Geotheology

The Healthcare Debate

2009-11-21T12:38:00.001-06:00

I know a couple of people that are in medical crisis right now as we speak that don't have coverage. Guess who's paying for it at absorbent rates... US. They get care alright, but its given grudgingly and, minimally and at sub standard but still very expensive and its paid for by our taxes and in higher premiums. As I understand it, the way to go is a single payer system. That did come up, but was also shot down by the (R)'s aka, the "Obama is a Nazi" crowd. Therein lies part of the problem We now have one party that is totally committed and deeply invested in the failure of our President and the failure of healthcare reform because they have broadcasted to everyone that the President is and evil tyrant bent on the destruction of America and all that is holy. You see, they simply can't afford for anything good to happen on his watch now- since they have set it up in such a way that all Obama has to do now to accentuate their desperation and clownishness is NOT be Hitler. Smooth, dang those boys are smooth.

Anyhow, because of this dynamic from the "right", there is almost no bipartisan teamwork, consensus or effort to find a way to alleviate the problems within our healthcare system. You have one side tossing about trying to find something that will simply clear the house whether it is a good, long term solution or not and another side that thinks that even having this conversation is somehow subversive and evil. I am not optimistic about anything good coming out of this mix.

I did some research on the definition of the single payer system as prompted by the article above. It is defined as:

"Single-payer health care: A system of health care characterized by universal and comprehensive coverage. Single-payer health care is similar to the health services provided by Medicare in the US. The government pays for care that is delivered in the private (mostly not-for-profit) sector. Doctors are in private practice and are paid on a fee-for-service basis from government funds. The government does not own or manage their medical practices or hospitals.
Single-payer health care is distinct and different from socialized medicine in which doctors and hospitals work for and draw salaries from the government."

Ok, interesting. It is clearly defined and distinct from socialized or govt. run medicine. So, Iplayed dumb asking some of my so called conservative colleagues there what single- payer healthcare was all about.
The first thing out of every single one of their mouths was... it's "government run healthcare".

I know it may seem that I am harsh and picking on the talk show and Fox news set- but this is a prime example of why. If a person uses those sources for their sole reservoir of information they will become imbued with a certain false certitude about everything, a Manichean worldview and become essentially locked into a monolithic ignorance or worse- become self defeatingly stupid. Practically every time I have a discussion on any issue with these colleagues the are apt to parrot what they have heard on some talk radio show. You see, I listen to those shows quite a bit myself in an effort to understand all facets of a given question. I recognize when someone is simply parroting ideas they have heard from one of their intellectual surrogates.

One of the most destructive forces that has undue influence on these matters today in our society is what has been described as "The permanent war economy". This is also part of what is called the military industrial complex- and what is passing for conservative thought today is eaten up with it. Unfortunately, no one in either of the two major political parties is even talking about any of this. Mike has made some reference to ideas in this ballpark when he speaks of statism and interventionism.
Here are some useful thoughts on the matter found written elsewhere by Chris Hedges:

“In "Pentagon Capitalism" Seymour Mellman described the defense industry as viral. Defense and military industries in permanent war, he wrote, trash economies. They are able to upend priorities. They redirect government expenditures towards their huge military projects and starve domestic investment in the name of national security. We produce sophisticated fighter jets, while Boeing is unable to finish its new commercial plane on schedule and our automotive industry goes bankrupt. We sink money into research and development of weapons systems and neglect renewable energy technologies. Universities are flooded with defense-related cash and grants, and struggle to find money for environmental studies. This is the disease of permanent war.
Massive military spending in this country, climbing to nearly $le1 trillion a year and consuming half of all discretionary spending, has a profound social cost. Bridges and levees collapse. Schools decay. Domestic manufacturing declines. Trillions in debts threaten the viability of the currency and the economy. The poor, the mentally ill, the sick and the unemployed are abandoned. Human suffering, including our own, is the price for victory.
Citizens in a state of permanent war are bombarded with the insidious militarized language of power, fear and strength that mask an increasingly brittle reality. The corporations behind the doctrine of permanent war-who have corrupted the doctrine of permanent revolution-must keep us afraid. Fear stops us from objecting to government spending on a bloated military. Fear means we will not ask unpleasant questions of those in power. Fear means that we will be willing to give up our rights and liberties for security. Fear keeps us penned in like domesticated animals.
Mellman, who coined the term permanent war economy to characterize the American economy, wrote that since the end of the Second World War, the federal government has spent more than half its tax dollars on past, current, and future military operations. It is the largest single sustaining activity of the government. The military industrial establishment is a very lucrative business. It is gilded corporate welfare. It comes with guaranteed profits. Defense systems are sold before they are produced. Military industries are permitted to charge the federal government for huge cost overruns. Massive profits are always guaranteed.”

Literally three days after the first big bailout package passed- the one that was tried to pass with no oversight at all- the one that happened on Bush's watch about two weeks after Republican presidential candidate McCain bloviated that the economy was fundamentally sound and that all this talk about economic imbalance was a construct of the "liberal media" to make Bush look bad and scare the people into voting for democrats- another big spending package was passed. It also put out a 7 to 8 hundred billion dollar payoff. What was it for? It was for the sustenance of the 750 plus military bases we have around the world and all the big military projects and defense contracts (by the way, there are 195 countries- so we have over three times more military bases than there are countries which begs the question what on earth are we doing and why???). This package passed the house without any discussion, without any cost benefit analysis, without any conception of the blowback all this military only interface we have with much of the world and without hardly any public awareness. It is comical to watch all the so called conservatives rail about out of control government spending and cry about the bailouts and then fall into lockstep whenever anything military is on the table. "You can't cut defense spending", they'll say- "it will lose jobs and decrease national security- we have to keep pumping in money or the economy will tank". Its just funny how that concept supposedly works if you are building weapons but not if you are building bridges or infrastructure.
I will go out on a limb and say unless we deal with this "permanent war economy" problem and the attending militaristic mindset, value system and the blowback and socio- economic suffocation under it we ARE doomed as a
nation.

I offer this as part of the answer to the question about the fairness of the present healthcare system and the question of whether its our right to have universal healthcare. I am not of the opinion that we are owed anything from the world, so its hard to think in terms of fairness… but, I will say that the way things are make little sense. I am likewise not of the opinion that these matters are questions of rights- but rather of sustainable dynamics within a society. It makes little sense to me to have a society that is consumed by militarism and living in fear of foreign enemies and willing to spend trillions on “national security” to the detriment of many other aspects of the system. It makes no sense to be consumed with fear of other geopolitical systems that are perceived as threats or of terrorist acts and then essentially unconcerned about whether or not our neighbors right here at home are able to protect themselves from health risks or financial ruin in the case of medical crisis. It makes no sense to be willing to invest that much in weaponry for protection from “enemies” but then wax all pious and individualist when it comes to protection from disease or bankruptcy to the machinery of big corporate medicine.

Many times I have heard people defending our present medical system by pointing out how the best care is available here and that people come from all over the world to get treatments here. That argument is pretty well moot. Only the most affluent can get here to receive that care and the best care, this care that is allegedly the envy of the world, is simply not available to vast sections of our own population. A recent study shows that people without coverage are twice as likely to die of their complications because there are constantly brushed aside and given the minimum attention required by law. This “best care, treatments and medicine in the world” is then, not part of the equation for people without coverage.

There are more theological and moral implications to these topics that would require much more attention. I have just touched on some of the moral calculus on this, but, there is much more to be said of course. The theological implications are deeper than I care to go on this fine, chilly, football Saturday morning. But, since this dilemma has inspired me to reflect deeper and articulate my thoughts, I will address this more very soon.

Evocative or Provocative??

2009-11-13T21:17:00.000-06:00

Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land

2009-10-28T17:44:00.000-05:00

Busting The Ollie North and Osama Bin Laden Myth

2009-10-24T11:01:00.004-05:00

I sure would like to trace these kind of propaganda e-mails back to their source which I Imagine as some right wing nutter and self professed superpatriot sitting in his den spinning off stuff that he KNOWS is not true so as to score political points somehow. However, the scene that this e-mail portrays never happened. Read it first and then the following commentary.

Do you remember 1987........

Thought you
might be interested in this forgotten bit of
information.........

It was 1987! At a lecture the other day they were playing an old news video of Lt. Col. Oliver North testifying at the Iran-Contra hearings during the Reagan Administration.

There was Ollie in front of God and country getting the third degree, but what he said was stunning!

He was being drilled by a senator;

'Did you not recently spend close to $60,000 for a home security system?'

Ollie replied,

'Yes, I did, Sir.'

The senator continued, trying to get a laugh out of the audience,

'Isn't that just a little excessive?'
'No, sir,' continued Ollie.
'No? And why not?'

the senator asked.
'Because the lives of my family and I were threatened, sir.'
'Threatened? By whom?'

the senator questioned.
'By a terrorist, sir'

Ollie answered.
'Terrorist? What terrorist could
possibly scare you that much?'
'His name is Osama bin Laden, sir' Ollie replied.

At this point the senator tried to repeat the name, but couldn't pronounce it, which most people back then probably couldn't. A couple of people laughed at the attempt. Then the senator continued.

'Why are you so afraid of this man?'

the senator asked.
'Because, sir, he is the most
evil person alive that I know of '

Ollie answered..

'And what do you recommend we do about him?'

asked the senator.
'Well, sir, if it was up to me, I would recommend that an assassin team be formed to eliminate him and his men from the face of the earth.'

The senator disagreed with this approach. And, that was all that was shown of the clip.

By the way, that senator

was Al Gore..

Also:
Terrorist pilot Mohammad Atta blew up a bus in Israel in 1986.

The Israelis captured, tried and imprisoned him. As part of the
Oslo agreement with the Palestinians in 1993, Israel had to agree to release
so-called 'political prisoners.'

However, the Israelis would not release any with blood on their hands, The American President at the time, Bill Clinton, and his Secretary of State, Warren Christopher, 'insisted' that all prisoners be released.

Thus Mohammad Atta was freed and eventually thanked us by flying an airplane into Tower One of the World Trade Center . This was reported by many of the American TV networks at the time that the terrorists were first
identified.
It
was censored in the US from all later
reports.

If you agree that the American public should be made aware of this fact, pass this on.

Do Not Break - it is 6 years strong

This
is why I always say I love YOU....

This has not been broken since 9/11/01, please
keep it going...
This has been kept alive and moving since 9/11. In memory of
all those who perished this morning; the passengers and the pilots on the
United Air and AA flights, the workers in the World Trade Center and the
Pentagon, and all the innocent bystanders. Our prayers go out to the friends and
families of the deceased.

This one is false (I almost used a different colloquial expression for false here)... and has been for six plus years. This kind of onerous, odoriferous, opportunistic, exploitative, manipulative, slime is one of the main reasons I am completely and irrevocably done with the Republican party and their willful re- engineering of truth (I never seem to get these sorts of fake e-mails from anyone on the other side of the aisle). As Snopes and plenty of other fact checking sites declares, the scene this e-mail depicts NEVER happened:

http://www.snopes.com/rumors/north.asp

However, I can attest to the fact when I was in Sydney, Australia in October of 1999 for the 2000 Summer Olympics (it was summer there) and going through the very tight security clearances surrounding the Olympics, we definitely heard about a guy by the name of Osama Bin Laden. It was widely known in international and mainstream news that Osama and his organization intended to fly a jetliner into the nuclear reactors upwind from the Olympics in New Zealand and thus poison the games and millions of people with radioactive fallout (this CAN be verified with a basic Google search). So, at that time between Oct. 1999 and September 2001, Mr. Bin Laden was definitely a known threat. Now, despite the fact that there are many that would like to lay the catastrophe of 9/11 entirely at the feet of Mr. Gore and/or Mr. Clinton, get a load of this:

The August 6, 2001, President's Daily Briefing Memo

White House Fact Sheet: "The August 6, 2001 PDB Entitled "bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US", April 10, 2004.
White House Briefing on Release of the August 6, 2001 President's Daily Brief Excerpt "Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in U.S.", April 10, 2004.
Download April 6, 2001, President's Daily Briefing Memo as a PDF document.
The White House released a redacted copy of the August 6, 2001, President's Daily Briefing Memo at approximately 6:15 PM (EST) on April 10, 2004.
CNN reports that the "White House declassified and released Saturday the daily intelligence briefing delivered to President Bush a month before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001." [3]

"Portions of the intelligence report dealing with Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network and dated August 6, 2001, have been redacted for national security reasons, the White House said.

"The memo, titled 'Bin Laden determined to attack inside the United States,' had been described by the White House as a largely historical document with scant information about domestic al Qaeda threats.

"The memo includes intelligence on al Qaeda threats as recent as three months before the attacks.

"Much of the intelligence was uncorroborated, and nothing in the memo points directly to the September 11 attacks.

"Highlights of the report include:

An intelligence report received in May 2001 indicating that al Qaeda was trying to send operatives to the United States through Canada to carry out an attack using explosives. That information had been passed on to intelligence and law enforcement agencies.
An allegation that al Qaeda had been considering ways to hijack American planes to win the release of operatives who had been arrested in 1998 and 1999.
An allegation that bin Laden was set on striking the United States as early as 1997 and through early 2001.
Intelligence suggesting that suspected al Qaeda operatives were traveling to and from the United States, were U.S. citizens, and may have had a support network in the country.
A report that at least 70 FBI investigations were under way in 2001 regarding possible al Qaeda cells/terrorist-related operations in the United States.

NOW PAY SPECIAL ATTENTION TO THIS SECTION:

In his April 8, 2004, Salon article "Weeks before 9/11, the president was "consumed" by a pressing policy matter -- but it wasn't al-Qaida", Eric Boehlert wrote:

"On the night of Aug. 9, 2001, speaking from his vacation ranch in Crawford, Texas, President Bush delivered his first prime-time address to the nation. It was just three days after he had read the startling President's Daily Brief titled, 'Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.,' which warned of airline hijackings planned by al-Qaida. It was one month after the administration's counterterrorism chief, Richard Clarke, informed senior law enforcement officials he had gathered inside the White House's Situation Room, 'Something really spectacular is going to happen here, and it's going to happen soon.' And it was three months after intelligence analysts had begun tracking unprecedented 'chatter' about a possible terrorist attack. So now, Bush looked into the camera and spoke solemnly: 'Good evening. I appreciate you giving me a few minutes of your time tonight so I can discuss with you a complex and difficult issue, an issue that is one of the most profound of our time."

"That issue was stem cell research."

Conclusion: MYTH BUSTED

A Challenge for "The Bible Answer Man" on Money, Greed and God

2009-08-22T14:07:00.002-05:00

Hank Hanegraaff, the "Bible Answer Man" recently aired an interview of Jay Richards over two days of the B.A.M. radio program, concerning Richards' new book, Money, Greed and God: Why Capitalism is the Solution and Not the Problem. The bumpers for the interview and the trailers for the book made it almost irresistible to listen in on. The book was purported to "annihilate all the "leftist" and "socialist" myths and propaganda on economics being taught as fact today" and a "must read for Americans and Christians seeking the truth in these trying times".

The book was advertised as Part one of the interview is here. Part two is found here.

**I found the program not to live up to the billing, to simply do a cursory gloss over the "myths" it was supposedly destroying and leave many unanswered questions. I think its worth mentioning here that I am not a leftist, liberal or socialist. The only labels I will wear are Christian, human, American, Cherokee and Oklahoman. I will not participate in the false dichotomy and endless contention of "conservative" vs. "liberal' or "capitalist" vs. "socialist" debate as it is customarily formulated. I will not allow someone else to signify me as any of those other things simply because I am questioning the veracity of the thesis on capitalism as put forth by Richards and Hanegraaff in this radio program and in the book.

I too am a fan of the “Bible Answer Man”. I have four of his books and listen to his radio program most days. I was also listening on the two days that he ran the two programs about the "Christian Merits" of capitalism. It is very seldom that I question or challenge the positions that the “Bible Answer Man” takes. I did have a few issues with this topic as it was spelled out by Mr. Hanegraaff and Mr. Richards. I was looking for a blog or a forum by CRI or either one of these gentlemen to address some of the questions I was left with and found practically nothing so I decided to throw the discussion out onto the internet via my own blog.

To be fair I have not read the book yet. Some of what I am wanting to address may be in the book. However, based upon the way this material was presented in the radio program I would not likely spend my money on the book. The book was advertised as one that “annihilates the liberal myths on economics often taught as facts”. Now, I would say that to annihilate a position and expose it as myth it would take more than just a cursory gloss over of that position being annihilated and slapping the label “liberal” on it and calling it done. To me at least, and I suspect to other critical thinkers it would take a line item review of the “mythical economic theories taught as fact” and then a thorough and comprehensive rebuttal to those. Granted, the radio show was a limited time format, but I still think they could have taken on those “liberal” positions much better, especially if they are being portrayed as merely “myth” and “propaganda”. Instead what we had was a couple of hours of full on praise of capitalism and cheerleading of capitalist assertions on economics and opinions. Richards said in the program that “liberal” and “socialist” types always have the “best rhetoric”, but based on this program alone and the way these topics were handled one could conclude that the “capitalists” have a very good propaganda model working as well. Then if you factor in the patriotic and religious overtones and jingoistic cant of the corporate, advertising dollars driven media, I think I would really have to question and/or challenge the idea that the “leftists” have the best rhetoric.

