Uncommon Thought Journal: critical analyses of a struggling world.

I like it, but I would suggest putting a bit of white space between "Category:" and the side margin.

Lovely choice of color, very pleasing on the eye without straining them.

Load time was reasonable, hard to tell how good because my connection is a little sluggish tonight.

Hope this helps you Rowan. Love your blog, so true to it's name and so interesting.

With Appreciation, Matthew

Much better, I like it. By the way the last three or four comments I have left didn't make it on the site.

download speed has not been a problem for me and I have liked the original format, but I must admit though I like the colors together on the original, I think these new contrasts make the page more soothing and readable by recessing the background. You do really good work.

Looks great ! By the way my last comments are not posting.

I really like the new one -- it seems easier on the old eyes.

Rising to his position amongst the US mainstream punditry elite through vigorous and shameless self-promotion based on his mother's involvement in the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, young Jonah quickly learned our culture's ferocious appetite for the sordid, the lurid, and all that validates our collective pathological narcissism euphemistically called the American Dream. To this day, he skillfully crafts malevolent agitprop to convince and reassure us here in the United States that it is our unconditional right to murder, exploit, invade, and oppress as we preserve and advance the "American Way."

To get a sense of the extent of his reach and his penchant for promoting himself, take a gander at the bio sketch he penned for himself. (This appears at National Review Online):

"Jonah Goldberg is editor-at-large of National Review Online for which he writes his thrice-weekly column "The Goldberg File" and a contributing editor to National Review. Goldberg also writes a nationally syndicated column distributed by Tribune Media Services, which appears often such newspapers as the Kansas City Star, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Washington Times, the Orlando Sentinel, San Francisco Chronicle, the Manchester Union Leader, and others. He also writes a regular media criticism column for The American Enterprise magazine. Mr. Goldberg was a contributing editor and columnist for the now-defunct Brill's Content.

Mr. Goldberg is also a CNN contributor and regular panelist on Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer. He is an occasional guest-host on Crossfire and has appeared on numerous television and radio programs.

Since Mr. Goldberg became editor of National Review Online, it rapidly become one of the dominant players in web journalism, earning high praise from The Columbia Journalism Review, Vanity Fair, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and The Christian Science Monitor. The New York Press concluded that National Review Online is "by far the best political online operation going today."

Jonah Goldberg is a former television producer who has credits in a wide range of productions. He was the senior producer of Think Tank with Ben Wattenberg, the award-winning public-affairs program and he has written and produced two PBS documentaries. Prior to his work in television Mr. Goldberg was a researcher at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington DC. An award-winning journalist, his writing has appeared in The New Yorker, Worth, the Wall Street Journal, Commentary, The Public Interest, The Wilson Quarterly, The Weekly Standard, the New York Post, Reason, The Women's Quarterly, The New Criterion, Food and Wine, The Street.com, and Slate."

It is a tragic indictment of our so-called "Fourth Estate" that an enabler of egregious war crimes enjoys such a massive megaphone through which to shout his virulent lies.

Consider this assessment of Goldberg by Professor Juan Cole of the University of Michigan, a preeminent expert on the Middle East:

"Extremist rightwing hawks like Jonah Goldberg used their privileged position as pundits to terrify the US public that Iraq was a threat to the US. He repeatedly said in the buildup to the war that Iraq was a menace to the US, and he repeatedly brought up North Korea's nuclear weapons as a reason for a preemptive attack on Iraq.

Iraq never has had nuclear weapons. Iraq never has been as close as two decades from having nuclear weapons. Iraq dismantled all vestiges of its rudimentary and exploratory nuclear weapons research in 1991. Iraq did not have a nuclear weapons program in 1992, 1993 and all the way until 2002, when Jonah Goldberg assured us Americans that we absolutely had to invade Iraq to stop it from imminently becoming a nuclear power just like North Korea....

Jonah Goldberg is a fearmonger, a warmonger, and a demagogue. And besides, he was just plain wrong about one of the more important foreign policy issues to face the United States in the past half-century. It is shameful that he dares show his face in public, much less continuing to pontificate about his profound knowledge of just what Iraq is like and what needs to be done about Iraq and the significance of events in Iraq."(1)

*Now that we have some background on Jonah, let's subject some of his writings to critical scrutiny:

On 12/15/06, Goldberg opined in "Iraq Needs a Pinochet":

"I think all intelligent, patriotic and informed people can agree: It would be great if the U.S. could find an Iraqi Augusto Pinochet. In fact, an Iraqi Pinochet would be even better than an Iraqi Castro...

Now consider Chile. Gen. Pinochet seized a country coming apart at the seams. He too clamped down on civil liberties and the press. He too dispatched souls. Chile's official commission investigating his dictatorship found that Pinochet had 3,197 bodies in his column; 87 percent of them died in the two-week mini-civil war that attended his coup. Many more were tortured or forced to flee the country.

But on the plus side, Pinochet's abuses helped create a civil society. Once the initial bloodshed subsided, Chile was no prison. Pinochet built up democratic institutions and infrastructure. And by implementing free-market reforms, he lifted the Chilean people out of poverty. In 1988, he held a referendum and stepped down when the people voted him out. Yes, he feathered his nest from the treasury and took measures to protect himself from his enemies. His list of sins -- both venal and moral -- is long. But today Chile is a thriving, healthy democracy. Its economy is the envy of Latin America, and its literacy and infant mortality rates are impressive."

Here Mr. Goldberg crests the summit of the Everest of American hubris. Pinochet was the United States' instrument to advance the "noble" agenda of free market ideology. Under the guidance of Henry Kissinger (an unindicted war criminal), the CIA and ITT (a major US corporation with significant business interests in Chile) carefully orchestrated the coup (including the assasination of the popularly elected leftist, Salvador Allende) which brought Augusto Pinochet to power.

Interesting that Jonah boasts that Pinochet "built up democratic institutions" when Augusto himself once quipped, "Democracy is the breeding ground of communism."

Since communism is anathema to Goldberg and his ilk, Jonah would need to exhaust himself with mental gymnastics to overcome the gross inconsistency between Pinochet's alleged accomplishments on behalf of democracy and Augusto's belief that democracy bred communism.

Even if our master prevaricator managed to overcome such a hurdle, how could he hope to resolve the glaring contradictions created by attributing the proliferation of "democracy" to an autocrat installed by the CIA through assassinating a leader elected by the people of a sovereign nation?

To justify and rationalize the perpetual imperialism necessary to satisfy capitalism's insatiable demand for new markets, cheaper labor, and inexpensive raw materials, the United States needs adept professional liars like Jonah. His apologia for Pinochet, a tyrant who had been charged with over 300 crimes (including egregious human rights abuses and massive embezzlement) before he died in 2006, demonstrates Goldberg's unswerving allegiance to the cause of the moneyed elite.

Penned in October of 2001, Mr. Goldberg's "Time to Return to Colonialism?" offers a particularly revealing look at the nature of his character and his agenda:

"SUDDENLY, serious people are rethinking an old idea that's time has come again: colonialism.

For years, colonialism has been discredited. It was considered racist on the left to point out that many people lived better and more productive lives under, say, British rule than they have without it (Belgian rule is another story)....

.... But Americans may be willing to listen to a serious argument for American Empire. And now we have it. Max Boot, the features editor of The Wall Street Journal, has written a cogent and measured essay in the Oct. 15 issue of The Weekly Standard explaining that our problems abroad don't stem from too much American "imperialism," but too little.

Boot runs through the litany of American foreign policy failures in the last decade and, uniformly, he finds our mistakes stemmed not from an arrogance of power, but from a reluctance to use it."

Who are these "serious people" who are "rethinking an old idea that's time has come again?" They are obviously seriously deranged reactionaries if they truly desire a return to colonialism. Jonah's attempt to repackage and revitalize Kipling's "White Man's burden" is the height of arrogance and reeks of racism and totalitarianism.

