by Bernard-Henry Levy entitled Pondering, Discussing, Traveling Amid and Defending the Inevitable War, and I think it's time I drew the line for me and my fellow Jews, since at this point it's really the same thing as the line we need to draw for us as Americans. So as you read this and hear me talking to the Jews, every time I say Jew, I want you to read "American." OK?

So what Levy wrote was a means of justifying Israel's behavior: "But why shouldn’t what is due to some also be due to others?" This is the old question of why can't the Jews treat our enemies the way our enemies treat us? Good question. The answer is a version of the Hasidic teaching that God’s manner of distributing reward or punishment is not necessarily the manner of men. When Jews complain: "We mourn when we accidentally kill their innocents. They celebrate when our innocents die," that is sadly, but certainly, correct. But Arabs or Muslims dancing at our death is likewise not our concern or affair. That is between them and God. When Jews envy the lower moral standard non-Jews are held to, this is a version of the 'evil eye' Jesus spoke of in Matthew 20. The only comparison to be made is with the truth.

As the Bible progresses and the Jews emerge, they increasingly distinguish themselves as a people created by a social contract, setting themselves apart, not just as another tribe, but a people defined by morality. This is truly unprecedented and as has been noted by most legal scholars, forms the basis for common law as we now know it. Furthermore, this act of positing ourselves as a conscious entity, and the boundaries forged by insisting on values that have their basis in consciousness, formed the basis for civil society, as well as of the Jews as a people. To forsake these values to preserve the people defined by them is not an option. Indeed, it's not even a logical possibility.

I know it seems unfair that we are Jews, but we are. Painful as it sounds, nothing Arabs or Muslims do is a justification for anything we do; that is God's law. It's a straight line to God and comparison is not an option. The proof of the good is in the result. Lévy claims that Israel is justified in what for her is a less discriminating response to violence because of the increasingly unabashed and popular calls for the end to Israel. And because Iran and its agent will soon have nuclear weapons capable of achieving this aim, he argues that we need to be willing to "go after" Hezbollah and be less precise than we might like to be in targeting our bombs, insofar as our enemy has begun to act on these lethal threats.

But speaking as a Jew I would argue: Of course we need to go after them, but in a way that works. Politicians can pridefully pontificate all day long, but at the end of the day our real goal is survival. And survival may prove difficult insofar as we are totally surrounded by Arab countries that want to annihilate us. So while I agree that we may, in some sense, have the 'right' to bomb their neighborhoods, since that is absolutely where the attacks come from, we do need to decide if that which we have the right to do is that which we should do for the good of the Jews. It's not about being right. It's not about teaching anybody a lesson. It is far more serious than that. We must ask ourselves what is the highest good, and I would argue the highest good is the survival of the Jews as Jews.

Now, it is not debatable that we have transformed the vast majority of the population of Lebanon from being against Hezbolla to being pro Hezbolla, and that with popular will goes political will and military might. With these newly energized forces now so strongly in favor of wiping out Isreal, we have greatly diminished her chances for survival. Nor can we continue to ignore that similar attempts using brute force (finally we are putting the lie to the right's constant refrain: "all the Arabs understand is strength") have increasingly backfired. From time to time, talking heads on the news from Israeli leadership triumphantly announce the death of this or that member of the terrorist leadership because we bombed a building and killed a number of people, a terrorist leader among them. Necessary and acceptable casualties, we say. But until we admit and come to terms with how many new leaders this morally weak and inferior approach breeds, we will remain on the losing end.

I really don't need to debate this with anybody any more. Just look at the numbers! Please, because they are getting really bad. It's as if there is a monster that can either be fed or not fed. And the monster is a huge number of average people now living their lives for the destruction of the Jews. (We Jews can say: "but the Jews are not Israel," but that is a distinction the monster no longer makes.) So if the devotion is not to the negative pleasure of retribution, but to the unassailable value of surviving _as Jews_, then I say we as Jews have to be willing to do what works, and accept the cosmic challenge presented to the Jews: to continue to discriminate. I am not saying that we should not strike back. I am however saying that we must strike back very precisely, maintaining our moral core, in a way that allows us to emerge victorious.