I will not go into a treatise on the media or a history lesson on the wars and bloodshed propagated by the capitalist urge and the “great commission” to spread the gospel of capitalism and “make the world safe for democracy” in places like East Timor, the Philippines, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua and so on and so on. But I will simply point out that Hanegraaff and Richards and those like them generally prefer to either downplay or flat out ignore these sorts of things while they are praising capitalism and/or dismissing those “silly liberal” myths. Granted, they do like to list the litany of crimes against humanity by people like Hitler and Stalin. But there seems to be a void where qualifications about capitalism concerning things like the conquest of North America, the theft of land and the holocaust of American Indians ought to be. For instance, when discussing the need to quell the resistance of “American Indians” so as to obtain the goal of “civilizing” them and assimilating them into the framework of the republic, general William T. Sherman put forth an idea that speaks volumes about the worldly culture of capitalist ideals. He said that the “Indians”, “know no greed, and, until they understand greed, they will never understand the private ownership of property.” This demonstrates, not only the superficial understanding of other cultures that we often see from the captains of capitalism, but also that the capitalist system is propagated and motivated in large part by the institutionalized, individualized greed. American Indian and Christian, theologian George E. Tinker spells out quite a case on this in his books “Spirit and Resistance” and “Missionary Conquest”.
Another point I would like to make is on how Richards and Hanegraaff spoke about how capitalism “creates” wealth, progress and prosperity. First, this depends upon how one defines wealth, progress and prosperity. Since these men are professing Christians some qualifications on these terms ought to be easy to come up with. That seemed to be missing in any kind of comprehensive, spiritual treatment in the program and review of the book.
Also, I would challenge the very pretense that capitalism truly “creates” anything. It sometimes seems like these avowed capitalists think that all the resources and raw materials that are harvested and/or consumed to make the products that fuel the capitalist engine simply appear from nowhere. It seems that they think that the earth is an inexhaustible resource, a bottomless garbage can and that the forces, human costs, blowback and turbulence created by mass consumption and material greed are minimal, easily controlled and easily rationalized since they create jobs and medical and military advances. Again, a redefinition of progress and prosperity seems to be needed here. About as far as they, or many other capitalist apologists go on this is the platitude about how God has created the Earth to be used and consumed by men. I will resist the urge to go into a much more comprehensive treatment the theological incompleteness of this sort of rationalization for the moment.
I would however like to challenge the idea that one can have a “Christian capitalism”. I will allow that you can have a Christian values driven person or people operating within the framework of capitalism (or other economic systems like socialism for that matter). But, the idea that you can have a “Christian capitalism”, a Christian nation or a Christian business is about as valid as the idea that you can have a Christian machine or a Christian milkshake. It just doesn’t work that way. Such ideas simply do not take into ful account the fatally flawed, fallen nature of mankind and are oddly as Utopian as anything I have ever heard coming from the “left”. It is allowed that humans can be the representatives of the Kingdom of God while they are in the world. But, do not forget, if one is going to use the Bible to prop up the cause of capitalism or any other ism that Jesus said that his Kingdom is not of this world. We are also told not to love the world or anything in it in the scriptures. I do have a qualified understanding of what that really means- but, I am wondering if they have not realized what this fully means themselves. Richards did go into a bit about the “Secret” of capitalism and a treatment on the “rule of law” on this point. But, again it did not take into account practically any of the questions I am raising here. In fact his points about the “secret” and unleashing of the “creative potential” of humans as reflections of God started to sound like new age humanism. Maybe that is unfair not having read the book. But, as I have stated already, based on what I have heard, I am not planning to spend my money on the book and feed Richards’ capitalist urge. Maybe I'll find it in the library or someone will send me a copy if they are convinced of it's truth and wish to change my mind.
Lastly, here are the type of concepts that Richards and Hanegraaff really need to address if they are going to presume to annihilate these supposedly leftist myths and economic theories:

Excerpted from: IN THE ABSENCE OF THE SACRED- By Jerry Mander
Source
The following list is an attempt to articulate the obligatory rules by which corporations operate. Some of the rules overlap, but taken together they help reveal why corporations behave as they do and how they have come to dominate their environment and the human beings within it.

The Profit Imperative: Profit is the ultimate measure of all corporate decisions. It takes precedence over community well-being, worker health, public health, peace, environmental preservation or national security. Corporations will even find ways to trade with national "enemies"—Libya, Iran, the former Soviet Union, Cuba—when public policy abhors it. The profit imperative and the growth imperative are the most fundamental corporate drives; together they represent the corporation's instinct to "live."
The Growth Imperative: Corporations live or die by whether they can sustain growth. On this depends relationships to investors, to the stock market, to banks and to public perception. The growth imperative also fuels the corporate desire to find and develop scarce resources in obscure parts of the world.
This effect is now clearly visible, as the world's few remaining pristine places are sacrificed to corporate production. The peoples who inhabit these resource-rich regions are similarly pressured to give up their traditional ways and climb on the wheel of production-consumption. Corporate planners consciously attempt to bring "less developed societies into the modem world" to create infrastructures for development, as well as new workers and new consumers. Corporations claim that they do this for altruistic reasons to raise the living standard—but corporations have no altruism.
Theoretically, privately held corporations—those owned by individuals or families—do not have the imperative to expand. In practice, however, their behavior is the same. Such privately held giants as Bechtel Corporation have shown no propensity to moderate growth.
Competition and Aggression: Corporations place every person in management in fierce competition with each other. Anyone interested in a corporate career must hone his or her ability to seize the moment. This applies to gaining an edge over another company or over a colleague within the company. As an employee, you are expected to be part of the "team," but you also must be ready to climb over your own colleagues.
Corporate ideology holds that competition improves worker incentive and corporate performances and therefore benefits society. Our society has accepted this premise utterly. Unfortunately, however, it also surfaces in personal relationships. Living by standards of competition and aggression on the job, human beings have few avenues to express softer, more personal feelings. (In politics, non-aggressive behavior is interpreted as weakness.)
Amorality: Not being human, corporations do not have morals or altruistic goals. So decisions that maybe antithetical to community goals or environmental health are made without misgivings. In fact, corporate executives praise "non-emotionality" as a basis for "objective" decision-making.
Corporations, however, seek to hide their amorality and attempt to act as if they were altruistic. Lately, there has been a concerted effort by American industry to appear concerned with environmental cleanup, community arts or drug programs. Corporate efforts that seem altruistic are really Public relations ploys or directly self-serving projects.
There has recently been a spurt of corporate advertising about how corporations work to clean the environment. A company that installs offshore oil rigs will run ads about how fish are thriving under the rigs. Logging companies known for their clearcutting practices will run millions of dollars' worth of ads about their "tree farms."
It is a fair rule of thumb that corporations tend to advertise the very qualities they do not have in order to allay negative public perceptions. When corporations say "we care," it is almost always in response to the widespread perception that they do not have feelings or morals.
If the benefits do not accrue, the altruistic pose is dropped. When Exxon realized that its cleanup of Alaskan shores was not easing the public rage about the oil spill, it simply dropped all pretense of altruism and ceased working.
Hierarchy: Corporate laws require that corporations be structured into classes of superiors and subordinated within a centralized pyramidal structure: chairman, directors, chief executive officer, vice presidents, division managers and so on. The efficiency of this hierarchical form (which also characterizes the military, the government and most institutions in our society) is rarely questioned.
The effect on society from adopting the hierarchical form is to make it seem natural that we have all been placed within a national pecking order. Some jobs are better than others, some lifestyles are better than others, some neighborhoods, some races, some kinds of knowledge. Men over women. Westerners over non-Westerners. Humans over nature.
That effective, non-hierarchical modes of organization exist on the planet, and have been successful for millennia, is barely known by most Americans.
Quantification, Linearity, Segmentation: Corporations require that subjective information be translated into objective form, i.e. numbers. The subjective or spiritual aspects of forests, for example, cannot be translated, and so do not enter corporate equations. Forests are evaluated only as "board feet."
When corporations are asked to clean up their smokestack emissions, they lobby to relax the new standards in order to contain costs. The result is that a predictable number of people are expected to become sick and die.
The operative corporate standard is not "as safe as humanly possible," but rather, "as safe as possible commensurate with maintaining acceptable profit."
Dehumanization: In the great majority of corporations, employees are viewed as ciphers, as non-managerial cogs in the wheel, replaceable by others or by machines.
As for management employees, not subject to quite the same indignities, they nonetheless must practice a style of decision making that "does not let feelings get in the way." This applies as much to firing employees as it does to dealing with the consequences of corporate behavior in the environment or the community.
Exploitation: All corporate profit is obtained by a simple formula: Profit equals the difference between the amount paid to an employee and the economic value of the employee's output, and/or the difference between the amount paid for raw materials used in production (including costs of processing), and the ultimate sales price of processed raw materials. Karl Marx was right: a worker is not compensated for full value of his or her labor—neither is the raw material supplier. The owners of capital skim off part of the value as profit. Profit is based on underpayment.
Capitalists argue that this is a fair deal, since both workers and the people who mine or farm the resources (usually in Third World environments) get paid. But this arrangement is inherently imbalanced. The owner of the capital—the corporation or the bank always obtains additional benefit. While the worker makes a wage, the owner of capital gets the benefit of the worker's labor, plus the surplus profit the worker produces, which is then reinvested to produce yet more surplus.
Ephemerality: Corporations exist beyond time and space: they are legal creations that only exist on paper. They do not die a natural death; they outlive their own creators. They have no commitment to locale, employees or neighbors. Having no morality, no commitment to place and no physical nature (a factory, while being a physical entity, is not the corporation). A corporation can relocate all of its operations at the first sign of inconvenience—demanding employees, high taxes and restrictive environmental laws. The traditional ideal of community engagement is antithetical to corporation behavior.
Opposition to Nature: Though individuals who work for corporations may personally love nature, corporations themselves, and corporate societies, are intrinsically committed to intervening in, altering and transforming nature. For corporations engaged in commodity manufacturing, profit comes from transmogrifying raw materials into saleable forms. Metals from the ground are converted into cars.
Trees are converted into boards, houses, furniture and paper products. Oil is converted into energy. In all such energy, a piece of nature is taken from where it belongs and processed into a new form. All manufacturing depends upon intervention and reorganization of nature. After natural resources are used up in one part of the globe, the corporation moves on to another part.
This transformation of nature occurs in all societies where manufacturing takes place. But in capitalist, corporate societies, the process is accelerated because capitalist societies and corporations must grow by extracting resources from nature and reprocessing them at an ever-quickening pace. Meanwhile, the consumption end of the cycle is also accelerated by corporations that have an interest in convincing people that commodities bring material satisfaction. Inner satisfaction, self-sufficiency, contentment in nature or a lack of a desire to acquire wealth are subversive to corporate goals.
Banks finance the conversion of nature insurance companies help reduce the financial risks involved. On a finite planet, the process cannot continue indefinitely.
Homogenization: American rhetoric claims that commodity society delivers greater choice and diversity than other societies. "Choice" in this context means product choice in the marketplace: many brands to choose from and diverse features on otherwise identical products. Actually, corporations have a stake in all of us living our lives in a similar manner, achieving our pleasures from things that we buy in a world where each family lives isolated in a single family home and has the same machines as every other family on the block. The "singles" phenomenon has proved even more productive than the nuclear family, since each person duplicates the consumption patterns of every other person.
Lifestyles and economic systems that emphasize sharing commodities and work, that do not encourage commodity accumulation or that celebrate non-material values, are not good for business. People living collectively, sharing such "hard" goods as washing machines, cars and appliances (or worse, getting along without them) are outrageous to corporate commodity society.
Native societies—which celebrate an utterly non-material relationship to life, the planet and the spirit—are regarded as backward, inferior and unenlightened. We are told that they envy the choices we have. To the degree these societies continue to exist, they represent a threat to the homogenization of worldwide markets and culture. Corporate society works hard to retrain such people in attitudes and values appropriate to corporate goals.
In undeveloped parts of the world, satellite communication introduces Western television and advertising, while improvements in the technical infrastructure speed up the pace of development. Most of this activity is funded by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, as well as agencies such as the US Agency for International Development, the Inter-American Bank and the Asian-American Bank, all of which serve multinational corporate enterprise.
The ultimate goal of corporate multinationals was expressed in a revealing quote by the president of Nabisco Corporation: "One world of homogeneous consumption. . . [I am] looking forward to the day when Arabs and Americans, Latinos and Scandinavians, will be munching Ritz crackers as enthusiastically as they already drink Coke or brush their teeth with Colgate." Page 31

In the book, Trilateralism, editor Holly Sklar wrote: "Corporations not only advertise products, they promote lifestyles rooted in consumption, patterned largely after the United States.... [They] look forward to a post-national age in which [Western] social, economic and political values are transformed into universal values... a world economy in which all national economies beat to the rhythm of transnational corporate capitalism.... The Western way is the good way; national culture is inferior."
Form Is Content Corporations are inherently bold, aggressive and competitive. Though they exist in a society that claims to operate by moral principles, they are structurally amoral. It is inevitable that they will dehumanize people who work for them and the overall society as well. They are disloyal to workers, including their own managers. Corporations can be disloyal to the communities they have been part of for many years. Corporations do not care about nations; they live beyond boundaries. They are intrinsically committed to destroying nature. And they have an inexorable, unabatable, voracious need to grow and to expand. In dominating other cultures, in digging up the Earth, corporations blindly follow the codes that have been built into them as if they were genes.
We must abandon the idea that corporations can reform themselves. To ask corporate executives to behave in a morally defensible manner is absurd. Corporations, and the people within them, are following a system of logic that leads inexorably toward dominant behaviors. To ask corporations to behave otherwise is like asking an army to adopt pacifism.- Jerry Mander

Corporation: n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.
—Ambrose Bierce, 1842-1914.

Kings of Leon- Crawl

2009-08-19T23:23:00.000-05:00

This song is a skull crusher!!!!!!!!!!!

Is President Barack Obama a Socialist?

2009-08-19T21:51:00.004-05:00

I have been considering my thoughts about the current American political scene quite a bit lately. One reason I have been contemplating all this is that I have been sent, frequently of late, sent a lot of negative e-mail and video clips about President Obama's supposedly Socialist agenda. Many of the YouTube style videos out on this have the comments either cut off or moderated pending approval. This is kind of funny when the videos are often accusatory about president Obama and/or representatives of his administration being asked and supposedly tough questions and then supposedly dodging answering them sufficiently.

I observe that most of the strongest critics are not even listening to the answers- but rather are simply enjoying seeing the "tough" questions that they are obsessed about having asked be posed. When the answers come- many of these these critics simply ignore the answers they were given and insist that their questions were either ignored or that the answers were fallacious. People often see what they want to see and hear what they want to hear. This is an innate feature of humanity it seems. Those that are observant will see many prime examples of this in the political discourse of nearly every single day right now.

Here is what I have seen transpire over recent years.

First, when former President George W. Bush wanted to implement his tax cuts for the wealthier American citizens and businesses, McCain opposed it and voted NO (neaux).
McCain said it would hurt the middle class and the less fortunate. Go check the voting records.

During Obama's campaign for the presidency he explained that he was seeking to essentially roll those same tax cuts that John McCain opposed back and instead give them to the middle class and less fortunate (ironically, like Joe the plumber). Suddenly Obama was labeled a socialist and commie according to the McCain- Palin campaign and right wing America. This, I thought to myself, was an insult to the intelligence of EVERYONE.

Secondly, there was this from the Constitution:

AMENDMENT XVI

Passed by Congress July 2, 1909. Ratified February 3, 1913.

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever sources derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration. The income tax is collected yearly on a percentage basis. The higher the earnings, the higher the percentage collected from them. This changes article 1 section 2.

So then, we have had a progressive income tax in America for many years. That's the way its been done for a couple of lifetimes. Considering that, this charge of socialism and the evils of wealth redistribution and revolutionary radicalism levied against now President Obama regarding his taxation plans doesn't rhave in teeth after all. Anybody that yet believes that President Obama is a total socialist/communist obviously has not really read the Communist Manifesto and does not really know what the definitions of socialism are. The best one can come up with is a few quotes by Karl Marx that seem to parallel some quotes by President Obama. I can produce quotes from any American leader in the last 200 plus years that parallel ideas by many other notorious dictators from Saddam to Stalin to Hitler. So what? Such comparisons are usually just political gamesmanship or shortcuts to actual analysis.