Sorry Jonah, but the incredibly sorry state of affairs in much of post-colonial Africa, the murder of 600,000 Filipinos, the slaughter of 3 million Vietnamese, and the annihilation of 600,000 plus Iraqis are but a handful of many poignant examples which demonstrate the abject immorality of colonialism and reveal the fact that ultimately, human beings are willing to kill and die before sacrificing their sovereignty to a brutal oppressor.

Jonah, most of us are now living in the Twenty First Century. Join us.

Goldberg delivered a gem in December of 2006 when he sang the praises of a malefactor of monumental proportions in "Jerry Ford's Magic":

"And now we have dear, sweet Jerry Ford. Everybody, it seems, loves Ford. Ted Kennedy even gave him a Profile in Courage Award a few years ago. But there's an interesting difference. Ford was Tito Puente-ized early. His decision to pardon Richard Nixon -- the courageous act for which he later got his Profile award -- elicited enormous criticism and, some argue, cost him the election in 1976. But he quickly rebounded and was never hated the way Reagan, Goldwater or Nixon were...

....But Ford's legacy is more important than the maneuvering of ideological partisans. Politics is about moments. The American people in 1974 yearned for a respite from the ideological clamor of the previous decade. Ford, by the sheer force of his own character, turned the Oval Office into the calm eye of a storm the American people had grown all too weary of.

Daniel Patrick Moynihan said Ford was the most decent man in politics he'd ever met. Ford's 'luminous affability,' in the words of the National Review, 'enabled him to unite the country instantly, magically, in a way that would have been impossible for the (men) who had been lining up for the job. ... This accidental President was exactly -- for the moment -- the right man.'

Considering the ideological clamor of the current moment, it's tempting to ask who the right man, or woman, today might be."

"Dear, sweet Jerry Ford" pardoned a man who ordered secret, illegal bombing campaigns in Cambodia that liquidated 600,000 human beings. How about we give him a posthumous "Profile in Cowardly Participation in Mass Murder Award"?

Let's not forget that Ford and Kissinger also green-lighted and supported Suharto's invasion of East Timor, which resulted in the slaughter of 200,000 innocent people.

Jonah reveals his true agenda behind his sickening hosannas for Ford, an abject war criminal, when he asserts that "it's tempting to ask who the right man, or woman might be" to give us a "respite" from the "ideological clamor of the current moment." Who indeed, Mr. Goldberg, will rise up to provide cover for the current crop of malefactors in DC and prevent a mass revolt against your precious establishment, which has been rotten to its very core for years?

Jonah scribbled, "What Protestors Don't Get: Globalization=More Democracy," in February, 2002:

"For example, if multinational corporations threaten democracy, how come the number of democracies grew simultaneously with the rise of the multinational corporation? It's hard to pinpoint an exact date for when the "multinational corporation" or "globalization" began, but over the last 30 years we've been told that democracy is increasingly threatened by these diabolical forces. The funny thing is, the number of democracies has been rising, with occasional fluctuations, pretty much nonstop."

Obviously Mr. Goldberg has a unique vision of what democracy entails. Where are these democracies about which he raves? Would Chile under the Pinochet regime have qualified as one? We don't even have a democracy in the United States. In fact, there is very little left of the constitutional republic which existed before the evisceration of our Constitution.

Corporations, spawned by a rapacious economic system driven by selfishness and greed, are structured as tyrannies. Given the fact that oligarchic corporations wield such immense power in the United States, and throughout the world, it is lunacy to assert that "the number of democracies has been rising" in conjunction with the proliferation of corporate influence. Unfortunately for Jonah, a whole comprised of totalitarian parts cannot be a democracy. Unless of course one subscribes to Goldberg's nonsense and defines a plutocratic imperial power and its neo-colonies as democracies.

In August of 2001, Jonah graced us with "Americans Wouldn't Tolerate Terrorism at Home":

"In fact, it's worse than that because Israel never intends to kill innocents. When terrorists kill Israeli civilians, Israelis attack terrorist strongholds, military targets and bomb-making infrastructures.

Sometimes, they've even used rubber bullets. But even when the "payback" is unambiguously severe, it is always delivered to grown-up, declared combatants. Hence, when Palestinian innocents die it is virtually always an unfortunate byproduct of Israeli action. When Palestinians kill, innocents are the target."

The more one reads his work, the more apparent it becomes that Goldberg's objective is to vindicate as many ruthless oppressors as his seemingly infinite capacity to lie will allow.

According to information updated on May 31, 2007 at http://www.ifamericansknew.org/, since September of 2000 Israel has killed 934 Palestinian children while Palestinians have killed 118 Israeli children. A total of 4,098 Palestinians and 1,021 Israelis have died in the conflict over the last seven years. Over 31,000 Palestinians have suffered injuries; only 7,600 Israelis have been wounded. The United States subsidizes Israel to the tune of over $7 million per day while giving the Palestinians nothing. Israel has been targeted by 65 UN resolutions (each of which, being the rogue state that it is, it has ignored). The Palestinians have not been censured by the UN once. Israel is holding over 10,000 Palestinian political prisoners and the Palestinians hold one Israeli captive. While Israel has demolished over 4,000 Palestinian homes, the Palestinians have razed zero Israeli houses.

"...Israel never intends to kill innocents." Do you think the family members of those innocents that Israel has killed at a 4:1 ratio give a dam about the intent of the IDF, Jonah?

Israelis pack a wallop with those "rubber bullets," don't they, Mr. Goldberg?

What Goldberg fails to reveal in his commentary is that the "Israeli action" which causes innocent Palestinians to die as an "unfortunate byproduct" represents the implementation of the ultimate Zionist objective, which is to eradicate Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank through oppression, economic strangulation, and, when they can get away with it, direct military action.

As for the wounded and dead Israeli civilians, they are the tragic victims of retail terror carried out in response to the wholesale terror waged by their government and that of the United States.

"Wanted: An Iranian Saddam" from January of 2006 offers quite an impressive display of mental contortions and truth distortions, even for one as ethically limber as Jonah Goldberg:

"Conventional wisdom holds that there are really only two options for dealing with Iran: military strikes (by us or Israel) or the usual bundle of conferences, ineffective sanctions and windy UN speeches that lead to nothing....

But there is a third option that, alas, has become less and less likely in recent years: regime change from within. Pro-democracy -- or at least anti-mullah -- sentiment has been building in Iran for over a decade. In recent years there have been huge protests against the regime. Soccer stadiums full of Iranians have chanted "USA! USA!" In 2004, polls of various sorts indicated that anti-regime attitudes were held by up to nine out of 10 Iranians.

Iranians are a proud, nationalistic people and would probably rally around their government -- or any government -- were it threatened from without. That's one reason Ahmadinejad has been rattling his sabers so much lately: It's an attempt to bolster his unpopular regime.

A coup by sophisticated and serious members of the military would be great news. Even better would be a popular uprising. And best of all would be a combination of the two.

An Iran with an old-style military dictatorship charged with defending democratic institutions would be an enormous, epochal victory for the West and for the Middle East. That would go a long way toward guaranteeing success in Iraq and would neutralize the threat of the Iran's nuclear ambitions, even if they decided to pursue a bomb. After all, the argument about nuclear weapons is no different than the argument about guns. The threat is from the people who have them, not from the weapons themselves. Lots of countries have nukes; we only need to worry about the ones run by whack jobs."

Writing from an ahistorical perspective so typical of the corporate media in the US, as Jonah laments that the "third option" of "regime change" is becoming "less likely," he neglects to remind readers that the United States has been there and done that in Iran. In 1953 the CIA installed the Shah to replace Iran's prime minister, Mohammed Mossadegh. (Mossadegh, elected by the people to serve in parliament and by parliament to become prime minister, had exhibited the audacity to nationalize the oil industry to prevent US ally, Great Britain, from reaping nearly all the profits from Iran's petroleum.)