Our only options at this stage are very risky and unattractive. What is demanded of us is man-to-man, knife-in-the-teeth, incredibly well coordinated, life-or-death, highly tactical and righteous behavior. The last phase of the battle is on pause, but given that we may have subsequent phases with similar charactaristics, let me share what I would have done regarding the most recent transgression. My solution would have been to make a very big deal about how we will not respond in kind, meanwhile marshalling all our resources and attacking every known person who is active in Hezbolla, in a manner similar to the way we went after the Munich terrorists after the '68 Olympics. A full court press using the best of Israeli intelligence and technology, as precision-guided as a laser beam, but with a tremendous amount of information up front about what our intentions are (in this case: invade to a buffer zone and wait for the UN to send peacekeeper forces), tied to an information campaign about the moral limits we are placing on the war campaign, would have been a saner way to victory.

It would have been slow, it would have been ugly, it would have been extremely dangerous, all of that and worse. But it would have had - and next chance we get it still would have - one advantage: it would be morally unassailable and it would work. We would be able to enlist Jews worldwide with a multitude of outreach methods. Call it propaganda or even bribery, but we would be appealing to and using any and every backchannel and media outlet to let the world know we will not bomb back the way they are bombing us. But. We will neither accept this behavior. We will reject it in a manner that makes it utterly clear who we are and why we are not going away. We will do what Jews do best: we will discriminate.

We are dealing with the hopes and aspirations of the human spirit here, and to emerge victorious we must address it. Like Iraq, ultimately, we cannot militarize our way out of this situation. This is all about hearts and minds, and for better or worse, for us, there is no path to victory that cannot travel the moral high ground.

We must unite around these tenets. Just because they kill innocents does not mean we should. This logic is unassailable, and emanates from the holy of holies. It says: Our very reason for being is nothing if not that our values prohibit us from this kind of behavior. If we sacrifice our reason for being in order to be, we by definition cease to be. To fail to be ourselves is to fail ultimately, and so we will fail.

I know this path is correct because everybody is upset with me for advocating it. The left is angry that I am advocating some aspect of retaliation or at least non-pacifism. The right is angry because they fear weakness. I am not saying we should lie down and take it. But we are a traumatized people, and so are they. We face off, and both of us see ancient enemies. They see the Ottomans and oppressors throughout history, and we see the Nazis. Of course it's terribly sad and disheartening to see 60 years later - given how triggered we are - how successful Hitler ended up being. Only the persecuted overreacts the way these two ancient enemies do. How ironic that the cause of each of our trauma is not the other. But we see our abusers in the other, and as the abused, we lash out. Each side in this conflict is unfortunately acting out of its trauma in a way which may doom both sides.

And indeed, many of my colleagues, Jewish and otherwise, believe WWIII has softly begun. There may be a temporary cease fire, but the story behind the scenes is that the Arab / Muslim street is now highly radicalized and enrolled in a way as never before in calling for Israel's destruction. A plausable scenario, where following this phase the Arabs arm to the teeth and prepare for the end game. And the next time antagonisms will escalate more, and there will be bigger bombs, and more death and destruction, and ultimately boom goes Tel Aviv and boom goes Beirut, or we may say Megiddo (the town between Israel and Lebanon whose name forms the basis for the word Armageddon).

What is going to stop it? Nobody knows, but it will be some alternative that looks more attractive than the negative pleasure of the status quo. Our way there involves a solution that is built from a different approach, one that is willing to distinguish between what we have the right to do, and what we actually must do to win. My father has a saying: "You can be right, but do you want to be dead right?" It's not about being right. It's about not stoking an insane, monstrous fire that we cannot control. Unfortunately our enemies are not in control of it either.

There exists a very narrow path between sacrificing ourselves and the kind of retribution we are engaged in. It is a hair's breadth wide and cut into a cliff, and we must divine it on a moonless night. The ability to distinguish such a thing seems almost impossible. But we're Jews. That's what we do.

Not PC, but this one seems obvious

Sunday, December 25, 2005

US radiation snooping of Muslims called ‘disturbing’

WASHINGTON: The Council for American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the largest Muslim rights organisation in the United States, has described the revelation that Muslim gatherings and homes around Washington have been electronically “sniffed” for radiation as “disturbing.”