I have discovered in my own studies and research that President Obama is not a socialist if you ask a socialist; Greg Pason, National Secretary of the Socialist Party USA and David Schaich, Socialist Party Campaign Clearinghouse Coordinator both say he's ...definitely not. Schaich says: “The idea that Barack Obama is socialist, or quasi-socialist, or semi-socialist, or socialist-light, or anything of the sort, is far-right nonsense. Barack Obama, like John McCain, is very much a ‘politician as usual,’fully committed to the continuation of the capitalist system and the expansion of its empire.” A socialist agenda (even a reformist one) would not prop up capitalism and capitalist economies or companies when they fail, but rather sieze upon the opportunity to radically transform the economy. None of President Obama's proposals or programs offer any perceptible threat to capitalism. These quotes and many others were easily found in cursory research of the actual question of whether president Obama is a socialist- rather than a blind acceptance of the precept that he is or a search for evidence to prove a pre determined premise.

I will also say that it is kind of hollow to be complaining about socialism and/or communism or using words like "liberal", "socialist" or "communist" as perjoratives when our homes and store shelves are jampacked with goods made in COMMUNIST China and nearly every dollar we spend at places like Wal-Mart fattens up China with its terrible human rights record and its RED, NUCLEAR CAPABLE ARMY. Unless you do not buy, sell, trade, consume or own anything from China you simply cannot gripe about socialism and/or communism without being a hypocrite.

Now, communism or capitalism are both worldly systems flawed by fallible humanity and self interests and vested interests of the wealthy and/or powerful. Neither system is really, intrinsically more or less evil than the other. I have seen no convincing evidence that God is a capitalist. In fact, as As C.S. Lewis pointed out in "Mere Christianity", a great deal of what is condemned nowadays as leftist or subversive is found in the teachings of Christ as in the Sermon on the Mount and also in the New Testament as written by Paul- like sharing, concern for fellow man, love of enemies, the peaceable as opposed to militaristic nature, the humility and meekness as opposed to crassness, the aversion to worry and fear, etc. The "religious right" which is participant in much of this cant and fear mongering and worry about the evils of socialism would do well to remember some of that. Now get this straight, I am neither capitalist or communist- both systems are worldly and ultimately doomed to failure by human factors- not to mention the natural cycles of history and/or God's intervention and plan for human history, if one believes in that sort of thing (I do).

With all of this hullabaloo about wealth redistribution, many "conservatives" seem to have forgotten what Sarah Palin did in Alaska:

Palin’s criticisms of President Obama’s “spread the wealth” remarks are ironic to put it nicely and plain old campaign Bull in the street vernacular. She recently characterized Alaska’s tax code in a very similar way. Just last month, in an interview with Philip Gourevitch of the New Yorker, Palin explained the windfall profits tax that she imposed on the oil industry in Alaska as a mechanism for ensuring that Alaskans “share in the wealth” generated by oil companies:

And Alaska—we’re set up, unlike other states in the union, where it’s collectively Alaskans own the resources. So we share in the wealth when the development of these resources occurs. … It’s to maximize benefits for Alaskans, not an individual company, not some multinational somewhere, but for Alaskans.

In fact, Alaska’s Clear and Equitable Share (ACES) program, which manages the redistribution of oil wealth in Alaska, brings in so much money that the state needs no income or sales tax. In addition, this year ACES will provide every Alaskan with a check for an estimated $3,200.

Perhaps there is some meaningful distinction between spreading the wealth and sharing it?

Perhaps the McCain- Palin supporters or "conservatives" see some important distinction between what Obama is talking about and what Palin has done to redistribute wealth in Alaska that I am missing it and I need a far greater intellect to tell the difference? I submit, though, that it is at least possible, if not very likely, that just as McCain and Palin were trying to win a campaign, many "conservatives" and/or "conservative" politicians are now simply trying to cost the current President some political capital so as to increase their chances at regaining seats of power and they are in fact self contradictory and just don't know it or don't care. I submit that ascertaining that really only only requires the analytic skills of say... a sincere fifth grader with a speck of curiosity, objectivity or self critical analysis.

It seems to me that the American system has long been a sort of hybrid of capitalism and so called socialist ideas, what with things like Social Security, Medicare, corporate subsidies and bailouts, welfare, and all sorts of other programs designed to make our system work more smoothly and not implode upon itself due to imbalances in it. "Liberals" certainly seem to idealize and overestimate the amount of actual good and prosperity can be achieved by way of good intentions and throwing money at problems. Conversely, "liberals" tend to underestimate how much the flaws of human nature can be suppressed using these same means. In the end, both "conservatives" and "liberals" both seem to have Utopian ideas about the perfectibility of human nature and how good things could be if they could just convert or eliminate each other or the "others" they fancy as "them". I myself am an idealist- but not as much of one as those who proudly wear the labels of "conservative" or "liberal.... I do try to stay grounded in a reality based world view.

Busting The Reaganomics Myth

2009-08-17T08:42:00.007-05:00

What we have nowadays, rather than a “government”, is actually more of a dualistic system of adversarial fat cats whose primary activities, it would seem, are the acquisition of power, the maintaining of it, exchanging insults and being nasty to one another…

This article, about a former Reagan admin. insider, will challenge all the conventional wisdom about "conservative" vs. "liberal" politics:

"Trickle Down" economics was a "Trojan Horse"

David Stockman

In the 1980’s Ronald Reagan ushered in a new era in American economics as he cut the top tax bracket from 70% down to 50% and then down again to 28%. In order to get support for doing this from the people, and also from politicians, a very crafty set of lies were produced. As David Stockman, then Reagan’s budget director, put it: giving small tax cuts across the board to all brackets was simply a “Trojan Horse” that was used to get approval for the huge top tax bracket cuts. “Trickle-Down” was a term used by Republicans that meant giving tax cuts to the rich. Stockman explains that:

"It's kind of hard to sell 'trickle down,' so the supply-side formula was the only way to get a tax policy that was really 'trickle down.' Supply-side is 'trickle-down' theory."

"Yes, Stockman conceded, when one stripped away the new rhetoric emphasizing across-the-board cuts, the supply-side theory was really new clothes for the unpopular doctrine of the old Republican orthodoxy."

"…the Reagan coalition prevailed again in the House and Congress passed the tax-cut legislation with a final frenzy of trading and bargaining. Again, Stockman was not exhilarated by the victory. On the contrary, it seemed to leave a bad taste in his mouth, as though the democratic process had finally succeeded in shocking him by its intensity and its greed. Once again, Stockman participated in the trading -- special tax concessions for oil -- lease holders and real-estate tax shelters, and generous loopholes that virtually eliminated the corporate income tax. Stockman sat in the room and saw it happen."

"'Do you realize the greed that came to the forefront?' Stockman asked with wonder. 'The hogs were really feeding. The greed level, the level of opportunism, just got out of control.'"

The Education of David Stockman 1981:

http://www. theatlantic. com/politics/budget/stockman.htm

Reagan's policies did more than simply cut income taxes. A large number of tax loopholes were written into the tax code that catered to special corporate interests. In fact many of the current scandals involving companies such as Enron are rooted in laws that were passed during the Reagan administration that gave these companies more legal legroom to work with and less oversight.

In addition, the small “income-tax cuts” that were given to the middle and lower income tax brackets were countered with new taxes that were directed at middle and low income individuals, as former House Speaker Jim Wright said:

Reagan's tax increases fell mainly on consumers, low- and middle-income people. Sales and excise levies. Reagan didn't call these taxes. They were, in his euphemistic lexicon, "user fees" and "revenue-enhancers."

The most important issue though is that even if you take the Reagan “Trickle-Down” policy at face value it’s still horribly flawed as a policy that will provide economic growth that benefits all Americans.

There is no realistic way for "Trickle-Down" economics to work to increase the income of the working classes of America. In fact I am certain that the developers of the theory of "Trickle-Down" economics were fully aware of this and that "Trickle-Down" has in fact worked as intended. This means that the intent behind implementing "Trickle-Down" was to benefit the wealthiest Americans at the expense of working class Americans. "Trickle-Down" hasn't failed, as many modern economists have suggested, it has succeeded in its goals, which is the increase of economic inequality and the shift of a greater portion of America's wealth into the hands of the wealthiest Americans.

I'll show you exactly why "Trickle-Down" can never really trickle down, and I'll expose the logic that was used to trick Americans into supporting the idea that freeing up money for the wealthy could somehow benefit the poor and middle class.

I'm going to use a very simplistic example to demonstrate the principles of "Trickle-Down" economics. No, this is not a 100% accurate model of our economic system, and it assumes that "all other aspects of the economy are equal," but the major principles are represented. I will give "Trickle-Down" the benefit of the doubt and assume that it actually does create jobs in my example.

We have a room with 5 people in it. The total value of all the money in the room is $10. 00. The money is apportioned as in the table below.

Total Value $10. 00
Jim	$4. 00	40%
Susan	$3. 00	30%
Tom	$2. 00	20%
Amy	$1. 00	10%
Bill	$0. 00	0%

Sam enters the room and says that he has $10. 00 that he wants to give to Jim. This makes everyone else unhappy of course and everyone says that they will beat Jim up if he takes the money. Sam then proposes a solution. He says that if everyone allows him to give Jim $6. 00 he will give $1. 00 to everyone else in the room. This sounds pretty good to everyone so they agree to let Jim receive the money. So, after Jim gets the money and everyone gets a dollar this is what the monetary breakdown of the room looks like:

Total Value $20. 00
Jim	$10. 00	50%
Susan	$4. 00	20%
Tom	$3. 00	15%
Amy	$2. 00	10%
Bill	$1. 00	5%

As you can see, due to inflation most of the other people in the room either lost value or saw no real gain. As you can also see the size of the "economy" did in fact grow as the theory of "Trickle-Down" proposes, but the growth only benefited one person, Jim, and arguably Bill. Even though the economy grew overall most of the people in the room saw a loss of value. This is because the value of money is relative. It's relative to many factors, but one is how much money is in the system. If you have 1 dollar out of 10 then its worth more than 1 dollar out of 1,000. How wealthy you are in terms of dollars is not measured by the number of dollars you have, it is measured by the share of dollars that you have out of the total number of dollars in the system.

Now, your opinion of Sam and Jim can be one of only two options.

1) Jim and Sam were naive and actually thought that they were going to be helping everyone with their actions; the fact that the actions had a negative effect on everyone else was an accident.

2) Jim and Sam knew that taking the $10. 00, keeping $6. 00 of it, and giving $1. 00 to everyone else wasn't going to help anyone but Jim, and they tricked everyone for the purpose of self gain using the $1. 00 "gift" to the under-classes as a "Trojan Horse" to support the action.

As in the example above there are three basic possibilities for economic growth (and many variations in between): Either the growth of the economy can be spread equally among everyone, the growth of the economy can be shifted towards the bottom of the population in which case the poor see a rise in relative value, becoming "less poor," or the growth can be shifted toward the top in which case the rich see a rise in relative value, becoming "more rich. "

The general economic policy of "Trickle-Down" that was put in place by Reagan has gone fundamentally unchanged since it was adopted by the country in the 1980s. The claim of Reagan was that "all boats would rise" by giving huge tax cuts for the wealthy. This did not happen. The majority of boats stayed the same or sank, while only between 5% and 1% of the boats actually rose.

The effects of "Trickle-Down" policy are evident. As would be expected from the policy, the largest beneficiaries of the "Trickle-Down" system have been the wealthy.

Individual earnings inequality as reported by the U. S. Census Bureau was falling or stable from the 1960s through the 1970s, however, beginning in the 1980s, along with the economic reforms of "Trickle-Down" policy, income inequality began to rise and has continued to rise dramatically ever since, as shown in the figure below.

(Data for the graphs below comes from the US Census Bureau)

http://www. census. gov/hhes/income/histinc/histinctb.html

Although there was a huge increase in real income for average Americans between World War II and the 1970s the income of the average American male has gone essentially unchanged since 1970 as the figure below indicates. Income for females though has continued to rise. What is significant about this graph is that between 1980 and present (2003) the incomes of the top 2% of American wage earners has gone up dramatically despite the stagnation of the income of average Americans.

This graph shows both average hourly earnings and the minimum wage together in 2001 dollars. As you can see both the minimum wage and average hourly earnings reached their peak in the 1960s and 1970s. This graph does not go back any farther than 1960, but for all practical purposes the peak shown here in 1973 is the historical peak for hourly earnings in America. See the source data in the link below for details on hourly earnings.

http://w3. access. gpo. gov/usbudget/fy2000/sheets/b047. xls

As we can see below, the percentage of people in poverty who are also working full time has gone up steadily since the 1970s, and it also underscores an important point, as all of these graphs do, which is that the fundamental economic policy of the Reagan administration has gone essentially unchanged, even by President Clinton.

http://www. census. gov/hhes/poverty/histpov/hstpov18.html

Today we are still operating under a Supply Side economic model. In fact, even though the average income tax rate paid in America today is roughly the same as it was in 1979, the average income tax rate for the top 1% is less than it was in 1979. The graph below shows the actual percentage of income paid to all (Income, Social Security, Corporate, Capital gains, and Excise) Federal taxes per the various groups. During the Regan era, you can see that total Federal taxes on the lowest income groups actually went up. Clinton continued to maintain the Supply Side model that was established under Reagan. By 2000 the Top 1% still maintained significantly lower taxes compared to the pre-Reagan era, but taxes on "upper middle class" earners had increased and taxes on the middle class have stayed about the same as they were just prior to Reagan's entry into office, which is higher than they ever were prior to the 1970s.

http://www. cbo. gov/showdoc. cfm?index=4514&sequence=3&from=0

As the figures below indicate, the degree of increase in income for the wealthiest Americans has far outpaced the majority of the population, a trend that also started with the Reagan Presidency. A large factor in this increase for the top 2% has been capital gains.

http://www. cbo. gov/showdoc. cfm?index=3089&sequence=11

The two graphs above show similar data, but there are some important differences. Obviously the first graph shows a wider range of data in terms of the years that it covers, but the first graph also shows the data for total household incomes, which have increased among the bottom quintiles in large part because of the increase in two or three worker households, but the bottom graph shows the data adjusted for household size. In addition the bottom graph obviously also shows data for the top 1%, whereas the top graph does not, and, perhaps most significantly, the bottom graph shows after tax income, so it is showing what was taken home after all federal taxes were paid.

This next graph shows an even longer range view. This shows after tax income in 2000 dollars going back to 1913 for the top 1% and the average for the remaining bottom 99%.

http://www. aflcio. org/corporateamerica/paywatch/

After World War II significant efforts were made to ensure prosperity for all Americans. These efforts dramatically reduced poverty rates and helped to build the strong middle-class that America has become famous for. However, as the graph below shows, significant changes began with the Reagan presidency.

Between 1965 and 2001 the number of multi-worker households has increased dramatically. In fact the slight increase in income that is shown for the 1^st through 4^th quintiles in the graph titled Average Household Income by Quintile (a quintile represents 1/5^th of the population) is primarily attributed to an increase in the number of households with two or more workers supporting the household. Individual male income for the 1^st through 4^th quintiles has actually gone down or stayed the same since the 1980s when adjusted for inflation.

In 1965 27% of the full time workforce was female, by 2001 that number had risen to 41%. What has allowed the average American household to continue to maintain a good standard of living is an increase in multi-worker households and a decrease in the number of children that families have, as well as a large increase in the trade deficit, with increasing numbers of American goods being made in third world countries.

The issue is that the economic policies of the Reagan administration were designed to primarily benefit wealthy Americans. At the time a lot of smoke and mirrors were used to convince average Americans that these policies would help them as well. A similar set of lies has been used by those, like Steve Forbes, who promote a flat tax system.

What the "Trickle-Down"/Supply Side policies of the Reagan administration were designed to do was to increase the amount of money available to wealthy Americans for investing and developing businesses. This was intended to create an increase in production of products and services and hence and increase in new jobs. The reason that the policy is called Supply Side, is because the supply of goods increases before there is a demand for goods. So, in that case, the supply of goods is intended to then spark demand, resulting in economic growth.

This use of Supply Side policy led to a huge increase in consumerism and the use of credit. An environment of consumerism was created in American society through the media via advertisements, movies, and television shows, etc. that promoted consumerism. Consumers though, did not have the money to fulfill the desires created by society so debt was used to participate in the economy. Restrictions on credit were loosened under the Reagan administration making it easier for individuals to gain credit lines because the use of credit was essential to growing the economy because real wages were not going up for the average American, yet it was essential that the average American increase spending in order to fuel the economy. This situation fueled female entry into the workforce as more households require two workers to maintain their standard of living.

The result of this is that American household debt has been constantly hitting new highs since the 1980s as can be seen in the graph below provided by Michael Hodges.

http://mwhodges. home. att. net/nat-debt/debt-nat-a.htm

The truth is that "Trickle-Down" was never intended to help middle income and poor Americans; it was intended to help the wealthy and Corporate America.

The economic policies of the Reagan era increased the trade deficit and provided easier ways for companies to "hide" money.