By 1976, the Shah's rule had evolved into such a brutal tyranny that Amnesty International declared that Iran had, "the highest rate of death penalties in the world, no valid system of civilian courts and a history of torture which is beyond belief. No country in the world has a worse record in human rights than Iran."

It was the blatant US violation of Iranian sovereignty that catalyzed the 1979 revolution, hostage crisis, and subsequent formation of an Islamic government, a government which remains understandably hostile to Western intervention in its affairs. "Regime change" worked so well the first time. Why not try again, eh Jonah?

"An Iran with an old-style military dictatorship charged with defending democratic institutions would be an enormous, epochal victory for the West and for the Middle East." Wow! Jonah veered way outside the parameters of rational thought with that bizarre conclusion. "Old style military dictatorships" and "democratic institutions" are components of antithetical political structures. His column on Pinochet and this piece seem to indicate that Mr. Goldberg suffers from the delusion that the two can somehow coexist. Or perhaps he simply regards the intellect of his readers with such contempt that he thinks they will swallow his nonsense.

As for his assertion that, "lots of countries have nukes; we only need to worry about the ones run by whack jobs," George Bush has the largest nuclear arsenal on the planet at his disposal. If Jonah's statement is true, we have tremendous cause for concern.

As nauseatingly opportunistic as his mother, Lucianne Goldberg, a woman who spied on George McGovern for Nixon in the 1972 presidential campaign and advised Linda Tripp to tape her conversations with Monica Lewinsky, Jonah has few peers in the punditocracy who can match his mendaciousness or the degree to which he has prostituted himself.

May his readers, listeners and viewers recognize that he is nothing more than a shill for exploitative imperialists who impose their will on the world through acts of economic extortion and wholesale terror.

Further, let us hope that one day he reaps the bitter harvest of the noxious seeds he so eagerly sows.

Notes:

* As Jonah has so proudly informed us, his agitprop appears in numerous media outlets, but the source for each of the excerpts in this analysis was the online version of the Jewish World Review.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Jonah_Goldberg

Jason Miller is a wage slave of the American Empire who has freed himself intellectually and spiritually. He is Cyrano's Journal Online's associate editor (http://www.bestcyrano.org/) and publishes Thomas Paine's Corner within Cyrano's at http://www.bestcyrano.org/THOMASPAINE/. You can reach him at JMiller@bestcyrano.org

Oh sure, blame it on the computer...Ha, ha.

I just thought maybe you got June 4th mixed up with July 4th and were possibly away in DC to celebrate a rousing George W. Bush Independence Day of Freedom and Constitutional hedonism, but of course found out the mistake and decided to compensate! I knew when you sobered up and found your way home you would catch up on things (Not everyone knows NWMSC was listed by Esquire as the number one small college party school back in the day). Or that they burned down their NG Armory. For several days last week I thought this was the weekend of the 4th, too. turns out it is the first birthday of my sixth grandchild. Man, the cake was good. And he ate the whole piece... We gave him every toy we could that makes noise.

The pundits seem to believe that the damage would likely have been limited. For example, the 40 mile stretch of the pipelines would likely not have blown up in the explosion. Certainly, a major explosion at JFK would be disastrous.

The plot was that - a plot. Though from the news reports one would have thought they were caught lighting the fuse. It remains to be seen whether this was any more serious than the plot by the guys from Florida.

The real surprise is that one of the "plotters" (Russell Defreitas, a US citizen and native of Guyana) purportedly worked for Evergreen Eagle - a cargo handling branch of Evergreen Aviation. Living in Oregon, this angle is being repeated on every local news report.

If Evergreen Aviation rings a bell, it is likely because it has long ties to the CIA. While some have reported that Evergreen is a front business for the CIA, one thing that is relatively solid is that the CIA has utilized Evergreen for covert operations.

The revelation that the investigation has uncovered that of one of the "plotters" was linked back to Evergreen raises a number of questions. So was Defreitas really a plotter, or was he an informant? Was there really a legitimate plot, or was this an effort to bring potential "plotters" out of the woodwork? Was the whole thing a whole cloth fabrication?

The odds are we won't know for quite some time - if at all. Any of the above possibilities seem as likely as Defreitas somehow slipping under the radar of the CIA.

Other Front Company Information
Namebase Evergreen International Aviation

CIA Front Companies

totse.com CIA Front Companies

This new information only enhances my first reaction, which was, "Gosh, less than a week since a US citizen out smarted the TSA and the TSA system failed, so that he came home supposedly with a deadly disease that proves to be a red herring, but never the less, here we are with big deal hot shots in full official regalia pronouncing how heroically they have stopped a dastardly plot that could have brought down the 'Free World' (New York City)." So now everyone is supposed to forget what a siv the TSA is and what a flat out boondoggle and cash siphon Homeland Security is. However, maybe someone will plug the hole created by airport workers who don't have to stand the same security scrutiny my white bread Calvinist grandmother does. How many such bullshit cases are they keeping in queue for just such occasions when it seems Public Relations is the bandaid appropriate to fix every leak? One begins to wonder if maybe there is rally no Homeland Security Department. Just an unmarked undisclosed telemarketer's blind office on the twenty-seventh floor of some obscure building with only a computer inside answering phone calls in a sultry voice. A CIA link simply seems to confirm my suspicions.

Inevitably, lesser evil voters face personal disappointment and some shame. Politicians that receive lesser evil votes do not perform according to the values and principles that the lesser evil voter holds dear. These voters must accept responsibility for putting ineffective, dishonest and corrupt politicians in office. Though they may be lesser evils, they remain evils.

All too often lesser evil voters avoid shame and regret and prevent painful cognitive dissonance by deluding themselves that the politician they helped put in office is really not so bad after all. Corrosive lesser evil voting erodes one's principles as pragmatism replaces idealism. This makes the next cycle of lesser evil voting easier.

Lesser evil voting helps stabilize America's two-party duopoly that greatly restricts true political competition. Third party and independent candidates - and minor Democratic and Republican candidates in primaries - are defeated by massive numbers of lesser evil voters. Despite authentically having the political goals that mesh with many voters on the left or right, these minor "best" candidates fall victim to lesser evil voting. Lesser evil voters are addicted to a self-fulfilling prophesy. They think "If I vote for a minor candidate they will lose anyway." They ensure this outcome though their lesser evil voting. The truly wasted vote is the unprincipled lesser evil vote.

Effective representative democracy requires politically engaged citizens that vote. Lesser-evil voters support the current two-party system with its terribly low voter turnout and chronic dishonesty and corruption. Lesser evil voters help put into office disappointing politicians, not the best people that would restore American democracy and show more citizens that voting is valuable. Lesser evil voters demonstrate the validity of turned-off citizens' view that it really does not matter which major party wins office.

Politicians knowingly market themselves to lesser evil voters by constructing phony sales pitches, especially to certain audiences outside of their more certain base constituents. Democrats make themselves look more progressive than they really are, and Republicans make themselves look more conservative than they really are. Lesser evil voters are phony, and they produce a phony political system. Lesser evil voters contribute mightily to the travesty of our political system that no sane person respects and has confidence in.

Lesser evil voting demonstrates the worst aspects of political compromise. This is the common cause of terrible laws. When citizens surrender so much of what they truly believe in, they enable compromise politicians to create bad public policy that, in the end, satisfies very few people and puts band-aids on severe problems. Lesser evil voters concede victory to the other side - the side they view as the worse alternative because the people they vote for will not stand up for what is right and necessary. Think Iraq war. Even when their lesser evil side wins, they do not have the principled positions that would prevent awful compromises, often in the name of bipartisanship that is a clever way to justify our corrupt two-party mafia.