Read it all on the Daily Times website, front page with today's date: http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/.


Well, I'm with Bill Maher on this one. It really is Muslims, so we really do have to focus on Muslims. Muslims after all did declare war on the US in the name of Islam. Polls indicate a huge percentage of Muslims, and a tiny percentage of any other group, agree with the stated aims of Al-Qaeda. If the folks getting searched at the airports don't like it, they should write their own head office and complain, not ours.

My $0.02.

~ US

Back from Mexico

Sorry gang. After Bush won, I needed a year off. I escaped to Mexico, a little town named Yelapa where they treat even me with unconditional love. But a year drinking Ricea and moping have done little to counter the feelings of despair that engulfed me after I realized that it was finally, after so many years of rolling up my sleeves, too late.

But now I wonder. Upon my return, I decided to review the year's events. I started with the Inaugural Address, and that is the subject of this posting. For as I reread it, it dawned on me that the problem was the solution, and our challenge was not to confront the tyrant in our own midst, but rather to use the Internet and its unprecedented ability to foster free speech to join forces with the loftiest claims made in the inaugural, and leave the hollowed out reality their claims are meant to justify on the trash heap of history it crawled out of.

Specifically, what I wish to say is that George W. Bush's Second Inaugural Address may be the greatest speech I have ever read. Not heard of course, for reasons that anyone with ears would find obvious. But if you read the speech, it's obvious that the America proposed in it is an America so far beyond and above what has ever been the case, so far removed and above what current administration policy creates, an America so good, so righteous, so complete, that it is actually an America I wish to live in.

Please read this speech as if you had no idea who wrote it. Read it as if it were not merely proscriptive, but descriptive, and decide for yourself if we have any other choice but force the man who wrote it, and those who would claim to be its co-authors, to live up to it. Imagine a world where our country actually was the force for freedom so eloquently painted by these words, and insodoing consider not just the hypocrisy of what passes for their enactment, but what a difference it would make if progressives and activists and the movement as a whole demanded not that the mission statement itself be revamped, but that it simply be lived up to.

Herewith, the speech in its entirety:

Vice President Cheney, Mr. Chief Justice, President Carter, President Bush, President Clinton, members of the United States Congress, reverend clergy, distinguished guests, fellow citizens:

On this day, prescribed by law and marked by ceremony, we celebrate the durable wisdom of our Constitution and recall the deep commitments that unite our country. I am grateful for the honor of this hour, mindful of the consequential times in which we live and determined to fulfill the oath that I have sworn and you have witnessed.

At this second gathering, our duties are defined not by the words I use, but by the history we have seen together. For a half-century, America defended our own freedom by standing watch on distant borders. After the shipwreck of communism came years of relative quiet, years of repose, years of sabbatical -- and then there came a day of fire.

We have seen our vulnerability, and we have seen its deepest source. For as long as whole regions of the world simmer in resentment and tyranny -- prone to ideologies that feed hatred and excuse murder -- violence will gather, and multiply in destructive power, and cross the most defended borders and raise a mortal threat.

There is only one force of history that can break the reign of hatred and resentment and expose the pretensions of tyrants and reward the hopes of the decent and tolerant. And that is the force of human freedom.

We are led, by events and common sense, to one conclusion: The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world.

America's vital interests and our deepest beliefs are now one. From the day of our founding, we have proclaimed that every man and woman on this Earth has rights, and dignity and matchless value because they bear the image of the maker of heaven and Earth.

Across the generations, we have proclaimed the imperative of self-government, because no one is fit to be a master, and no one deserves to be a slave. Advancing these ideals is the mission that created our nation. It is the honorable achievement of our fathers. Now it is the urgent requirement of our nation's security and the calling of our time.

So it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.

This is not primarily the task of arms, though we will defend ourselves and our friends by force of arms when necessary. Freedom, by its nature, must be chosen and defended by citizens and sustained by the rule of law and the protection of minorities. And when the soul of a nation finally speaks, the institutions that arise may reflect customs and traditions very different from our own.

America will not impose our own style of government on the unwilling. Our goal instead is to help others find their own voice, attain their own freedom and make their own way.