1980 the top 1% of tax filers received 8. 45% of American AGI (Adjusted Gross Income) and in 2000 that figure had risen to 20. 81% of the national AGI. Today the over 50% of the national income goes to the wealthiest 20% of Americans. This is the first time since 1935 that such a large portion of the national income has gone to such a small portion of the population. In 1967 the wealthiest 20% only accounted for 43% of the nation's income. The trend began in 1982. Between 1967 and 1982 middle-income households were gaining a larger share of the economy. What this means is that between 1982 and 2001 the bottom 80% of Americans have lost share in the nation's economy. This was the inevitable result of Reaganomics. It was an intended result. Political control and economic control go hand in hand. If the control of the economy is not in the hands of the majority of Americans then neither is political control.

For more on taxation and income in America see:

In Depth Analysis of American Income and Taxation

The New Rulers of the World- John Pilger

2009-07-15T16:38:00.003-05:00

America Is in Need of a Moral Bailout

2009-05-25T11:38:00.003-05:00

Posted on Mar 23, 2009

By Chris Hedges

In decaying societies, politics become theater. The elite, who have hollowed out the democratic system to serve the corporate state, rule through image and presentation. They express indignation at AIG bonuses and empathy with a working class they have spent the last few decades disenfranchising, and make promises to desperate families that they know will never be fulfilled. Once the spotlights go on they read their lines with appropriate emotion. Once the lights go off, they make sure Goldman Sachs and a host of other large corporations have the hundreds of billions of dollars in losses they incurred playing casino capitalism repaid with taxpayer money.
We live in an age of moral nihilism. We have trashed our universities, turning them into vocational factories that produce corporate drones and chase after defense-related grants and funding. The humanities, the discipline that forces us to stand back and ask the broad moral questions of meaning and purpose, that challenges the validity of structures, that trains us to be self-reflective and critical of all cultural assumptions, have withered. Our press, which should promote such intellectual and moral questioning, confuses bread and circus with news and refuses to give a voice to critics who challenge not this bonus payment or that bailout but the pernicious superstructure of the corporate state itself. We kneel before a cult of the self, elaborately constructed by the architects of our consumer society, which dismisses compassion, sacrifice for the less fortunate, and honesty. The methods used to attain what we want, we are told by reality television programs, business schools and self-help gurus, are irrelevant. Success, always defined in terms of money and power, is its own justification. The capacity for manipulation is what is most highly prized. And our moral collapse is as terrifying, and as dangerous, as our economic collapse.

Theodor Adorno in 1967 wrote an essay called “Education After Auschwitz.” He argued that the moral corruption that made the Holocaust possible remained “largely unchanged.” He wrote that “the mechanisms that render people capable of such deeds” must be made visible. Schools had to teach more than skills. They had to teach values. If they did not, another Auschwitz was always possible.

“All political instruction finally should be centered upon the idea that Auschwitz should never happen again,” he wrote. “This would be possible only when it devotes itself openly, without fear of offending any authorities, to this most important of problems. To do this, education must transform itself into sociology, that is, it must teach about the societal play of forces that operates beneath the surface of political forms.”

Our elites are imploding. Their fraud and corruption are slowly being exposed as the disparity between their words and our reality becomes wider and more apparent. The rage that is bubbling up across the country will have to be countered by the elite with less subtle forms of control. But unless we grasp the “societal play of forces that operates beneath the surface of political forms” we will be cursed with a more ruthless form of corporate power, one that does away with artifice and the seduction of a consumer society and instead wields power through naked repression.

I had lunch a few days ago in Toronto with Henry Giroux, professor of English and cultural studies at McMaster University in Canada and who for many years was the Waterbury Chair Professor at Penn State. Giroux, who has been one of the most prescient and vocal critics of the corporate state and the systematic destruction of American education, was driven to the margins of academia because he kept asking the uncomfortable questions Adorno knew should be asked by university professors. He left the United States in 2004 for Canada.

“The emergence of what Eisenhower had called the military-industrial-academic complex had secured a grip on higher education that may have exceeded even what he had anticipated and most feared,” Giroux, who wrote “The University in Chains: Confronting the Military-Industrial-Academic Complex,” told me. “Universities, in general, especially following the events of 9/11, were under assault by Christian nationalists, reactionary neoconservatives and market fundamentalists for allegedly representing the weak link in the war on terrorism. Right-wing students were encouraged to spy on the classes of progressive professors, the corporate grip on the university was tightening as made clear not only in the emergence of business models of governance, but also in the money being pumped into research and programs that blatantly favored corporate interests. And at Penn State, where I was located at the time, the university had joined itself at the hip with corporate and military power. Put differently, corporate and Pentagon money was now funding research projects and increasingly knowledge was being militarized in the service of developing weapons of destruction, surveillance and death. Couple this assault with the fact that faculty were becoming irrelevant as an oppositional force. Many disappeared into discourses that threatened no one, some simply were too scared to raise critical issues in their classrooms for fear of being fired, and many simply no longer had the conviction to uphold the university as a democratic public sphere.”

Frank Donoghue, the author of “The Last Professors: The Corporate University and the Fate of the Humanities,” details how liberal arts education has been dismantled. Any form of learning that is not strictly vocational has at best been marginalized and in many schools has been abolished. Students are steered away from asking the broad, disturbing questions that challenge the assumptions of the power elite or an economic system that serves the corporate state. This has led many bright graduates into the arms of corporate entities they do not examine morally or ethically. They accept the assumptions of corporate culture because they have never been taught to think.

Only 8 percent of U.S. college graduates now receive degrees in the humanities, about 110,000 students. Between 1970 and 2001, bachelor’s degrees in English declined from 7.6 percent to 4 percent, as did degrees in foreign languages (2.4 percent to 1 percent), mathematics (3 percent to 1 percent), social science and history (18.4 percent to 10 percent). Bachelor’s degrees in business, which promise the accumulation of wealth, have skyrocketed. Business majors since 1970-1971 have risen from 13.6 percent of the graduation population to 21.7 percent. Business has now replaced education, which has fallen from 21 percent to 8.2 percent, as the most popular major.

The values that sustain an open society have been crushed. A university, as John Ralston Saul writes, now “actively seeks students who suffer from the appropriate imbalance and then sets out to exaggerate it. Imagination, creativity, moral balance, knowledge, common sense, a social view—all these things wither. Competitiveness, having an ever-ready answer, a talent for manipulating situations—all these things are encouraged to grow. As a result amorality also grows; as does extreme aggressivity when they are questioned by outsiders; as does a confusion between the nature of good versus having a ready answer to all questions. Above all, what is encouraged is the growth of an undisciplined form of self-interest, in which winning is what counts.”

This moral nihilism would have terrified Adorno. He knew that radical evil was possible only with the collaboration of a timid, cowed and confused population, a system of propaganda and a press that offered little more than spectacle and entertainment and an educational system that did not transmit transcendent values or nurture the capacity for individual conscience. He feared a culture that banished the anxieties and complexities of moral choice and embraced a childish hyper-masculinity, one championed by ruthless capitalists (think of the brutal backstabbing and deception cheered by TV shows like “Survivor”) and Hollywood action heroes like the governor of California.

“This educational ideal of hardness, in which many may believe without reflecting about it, is utterly wrong,” Adorno wrote. “The idea that virility consists in the maximum degree of endurance long ago became a screen-image for masochism that, as psychology has demonstrated, aligns itself all too easily with sadism.”

Sadism is as much a part of popular culture as it is of corporate culture. It dominates pornography, runs like an electric current through reality television and trash-talk programs and is at the core of the compliant, corporate collective. Corporatism is about crushing the capacity for moral choice. And it has its logical fruition in Abu Ghraib, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and our lack of compassion for the homeless, our poor, the mentally ill, the unemployed and the sick.

“The political and economic forces fuelling such crimes against humanity—whether they are unlawful wars, systemic torture, practiced indifference to chronic starvation and disease or genocidal acts—are always mediated by educational forces,” Giroux said. “Resistance to such acts cannot take place without a degree of knowledge and self-reflection. We have to name these acts and transform moral outrage into concrete attempts to prevent such human violations from taking place in the first place.”

The single most important quality needed to resist evil is moral autonomy. Moral autonomy, as Immanuel Kant wrote, is possible only through reflection, self-determination and the courage not to cooperate.

Moral autonomy is what the corporate state, with all its attacks on liberal institutions and “leftist” professors, has really set out to destroy. The corporate state holds up as our ideal what Adorno called “the manipulative character.” The manipulative character has superb organizational skills and the inability to have authentic human experiences. He or she is an emotional cripple and driven by an overvalued realism. The manipulative character is a systems manager. He or she exclusively trained to sustain the corporate structure, which is why our elites are wasting mind-blowing amounts of our money on corporations like Goldman Sachs and AIG. “He makes a cult of action, activity, of so-called efficiency as such which reappears in the advertising image of the active person,” Adorno wrote of this personality type. These manipulative characters, people like Lawrence Summers, Henry Paulson, Robert Rubin, Ben Bernanke, Timothy Geithner, AIG’s Edward Liddy and Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, along with most of our ruling class, have used corporate money and power to determine the narrow parameters of the debate in our classrooms, on the airwaves and in the halls of Congress while they looted the country.

“It is especially difficult to fight against it,” warned Adorno, “because those manipulative people, who actually are incapable of true experience, for that very reason manifest an unresponsiveness that associates them with certain mentally ill or psychotic characters, namely schizoids.”

Editorial: Unchristian Response from American Christians

2009-05-25T11:22:00.003-05:00

Written by Leonard Pitts Jr.

Thursday, 07 May 2009 09:19

May 5, 2009 - Between 1933 and 1945, as a series of restrictive laws, brutal pogroms and mass deportations culminated in the slaughter of 6 million Jews, the Christian church, with isolated exceptions, watched in silence.

Between 1955 and 1968, as the forces of oppression used terrorist bombings, police violence and kangaroo courts to deny African-Americans their freedom, the Christian church, with isolated exceptions, watched in silence.

Beginning in 1980, as a mysterious and deadly new disease called AIDS began to rage through the homosexual community like an unchecked fire, the Christian church, with isolated exceptions, watched in silence.

So who can be surprised by the new Pew report?

Specifically, it's from the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life, and it surveys Americans' attitudes on the torture of suspected terrorists. Pew found that 49 percent of the nation believes torture is at least sometimes justifiable. Slice that number by religious affiliation, though, and things get interesting. It turns out the religiously unaffiliated are the “least” likely (40 percent) to support torture, but that the more you attend church, the more likely you are to condone it. Among racial/religious groups, white evangelical Protestants were far and away the most likely (62 percent) to support inflicting pain as a tool of interrogation.

You'd think people who claim connection to a higher morality would be the ones most likely to take the lonely, principled stand. But you need only look at history to see how seldom that has been the case, how frequently my people -- Christians -- acquiesce to expediency and fail to look beyond the immediate. Never mind that looking beyond the immediate pretty much constitutes a Christian's entire job description.

In the Bible it says, “Perfect love casts out fear.” What we see so often in people of faith, though, is an imperfect love that embraces fear, that lets us live contentedly in our moral comfort zones, doing spiritual busywork and clucking pieties, things that let you feel good, but never require you to put anything at risk, take a leap, make that lonely stand. Again, there are exceptions, but they prove the rule, which is that in our smug belief that God is on our side, we often fail to ask if we are on His.

So it is often left to a few iconoclasts -- Oskar Schindler, the war profiteer who rescued 1,200 Jews in Poland; James Reeb, the Unitarian Universalist minister murdered for African-American voting rights in Alabama; Princess Diana, the British royal who courted international opprobrium for simply touching a person with AIDS in Britain -- to do the dangerous and moral thing while the great body of Christendom watches in silence.

Now there is this debate over the morality of torture in which putative people of faith say they can live with a little blood (someone else's) and a little pain (also someone else's) if it helps maintain the illusion of security (theirs), and never mind such niceties as guilt or innocence.

Thus it was left to Jon Stewart, the cheerfully irreligious host of “The Daily Show,” to speak last week of the need to be willingly bound by rules of decency and civilization or else be indistinguishable from the terrorists. “I understand the impulse,” he said. “I wanted them to clone bin Laden so that we could kill one a year at halftime at the Super Bowl. ... I understand bloodlust, I understand revenge; I understand all those feelings. I also understand that this country is better than me.”

So there you have it: a statement of principle and higher morality from a late-night comic. That Christians are not lining up to say the same is glaringly ironic in light of what happened to a Middle Eastern man who was arrested by the government, imprisoned and tortured. Eventually he was even executed, though he was innocent of any crime.

His name was Jesus.

The Salt Lake Tribune

Lawrence O'donnell Calls Cheney Speech Sleazy And An Abomination

2009-05-21T20:15:00.000-05:00

Obama Vs. Cheney on Guantanamo and Waterboarding

2009-05-21T19:24:00.004-05:00

Here are the transcripts of first, President Obama's speech and then Dick Cheney's rebuttal speech that each address the questions about Guantanamo Bay detention facility and the use of waterboarding, given today, May, 21, 2009. I generally agree with President Obama's approach and philosophy on these matters and conversely have MANY problems and issues with Mr. Cheney's truth engineering. I am sure I will get around to dissecting his screed soon enough.

Barack Obama:

These are extraordinary times for our country. We are confronting an historic economic crisis. We are fighting two wars. We face a range of challenges that will define the way that Americans will live in the 21st century. There is no shortage of work to be done, or responsibilities to bear.

And we have begun to make progress. Just this week, we have taken steps to protect American consumers and homeowners, and to reform our system of government contracting so that we better protect our people while spending our money more wisely. The engines of our economy are slowly beginning to turn, and we are working toward historic reform of health care and energy. I welcome the hard work that has been done by the Congress on these and other issues.

In the midst of all these challenges, however, my single most important responsibility as President is to keep the American people safe. That is the first thing that I think about when I wake up in the morning. It is the last thing that I think about when I go to sleep at night.

This responsibility is only magnified in an era when an extremist ideology threatens our people, and technology gives a handful of terrorists the potential to do us great harm. We are less than eight years removed from the deadliest attack on American soil in our history. We know that al Qaeda is actively planning to attack us again. We know that this threat will be with us for a long time, and that we must use all elements of our power to defeat it.

Already, we have taken several steps to achieve that goal. For the first time since 2002, we are providing the necessary resources and strategic direction to take the fight to the extremists who attacked us on 9/11 in Afghanistan and Pakistan. We are investing in the 21st century military and intelligence capabilities that will allow us to stay one step ahead of a nimble enemy. We have re-energized a global non-proliferation regime to deny the world’s most dangerous people access to the world’s deadliest weapons, and launched an effort to secure all loose nuclear materials within four years. We are better protecting our border, and increasing our preparedness for any future attack or natural disaster. We are building new partnerships around the world to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda and its affiliates. And we have renewed American diplomacy so that we once again have the strength and standing to truly lead the world.

These steps are all critical to keeping America secure. But I believe with every fiber of my being that in the long run we also cannot keep this country safe unless we enlist the power of our most fundamental values. The documents that we hold in this very hall — the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights — are not simply words written into aging parchment. They are the foundation of liberty and justice in this country, and a light that shines for all who seek freedom, fairness, equality and dignity in the world.

I stand here today as someone whose own life was made possible by these documents. My father came to our shores in search of the promise that they offered. My mother made me rise before dawn to learn of their truth when I lived as a child in a foreign land. My own American journey was paved by generations of citizens who gave meaning to those simple words — “to form a more perfect union.” I have studied the Constitution as a student; I have taught it as a teacher; I have been bound by it as a lawyer and legislator. I took an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution as Commander-in-Chief, and as a citizen, I know that we must never — ever — turn our back on its enduring principles for expedience sake.

I make this claim not simply as a matter of idealism. We uphold our most cherished values not only because doing so is right, but because it strengthens our country and keeps us safe. Time and again, our values have been our best national security asset — in war and peace; in times of ease and in eras of upheaval.

Fidelity to our values is the reason why the United States of America grew from a small string of colonies under the writ of an empire to the strongest nation in the world.

It is the reason why enemy soldiers have surrendered to us in battle, knowing they’d receive better treatment from America’s armed forces than from their own government.

It is the reason why America has benefited from strong alliances that amplified our power, and drawn a sharp and moral contrast with our adversaries.

It is the reason why we’ve been able to overpower the iron fist of fascism, outlast the iron curtain of communism, and enlist free nations and free people everywhere in common cause and common effort.

From Europe to the Pacific, we have been a nation that has shut down torture chambers and replaced tyranny with the rule of law. That is who we are. And where terrorists offer only the injustice of disorder and destruction, America must demonstrate that our values and institutions are more resilient than a hateful ideology.

After 9/11, we knew that we had entered a new era — that enemies who did not abide by any law of war would present new challenges to our application of the law; that our government would need new tools to protect the American people, and that these tools would have to allow us to prevent attacks instead of simply prosecuting those who try to carry them out.