Lesser evil voters deride the alternatives of not voting or voting for minor candidates. The outcome should the "other" side win is deemed unacceptable. There is worse and there is worst. The core problem with lesser evil voters is that they are short term thinkers. They fail to see the repeated long term consequence of their style of voting - a system over many election cycles that persists in delivering suboptimal results. The "good" outcome in the current election (from their perspective) is the enemy of the "better" solution in the longer term (from an objective perspective). The better solution is major reform that will never happen as long as lesser evil voting persists.

Understand this: Lesser evil voting is not courageous. It is cowardly surrender to the disappointing two-party status quo. Lesser evil voters should trade regret for pride by voting for candidates they really think are the best. Voters in this presidential primary season have some remarkable opportunities to transform fine minor candidates into competitive major candidates - more honest and trustworthy people like Ron Paul, Mike Gravel and Dennis Kucinich, for example.

Finally, the deadly decline of American democracy results in large measure from lesser evil voters electing lesser evil politicians. When virtually no elected public official is there because most voters have embraced his clear principled, trustworthy positions we get a government that is easily corrupted by corporate and other moneyed interests. We get what we have now. And if you are dissatisfied with that, then reconsider the wisdom of lesser evil voting. We will only get the best government by voting for the best candidates. Otherwise, we get what we deserve and what the power elites prefer.

[Joel S. Hirschhorn is the author of Delusional Democracy (www.delusionaldemocracy.com) and a founder of Friends of the Article V Convention (www.foavc.org).]

Dang me! Git a rope and hang me!

All these years I've been calling this lesser evil voting thang the spirit wind that moves the rock across the dry lake bed. Suddenly I see how wrong I've been. My God!

From now on, I do solemly promise, to do my duty, to God and My Country, to be clean and sober, and to always vote for the worst evil instead of the least evil in realization that only by this route will the people see most quickly what boobs they are!

How could I have been so wrong all these years? I am so sorry!

But seriously, I think the man is right!

I was recently gifted with this book by a friend who thought that as an historian, I would appreciate it and find it timely, and certainly I do, but due to current events and how rapidly they are unfolding, my comments about it here will not be from an academic perspective. I am much less interested in the quality of history in McElvaine's book, although I find it first-rate, and more interested in the values the author is emphasizing and that the Great Depression manifested among the masses of American people. You might say that I have been touched by and wish to share the soul of this book, more than its intellect. For that reason, I choose to describe this article as a commentary rather than a review of the book.

One cannot thoroughly appreciate the catastrophic nature of the Great Depression without understanding what preceded it. The decade of the 1920s, not unlike the economic milieu of the 1980s and 90s, was a time of dizzying, unrestrained, and frantic consumption. It was the apotheosis of the "conspicuous consumption" about which Thorsten Veblen wrote in his turn-of-the-century classic The Theory Of The Leisure Class. Threading his tapestry forward, McElvaine writes that, "Put simply, most Americans late in the twentieth century have adopted the consumption ethic that was rising in the 1920s, but was temporarily reversed during the Great Depression." (xviii) McElvaine, of course, wrote this book in the eighties, but certainly the consumption ethic has not abated but rather intensified since then.

Ironically, one factor that contributed to the onset of the Depression and that eventually pulled the nation out of it was consumption. Franklin Roosevelt's stellar accomplishment in the engineering of New Deal policies was the emphasis on "purchasing power" for average Americans. McElvaine occasionally draws parallels throughout the book, and also in recent articles, between the twenties and the late-twentieth century, not only with regard to consumption but also to a stock market index that seemed during the 1920s to reach unprecedented heights. Clearly, the consumption on steroids that we have been witnessing the past sixty years in the United States is no longer capable of "curing" an economic depression, but it is certainly capable, along with mountainous debt, of contributing to the occurrence of a Second Great Depression.

Elevated levels of consumption are almost always attended by an increase in "individualism" and a decline in a sense of community. The Great Depression reversed this trend in America dramatically, and for me, that is perhaps the most riveting feature of McElvaine's book as he writes, "...the most significant fact about the Depression era may well be that it was the only time in the twentieth century during which there was a major break in the modern trends towards social disintegration and egoism." (xxiii)

From the perspective of today's world, whenever I reflect on the 1930s, I never cease to be amazed at the spirit of cooperation that blossomed amid the hardship and impoverishment of the times. Of this McElvaine notes: "The economic collapse that started in 1929 obliged people who had begun to accept the new values of unlimited consumption and extreme individualism to take another look at these beliefs in comparison with the more traditional, community-oriented values that had existed in earlier times." (xxiv) The author also notes that many men who had become unemployed and found themselves spending more time at home also found themselves in the position that women had traditionally experienced--that is, at the bottom of the economic hierarchy. Whereas in the Victorian era, the Horatio Alger-style, self-made man was championed, during the Depression the "self-made man became the self-destroyed man." (xxiv) In other words, during the Depression, people began to recognize the value and necessity of interdependence which manifested in a preference not for the highly individualistic urban lifestyle, but for rural and small-town life.

I don't wish to romanticize the Great Depression era as some golden age of cooperation and community, but I do believe there are applicable lessons to be learned from the way in which communities responded to the suffering of their time, particularly as we stand on the shifting sands of a cliff called "collapse." As I have said many times, collapse is not an event but a process--a process which is not in the future but in which we are deeply engaged at this moment whether we recognize it or not. And imperfect as the spirit of interdependence may have been in the Depression era, it was, as McElvaine emphasizes, "...the time in which the values of compassion, sharing, and social justice became the most dominant that they have ever been in American history." (7) Conversely, "...more and more people became dependent as the nation industrialized." (7)

As the friend who gave me this book stated, "This book reveals very poignantly what has been lost in American culture." He was referring above all to the issue of cooperative values, and values is something historians often avoid addressing in their frantic attempt to remain "objective." Yet, as McElvaine notes, "Values are the critical base on which any society rests." (196) Unfortunately, American capitalism itself is a poster-child for the schizophrenia between economics and ethics.

America in the 1920s was capitalism on steroids with the ruling elite gorging on corporate profits, most notably profits from the automobile and related industries. Three presidents in a row, Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover had agreed that "the business of America is business". Yet when the house of cards collapsed in 1929, the working and middle classes, alongside intellectuals who had been criticizing capitalism for some time, awakened to the nightmare that the American dream had become. Not surprisingly, countless working and middle class individuals moved dramatically to the left politically, many embracing socialism and organizing and protesting for economic and social justice. Why else during the McCarthy era was the thirties referred to as the Red Decade? (203)

And of course, gangsters of the Depression era were portrayed in film as Robin Hood's. The 1960s cinematic portrayal of support for and idealization of Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrows was not exaggerated. In my family I grew up on an often-told and re-told tale of my grandmother's matter-of-fact statement that "if John Dillinger knocks on my door, I'll give him a hot meal and a place to hide down in the cellar behind the furnace." The Depression brought people--all kinds of people--together and kept them together.

One of the most powerful and moving pieces of cinema in the thirties was King Vidor's "Our Daily Bread" in which a young unemployed husband and his wife (John and Mary) living in the city become desperate for income. John appeals to Mary's rich uncle who gives them several acres of land which they are totally unskilled in farming. But along comes a farmer from a Midwestern state on his way to California with his family who joins them and begins teaching them how to farm. Soon the population of the farm grows and more and more unemployed, wandering individuals wind up on John and Mary's land looking for not only a new start, but a sense of community with which to launch it. Together, the farm's residents survive by hunting, growing their own food, and sharing skills. A series of challenges arises, but each time, the community moves through them--except for the most formidable of all, drought. However, near the farm is a reservoir, but the community has no way to access it. Therefore, they must construct a conduit from the reservoir to their crops--a gargantuan project that has them working day and night with picks and shovels routing the water to their land.