The great objective of ending tyranny is the concentrated work of generations. The difficulty of the task is no excuse for avoiding it. America's influence is not unlimited, but fortunately for the oppressed, America's influence is considerable, and we will use it confidently in freedom's cause.

My most solemn duty is to protect this nation and its people from further attacks and emerging threats. Some have unwisely chosen to test America's resolve and have found it firm.

We will persistently clarify the choice before every ruler and every nation -- the moral choice between oppression, which is always wrong, and freedom, which is eternally right. America will not pretend that jailed dissidents prefer their chains, or that women welcome humiliation and servitude or that any human being aspires to live at the mercy of bullies.

We will encourage reform in other governments by making clear that success in our relations will require the decent treatment of their own people. America's belief in human dignity will guide our policies. Yet, rights must be more than the grudging concessions of dictators; they are secured by free dissent and the participation of the governed. In the long run, there is no justice without freedom, and there can be no human rights without human liberty.

Some, I know, have questioned the global appeal of liberty -- though this time in history, four decades defined by the swiftest advance of freedom ever seen, is an odd time for doubt. Americans, of all people, should never be surprised by the power of our ideals. Eventually, the call of freedom comes to every mind and every soul. We do not accept the existence of permanent tyranny because we do not accept the possibility of permanent slavery. Liberty will come to those who love it.

Today, America speaks anew to the peoples of the world:

All who live in tyranny and hopelessness can know: The United States will not ignore your oppression, or excuse your oppressors. When you stand for your liberty, we will stand with you.

Democratic reformers facing repression, prison or exile can know: America sees you for who you are -- the future leaders of your free country.

The rulers of outlaw regimes can know that we still believe as Abraham Lincoln did: "Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves; and, under the rule of a just God, cannot long retain it."

The leaders of governments with long habits of control need to know: To serve your people you must learn to trust them. Start on this journey of progress and justice, and America will walk at your side.

And all the allies of the United States can know: We honor your friendship, we rely on your counsel, and we depend on your help. Division among free nations is a primary goal of freedom's enemies. The concerted effort of free nations to promote democracy is a prelude to our enemies' defeat.

Today, I also speak anew to my fellow citizens:

From all of you, I have asked patience in the hard task of securing America, which you have granted in good measure. Our country has accepted obligations that are difficult to fulfill and would be dishonorable to abandon. Yet because we have acted in the great liberating tradition of this nation, tens of millions have achieved their freedom.

And as hope kindles hope, millions more will find it. By our efforts, we have lit a fire as well -- a fire in the minds of men. It warms those who feel its power, it burns those who fight its progress, and one day this untamed fire of freedom will reach the darkest corners of our world.

A few Americans have accepted the hardest duties in this cause -- in the quiet work of intelligence and diplomacy ... the idealistic work of helping raise up free governments ... the dangerous and necessary work of fighting our enemies. Some have shown their devotion to our country in deaths that honored their whole lives, and we will always honor their names and their sacrifice.

All Americans have witnessed this idealism and some for the first time. I ask our youngest citizens to believe the evidence of your eyes. You have seen duty and allegiance in the determined faces of our soldiers. You have seen that life is fragile, and evil is real, and courage triumphs. Make the choice to serve in a cause larger than your wants, larger than yourself, and in your days you will add not just to the wealth of our country but to its character.

America has need of idealism and courage because we have essential work at home -- the unfinished work of American freedom. In a world moving toward liberty, we are determined to show the meaning and promise of liberty.

In America's ideal of freedom, citizens find the dignity and security of economic independence, instead of laboring on the edge of subsistence. This is the broader definition of liberty that motivated the Homestead Act, the Social Security Act and the GI Bill of Rights. And now we will extend this vision by reforming great institutions to serve the needs of our time.

To give every American a stake in the promise and future of our country, we will bring the highest standards to our schools and build an ownership society. We will widen the ownership of homes and businesses, retirement savings and health insurance -- preparing our people for the challenges of life in a free society.

By making every citizen an agent of his or her own destiny, we will give our fellow Americans greater freedom from want and fear and make our society more prosperous and just and equal.