Unfortunately, faced with an uncertain threat, our government made a series of hasty decisions. And I believe that those decisions were motivated by a sincere desire to protect the American people. But I also believe that — too often — our government made decisions based upon fear rather than foresight, and all too often trimmed facts and evidence to fit ideological predispositions. Instead of strategically applying our power and our principles, we too often set those principles aside as luxuries that we could no longer afford. And in this season of fear, too many of us — Democrats and Republicans; politicians, journalists and citizens — fell silent.

In other words, we went off course. And this is not my assessment alone. It was an assessment that was shared by the American people, who nominated candidates for President from both major parties who, despite our many differences, called for a new approach — one that rejected torture, and recognized the imperative of closing the prison at Guantánamo Bay.

Now let me be clear: we are indeed at war with al Qaeda and its affiliates. We do need to update our institutions to deal with this threat. But we must do so with an abiding confidence in the rule of law and due process; in checks and balances and accountability. For reasons that I will explain, the decisions that were made over the last eight years established an ad hoc legal approach for fighting terrorism that was neither effective nor sustainable — a framework that failed to rely on our legal traditions and time-tested institutions; that failed to use our values as a compass. And that is why I took several steps upon taking office to better protect the American people.

First, I banned the use of so-called enhanced interrogation techniques by the United States of America.

I know some have argued that brutal methods like water-boarding were necessary to keep us safe. I could not disagree more. As Commander-in-Chief, I see the intelligence, I bear responsibility for keeping this country safe, and I reject the assertion that these are the most effective means of interrogation. What’s more, they undermine the rule of law. They alienate us in the world. They serve as a recruitment tool for terrorists, and increase the will of our enemies to fight us, while decreasing the will of others to work with America. They risk the lives of our troops by making it less likely that others will surrender to them in battle, and more likely that Americans will be mistreated if they are captured. In short, they did not advance our war and counter-terrorism efforts — they undermined them, and that is why I ended them once and for all.

The arguments against these techniques did not originate from my Administration. As Senator McCain once said, torture “serves as a great propaganda tool for those who recruit people to fight against us.” And even under President Bush, there was recognition among members of his Administration — including a Secretary of State, other senior officials, and many in the military and intelligence community — that those who argued for these tactics were on the wrong side of the debate, and the wrong side of history. We must leave these methods where they belong — in the past. They are not who we are. They are not America.

The second decision that I made was to order the closing of the prison camp at Guantánamo Bay.

For over seven years, we have detained hundreds of people at Guantánamo. During that time, the system of Military Commissions at Guantánamo succeeded in convicting a grand total of three suspected terrorists. Let me repeat that: three convictions in over seven years. Instead of bringing terrorists to justice, efforts at prosecution met setbacks, cases lingered on, and in 2006 the Supreme Court invalidated the entire system. Meanwhile, over five hundred and twenty-five detainees were released from Guantánamo under the Bush Administration. Let me repeat that: two-thirds of the detainees were released before I took office and ordered the closure of Guantánamo.

There is also no question that Guantánamo set back the moral authority that is America’s strongest currency in the world. Instead of building a durable framework for the struggle against al Qaeda that drew upon our deeply held values and traditions, our government was defending positions that undermined the rule of law. Indeed, part of the rationale for establishing Guantánamo in the first place was the misplaced notion that a prison there would be beyond the law — a proposition that the Supreme Court soundly rejected. Meanwhile, instead of serving as a tool to counter-terrorism, Guantánamo became a symbol that helped al Qaeda recruit terrorists to its cause. Indeed, the existence of Guantánamo likely created more terrorists around the world than it ever detained.

So the record is clear: rather than keep us safer, the prison at Guantánamo has weakened American national security. It is a rallying cry for our enemies. It sets back the willingness of our allies to work with us in fighting an enemy that operates in scores of countries. By any measure, the costs of keeping it open far exceed the complications involved in closing it. That is why I argued that it should be closed throughout my campaign. And that is why I ordered it closed within one year.

The third decision that I made was to order a review of all the pending cases at Guantánamo.

I knew when I ordered Guantánamo closed that it would be difficult and complex. There are 240 people there who have now spent years in legal limbo. In dealing with this situation, we do not have the luxury of starting from scratch. We are cleaning up something that is — quite simply — a mess; a misguided experiment that has left in its wake a flood of legal challenges that my Administration is forced to deal with on a constant basis, and that consumes the time of government officials whose time should be spent on better protecting our country.

Indeed, the legal challenges that have sparked so much debate in recent weeks in Washington would be taking place whether or not I decided to close Guantánamo. For example, the court order to release seventeen Uighur detainees took place last fall — when George Bush was President. The Supreme Court that invalidated the system of prosecution at Guantánamo in 2006 was overwhelmingly appointed by Republican Presidents. In other words, the problem of what to do with Guantánamo detainees was not caused by my decision to close the facility; the problem exists because of the decision to open Guantánamo in the first place.

There are no neat or easy answers here. But I can tell you that the wrong answer is to pretend that this problem will go away if we maintain an unsustainable status quo. As President, I refuse to allow this problem to fester. Our security interests won’t permit it. Our courts won’t allow it. And neither should our conscience.

Now, over the last several weeks, we have seen a return of the politicization of these issues that have characterized the last several years. I understand that these problems arouse passions and concerns. They should. We are confronting some of the most complicated questions that a democracy can face. But I have no interest in spending our time re-litigating the policies of the last eight years. I want to solve these problems, and I want to solve them together as Americans.

And we will be ill-served by some of the fear-mongering that emerges whenever we discuss this issue. Listening to the recent debate, I’ve heard words that are calculated to scare people rather than educate them; words that have more to do with politics than protecting our country. So I want to take this opportunity to lay out what we are doing, and how we intend to resolve these outstanding issues. I will explain how each action that we are taking will help build a framework that protects both the American people and the values that we hold dear. And I will focus on two broad areas: first, issues relating to Guantánamo and our detention policy; second, issues relating to security and transparency.

Let me begin by disposing of one argument as plainly as I can: we are not going to release anyone if it would endanger our national security, nor will we release detainees within the United States who endanger the American people. Where demanded by justice and national security, we will seek to transfer some detainees to the same type of facilities in which we hold all manner of dangerous and violent criminals within our borders — highly secure prisons that ensure the public safety. As we make these decisions, bear in mind the following fact: nobody has ever escaped from one of our federal “supermax” prisons, which hold hundreds of convicted terrorists. As Senator Lindsey Graham said: “The idea that we cannot find a place to securely house 250-plus detainees within the United States is not rational.”

We are currently in the process of reviewing each of the detainee cases at Guantánamo to determine the appropriate policy for dealing with them. As we do so, we are acutely aware that under the last Administration, detainees were released only to return to the battlefield. That is why we are doing away with the poorly planned, haphazard approach that let those detainees go in the past. Instead, we are treating these cases with the care and attention that the law requires and our security demands. Going forward, these cases will fall into five distinct categories.

First, when feasible, we will try those who have violated American criminal laws in federal courts — courts provided for by the United States Constitution. Some have derided our federal courts as incapable of handling the trials of terrorists. They are wrong. Our courts and juries of our citizens are tough enough to convict terrorists, and the record makes that clear. Ramzi Yousef tried to blow up the World Trade Center — he was convicted in our courts, and is serving a life sentence in U.S. prison. Zacarias Moussaoui has been identified as the 20th 9/11 hijacker — he was convicted in our courts, and he too is serving a life sentence in prison. If we can try those terrorists in our courts and hold them in our prisons, then we can do the same with detainees from Guantánamo.

Recently, we prosecuted and received a guilty plea from a detainee – [Ali] al-Marri — in federal court after years of legal confusion. We are preparing to transfer another detainee to the Southern District of New York, where he will face trial on charges related to the 1998 bombings of our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania — bombings that killed over 200 people. Preventing this detainee from coming to our shores would prevent his trial and conviction. And after over a decade, it is time to finally see that justice is served, and that is what we intend to do.

The second category of cases involves detainees who violate the laws of war and are best tried through Military Commissions. Military commissions have a history in the United States dating back to George Washington and the Revolutionary War. They are an appropriate venue for trying detainees for violations of the laws of war. They allow for the protection of sensitive sources and methods of intelligence-gathering; for the safety and security of participants; and for the presentation of evidence gathered from the battlefield that cannot be effectively presented in federal Courts.

Now, some have suggested that this represents a reversal on my part. They are wrong. In 2006, I did strongly oppose legislation proposed by the Bush Administration and passed by the Congress because it failed to establish a legitimate legal framework, with the kind of meaningful due process and rights for the accused that could stand up on appeal. I did, however, support the use of military commissions to try detainees, provided there were several reforms. And those are the reforms that we are making.

Instead of using the flawed Commissions of the last seven years, my Administration is bringing our Commissions in line with the rule of law. The rule will no longer permit us to use as evidence statements that have been obtained using cruel, inhuman, or degrading interrogation methods. We will no longer place the burden to prove that hearsay is unreliable on the opponent of the hearsay. And we will give detainees greater latitude in selecting their own counsel, and more protections if they refuse to testify. These reforms — among others — will make our Military Commissions a more credible and effective means of administering justice, and I will work with Congress and legal authorities across the political spectrum on legislation to ensure that these Commissions are fair, legitimate, and effective.

The third category of detainees includes those who we have been ordered released by the courts. Let me repeat what I said earlier: this has absolutely nothing to do with my decision to close Guantánamo. It has to do with the rule of law. The courts have found that there is no legitimate reason to hold twenty-one of the people currently held at Guantánamo. Twenty of these findings took place before I came into office. The United States is a nation of laws, and we must abide by these rulings.

The fourth category of cases involves detainees who we have determined can be transferred safely to another country. So far, our review team has approved fifty detainees for transfer. And my Administration is in ongoing discussions with a number of other countries about the transfer of detainees to their soil for detention and rehabilitation.

Finally, there remains the question of detainees at Guantánamo who cannot be prosecuted yet who pose a clear danger to the American people.

I want to be honest: this is the toughest issue we will face. We are going to exhaust every avenue that we have to prosecute those at Guantánamo who pose a danger to our country. But even when this process is complete, there may be a number of people who cannot be prosecuted for past crimes, but who nonetheless pose a threat to the security of the United States. Examples of that threat include people who have received extensive explosives training at al Qaeda training camps, commanded Taliban troops in battle, expressed their allegiance to Osama bin Laden, or otherwise made it clear that they want to kill Americans. These are people who, in effect, remain at war with the United States.

As I said, I am not going to release individuals who endanger the American people. Al Qaeda terrorists and their affiliates are at war with the United States, and those that we capture — like other prisoners of war — must be prevented from attacking us again. However, we must recognize that these detention policies cannot be unbounded. That is why my Administration has begun to reshape these standards to ensure they are in line with the rule of law. We must have clear, defensible and lawful standards for those who fall in this category. We must have fair procedures so that we don’t make mistakes. We must have a thorough process of periodic review, so that any prolonged detention is carefully evaluated and justified.

I know that creating such a system poses unique challenges. Other countries have grappled with this question, and so must we. But I want to be very clear that our goal is to construct a legitimate legal framework for Guantánamo detainees — not to avoid one. In our constitutional system, prolonged detention should not be the decision of any one man. If and when we determine that the United States must hold individuals to keep them from carrying out an act of war, we will do so within a system that involves judicial and congressional oversight. And so going forward, my Administration will work with Congress to develop an appropriate legal regime so that our efforts are consistent with our values and our Constitution.

As our efforts to close Guantánamo move forward, I know that the politics in Congress will be difficult. These issues are fodder for 30-second commercials and direct mail pieces that are designed to frighten. I get it. But if we continue to make decisions from within a climate of fear, we will make more mistakes. And if we refuse to deal with these issues today, then I guarantee you that they will be an albatross around our efforts to combat terrorism in the future. I have confidence that the American people are more interested in doing what is right to protect this country than in political posturing. I am not the only person in this city who swore an oath to uphold the Constitution — so did each and every member of Congress. Together we have a responsibility to enlist our values in the effort to secure our people, and to leave behind the legacy that makes it easier for future Presidents to keep this country safe.

The second set of issues that I want to discuss relates to security and transparency.

National security requires a delicate balance. Our democracy depends upon transparency, but some information must be protected from public disclosure for the sake of our security — for instance, the movements of our troops; our intelligence-gathering; or the information we have about a terrorist organization and its affiliates. In these and other cases, lives are at stake.

Several weeks ago, as part of an ongoing court case, I released memos issued by the previous Administration’s Office of Legal Counsel. I did not do this because I disagreed with the enhanced interrogation techniques that those memos authorized, or because I reject their legal rationale — although I do on both counts. I released the memos because the existence of that approach to interrogation was already widely known, the Bush Administration had acknowledged its existence, and I had already banned those methods. The argument that somehow by releasing those memos, we are providing terrorists with information about how they will be interrogated is unfounded — we will not be interrogating terrorists using that approach, because that approach is now prohibited.

In short, I released these memos because there was no overriding reason to protect them. And the ensuing debate has helped the American people better understand how these interrogation methods came to be authorized and used.

On the other hand, I recently opposed the release of certain photographs that were taken of detainees by U.S. personnel between 2002 and 2004. Individuals who violated standards of behavior in these photos have been investigated and held accountable. There is no debate as to whether what is reflected in those photos is wrong, and nothing has been concealed to absolve perpetrators of crimes. However, it was my judgment — informed by my national security team — that releasing these photos would inflame anti-American opinion, and allow our enemies to paint U.S. troops with a broad, damning and inaccurate brush, endangering them in theaters of war.

In short, there is a clear and compelling reason to not release these particular photos. There are nearly 200,000 Americans who are serving in harm’s way, and I have a solemn responsibility for their safety as Commander-in-Chief. Nothing would be gained by the release of these photos that matters more than the lives of our young men and women serving in harm’s way.

In each of these cases, I had to strike the right balance between transparency and national security. This balance brings with it a precious responsibility. And there is no doubt that the American people have seen this balance tested. In the images from Abu Ghraib and the brutal interrogation techniques made public long before I was President, the American people learned of actions taken in their name that bear no resemblance to the ideals that generations of Americans have fought for. And whether it was the run-up to the Iraq War or the revelation of secret programs, Americans often felt like part of the story had been unnecessarily withheld from them. That causes suspicion to build up. That leads to a thirst for accountability.

I ran for President promising transparency, and I meant what I said. That is why, whenever possible, we will make information available to the American people so that they can make informed judgments and hold us accountable. But I have never argued — and never will — that our most sensitive national security matters should be an open book. I will never abandon — and I will vigorously defend — the necessity of classification to defend our troops at war; to protect sources and methods; and to safeguard confidential actions that keep the American people safe. And so, whenever we cannot release certain information to the public for valid national security reasons, I will insist that there is oversight of my actions — by Congress or by the courts.

We are launching a review of current policies by all of those agencies responsible for the classification of documents to determine where reforms are possible, and to assure that the other branches of government will be in a position to review executive branch decisions on these matters. Because in our system of checks and balances, someone must always watch over the watchers — especially when it comes to sensitive information.

Along those same lines, my Administration is also confronting challenges to what is known as the “State Secrets” privilege. This is a doctrine that allows the government to challenge legal cases involving secret programs. It has been used by many past Presidents — Republican and Democrat — for many decades. And while this principle is absolutely necessary to protect national security, I am concerned that it has been over-used. We must not protect information merely because it reveals the violation of a law or embarrasses the government. That is why my Administration is nearing completion of a thorough review of this practice.

We plan to embrace several principles for reform. We will apply a stricter legal test to material that can be protected under the State Secrets privilege. We will not assert the privilege in court without first following a formal process, including review by a Justice Department committee and the personal approval of the Attorney General. Finally, each year we will voluntarily report to Congress when we have invoked the privilege and why, because there must be proper oversight of our actions.

On all of these matters related to the disclosure of sensitive information, I wish I could say that there is a simple formula. But there is not. These are tough calls involving competing concerns, and they require a surgical approach. But the common thread that runs through all of my decisions is simple: we will safeguard what we must to protect the American people, but we will also ensure the accountability and oversight that is the hallmark of our constitutional system. I will never hide the truth because it is uncomfortable. I will deal with Congress and the courts as co-equal branches of government. I will tell the American people what I know and don’t know, and when I release something publicly or keep something secret, I will tell you why.

In all of the areas that I have discussed today, the policies that I have proposed represent a new direction from the last eight years. To protect the American people and our values, we have banned enhanced interrogation techniques. We are closing the prison at Guantánamo. We are reforming Military Commissions, and we will pursue a new legal regime to detain terrorists. We are declassifying more information and embracing more oversight of our actions, and narrowing our use of the State Secrets privilege. These are dramatic changes that will put our approach to national security on a surer, safer and more sustainable footing, and their implementation will take time.