For me, the most powerful and moving scene in the film was the long brigade of men digging with their shovels and the coordinated thud of their picks into the earth, toiling around the clock, to bring water to their land. I'll never forget the sound of those picks reverberating with sweat, determination, and above all, cooperation. They were successful, and their crops flourished, but only because they never gave up on creating a new life, and they never stopped working together to do so.

Today, no movement offers any viable alternatives for political, economic, social, or ecological justice. Few are even cognizant of the severity of the issues at hand, and most are woefully unprepared and uninformed. A frightening and naïve assumption prevails: that the U.S. government will "take care" of its citizens in the throes of natural disasters, pandemics, blackouts, or dirty bomb attacks. These realities could exacerbate one's angst as one contemplates collapse, but in fact, they might instead motivate us to begin building the lifeboats we must have in order to navigate it. We will not be able to do this until we have experienced a profound transformation of our values--and our sense of community.

Historians generally agree that Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal and Keynesian economics rescued the nation from total catastrophe, but McElvaine points out that "...the changing mix of American values in the Depression--was of even more significance than was Roosevelt himself."(324) Roosevelt's agenda would have fallen on deaf and smug ears ten years earlier, and it could not have succeeded without a change in values in the American people that was able to resonate with the values of the New Deal. I hasten to add that I do not believe that it was the New Deal that ultimately pulled the nation out of the Depression, for as I make clear in my book U.S. History Uncensored, it was ultimately World War II and the launching of the military industrial complex that did so and has continued to "prevent" depressions and mask more protracted, less visible economic and social injustice.

"Perhaps the chief impact of the Great Depression," says McElvaine, "was that it obliged the American people to face up to the necessity of cooperative action because it took away, at least temporarily, the easy assumptions of expansion and mobility that had decisively influenced so much of past American thinking." (337) Expansion? Mobility? Do these sound like aspects of American life that could be severely curtailed by energy depletion, climate change, or an increasingly worthless U.S. dollar?

Mainstream economists have just begun to use the "R" word in relation to the economy, but anyone who has done even minimal research, with or without a degree in economics, understands that the United States, in fact many nations on earth, are moving rapidly toward a Second Great Depression. It is therefore imperative to understand the causes and effects of the First Great Depression, particularly its impact on the culture and the values of individuals in it.

The author goes on to point out the "feminization" of American society during the Great Depression, noting that "The self-centered, aggressive, competitive 'male' ethic of the 1920s was discredited. Men who lost their jobs became dependent in ways that women had been thought to be." (340) Yet it was not only in loss of jobs that men became more "feminized."

Whenever any individuals, male or female, join to create community in a spirit of cooperation, they are "feminizing", for the feminine principle is above all, relational--a concept inherent in the traditions of many indigenous peoples. It is this kind of joining that characterized the Great Depression era and to which we must aspire as we build economic, emotional, and spiritual lifeboats for the daunting journey ahead.

There will be no New Deal, no FDR, no parental federal government to kiss everything and make it better. There will only be ourselves and the others with whom we choose to join and prepare.

Coal is being pushed as an "alternative" fuel. Oh please spare me. Coal is neither "clean," "green," or renewable. There is a big push to increase coal for electric generation as well. Even though the "scrubbing" technology for emissions have improved, more plants using more coal means more emissions - including CO2 emissions. Let us not forget that "energy" is not the only crisis facing us. There is the "little" issue of global warming. The New York Times (May 29, 2007) produced the nice graphic (below) comparing the greenhouse gas emissions o0f different fuel sources. It is instructive in this discussion:

As you can see from the graphic, even with carbon sequestration, the coal to liquid fuel production increases emissions. Without sequestration is increases emissions dramatically (119% according to the NY Times. Now the rub is that carbon sequestration is virtually an undeveloped technology. It involves capturing emissions and "putting" them somewhere other than the air. The most investigated suggestions are: on the seabed; underground; and in used up oil and gas wells. To the best of my knowledge, there is no commercially active sequestration projects on line yet. Therefore, we do not know whether this will even work - nor what the consequences are of doing it. Therefore, it is unlikely that these plants will start with their emissions being "sequestered." That will happen as a "retro-fit" sometime in the future.

The next dumb part of this is that if our current coal supply is estimated to last 250 years at existing use levels, what happens if we quadruple the use? Well, that 250 years just became 60 years (or less). Then what?

Dumb idea take three. Can we replace 60% of our current oil consumption with liquefied coal? That seems highly unlikely to me. I do not know how much usable liquid fuel one can get out of say a ton of coal, but it would seem to take one heck of a lot of coal to produce 12 million barrels of gasoline a day (we currently use approximately 20 million * 60% foreign oil = 12 mil.). That translates into roughly 505 million gallons of gasoline (from coal) a day (roughly 42 galls in a barrel). Now that is one heck of a production line, and my estimate of quadrupling coal use just shot up dramatically. Say maybe 10-15 years of coal in the U.S. instead of 250 years?

Dumb idea take 4. This is expensive and the plan is to subsidize research, development, and production. Subsidize means that our tax dollars will underwrite the cost of this little adventure while we may look at $4.00 per gallon pump prices as a real steal. This is a freaking bonanza to the "energy" industry, but it is not a bonanza for us, or the next generation, or for the planet.

Among those who have sponsored and promoted this legislation is Presidential candidate Barak Obama. I am sure he feels he is representing Illinois coal interests with this support. However, one might wonder whether Illinois is represented - much less the rest of us.

I do not see one positive thing in this plan, but it is being pushed and pushed hard. The goal is to have it passed and to Bush by early July (2007). If you want to express yourself to your legislators, then I recommend that you do so quickly.

Here is a link to get you to your Congress people and Senators - Contacting Congress

Resources for further information
CNN Money. 5/24/07. Lawmakers mull coal-to-liquid fuel plans

Edmund Andrews. NY Times. 5/29/07. Lawmakers Push for Big Subsidies for Coal Process

Senate Bill 154 Coal-to-Liquid Fuel Energy Act of 2007 (pdf)
Sponsors: Mr. BUNNING (for himself, Mr. OBAMA, Mr. LUGAR, Mr. PRYOR, Ms. MURKOWSKI,
Mr. BOND, Mr. THOMAS, Mr. MARTINEZ, Mr. ENZI, Ms. LANDRIEU, and Mr. CRAIG

Senate Bill 155 Coal-to-Liquid Fuel Promotion Act of 2007 (pdf)
Sponsors: Mr. BUNNING (for himself, Mr. OBAMA, Mr. LUGAR, Mr. PRYOR, Ms. MURKOWSKI,
Mr. BOND, Mr. THOMAS, Mr. MARTINEZ, Mr. ENZI, Ms. LANDRIEU, and Mr. CRAIG

House Bill 370 Coal-to-Liquid Fuel Promotion Act of 2007 (pdf)
Sponsors: Mr. DAVIS of Kentucky (for himself, Mr. RAHALL, Mr. WHITFIELD, Mr. PICKERING, Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky, Mr. DUNCAN, Mr. LAHOOD, Mr. BOUSTANY, Mrs. CUBIN, Mr. BACHUS, Mr. EVERETT, Mr. ROGERS of Alabama, Mr. BOUCHER, Mr. LINCOLN DAVIS of Tennessee, Mr. SHIMKUS, Mr. CANNON, Mrs. DRAKE, Mr. LEWIS of Kentucky, Mr. REHBERG, Mr. HASTERT, and Mr. YARMUTH)

The electric auto is part of this push for coal. The way to fight back is to kill autosprawl at the root:

http://www.freepublictransit.org

Do the math (chemical stoichiometry) and you'll find out these numbers, especially the coal ones are wildly optimistic. The "usable" part of coal are carbon atoms. Any original hydrogen atoms in the coal are largely sequestered by S, O, N impurities. Out of 6 coal atoms, there "might" be enough H left over during gasification to make one -CH2- link in a hydrocarbon (diesel) chain. A second carbon will have to be fully gasified to CO2 to provide enough heat for the process to go forward, the other four now appearing as CO. To get into a diesel chain as -CH2-, a CO molecule needs 4 hydrogen atoms, which are made by converting two of the CO's to 2 H2's using water, also forming 2xCO2. The last CO (with H2O) is needed to drive the F-T reaction to completion, for chain ending reactions, and to cover misc. inefficiencies.