In America's ideal of freedom, the public interest depends on private character -- on integrity and tolerance toward others and the rule of conscience in our own lives. Self-government relies, in the end, on the governing of the self.

That edifice of character is built in families, supported by communities with standards,and sustained in our national life by the truths of Sinai, the Sermon on the Mount, the words of the Koran and the varied faiths of our people. Americans move forward in every generation by reaffirming all that is good and true that came before -- ideals of justice and conduct that are the same yesterday, today and forever.

In America's ideal of freedom, the exercise of rights is ennobled by service and mercy and a heart for the weak. Liberty for all does not mean independence from one another. Our nation relies on men and women who look after a neighbor and surround the lost with love.

Americans, at our best, value the life we see in one another and must always remember that even the unwanted have worth. And our country must abandon all the habits of racism because we cannot carry the message of freedom and the baggage of bigotry at the same time.

From the perspective of a single day, including this day of dedication, the issues and questions before our country are many. From the viewpoint of centuries, the questions that come to us are narrowed and few. Did our generation advance the cause of freedom? And did our character bring credit to that cause?

These questions that judge us also unite us, because Americans of every party and background, Americans by choice and by birth, are bound to one another in the cause of freedom. We have known divisions, which must be healed to move forward in great purposes -- and I will strive in good faith to heal them.

Yet those divisions do not define America. We felt the unity and fellowship of our nation when freedom came under attack, and our response came like a single hand over a single heart. And we can feel that same unity and pride whenever America acts for good, and the victims of disaster are given hope, and the unjust encounter justice, and the captives are set free.

We go forward with complete confidence in the eventual triumph of freedom. Not because history runs on the wheels of inevitability; it is human choices that move events. Not because we consider ourselves a chosen nation; God moves and chooses as he wills.

We have confidence because freedom is the permanent hope of mankind, the hunger in dark places, the longing of the soul. When our Founders declared a new order of the ages, when soldiers died in wave upon wave for a union based on liberty, when citizens marched in peaceful outrage under the banner "Freedom Now" -- they were acting on an ancient hope that is meant to be fulfilled.

History has an ebb and flow of justice, but history also has a visible direction set by liberty and the author of liberty.

When the Declaration of Independence was first read in public and the Liberty Bell was sounded in celebration, a witness said, "It rang as if it meant something." In our time it means something still.

America, in this young century, proclaims liberty throughout all the world and to all the inhabitants thereof. Renewed in our strength -- tested, but not weary -- we are ready for the greatest achievements in the history of freedom.

May God bless you, and may he watch over the United States of America.

The L Word

Babe the Blue Ox here.

Paul has not left the cabin in four days, working his way through a whole standard pallet of Kentucky whiskey. Every few minutes, I hear the clank of another empty flying out the window onto a pile that is now bigger than one of my cow-pies.

Okay, while Paul is out of it for a while, here's the deal. Yes, the election was stolen. But it was stolen fair and square. You can't cheat an honest man, and who lets an election get stolen? A wussy does, is what the Babe has to say about that. John Kerry, Al Gore, Michael Dukakis, Hubert Humphrey, George McGovern, Ed Muskie, what do they all have in common? Um, they're wusses? Uh huh.

The Democrats have one big problem. The word Conservative is just a whole lot of a better word than the word Liberal. Conservative is what you want your football team to be in the Superbowl--that is, unless they're Losing in the 3rd quarter, or unless they are one of those one-hit-wonder teams that rely on a flashy offense of the kind that never win Superbowls. Conservative is what you want to be with your money. Conservative is what you want to be with your "powers" and your "energies" for "when it really matters." Conservative is what you want to be as a Liberal with one of your key concerns, i.e. the environment, because you are a Conservationist.

Liberal is not what you want anybody to be with your daughter. When you say that somebody uses a word, or a spice, or their drinking, or anything else "Liberally," you're making fun of 'em. Somebody who is Liberal with his money is good to have as a friend, but is definitely not someone whose business you would invest in.