There is a core principle that we will apply to all of our actions: even as we clean up the mess at Guantánamo, we will constantly re-evaluate our approach, subject our decisions to review from the other branches of government, and seek the strongest and most sustainable legal framework for addressing these issues in the long-term. By doing that, we can leave behind a legacy that outlasts my Administration, and that endures for the next President and the President after that; a legacy that protects the American people, and enjoys broad legitimacy at home and abroad.

That is what I mean when I say that we need to focus on the future. I recognize that many still have a strong desire to focus on the past. When it comes to the actions of the last eight years, some Americans are angry; others want to re-fight debates that have been settled, most clearly at the ballot box in November. And I know that these debates lead directly to a call for a fuller accounting, perhaps through an Independent Commission.

I have opposed the creation of such a Commission because I believe that our existing democratic institutions are strong enough to deliver accountability. The Congress can review abuses of our values, and there are ongoing inquiries by the Congress into matters like enhanced interrogation techniques. The Department of Justice and our courts can work through and punish any violations of our laws.

I understand that it is no secret that there is a tendency in Washington to spend our time pointing fingers at one another. And our media culture feeds the impulses that lead to a good fight. Nothing will contribute more to that than an extended re-litigation of the last eight years. Already, we have seen how that kind of effort only leads those in Washington to different sides laying blame, and can distract us from focusing our time, our effort, and our politics on the challenges of the future.

We see that, above all, in how the recent debate has been obscured by two opposite and absolutist ends. On one side of the spectrum, there are those who make little allowance for the unique challenges posed by terrorism, and who would almost never put national security over transparency. On the other end of the spectrum, there are those who embrace a view that can be summarized in two words: “anything goes.” Their arguments suggest that the ends of fighting terrorism can be used to justify any means, and that the President should have blanket authority to do whatever he wants — provided that it is a President with whom they agree.

Both sides may be sincere in their views, but neither side is right. The American people are not absolutist, and they don’t elect us to impose a rigid ideology on our problems. They know that we need not sacrifice our security for our values, nor sacrifice our values for our security, so long as we approach difficult questions with honesty, and care, and a dose of common sense. That, after all, is the unique genius of America. That is the challenge laid down by our Constitution. That has been the source of our strength through the ages. That is what makes the United States of America different as a nation.

I can stand here today, as President of the United States, and say without exception or equivocation that we do not torture, and that we will vigorously protect our people while forging a strong and durable framework that allows us to fight terrorism while abiding by the rule of law. Make no mistake: if we fail to turn the page on the approach that was taken over the past several years, then I will not be able to say that as President. And if we cannot stand for those core values, then we are not keeping faith with the documents that are enshrined in this hall.

The Framers who drafted the Constitution could not have foreseen the challenges that have unfolded over the last two hundred and twenty two years. But our Constitution has endured through secession and civil rights — through World War and Cold War — because it provides a foundation of principles that can be applied pragmatically; it provides a compass that can help us find our way. It hasn’t always been easy. We are an imperfect people. Every now and then, there are those who think that America’s safety and success requires us to walk away from the sacred principles enshrined in this building. We hear such voices today. But the American people have resisted that temptation. And though we have made our share of mistakes and course corrections, we have held fast to the principles that have been the source of our strength, and a beacon to the world.

Now, this generation faces a great test in the specter of terrorism. Unlike the Civil War or World War II, we cannot count on a surrender ceremony to bring this journey to an end. Right now, in distant training camps and in crowded cities, there are people plotting to take American lives. That will be the case a year from now, five years from now, and — in all probability — ten years from now. Neither I nor anyone else can standing here today can say that there will not be another terrorist attack that takes American lives. But I can say with certainty that my Administration — along with our extraordinary troops and the patriotic men and women who defend our national security — will do everything in our power to keep the American people safe. And I do know with certainty that we can defeat al Qaeda. Because the terrorists can only succeed if they swell their ranks and alienate America from our allies, and they will never be able to do that if we stay true to who we are; if we forge tough and durable approaches to fighting terrorism that are anchored in our timeless ideals.

This must be our common purpose. I ran for President because I believe that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together. We will not be safe if we see national security as a wedge that divides America — it can and must be a cause that unites us as one people, as one nation. We have done so before in times that were more perilous than ours. We will do so once again. Thank you, God bless you, and God bless the United States of America.

END
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Dick Cheney:

Thank you all very much, and Arthur, thank you for that introduction. It's good to be back at AEI, where we have many friends. Lynne is one of your longtime scholars, and I'm looking forward to spending more time here myself as a returning trustee. What happened was, they were looking for a new member of the board of trustees, and they asked me to head up the search committee.

I first came to AEI after serving at the Pentagon, and departed only after a very interesting job offer came along. I had no expectation of returning to public life, but my career worked out a little differently. Those eight years as vice president were quite a journey, and during a time of big events and great decisions, I don't think I missed much.

Being the first vice president who had also served as secretary of defense, naturally my duties tended toward national security. I focused on those challenges day to day, mostly free from the usual political distractions. I had the advantage of being a vice president content with the responsibilities I had, and going about my work with no higher ambition. Today, I'm an even freer man. Your kind invitation brings me here as a private citizen - a career in politics behind me, no elections to win or lose, and no favor to seek.

The responsibilities we carried belong to others now. And though I'm not here to speak for George W. Bush, I am certain that no one wishes the current administration more success in defending the country than we do. We understand the complexities of national security decisions. We understand the pressures that confront a president and his advisers. Above all, we know what is at stake. And though administrations and policies have changed, the stakes for America have not changed.

Right now there is considerable debate in this city about the measures our administration took to defend the American people. Today I want to set forth the strategic thinking behind our policies. I do so as one who was there every day of the Bush Administration -who supported the policies when they were made, and without hesitation would do so again in the same circumstances.

When President Obama makes wise decisions, as I believe he has done in some respects on Afghanistan, and in reversing his plan to release incendiary photos, he deserves our support. And when he faults or mischaracterizes the national security decisions we made in the Bush years, he deserves an answer. The point is not to look backward. Now and for years to come, a lot rides on our President's understanding of the security policies that preceded him. And whatever choices he makes concerning the defense of this country, those choices should not be based on slogans and campaign rhetoric, but on a truthful telling of history.

Our administration always faced its share of criticism, and from some quarters it was always intense. That was especially so in the later years of our term, when the dangers were as serious as ever, but the sense of general alarm after September 11th, 2001 was a fading memory. Part of our responsibility, as we saw it, was not to forget the terrible harm that had been done to America ... and not to let 9/11 become the prelude to something much bigger and far worse.

That attack itself was, of course, the most devastating strike in a series of terrorist plots carried out against Americans at home and abroad. In 1993, terrorists bombed the World Trade Center, hoping to bring down the towers with a blast from below. The attacks continued in 1995, with the bombing of U.S. facilities in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; the killing of servicemen at Khobar Towers in 1996; the attack on our embassies in East Africa in 1998; the murder of American sailors on the USS Cole in 2000; and then the hijackings of 9/11, and all the grief and loss we suffered on that day.

Nine-eleven caused everyone to take a serious second look at threats that had been gathering for a while, and enemies whose plans were getting bolder and more sophisticated. Throughout the 90s, America had responded to these attacks, if at all, on an ad hoc basis. The first attack on the World Trade Center was treated as a law enforcement problem, with everything handled after the fact - crime scene, arrests, indictments, convictions, prison sentences, case closed.

That's how it seemed from a law enforcement perspective, at least - but for the terrorists the case was not closed. For them, it was another offensive strike in their ongoing war against the United States. And it turned their minds to even harder strikes with higher casualties. Nine-eleven made necessary a shift of policy, aimed at a clear strategic threat - what the Congress called "an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States." From that moment forward, instead of merely preparing to round up the suspects and count up the victims after the next attack, we were determined to prevent attacks in the first place.

We could count on almost universal support back then, because everyone understood the environment we were in. We'd just been hit by a foreign enemy - leaving 3,000 Americans dead, more than we lost at Pearl Harbor. In Manhattan, we were staring at 16 acres of ashes. The Pentagon took a direct hit, and the Capitol or the White House were spared only by the Americans on Flight 93, who died bravely and defiantly.

Everyone expected a follow-on attack, and our job was to stop it. We didn't know what was coming next, but everything we did know in that autumn of 2001 looked bad. This was the world in which al-Qaeda was seeking nuclear technology, and A. Q. Khan was selling nuclear technology on the black market. We had the anthrax attack from an unknown source. We had the training camps of Afghanistan, and dictators like Saddam Hussein with known ties to Mideast terrorists.

These are just a few of the problems we had on our hands. And foremost on our minds was the prospect of the very worst coming to pass - a 9/11 with nuclear weapons.

For me, one of the defining experiences was the morning of 9/11 itself. As you might recall, I was in my office in that first hour, when radar caught sight of an airliner heading toward the White House at 500 miles an hour. That was Flight 77, the one that ended up hitting the Pentagon. With the plane still inbound, Secret Service agents came into my office and said we had to leave, now. A few moments later I found myself in a fortified White House command post somewhere down below.

There in the bunker came the reports and images that so many Americans remember from that day - word of the crash in Pennsylvania, the final phone calls from hijacked planes, the final horror for those who jumped to their death to escape burning alive. In the years since, I've heard occasional speculation that I'm a different man after 9/11. I wouldn't say that. But I'll freely admit that watching a coordinated, devastating attack on our country from an underground bunker at the White House can affect how you view your responsibilities.

To make certain our nation country never again faced such a day of horror, we developed a comprehensive strategy, beginning with far greater homeland security to make the United States a harder target. But since wars cannot be won on the defensive, we moved decisively against the terrorists in their hideouts and sanctuaries, and committed to using every asset to take down their networks. We decided, as well, to confront the regimes that sponsored terrorists, and to go after those who provide sanctuary, funding, and weapons to enemies of the United States. We turned special attention to regimes that had the capacity to build weapons of mass destruction, and might transfer such weapons to terrorists.

We did all of these things, and with bipartisan support put all these policies in place. It has resulted in serious blows against enemy operations ... the take-down of the A.Q. Khan network ... and the dismantling of Libya's nuclear program. It's required the commitment of many thousands of troops in two theaters of war, with high points and some low points in both Iraq and Afghanistan - and at every turn, the people of our military carried the heaviest burden. Well over seven years into the effort, one thing we know is that the enemy has spent most of this time on the defensive - and every attempt to strike inside the United States has failed.

So we're left to draw one of two conclusions - and here is the great dividing line in our current debate over national security. You can look at the facts and conclude that the comprehensive strategy has worked, and therefore needs to be continued as vigilantly as ever. Or you can look at the same set of facts and conclude that 9/11 was a one-off event - coordinated, devastating, but also unique and not sufficient to justify a sustained wartime effort. Whichever conclusion you arrive at, it will shape your entire view of the last seven years, and of the policies necessary to protect America for years to come.

The key to any strategy is accurate intelligence, and skilled professionals to get that information in time to use it. In seeking to guard this nation against the threat of catastrophic violence, our Administration gave intelligence officers the tools and lawful authority they needed to gain vital information. We didn't invent that authority. It is drawn from Article Two of the Constitution. And it was given specificity by the Congress after 9/11, in a Joint Resolution authorizing "all necessary and appropriate force" to protect the American people.

Our government prevented attacks and saved lives through the Terrorist Surveillance Program, which let us intercept calls and track contacts between al-Qaeda operatives and persons inside the United States. The program was top secret, and for good reason, until the editors of the New York Times got it and put it on the front page. After 9/11, the Times had spent months publishing the pictures and the stories of everyone killed by al-Qaeda on 9/11. Now here was that same newspaper publishing secrets in a way that could only help al-Qaeda. It impressed the Pulitzer committee, but it damn sure didn't serve the interests of our country, or the safety of our people.

In the years after 9/11, our government also understood that the safety of the country required collecting information known only to the worst of the terrorists. And in a few cases, that information could be gained only through tough interrogations.

In top secret meetings about enhanced interrogations, I made my own beliefs clear. I was and remain a strong proponent of our enhanced interrogation program. The interrogations were used on hardened terrorists after other efforts failed. They were legal, essential, justified, successful, and the right thing to do. The intelligence officers who questioned the terrorists can be proud of their work and proud of the results, because they prevented the violent death of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of innocent people.

Our successors in office have their own views on all of these matters.

By presidential decision, last month we saw the selective release of documents relating to enhanced interrogations. This is held up as a bold exercise in open government, honoring the public's right to know. We're informed, as well, that there was much agonizing over this decision.

Yet somehow, when the soul-searching was done and the veil was lifted on the policies of the Bush administration, the public was given less than half the truth. The released memos were carefully redacted to leave out references to what our government learned through the methods in question. Other memos, laying out specific terrorist plots that were averted, apparently were not even considered for release. For reasons the administration has yet to explain, they believe the public has a right to know the method of the questions, but not the content of the answers.

Over on the left wing of the president's party, there appears to be little curiosity in finding out what was learned from the terrorists. The kind of answers they're after would be heard before a so-called "Truth Commission." Some are even demanding that those who recommended and approved the interrogations be prosecuted, in effect treating political disagreements as a punishable offense, and political opponents as criminals. It's hard to imagine a worse precedent, filled with more possibilities for trouble and abuse, than to have an incoming administration criminalize the policy decisions of its predecessors.

Apart from doing a serious injustice to intelligence operators and lawyers who deserve far better for their devoted service, the danger here is a loss of focus on national security, and what it requires. I would advise the administration to think very carefully about the course ahead. All the zeal that has been directed at interrogations is utterly misplaced. And staying on that path will only lead our government further away from its duty to protect the American people.

One person who by all accounts objected to the release of the interrogation memos was the Director of Central Intelligence, Leon Panetta. He was joined in that view by at least four of his predecessors. I assume they felt this way because they understand the importance of protecting intelligence sources, methods, and personnel. But now that this once top-secret information is out for all to see - including the enemy - let me draw your attention to some points that are routinely overlooked.

It is a fact that only detainees of the highest intelligence value were ever subjected to enhanced interrogation. You've heard endlessly about waterboarding. It happened to three terrorists. One of them was Khalid Sheikh Muhammed - the mastermind of 9/11, who has also boasted about beheading Daniel Pearl.

We had a lot of blind spots after the attacks on our country. We didn't know about al-Qaeda's plans, but Khalid Sheikh Muhammed and a few others did know. And with many thousands of innocent lives potentially in the balance, we didn't think it made sense to let the terrorists answer questions in their own good time, if they answered them at all.

Maybe you've heard that when we captured KSM, he said he would talk as soon as he got to New York City and saw his lawyer. But like many critics of interrogations, he clearly misunderstood the business at hand. American personnel were not there to commence an elaborate legal proceeding, but to extract information from him before al-Qaeda could strike again and kill more of our people.

In public discussion of these matters, there has been a strange and sometimes willful attempt to conflate what happened at Abu Ghraib prison with the top secret program of enhanced interrogations. At Abu Ghraib, a few sadistic prison guards abused inmates in violation of American law, military regulations, and simple decency. For the harm they did, to Iraqi prisoners and to America's cause, they deserved and received Army justice. And it takes a deeply unfair cast of mind to equate the disgraces of Abu Ghraib with the lawful, skillful, and entirely honorable work of CIA personnel trained to deal with a few malevolent men.

Even before the interrogation program began, and throughout its operation, it was closely reviewed to ensure that every method used was in full compliance with the Constitution, statutes, and treaty obligations. On numerous occasions, leading members of Congress, including the current speaker of the House, were briefed on the program and on the methods.

Yet for all these exacting efforts to do a hard and necessary job and to do it right, we hear from some quarters nothing but feigned outrage based on a false narrative. In my long experience in Washington, few matters have inspired so much contrived indignation and phony moralizing as the interrogation methods applied to a few captured terrorists.

I might add that people who consistently distort the truth in this way are in no position to lecture anyone about "values." Intelligence officers of the United States were not trying to rough up some terrorists simply to avenge the dead of 9/11. We know the difference in this country between justice and vengeance. Intelligence officers were not trying to get terrorists to confess to past killings; they were trying to prevent future killings. From the beginning of the program, there was only one focused and all-important purpose. We sought, and we in fact obtained, specific information on terrorist plans.

Those are the basic facts on enhanced interrogations. And to call this a program of torture is to libel the dedicated professionals who have saved American lives, and to cast terrorists and murderers as innocent victims. What's more, to completely rule out enhanced interrogation methods in the future is unwise in the extreme. It is recklessness cloaked in righteousness, and would make the American people less safe.

The administration seems to pride itself on searching for some kind of middle ground in policies addressing terrorism. They may take comfort in hearing disagreement from opposite ends of the spectrum. If liberals are unhappy about some decisions, and conservatives are unhappy about other decisions, then it may seem to them that the President is on the path of sensible compromise. But in the fight against terrorism, there is no middle ground, and half-measures keep you half exposed. You cannot keep just some nuclear-armed terrorists out of the United States, you must keep every nuclear-armed terrorist out of the United States. Triangulation is a political strategy, not a national security strategy. When just a single clue that goes unlearned ... one lead that goes unpursued ... can bring on catastrophe - it's no time for splitting differences. There is never a good time to compromise when the lives and safety of the American people are in the balance.