At the end, only two carbon atoms from the original six remain as liquid carbon fuel. Finally of the two "product" -CH2-'s, one will have to be used to mine, transport, and grind the coal, provide "loot" for coal company execs (you didn't really think they weren't going to by Escalades and take frequent exotic vacations, did you?) and then transport the final "product" to it's intended location.

Bottom line: at least 200% more greenhouse emissions as compared to conventional oil, not 119%.

The electric car is part of this push for coal...

Autosprawl antidote:

http://www.freepublictransit.org

The issue of oxymoronic economic reports are not new to the Bush administration. I clearly remember the "booming" economy under Bill Clinton that was making "all boats float." That is until you turned to the "national" or "societal" section and saw that food banks across the country were being swamped with the increases in those needing emergency food supplies. I guess that all boats were floating if one had the good fortune to own a boat.

The hit the so-called "recession" which was a depression for most of the nation. Month after month, the Bush administration issued (and the corporate media repeated) that the economy was getting better and better. The branding of that improvement was the "jobless recovery." How in the world one can have a recovery for the people when it is "jobless," was one of those sound bites that constantly set my teeth on edge. Those who were "recovering" (though they were actually speeding away from the bulk of the population) were that top 1% and the corporations they own and control.

The two articles at the top of this essay point to a continuation of the same schizophrenia that has become so common. The economy is down, economic growth is now, inflation is up, debt is up, and the stock markets (and the corporate holdings that they trade) are doing "fabulously" - thank you very much.

It is much like the recent housing boom and crash. Driven by artificially low interest rates (implemented to "stimulate" the economy), mortgage loans (and refinancing) took off like a rocket. As the housing (and "development") industries took off, the number of available buyers got soaked up. Subprime sharks swam into the waters to snap up what they could. Both the "prime" and "subprime" lenders were out there enticing first time buyers into the market.

There was the introduction of all kinds of "creative" financing options. These included, interest only mortgages and a plethora of adjustable rate options. You see, while interests rates may have gone down, housing prices were sky rocketing. In order to get at many first time buyers, even a fixed rate of 5.5% was not enough to bring over valued housing prices within range. So enter the 2.2% adjustable rate mortgage with buyers going in at the max they could afford.

Then the interests rates went up. Those with creative mortgage deals, and those in the extortionary "subprime" market were in way over their head. Even those who were in middle class who were using their (refinanced) homes as leverage for improvements and other debt found themselves on the edge of a crumbling cliff.

So what's up with the (seemingly) shady "subprime" lenders? Well, apparently, standing behind them is Wall Street. The whole back room financing linking "respectable" Wall Street financiers, with the somewhat questionable Johnny on the Spot mortgage loan sharks has been very profitable for both partners. Not so profitable however when the market crashes and the Wall Street intermediaries evaporate. Now the pressure is on the "stop foreclosures" which is really less of a concern than protecting Wall Street from the sudden risk exposure.

So the effort is on to prop up lenders, but what about the folks who are losing their homes (and all the front money they put into them)? Well that's all she wrote for many of them who in trying to save themselves from foreclosure are trying to sell their homes. Unfortunately for them, the market has essentially dried up and they can't sell, or must sell below what they paid for their home - leaving them out from under the loan (if they are lucky) but still owning the lenders tens of thousands of dollars. For a growing number, the only solution is to walk away - and that is what foreclosure rates indicate.

Like the "jobless recovery," the economy can soar for Wall Street while it crashes for the people. However, the housing "crash," or bursting of the "housing bubble," could send shocks all the way back up through those fancy shoes to the Wall Street pockets -except, that most of the profits are likely sitting in sheltered off shore accounts. But the profit line looks slim and it is an excellent opportunity to press for tax payer assistance to "save" the "industry."

Related Articles
David Cho. Washington Post, 4/10/07. Housing Boom Tied To Sham Mortgages

Neil Henderson. Washington Post. 5/30/07. An ATM That's Out of Money. As Housing Market Slips, Tide of Spending and Refinancing Retreats

Martin Crutsinger. AP. 5/25/07. Existing Home Sales Fall in April

Vikas Bajaj. NY Times. 5/08/07. East Coast Money Lent Out West

Mark Trumbull. Christian Science Monitor. 4/26/07. Lenders act to limit US foreclosures

Last night I watched Keith Olbermann begin his "Countdown" show with the story of Sheehan's "quitting" the anti-war movement, even including some quotes from her, but mentioning nothing about her leaving the Democratic Party. How could he do otherwise when he devoted the next twenty minutes of the program to interviewing Al Gore and communicating unmistakably to the viewers that the former Vice-President is unequivocally our "savior"? What else could we expect from corporate media?

Yesterday, I received emails which described Sheehan's departure as "sad" and "unfortunate", suggesting that she had been "worn" down. I understand the intent of these comments, but I emphatically disagree. Could we all please look more deeply into Sheehan's decision?

What is it exactly that Cindy Sheehan walked away from? What did she "quit"? Certainly, it was not her feelings and opinions about the empire and its endless wars. What she resoundingly rejected was "hope"--that cousin to denial that so many "progressives" want to hang onto above and beyond all manifestations of reality to the contrary. One reason we treasure her and the one quality that has endeared her to us is her unmitigated courage and fortitude in standing toe-to-toe with the empire. Yet, many of us fail to see the courage in her decision to walk away from her most recent expressions of that courage and demonstrate courage on a deeper level. It is one thing to confront the empire with the Democratic Party and a throng of progressives invested in the Party and the rigged electoral process standing behind oneself in "support", and it is quite another to turn around and face those so-called supporters and insist they are part of the problem.

What Cindy is saying is simply, "I no longer choose to embrace the teddy-bear illusion that I live in a democratic republic in which the rule of law and the Constitution prevail. I am no longer willing to believe that a two-party system exists in this empire, and I refuse to continue to 'hope' that one wing of the one-party system will ever significantly challenge or extricate itself from the other wing. I will not live in denial, even if it brings me adulation, inspires others to resist the empire, or nurtures within me a feeling of doing the right thing. I will open my eyes, and my mouth, and I will buy OUT of the current paradigm."

Many of you reading these words have made the same decision Cindy has made, and many of you have also been called "quitters" or "purveyors of doom and gloom." Others of you have not bought out of the illusion that the federal government, the Democratic Party, or some political, environmental, or spiritual movement can save the earth and its inhabitants, and you are still "hoping." And of course, from the earliest origins of the Judeo-Christian tradition to Barack Obama's "The Audacity Of Hope", the culture is replete with moralizing aphorisms that instruct us not to give up hope. Yet, as any recovering addict will testify, it is only when we give up all hope that we can awaken with clarity and a deeper consciousness to the reality of our situation.

I do not mean to minimize the brutal losses beyond the pale that Cindy Sheehan has incurred. No other word than "tragic" can be applied to the loss of her son, the loss of her marriage, the enormous debt she is now facing--including her own personal hospital bills for a heat stroke, and the countless sacrifices she has made in order to speak truth to power and awaken the entranced citizens and politicians of empire. Has she been "worn down"? Unquestionably, and so have many of us who would not have otherwise walked away from empire and its delusional political process. American capitalist/consumerist/corporatist culture is so toxic, so seductive, so addictive, so soporific that few of us are capable of seeing through it without terrible, sometimes traumatic, loss and persecution.