The British Liberal Party of 200 years ago began as a radical opposition movement against the old entrenched powers. Back then the alarming connotations of Liberality as a policy of state ("Sure take whatever you want. I'm feelin' loose."), were not a problem because they were meant as a provocation. These were the guys who wanted to break up the old system of rigid state control, whether the Tory or Whig version. The Liberal idea was freedom, that is to stop fighting the forces of change, let it loose with free trade, free religious expression, and expansion of the voting franchise.

The Liberals went from radicalism to decades of political domination at the very height of British glory and empire. They held on to power so long because the crazy Liberal idea worked just as they thought it would: it created wealth without completely destroying society. In their early years of rule they could rely on the nearly unanimous support of the newly emerging class of people who were the direct beneficiaries of this wealth, that is everybody who made real money off of the industrial revolution, from capitalists to engineers to merchants to ad-men.

It's significant that the Liberals hit the rocks when they tried to expand their set of Enlightenment ideals from the individual-oriented principles of free trade and free expression to the universalist principles of national self-determination and protection of human welfare. Half of their base of support deserted them when it came to Home Rule for Ireland and poor-relief at home. The Liberal, or anti-Tory, cause was lost until the emergence of the Industrial Worker power base and the Labour Party. It's significant also that while Whigs yielded to Liberals and Liberals to Labour, a Tory remained a Tory. The impulse to say no to change, to try to turn back time, is a basic and primitive impulse that needs no name change or even any explanation.

Things went a little differently in the U.S. For one thing, before the Liberal party even existed in England, the U.S. was established with a Constitution and Bill of Rights that made it the most Liberal nation that had ever existed. And so our political struggles broke out along different lines, with a series of changing sets of party oppositions that were aligned not so much to the classic Liberal/Conservative opposition as to regional or class conflicts, such as between the South and North or between industrial and agricultural regions.

The result is a very twisted and complex genealogy of U.S. political parties. For example, the Democratic party was originally founded on states' rights and opposition to taxes, causes eventually taken up by Republicans just as they took up the principle of Racism when the Democrats abandoned it. Meanwhile, the Republican Party of Lincoln was in some respects the counterpart of the Liberals in England, and remained so until Teddy Roosevelt defected from the party in 1912.

The Liberal, progressive, or anti-conservative cause has shifted its objectives over time. Liberalism meant free-trade in early 19th century England when the existing autocracy needed to be broken to permit industry to develop, but it meant trust-busting around the turn of the century when industrial wealth had gained too much power. Liberalism at first ignored the worker, but then took up his cause after it won him the franchise and after public education and new media technologies made it possible for the masses to participate in politics. Idealistic humanitarian, environmental, and civil rights issues have always been a part of Liberalism, but have always been contentious, having periodically torn its voting bases to shreds since the Liberals fell into decline in England some 120 years ago.

To be a Liberal means to have an answer to the complaint that "things were better off the way they used to be." The problem is nobody really believes this; everybody actually believes on an emotional level that things were better before. The enormous advantage, on the other hand, is that thing are going to change whether or not we want them to, and thus all Conservatives will always be wrong. And so far, nostalgia aside, all of this change, at least in America, has been for the better. The key is to realize what needs to happen and to make it happen, like, for example, Lincoln, both Roosevelts, and Johnson did.

BOO!

Two headlines from yesterday's papers:

"Bush Campaigns With Brother, Accuses Kerry Of Using Scare Tactics"
(The Frontrunner, 10-20-04)

"Cheney, Invoking Specter of a Nuclear Attack, Questions Kerry's Strength"
(NYTimes 10-20-04)

Yankee Doodle Mouths Off

Hey Sports Fans, Yankee Doodle here, close and personal friend of Uncle Sam's. Yesterday, I received a letter from the Pillsbury Dough Boy asking:

Do you have any info on why I should vote Kerry and not Bush?

Honestly, I don't like either, but I would hope to have some real facts to work with. Unfortunately, the American Political landscape is full of lies and deceit. Especially the 2000 election bullshit in Florida and the Iraq War. That is why I won't vote for Bush, but Kerry really isn't a good replacement. What do I do?