Behind the overwrought reaction to enhanced interrogations is a broader misconception about the threats that still face our country. You can sense the problem in the emergence of euphemisms that strive to put an imaginary distance between the American people and the terrorist enemy. Apparently using the term "war" where terrorists are concerned is starting to feel a bit dated. So henceforth we're advised by the administration to think of the fight against terrorists as, quote, "Overseas contingency operations." In the event of another terrorist attack on America, the Homeland Security Department assures us it will be ready for this, quote, "man-made disaster" - never mind that the whole Department was created for the purpose of protecting Americans from terrorist attack.

And when you hear that there are no more, quote, "enemy combatants," as there were back in the days of that scary war on terror, at first that sounds like progress. The only problem is that the phrase is gone, but the same assortment of killers and would-be mass murderers are still there. And finding some less judgmental or more pleasant-sounding name for terrorists doesn't change what they are - or what they would do if we let them loose.

On his second day in office, President Obama announced that he was closing the detention facility at Guantanamo. This step came with little deliberation and no plan. Now the President says some of these terrorists should be brought to American soil for trial in our court system. Others, he says, will be shipped to third countries. But so far, the United States has had little luck getting other countries to take hardened terrorists. So what happens then? Attorney General Holder and others have admitted that the United States will be compelled to accept a number of the terrorists here, in the homeland, and it has even been suggested US taxpayer dollars will be used to support them. On this one, I find myself in complete agreement with many in the President's own party. Unsure how to explain to their constituents why terrorists might soon be relocating into their states, these Democrats chose instead to strip funding for such a move out of the most recent war supplemental.

The administration has found that it's easy to receive applause in Europe for closing Guantanamo. But it's tricky to come up with an alternative that will serve the interests of justice and America's national security. Keep in mind that these are hardened terrorists picked up overseas since 9/11. The ones that were considered low-risk were released a long time ago. And among these, we learned yesterday, many were treated too leniently, because 1 in 7 cut a straight path back to their prior line of work and have conducted murderous attacks in the Middle East. I think the President will find, upon reflection, that to bring the worst of the worst terrorists inside the United States would be cause for great danger and regret in the years to come.

In the category of euphemism, the prizewinning entry would be a recent editorial in a familiar newspaper that referred to terrorists we've captured as, quote, "abducted." Here we have ruthless enemies of this country, stopped in their tracks by brave operatives in the service of America, and a major editorial page makes them sound like they were kidnap victims, picked up at random on their way to the movies.

It's one thing to adopt the euphemisms that suggest we're no longer engaged in a war. These are just words, and in the end it's the policies that matter most. You don't want to call them enemy combatants? Fine. Call them what you want - just don't bring them into the United States. Tired of calling it a war? Use any term you prefer. Just remember it is a serious step to begin unraveling some of the very policies that have kept our people safe since 9/11.

Another term out there that slipped into the discussion is the notion that American interrogation practices were a "recruitment tool" for the enemy. On this theory, by the tough questioning of killers, we have supposedly fallen short of our own values. This recruitment-tool theory has become something of a mantra lately, including from the President himself. And after a familiar fashion, it excuses the violent and blames America for the evil that others do. It's another version of that same old refrain from the Left, "We brought it on ourselves."

It is much closer to the truth that terrorists hate this country precisely because of the values we profess and seek to live by, not by some alleged failure to do so. Nor are terrorists or those who see them as victims exactly the best judges of America's moral standards, one way or the other.

Critics of our policies are given to lecturing on the theme of being consistent with American values. But no moral value held dear by the American people obliges public servants ever to sacrifice innocent lives to spare a captured terrorist from unpleasant things. And when an entire population is targeted by a terror network, nothing is more consistent with American values than to stop them.

As a practical matter, too, terrorists may lack much, but they have never lacked for grievances against the United States. Our belief in freedom of speech and religion ... our belief in equal rights for women ... our support for Israel ... our cultural and political influence in the world - these are the true sources of resentment, all mixed in with the lies and conspiracy theories of the radical clerics. These recruitment tools were in vigorous use throughout the 1990s, and they were sufficient to motivate the 19 recruits who boarded those planes on September 11th, 2001.

The United States of America was a good country before 9/11, just as we are today. List all the things that make us a force for good in the world - for liberty, for human rights, for the rational, peaceful resolution of differences - and what you end up with is a list of the reasons why the terrorists hate America. If fine speech-making, appeals to reason, or pleas for compassion had the power to move them, the terrorists would long ago have abandoned the field. And when they see the American government caught up in arguments about interrogations, or whether foreign terrorists have constitutional rights, they don't stand back in awe of our legal system and wonder whether they had misjudged us all along. Instead the terrorists see just what they were hoping for - our unity gone, our resolve shaken, our leaders distracted. In short, they see weakness and opportunity.

What is equally certain is this: The broad-based strategy set in motion by President Bush obviously had nothing to do with causing the events of 9/11. But the serious way we dealt with terrorists from then on, and all the intelligence we gathered in that time, had everything to do with preventing another 9/11 on our watch. The enhanced interrogations of high-value detainees and the terrorist surveillance program have without question made our country safer. Every senior official who has been briefed on these classified matters knows of specific attacks that were in the planning stages and were stopped by the programs we put in place.

This might explain why President Obama has reserved unto himself the right to order the use of enhanced interrogation should he deem it appropriate. What value remains to that authority is debatable, given that the enemy now knows exactly what interrogation methods to train against, and which ones not to worry about. Yet having reserved for himself the authority to order enhanced interrogation after an emergency, you would think that President Obama would be less disdainful of what his predecessor authorized after 9/11. It's almost gone unnoticed that the president has retained the power to order the same methods in the same circumstances. When they talk about interrogations, he and his administration speak as if they have resolved some great moral dilemma in how to extract critical information from terrorists. Instead they have put the decision off, while assigning a presumption of moral superiority to any decision they make in the future.

Releasing the interrogation memos was flatly contrary to the national security interest of the United States. The harm done only begins with top secret information now in the hands of the terrorists, who have just received a lengthy insert for their training manual. Across the world, governments that have helped us capture terrorists will fear that sensitive joint operations will be compromised. And at the CIA, operatives are left to wonder if they can depend on the White House or Congress to back them up when the going gets tough. Why should any agency employee take on a difficult assignment when, even though they act lawfully and in good faith, years down the road the press and Congress will treat everything they do with suspicion, outright hostility, and second-guessing? Some members of Congress are notorious for demanding they be briefed into the most sensitive intelligence programs. They support them in private, and then head for the hills at the first sign of controversy.

As far as the interrogations are concerned, all that remains an official secret is the information we gained as a result. Some of his defenders say the unseen memos are inconclusive, which only raises the question why they won't let the American people decide that for themselves. I saw that information as vice president, and I reviewed some of it again at the National Archives last month. I've formally asked that it be declassified so the American people can see the intelligence we obtained, the things we learned, and the consequences for national security. And as you may have heard, last week that request was formally rejected. It's worth recalling that ultimate power of declassification belongs to the President himself. President Obama has used his declassification power to reveal what happened in the interrogation of terrorists. Now let him use that same power to show Americans what did not happen, thanks to the good work of our intelligence officials.

I believe this information will confirm the value of interrogations - and I am not alone. President Obama's own Director of National Intelligence, Admiral Blair, has put it this way: "High value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al-Qaeda organization that was attacking this country." End quote. Admiral Blair put that conclusion in writing, only to see it mysteriously deleted in a later version released by the administration - the missing 26 words that tell an inconvenient truth. But they couldn't change the words of George Tenet, the CIA Director under Presidents Clinton and Bush, who bluntly said: "I know that this program has saved lives. I know we've disrupted plots. I know this program alone is worth more than the FBI, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Agency put together have been able to tell us." End of quote.

If Americans do get the chance to learn what our country was spared, it'll do more than clarify the urgency and the rightness of enhanced interrogations in the years after 9/11. It may help us to stay focused on dangers that have not gone away. Instead of idly debating which political opponents to prosecute and punish, our attention will return to where it belongs - on the continuing threat of terrorist violence, and on stopping the men who are planning it.

For all the partisan anger that still lingers, our administration will stand up well in history - not despite our actions after 9/11, but because of them. And when I think about all that was to come during our administration and afterward - the recriminations, the second-guessing, the charges of "hubris" - my mind always goes back to that moment.

To put things in perspective, suppose that on the evening of 9/11, President Bush and I had promised that for as long as we held office - which was to be another 2,689 days - there would never be another terrorist attack inside this country. Talk about hubris - it would have seemed a rash and irresponsible thing to say. People would have doubted that we even understood the enormity of what had just happened. Everyone had a very bad feeling about all of this, and felt certain that the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, and Shanksville were only the beginning of the violence.

Of course, we made no such promise. Instead, we promised an all-out effort to protect this country. We said we would marshal all elements of our nation's power to fight this war and to win it. We said we would never forget what had happened on 9/11, even if the day came when many others did forget. We spoke of a war that would "include dramatic strikes, visible on TV, and covert operations, secret even in success." We followed through on all of this, and we stayed true to our word.

To the very end of our administration, we kept al-Qaeda terrorists busy with other problems. We focused on getting their secrets, instead of sharing ours with them. And on our watch, they never hit this country again. After the most lethal and devastating terrorist attack ever, seven and a half years without a repeat is not a record to be rebuked and scorned, much less criminalized. It is a record to be continued until the danger has passed.

Along the way there were some hard calls. No decision of national security was ever made lightly, and certainly never made in haste. As in all warfare, there have been costs - none higher than the sacrifices of those killed and wounded in our country's service. And even the most decisive victories can never take away the sorrow of losing so many of our own - all those innocent victims of 9/11, and the heroic souls who died trying to save them.

For all that we've lost in this conflict, the United States has never lost its moral bearings. And when the moral reckoning turns to the men known as high-value terrorists, I can assure you they were neither innocent nor victims. As for those who asked them questions and got answers: they did the right thing, they made our country safer, and a lot of Americans are alive today because of them.

Like so many others who serve America, they are not the kind to insist on a thank-you. But I will always be grateful to each one of them, and proud to have served with them for a time in the same cause. They, and so many others, have given honorable service to our country through all the difficulties and all the dangers. I will always admire them and wish them well. And I am confident that this nation will never take their work, their dedication, or their achievements, for granted.

Thank you very much.

END

Pelosi, Cheney and Hypocrisy on Waterboarding and Torture

2009-05-15T13:19:00.007-05:00

For all the "conservatives" and pundits that are full on attacking the integrity of Nancy Pelosi, whom I don't particularly care for either, over her perceived improprieties and "story changing" in the "waterboardgate" scandal.... I wonder if the irony or hypocrisy inherent in the juxtaposition of these two stories below even register on their consciences or if its just a matter of who you like and don't like or agree with and don't agree with... I just can't believe that A. they think this tactic of displacing blame will work and B. that it is apparently working on a lot of people...WOW!!!:

Read and consider these two articles:

White House denies Cheney endorsed 'water boarding'

Cheney was key in clearing CIA interrogation tactics

If one wants to go after Pelosi for mangling the truth- how can they not take issue with Cheney?

I have often been lectured about moral relativism in discussions with those aligned with Cheney's worldview... Here's the definition of moral relativism:
"In philosophy moral relativism is the position that moral or ethical propositions do not reflect objective and/or universal moral truths, but instead make claims relative to social, cultural, ... Read More historical or personal circumstances. "
Doesn't Cheney's position and/or the lack of consistent standards between these two characters by Cheney's allies and advocates reflect moral relativism?

The United States knows quite a bit about waterboarding. The U.S. government -- whether acting alone before domestic courts, commissions and courts-martial or as part of the world community -- has not only condemned the use of water torture but has severely punished those who applied it.

After World War II, we convicted several Japanese soldiers for waterboarding American and Allied prisoners of war. A number of Japanese prison-camp officers and guards were convicted of torture that clearly violated the laws of war. They were not the only defendants convicted in such cases. As far back as the U.S. occupation of the Philippines after the 1898 Spanish-American War, U.S. soldiers were court-martialed for using the "water cure" to question Filipino guerrillas.

More recently, waterboarding cases have appeared in U.S. district courts. One was a civil action brought by several Filipinos seeking damages against the estate of former Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos. The plaintiffs claimed they had been subjected to torture, including water torture. The court awarded $766 million in damages, noting in its findings that "the plaintiffs experienced human rights violations including, but not limited to . . . the water cure, where a cloth was placed over the detainee's mouth and nose, and water producing a drowning sensation."

In 1983, federal prosecutors charged a Texas sheriff and three of his deputies with violating prisoners' civil rights by forcing confessions. The complaint alleged that the officers conspired to "subject prisoners to a suffocating water torture ordeal in order to coerce confessions. This generally included the placement of a towel over the nose and mouth of the prisoner and the pouring of water in the towel until the prisoner began to move, jerk, or otherwise indicate that he was suffocating and/or drowning."

The four defendants were convicted, and the sheriff was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

We know that U.S. military tribunals and U.S. judges have examined certain types of water-based interrogation and found that they constituted torture. That's a lesson worth learning. The study of law is, after all, largely the study of history. The law of war is no different. This history should be of value to those who seek to understand what the law is -- as well as what it ought to be.

Waterboarding was designated as illegal by U.S. generals in the Vietnam War. On January 21, 1968, The Washington Post published a controversial front-page photograph of two U.S soldiers and one South Vietnamese soldier participating in the waterboarding of a North Vietnamese POW near Da Nang. The article described the practice as "fairly common". The photograph led to the soldier being court-martialled by a U.S. military court within one month of its publication, and he was discharged from the army. Another waterboarding photograph of the same scene, referred to as "water torture" in the caption, is also exhibited in the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City.

If one wants to go after Pelosi- how can they not see the duplicity in the former members of the Bush administration on this issue- denying and lying on this issue on TV and in press conferences in an all too obvious way and then give them a pass? That's partisan blindness, no matter what you think of the issue at hand and is one of the kinds of things that has put their party in their current political predicament. I have called it "selective truth engineering". I know a few people that claim as one of their pet peeves when people mangle the truth to make political points. I share that peeve.

Am I Conservative?

2009-02-15T11:04:00.005-06:00

I have not been writing actively since about the time of the U.S. presidential elections. After the last several years of the very heated geopolitical climate, the milieu of the Church and all the passion I had invested in the things I have written about- it was time for a break and a re-alignment of my own spirit. After attending the funeral of my beloved 92 year old Cherokee grandmother and an energizing visit with my aunt and uncle and other relatives- I have decided it is time to wield my voice again- hopefully in a way thast reflects the progression of my spirit as guided by the Holy Spirit. I am hoping to bring out less of me and more of my Master.

Let's start with this. This, from my e-mail archives, was merely an attempt to explain to my friends and family where I was coming from around the time of the elections. I think it is an important point in trying to explain my perspective, which is hopefully representative of God's perspective.

Subject: Am I conservative?
Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2008 18:18:44 -0500

I received a message earlier that asked a few good questions and raised a few good points. Since I have been torturing you with e-mail rants between another person and I- this may give a "frame of reference" to some things that have been said:

To SS:

Who is Mr. Rowley? (I had an exchange with him that was public and very harsh from his side)

I receive a lot of emails from acquaintances that I've made over the years. 100% of the political related email that I receive is a bunch of right wing spin with one exception. You are the exception. Your emails appear to be left wing spin compared to everything that I receive. I enjoy and value your emails as I do you my friend.

I know that you declare yourself independent as I have seen you state numerous times. Be aware, however, that SOLELY BASED ON YOUR EMAILS I would label you a full blown liberal before considering you to be libertarian as I believe that you would probably prefer. Anyway, it's all perception and opinion that is founded by one's own frame of reference. That's my honest perception be it good, bad, right, or wrong.

I listen to NPR a lot recently because I detest commercials. Yesterday there was a very interesting segment with an author that chronicled the philosphies of the early Quakers. They were very disciplined and were driven to create education institutions for the pure sake of knowledge. It was important to them that there leaders were EXPERTS on the United States constitutions and all concepts and philosophies of it's basis. This was a critical point for their choosing a president considering that person is the foremost defender of the constitution. I have not heard this concept uttered a single time this election. Have any of the candidates achieved a sufficient level of expertise of the United States constitution to be true defenders of it?

Answer from SS:

That is the father of some good friends I made in Dallas. He gets credit for launching my career as an armchair pundit. I was in his back yard by the pool one day in 1998 with Chuck and his sons sharing some cold beverages. One of the sons casually mentioned that I was not going to be supporting then Texas governor George W. Bush for his quest for the office of president. Right then and there without asking a single question of me and without nuance he lit into me with a tirade not unlike the ones he's written this week. I barely got a word in.