My heart aches for Cindy Sheehan, and at the same time, I celebrate her historic and heroic announcement on Memorial Day, 2007. She has been deeply wounded, but she has also been liberated. Not only has she experienced on a cellular level that the emperor has no clothes, but that the entire paradigm on which the empire is built is both vacuous and lethal. Let us acknowledge that rather than "quitting", Cindy Sheehan has begun a brand new chapter in her saga of resistance.

EXQUISITE TESTIMONY!

Recent polls reflect that President Bush's approval ratings have fallen to a staggering low of 28%. As a result, many feel confident that it may very well be an easy stroll into the Oval Office for most Democratic hopefuls, who seem to be operating under the false illusion that Bush himself is running for a third term. If this assumption were false, how do we explain how little the frontrunners have done to win our affection? Leaving all the spin-talk aside, what is their true vision for a new America? (I guess that in itself is a useless question, especially when attaching it to a professional pol.) And why are they so confident that they can defeat Time Magazine's 2001 man of the year Rudy Giuliani with such ease? As a native New Yorker I know first hand how slippery Giuliani is, and he should not be underestimated--ever.

So far, the Democratic Party frontrunners are behaving like a bunch of out of touch, over-privileged elitists. The frontrunners need to learn that the public--especially the Democratic base-- won't tolerate any more of the G.O.P-lite formula, which, to the party establishment's shame, has come to typify recent elections. Contrary to their old stratagem of playing it safe, of cynical "triangulation," a new formula must be adopted, one which presents the candidates as people of real conviction (assuming, of course, that there is someone in the front ranks who possesses this admirable quality). Without that there is no way to invigorate an otherwise alienated public, an electorate that feels more disenfranchised and apathetic than ever in regards to the search for a principled winner.

Flip-flops and examples to follow

The recent vote of "NO" against the Iraq spending bill by Senators Clinton and Obama came as a surprise to many of us, in light of their former support of the spending bill this past March. This change of heart by the frontrunners clearly demonstrates that the candidates are responding to the negative publicity they have been receiving by commentators on the Internet, and the liberal wing of the Democratic party, who are vehemently opposed to letting the frontrunners think we will accept "Anybody But Bush" as an alternative recipe for success. It failed Kerry and it will fail them if they don't start taking a principled stance. There is political wisdom in principled consistency. It is very likely the Republicans will seize on any change in position as another reason to portray the Democrats as indecisive. The current frontrunners must have been aware this tap dancing technique would land them in hot water, but after calculating the risk, I suppose they felt it was worth it to respond to the public. See what playing the center gets you?

In light of all of their apparent shortcomings and evasions, it might be useful to ask them if they have comprehensive solutions in place to solve our myriad of problems, solutions that do not contain huge loopholes and compromises. Why is it that, so far, only Democratic candidate Dennis Kucinich has bills on the floor attacking the roots of the health care crisis, and a plan for immediate withdrawal from Iraq? What's more, Kucinich keeps making the correct voting decisions and has yet to waver on anything. In a town, in a political environment, where everything revolves around self-preservation and advancement, and the scrupulous avoidance of risk, some would say with ample justification that he has often gone beyond the call of duty. Is it that maybe Kucinich needs to receive 25-26 million dollars in contributions for media campaigns before he will be taken seriously? I guess "money talks" after all--literally.

Meanwhile, Congressman Kucinich, who, unsurprisingly, receives little to no media attention, and for some odd reason which defies all reason, is every "realistic" voter's worst nightmare, has a concrete plan to end the war in Iraq starting right away, as outlined under bill H.R. 1234, as well as the Universal Health care bill known as H.R. 676 which is brilliantly designed as "Medicare for all." What are the frontrunner's plans to handle the health care crisis, and a clear exit strategy for the troops in Iraq? So far I have seen them do nothing but pay lip service to the issue that effects 46 million Americans, and many more under insured, not to mention the 600,000 plus dead Iraqis and Americans, who suffered and are suffering for a war Hillary Clinton voted for. I suppose the largest demonstrations in the history of humankind didn't signal to Senator Clinton that maybe voting for this debacle was a bad idea, and then afterwards continuing to attack Bush, while slipping a blank check under the table so he may carry out his exploits. Furthermore, and I may add, characteristically, Senator Obama and Clinton have recently voted to reauthorize a slightly watered down version of Bush's Patriot act, while Dennis Kucinich, yes folks, you guessed it, voted it down, with a swift raise of the hand.

It takes no more than five minutes to examine Denis Kucinich's policies, and to realize that they are every progressive's dream come true. Kucinich provides the left with a new route, which would steer America clear of impending disasters. If this enormous cruise ship does go down, the waters will be much more brisk, and painful than when the actual Titanic sank - we can be sure of that. If I sound hyperbolic, then I must stress that you reevaluate the current predicament. Dennis Kucinich may not win the great American billion- dollar beauty pageant/popularity contest we call "presidential election" in this confounded nation, but he still may win a few hearts by actually telling the truth, a novel concept these days in American politics.

Not content with a record that many of these media favorites would envy for sheer honesty, Dennis Kucinich has also filed impeachment papers against Dick Cheney, a man emblematic of the revolting corruption and criminality that characterizes this system, and, as mentioned earlier, has bills ready to go on such urgent matters as "Medicare for All." In addition to that, he has endorsed a policy that involves a multilateral coalition effort to rebuild Iraq. As we know, the United States plutocrats and energy corporations don't want multilateral help because there is too much potential profit on and under the ground in the Middle East...if they only could get pesky Iran out of the picture, and grab their oil while they are at it, too. This is thieves' calculus, and the whole world knows it, even if the American media and people do not.

Putting the ear to the ground

To Senator Obama's credit he did vote "NO" on CAFTA. However, the newly elected Senator has already started make the appropriate presidential noises [read: the willingness to use military force] and to apply camouflage warpaint, if only to appear ready to handle-- according to the "crise du jour"--any "threat of terror from Iran." In keeping with this wrongheaded posture, recently Senator Obama started beating the drums and ratcheting up the rhetoric against Iran when he stated, "All options are on the table" with that nation, while repeating the poisoned media mantra, that they are "developing nuclear capabilities...and they must be stopped." This bold statement by Obama excludes the fact that it is the right of Iran, a sovereign nation, to develop nuclear energy, and if they are developing weapons, as it is widely claimed, they should be supervised by the international community, not another meddling agency of the by now most hated foreign power in the region, who as we all know, is more than casually interested in oil, and in "stabilizing" the region strictly in its own terms.

At the same moment Gary Kasparov is being harassed by Russian police, the Democrats here at home, are in a scurry to the center of the political chessboard to appear to the public as "tough on terror" once again, just like their corporate counterparts in the G.O.P. Have they all forgotten, or did they never know or care, that it is our government's meddling in Middle Eastern affairs that has given rise to "terrorism"--the Frankenstein that now threatens our seriously weakened democracy? Meddling such as the history of propping up oppressive regimes like the Shah and his SAVAK in Iran; the hot and cold wars in Iraq; the selling to both sides chemical weapons during the Iraq-Iran war (which, as Jesse Jackson notes "we have the receipts for"); and our government's politico-economic love affair with the decadent Saudi Royal family? These are just a fraction of the crimes and irritations that are enraging "terrorists" and Arab nationalists alike, and which have created another, significantly larger crop of more ferocious enemies and demagogues throughout the Islamic world than we ever had to confront in the past. Yep, all of these wonders we owe our munificent foreign policy, whose motto should be "not a country left behind."