~ PDB


Dear PDB,

Well, I completely agree. However, always remember that you are voting for one of two "behind the scenes" World Order (WO) agendas. And from where I sit as our nation's _other_ red, white and blue superstar, I would rather have the Kerry World Order faction in place than the Bush one. The Bush WO faction is about Oil, Arms, Pharmaceuticals (big profits from the disease model of health care) and other Drug Running (propping up Wall Street - i.e. FARC and poppy's cabal), and basically makes its power from creating war (including the draft BTW).

Remember Bush's father's famous one-liner in 1990 that nobody but the insiders understood - eternal war for eternal peace? Or Bush Jr.'s "I just know how the world works," line the other night? Kerry's faction is more aligned around technology. While they are hell-bent on outer technology to disempower the masses, at least it is not as environmentally insane as the Bush WO approach. And when democrats are in the White House, it's just a helluva lot easier to make your way through the "system," to deal with bureaucracy. Plus, it gives us all a better opportunity to wake up to our own INNER power. At least with Kerry, I have a better shot of hearing from my inner power than from the Bush faction, with the overload of everyone running scared from some terrorist boogeyman.

Many of my international colleagues believe that the Bushco WO faction was behind 9/11 in order to ignite and further their agenda. My belief, along with Uncle Sam, is that Bush looked the other way in hopes that 9/11 would be the break his faction needed. Indeed, if you look at it big picture, 9/11 shifted the economy from technology as we knew it (circa 1990's) back to the old guard military industrial companies, such as Lockheed, Halliburton, etc. Basically, you have two bonesmen representing the two WO factions, so it is a choice of how you want your Lords and Masters to rule over you.

The third choice is to buy a small island in the South Pacific, declare it Sovereign, pitch a tent and move there. The Powers That Be have pretty much locked up the rest of the planet at this point.

Blessings,

Yankee Doodle

Two Weeks to Election Day

If Bush wins (and I do mean "if") the key reason will be that Americans are afraid of changing pale horses of death in mid-nightmare. So Kerry needs to shout: "Wake Up!" And he needs to do so in so many different ways that somehow enough people hear it and have time to rise from their brainwashed slumber by November 2. Kerry needs to convey this vibe in all his answers, a sense of almost disbelief at what's going on (laughing and shaking his head in mock shock at the latest Bush attack). And mainly, he needs to be having fun. In every sound byte, we need to see that fun is still possible, that levity and humor can still have a place in the West Wing. Kerry can win if he lifts us out of the pall of terror.

And, I guess it shouldn't be too surprising that current polls are showing that, post-debate, Kerry isn't getting the bounce that he needs. What Kerry needs is to make his own bounce. He needs five (5) big messages that he just pounds on, from here to the election. When you go to www.johnkerry.com, there should be five compelling graphics with these themes, and when you click on them, a one minute video of Kerry talking his core position on the theme comes up, underneath of which there are more choices: Ask a Question Read Policy Paper See what America Thinks See more Video.

Herewith the five themes:

1) Right war or wrong war, we're losing the war...

Kerry explains that we need to recast to win, and that he has the credibility to start fresh, and the experience to run the new war. He must emphasize that he's not going to bail on the war on terror, and that he can be just as tough and vigilant as W.

2) We need allies to win the war; I can get 'em.

Kerry needs to remind us that hitting the reset button buys the US a lot. What might our allies say and do if the entire country throws Bush out. Kerry can reframe the situation. He can say: "I have wiggle room Bush has burnt up." He can use his flip-flopper powers for good! If he is feeling particularly bold, he can even say that he will open up a second "peace" front, because he knows that war is not the only answer.

3) Bush is paid for by the rich and is not your friend. He lied to you and steals from you.

Nobody really cares about this one, but at least one of the five messages has got to say it.

4) I love America and always have - my history proves it.

We need constant, heart-rending rhetoric from Kerry about how "really loving America" means criticizing and helping to fix it. How America is always unfinished, but unless we keep improving it we stagnate. All that classic comic-book rhetoric: we need it now!

5) You can't privatize everything and tax nothing.

Back to the economy, he can just point out again and again that Bush is bankrupting the country, losing us jobs, giving it all to the rich, and has no plan to reverse the trend.

But at the end of the day, Kerry has to show that he is a tough-minded, military-minded, no-nonsense true believe who will not lose control if we hand him the reins. That's the majority of it.