Any rational thinking human with the intelligence of a stick of Juicy Fruit can easily arrive at the logical conclusion that the facts just stated would signal to our government that maybe it is time for a clear change in policy, but instead the Newspeak wisdom being touted by our politicians and their counterparts in the billionaire- controlled media, is that this raging desert fire is mostly a result of warring sects with different religious interpretations of Islam. In other words, it's their fault, and we have nothing to do with this insanity.

Against this surreal backdrop, what level of narcissism do these politicians need to display before they have officially lost our complete confidence? Do we need to quickly go down memory lane, one more time ...just to 2003 when all this extraordinary adventure officially began? Do we need reminding about the authorization and implementation of an ingenious plan to start an immoral preemptive war with a bullying anteroom called "Shock and Awe"...the whole criminal exercise according to these crooks meant to spread democracy in a nation we never gave one damn for before...as evidenced by the destruction we have rained on it for almost 3 decades...and which we continue to this day. Naturally, considering the greed that courses through some of the corridors that determine US foreign policy, it doesn"t matter one whit that almost the entire population of Iraq (except maybe for the Kurds) wants us out; that we are perceived as occupation troops and not as "liberators;" that some of our soldiers are returning home so psychologically distraught that they are killing themselves in increasing numbers; and that even some upper echelons of the US military are now also thinking that Iraq is far too costly an investment to maintain without damaging the force for years to come.

Splitting hairs if it's politically convenient

Most people feel the Iraqis and the American soldiers are both victims of this war, yet Obama doesn't evidence the same sympathy, and instead is happy to follow the line of least resistance and scapegoat the Iraqis as the primary problem preventing peace in Iraq. The audacious shamelessness of this position is breathtaking--to any decent and impartial observer, but not to a crowd lacking in all elementary moral reflexes, and where Newspeak is the only language they understand.

Accordingly, again straining to sound statesmanlike and presidential, Obama read the prevailing cues and intoned:

"To reach such a solution, we must communicate clearly and effectively to the factions in Iraq that the days of asking, urging, and waiting for them to take control of their own country are coming to an end. No more coddling, no more equivocation. Our best hope for success is to use the tools we have - military, financial, diplomatic - to pressure the Iraqi leadership to finally come to a political agreement between the warring factions that can create some sense of stability in the country and bring this conflict under control."

In the most matter-of-fact fashion Glen Ford, editor of the Black Agenda Report, responded to this statement by quipping acidly that, "The U.S. has 'coddled' 600,000 Iraqis to death."

(Well, of course, that was a few months ago).

In May 2007 Senator Obama sings a different tune, and, along with Sen. Clinton, states with unconvincing resolve that "enough is enough", and that "we cannot give a blank check to continue down this same, disastrous path." By now at least some of us recognize that Hillary Clinton is nothing more than a careerist establishment politician, a characterization requiring little explanation, but Barak Obama still has the audacity to present himself as a "champion of the people," claiming to be a man sensitive to the plight of the struggling American worker and the "Middle Class." Yet a statement in his new book declares without any sense of shame or contradiction that, "Serious concern over the nation's harsh disparities is consigned to leftist 'cranks' and other assorted 'unreasonable zealots.'" Does this sound like a man in touch with what this country needs to get done?

Senator Obama's statements lead us to presume that he feels that those who speak out against socio- economic injustice, and 46 million still living without healthcare, are simply whiney babies who don't appreciate all they have. Obama, basking in the establishment's embrace, acts as if the working people of this country owed these corporate criminals something; even if it is they, after all, who are collecting the most welfare. Is it too unfair to suggest that, fully in his establishment persona Barack Obama sounds like a right-wing Harvard crank, totally out of touch with his roots as a community organizer in Chicago, and who in his climb to power "inadvertently" erased his memory of what it is like for everyday people? Barack, take a tour of the real Washington DC area, for example, leave the fancy confines of the Beltway, and reacquaint yourself with the reasons why us "cranks" feel distressed about domestic inequities.

A party worth voting for

I urge those who haven't recovered yet from the post traumatic stress disorder of blaming Nader for Gore's defeat in 2000 to get over it quick, and not be afraid to get tough on the frontrunners. I am well aware that many think voting for Dennis Kucinich is impractical or an impossible victory, and which may have a similar precipitous effect as the 2000 election. If you won't cast a vote for a candidate you feel has no chance, please at least consider demanding that the Democratic Party frontrunners themselves abandon the "G.O.P. Lite" centrist formula which lost Kerry and Gore their elections, and make sure they start sounding (and feeling, if that were possible) more like Kucinich. If the mainstream Democrats happen to win and don't follow through on their promises, they should be reminded that we, the people, will demand they get out of office immediately, or they will have to answer to a politically conscious, and completely disaffected public in no mood for more doubletalk.

I often find myself having flashbacks to 2004 as I watched Ralph Nader walk into a conference room with John Kerry to give last minute advice on how to drive the nail into the coffin of baby Bush's campaign. As we watched the doors behind them close shut, I thought to myself maybe Nader could appeal to the once anti-war activist, turned Ketchup guru, John Kerry. When the doors reopened my fears had once again been realized, but it was not in the least bit surprising.

As Nader walked out of the room trying to mask the disenchantment on his face, and the defeat in his eyes, I knew at that moment that Kerry had cataloged Nader's advice as "too risky or too left for his liking."

But Nader knew that if John Kerry didn't become more than just an "Anybody But Bush" he would not be able to conquer the fear mongering, and "tough on terror" platform of the Republicans. As anticipated, Nader proved to be once again correct. Even though Kerry ostensibly won most of the debates, he did not win the hearts and minds of the people nearly enough, which could have inspired them to go and vote in even greater numbers, armed with a hope for the future, instead of simply being motivated by the near paralyzing fear of another four years of George Bush. The sins of the 2004 election have not been so easily washed away by the ebb and flow of time, there is more blood on our shores now, and the stains of the Kerry defeat have by no means disappeared from the American psyche. Hopefully the 2008 election can draw in more voters than a vote for American Idol.

I was quite confident that Bush would win again a year before the election took place, quite certain in my gut feeling because I had seen the obvious: that the "GOP Lite" formula is a bankrupt centrist ideology with no principles, and which inspires far too few to go out and vote the decadent neocon murderers--or whatever branch of the imperial tree happens to be in office--out of power once and for all...

This time around, I urge readers to mobilize and vote against the "Anybody But Bush" formula for victory. History has been overly gracious and patient with us, and has kindly granted us a bit more room to maneuver, and maybe a small chance to redeem ourselves, even in the wake of eight years of George W. Bush. But history doesn't stand still, or return to the exact same point in time over and over again, even though things at first glance seem similar. Thus, while, if lucky, we might just survive this regime's second term, four years of another Reaganite might very well be the curtain call for what is left of our fading republic. Not to mention much of the world.

If we are, as some adduce, actors on the stage of history, I suggest we all note that we are approaching the final scene if we don't adjust our failed formulas. If we don't follow the path of social justice, as Kucinich has challenged us to do, we won't be able to whittle away at the apathy and cynicism which infect the hearts and minds of people all over this vast nation. "Anybody But Bush" is not strong enough of a vision to steer us out of harm's way.

Maybe now that Senator Obama has tasted his own blood again by voting "No" to Bush's 120 billionaire check, he himself will be ready to draw up a bill to give us real Universal Healthcare, and have a clear exit strategy for Iraq just as Kucinich has already done. We see through you Senators Obama and Clinton, and we will not be fooled this time around. Either get tough or get out of the way and give Edwards and Kucinich a shot. I would feel much more confident having a Kucinich-Edwards ticket than an Obama-Clinton ticket, even if their belated conversions, which may prove illusory, align them, at last, with the majority of their party's grassroots.