Afterwards, I thought to myself, if this mean spirited fellow is a representation of what conservatism has become, then as now counting myself as a conservative at heart, then this whole "conservative" thing is waaaayyyy off the intended track. This inspired me to start writing and as soon as I could I started doing just that and hitting his e-mail box with challenges to his twisted world view. Needless to say it has not played well with him.

I agree that the perceptions of these terms have much to do with contrasts and frames of reference. I am sure I am a flaming liberal up next to Mr. Rowley and most other inobjective, party line toting ideologues. It is a relative term. I can tell you that in Native circles I would be considered very much conservative and traditionalist. I was thinking about this very concept today and came to the conclusion that where the disconnect and misunderstanding lies in this is that I am operating from a spiritual, biblical, Christian conservatism that takes seriously Christ's injunctions against intolerance and the overly militaristic reliance on the myth of redemptive violence and worldly power structures and folks like Mr. Rowley are operating from a very contaminated- by-the- world version of Christianity that for the most part is not authentic spirituality but worldliness and American nationalist, political ideology with a quasi Christian veneer slapped over it.

I may be the only one operating with definitions like this that you know- but I stand on what I say. I have said before that these terms conservative and liberal have lost their meaning and what we actually have here in the US political arena is authoritarian and worldly and more authoritarian and worldly.

Another thing... Mr. Rowley does not really know me because as you can imagine he is nearly impossible to talk to in person and has little more than his own 'frame of reference" and the e-mails to go on concerning what I think.

Lastly, not that I am a constitutional expert, no, none of these candidates both know and honor what the constitution actually says- which I can plainly see even with my own limited knowledge of the document.

Thanks for the good word.

Now, this is a comment I got back from an old Bible teacher of mine that I first met during my stay in Waco, TX. on the subject of my claims of conservatism in the above message:

Interesting.

I tell people I’m a conservative, and that those who try to pass themselves off as “conservatives” these days are really liberals. I can demonstrate this philosophically. In short, the “liberal” position in the Enlightenment (out of which our nation sprang, NB), was “anti-conservative.” The “Conservative” position were those who believed in conserving tradition (in this case the Christian tradition) because of its inherent value (longer explanation belongs here). The Enlightenment philosophers rejected this conservatism because they came to believe that one both could and should “think for oneself.” That is liberalism. Your friend is a liberal.

IN our country, as some contemporary philosophers have pointed out, we are all liberals. To be sure, there are “right leaning” liberals like Bush/Cheney, and left leaning liberals like Clinton/Gore, but we’re all liberals. Period.

Now, if the idea of “thinking for yourself” is nothing but an Enlightenment myth/lie, then all liberalism is based on a false premise (that “thinking for yourself” is indeed possible) and doomed to failure. That is why the Enlightenment died. And good riddance. May true conservatism live on.

If you want to explore this more, see the various works of Alasdair MacIntyre, especially After Virtue. He has some followup books that are also incredibly insightful, but that’s the place to start.

As for me (and probably you), I believe we are attempting to conserve the Christian tradition of social justice that begins in the Law of Moses, continues in the OT Prophets, and is revived by Jesus. Romans 8:18-24 demonstrates that God intends eventually to bring all his creation under his kingdom/rule/reign. What that polity would look like is probably best described by the Sermon on the Mount (i.e., what would it look like if people really lived as if God really is in charge?). To conserve that tradition is indeed true conservatism. It is NOT “thinking for oneself,” and in fact many things in this sermon don’t make sense on a purely rational basis, but ONLY make sense if one really calls Jesus “Lord” and believes he is king and is in charge and cares about his subjects and his creation. Only on that basis can one have the courage to love one’s enemies and be cheated out of what he/she has lent to someone, etc.

Stanley Hauerwas is another author to whom I’m greatly indebted. And one of his mentors was John Howard Yoder, a NT scholar.

So, call your friend a stinking commie liberal. J With Christian love, of course.

Chalmers Johnson: Militarism and the End of the Empire

2008-11-08T20:50:00.001-06:00

Why We Fight - Oil & Blowback

2008-11-08T19:54:00.001-06:00

Raw Revelations From Apache Country- 2003- repost

2008-11-08T17:20:00.002-06:00

Raw Revelations from Apache Country-
A Christmas story, a parable, an urban legend, a myth, a catharsis

It was the day after Thanksgiving and I was driving somewhere between Tombstone, AZ and the San Carlos Apache reservation. I had spent the night before and most of that day ruminating at the ornate, antique bar of the Crystal Palace Saloon in Tombstone. The last of the pain medication supply had begun to wear off. The pinched nerve in my slightly dislocated right elbow started to ache and throb. I had been strung out on the little pink and white pills for days. I had covered this span of time and over a thousand hard miles in an existential and heartsick daze. Now, the pain had its fangs in me again and it was beginning to chew.
So, there I was wrestling 25,000 lbs. of steel and cargo down this lonesome desert road. I was hauling sound and video equipment for a trade show in San Jose. Holiday season had officially begun at midnight the night before and the wheels of commerce were already spinning in a frenzy throughout the land. The only radio station that would halfway tune in out there was playing Christmas music. The airwaves, even in this desolate and forsaken landscape were filled with songs about sugar plum fairies and talking snowmen cavorting in white Christmas wonderlands.
I am no grinch, however, this materialism driven ridiculousness began to cross mojinate with the road-wear, pain and mileage on my soul and my composure began to unravel.
About halfway through Elvis' "Blue Christmas", my mind seized up like a powerful engine dried up of oil. I plunged the vehicle off the road and out amongst the cactus greasewood and yucca. Now at a stop, I leapt out and engaged myself in an overdue primal scream. I cried out first to and then at the twilight heavens above. The words that spilled out of me arose from such depths that they are forever lost to me. It was as if I had spoken in tongues. Perhaps I had.
As my mind recoiled back to relative awareness, I noticed the rusted hulk of a 1940s model automobile in the still burning beams of the truck's headlights. I dashed into the cab of the truck and extracted my Winchester, model 250, 30-30 caliber rifle from behind the seat. I carry this weapon on my cross country travels as an equalizer. After all, one never knows when the apocalypse will set in or they will be beset on the road by roving banditos. I shouldered the weapon and blasted five quick shots into the decaying body of the car, sending various appendages and pieces of it flying. I went back into the truck for more bullets. The radio was now blaring "Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer", which I silenced with my boot.
I was back on the sand reloading when I sensed someone or something standing behind me and to the left. I turned to behold a male figure. His visage was such that I knew instantly that this visitor was spiritual. This is something us Injuns, even half-breeds like me, are more or less accustomed to. I turned back to my target, sighted in my weapon and spoke to him/it in a casual tone,
"So...you a ghost?"
No answer.
I asked, "Uhhh...is this your car I'm shootin' at? No offense man," I said turning back to him, "I was just lettin' off a little..."
My sentence trailed off as a pair of majestic, white feathered wings
unfolded gracefully behind him.
"Ahhh," I said, trying to remain non-plussed, "One of the Man Upstairs' errand boys."
I spun and fired another shot into the car.
"I hope you're here to take me home," said I, as I lifted my eyes
skyward. The stars were beginning to twinkle above.
"So where's the fiery chariot?" I asked, cocking the gun again.
"Your home is still here on the Earth for now," came the answer.
When I turned to view him again he appeared as a Kachina this time. I
sensed that this change had come in order to perhaps inspire a bit more awe and respect from me than I had given. So, he was playing to my penchant for Native American metaphysics. I was still feeling riled up and insolent about my state of being and said,
"Ohhh, Mr. Mudman Kachina now. This here's Apache country...ain't you a Hopi myth? A little off aren't ya...."

"I am Thunder Kachina and this whole continent is Indian country in general," he said, "you should remember such things."

"Well," I said, "Excuuuuse me... it's a little hard to keep it all straight here in the 21st century world of concrete and steel and shopping mall culture ...I mean aren't there like over 400 of you guys? Now if you ask me the difference between Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, Spider Man and..."

"Enough!," Kachina Man says sternly, "We are without number, humans only know few of us."

"There is a holy mountain not far from here," he says gesturing towards the shadowy peaks just to the north.

"What is its name?" he asks.

Without reflection I answer, "D'zil N'cha Si' an. It means Sky Island in the Apache tongue."

"So you have not forgotten...you still know what to do...And why have you not taken your troubles there in prayer? Why are you here raging against a piece of rotting steel?" he asks.

His questions rile me further.

"Yeah man, you know why I remember that mountain? I was involved with the Native rights struggle to save that mountain from being defiled by the government building stuff up there a few years ago...ANOTHER LOST CAUSE," I
said, my voice raising.
"Prayer?," I went on "Maybe all you fellows up top haven't been paying attention...I've been praying for six damn months for a little help with just one thing... beggin' on my knees for just that one thing to go right...JUST ONE...IN YEARS...just one!!"

"Does this one thing have a name?" Kachina Man asks.

"You should know that," I say sullenly.
I dared not speak the name for the terror of coming completely undone out there in the solitary wasteland.
"Whatever happened to that Bible teaching that says something about how almighty God knows the very number of the hairs of someone's head anyway, man?" I ask, and then continue, "HE, should have known how important that was to me," throwing a sharp look towards the stars.
"Maybe you have heard of a thing called free will,"
Kachina/Angel remarks, "That wasn't really his call, now was it," he adds. "Point taken," I answer softly.

He continues,
"God, being God, can certainly know anything there is to know. But, do you really think he chooses to keep all those types of things like the number of nose hairs or the volume of the wax in the ears of every living person, or each person's mood swings in his mind all at once? Come now...If you haven't noticed, there are other pressing matters at hand...like the generally lost condition of mankind, past, present and future...the sickness and rampant evil, confusion and perversion in the world...the ongoing strife in the middle east and all the other regions...man's defilement of the beauty and wonder of nature and the equilibrium of creation itself which is the greatest testament of all to the very existence of God...The most powerful nation in the planet's history rests in the hands of corporate criminals and
sidewinding politicians...Man's love of money and material things run amok...the penitentiaries, asylums and orphanages bursting at the seams...
I finally dropped my rifle to the sand and sunk to my haunches, head in hands.

" What is it Scott ," Thunder Kachina asks, "are you needing someone to blame?"

"There is no blame," I say after a pregnant pause, " If you had done your homework before coming here you would know that I generally never do that."
I continue, "Most of the time, when I don't get the things I want or need, I just rationalize and say OK I guess it wasn't God's will for me...or Yep, he must have something else in store for me...Then I learned to just not ask for anything so I wouldn't have to come up with new excuses for why it didn't happen for me...Then I learned not to even expect anything at all
either...But, I guess I forgot all that and dared to hope for something for the first time in a great while...I thought maybe it would happen just this once."
"Ya know, since we're on the subject here," I said rising to my feet and raising a pointed finger, "I would just like to remind all you Heaven dwellers that I AM one of the good guys...I am not a drunk or a drug abuser...I am honest to a fault...I do not lie or cheat or steal and always look for the good in any given situation...But, what has it gotten me?"

He answered calmly,
"So, are you expecting a reward for doing these things you are supposed to do as a matter of course, or not doing those things that you are not supposed to do? Do you think your suffering in this world will be less because of these things? Why don't you just go ahead and tell me how bad you have it? You with your near perfect health...who have never gone hungry or had to fight in a war or seen your comrades or your family butchered, burned or blown up? Go ahead, this ought to be good...I'm listening...you humans are always entertaining this way."

"Naw," I thought to myself, "nothing as dramatic as all that...I just have to live in a world I never made."

He had me on the run but I was still feeling like mixing it up and wanted to get a few more things off my chest. The best response I could think of was to pull out a rant and rave I had once written. I stepped to the truck, dug into my things and retrieved a book of my writings I had brought on this trip because I was feeling sentimental as I packed. I ripped out a page and went back waving it at him. "Here ya go Mr. Messenger," I said, "take this home and pass it around."
He began to quote it without even looking at it,

"I come rolling down the mountain solid as a rock
to find sugar crazed children chokin' the man who keeps the clock
A streetwise and angry priest is throwing punches at the moon
A leather clad monkey man is determined to drink his doom
The preacher's voice rattles like dry bones
As the T.V. god lights up the broken homes
nicotine junkies come in an ashtray kiss
black lung poison - it tastes like this
skinny third world kids try to suckle dry tits
as a fat man farts and takes another hit
The serpent crawls
The empire falls
The ultimate truth was buried still in Einstein's balls
Relative truth is enforced by government guns
Like the wolves, whales and deer I live always on the run
But the tax man says I still haven't paid my dues
I guess that's why I've always got the blues..."

"We remember when you wrote that 10 years and three days ago to be
exact...right before you migrated to Texas. You were in about the same shape that day as this one. It caused a bit of a stir then...we thought you might be about ready to break out...silly us. Personally I prefer The Outlaw's Prayer you wrote. It showed a bit more humility," Thunder Kachina said. I squatted down again, all I could do was stare at the hardscrabble ground.

"Maybe it is you Mr. Starrider," He said mockingly, "who has not done your homework."
"Do you not remember," he continued, "What has happened to men in pursuit of better things through the ages? Almost none of them ever found that which they sought the most in this world. This very territory is littered with the dust and bones of hungry hearted people just like you."
I sunk further down to my knees, head down, with my face hidden in the dirt.

"Do you really think you are so different," he asked?

I closed my eyes and visions of men of this territory like Geronimo whose families, whole tribes, whole civilizations were wiped out during the conquest of the continent and the pursuit of the gold and cotton and coal. I also saw the cast of characters that made the town of Tombstone, where I'd
just left earlier, famous. I saw men like Doc Holliday, the Earps, Johnny Ringo... A scene from the movie "Tombstone" replayed in my head where someone asked Val Kilmer's version of Doc Holliday what drives men like Johnny Ringo to act as they do.
"Revenge," Doc answered.
"For what," Doc was asked.

"Bein' born," Doc replied pensively.

I could almost hear the blood of the ages still crying from the ground. I saw other men and women whose lives had been unfulfilled or cut short; Abe Lincoln, Joan of Arc, Martin Luther King, Crazy Horse, the Kennedys, millions of soldiers, firemen, cops, mothers, tortured musicians, artists and writers. I saw Hemingway with a shotgun in his mouth. I thought of my favorite writer, Edward Abbey, taken by cancer, who had himself buried somewhere in this very desert in a dry wash underneath a cactus. I also thought of those people enslaved and stepped on in order to build the big machine and the hungry children that never had a chance at all. Thunder Kachina spoke again, adding to my reverie. Even the most righteous, the men closest to God, the Messiah himself included, have met with sorry ends...and too soon. They were crucified, some of them upside down... stoned, burned, beheaded...."
I pictured the apostle John, disheveled, crazy and hiding in a salt cave on the Greek island of Patmos trying to scribble down his fitful dreams into what would become the book of Revelation.
"No hope," I thought out loud as I rose to my feet feeling more sullen
than ever.
”Well, golly gee," I said, "Thanks so much for dropping in to cheer me up like this Kachina-angel man, but, really I've gotta get goin'...take care now."

"I am here because we need you to stay the course," he said.

"The course!?!" I say, "What freakin' course man!? If there is some master plan workin' for me I sure don't see it."

He says, "Contrary to your anger, your faith is still strong. If it were not so, I would not be here."

"Faith!?," I ask, "Is that what you call it when a dumb shit like me keeps hanging on and hanging on when there's nothing left to be hanging on to but some gut instinct that says don't let go?"
"Yes," he said, "Even now you cling to your faith, if you did not, you
would not be so lost and tortured feeling...You simply would not care like most people out there...you'd just be absorbed in consumerism, television shows, sports utility vehicles and the like."
He continues, "I've seen many just like you, all lost trying to live a
life of spirit and relevance and the life of the worldly at the same time. You're trying to keep a foot in both worlds at the same time and it's tearing you apart. Still, you have lived longer than most of your ilk ever do. The world has not found a way to put out your fire just yet. Only you yourself can do that. That is why the Lord favors you."

"FAVORS ME!?," I scream, "If he favors me so much what the fuck am I doing out here damaged bad, all by myself talking to some big head clay mask wearing guy who probably ain't even there!?!"
"Don't pretend my friend,' he says, "You know the power of the gift you
have been given...You have known since you were a boy, which you really still are by the way. You could have been a billionaire twenty times over if you had let the world corrupt you, but nooo, not you. You cling to that faith... that vision inside you of how things ought to be. Right now you are just pissed off . The trouble is you have not used that gift at all...except to try and woo women and make jokes."

"That's right, I am pissed off...hurt too. How observant of you,"I said.

Then sarcastically I added, "I'm real sorry man if I am mistaken, but, I like women...and I always heard that laughter was good medicine too."

"Women are good, but, I don't think I need to tell you they can also destroy you... mind body and soul. Laughter is good medicine, insincerity is a sin" Thunder Kachina said.

After letting these words sink in for a moment he said, "There was a story you were supposed to tell...don't pretend you have forgotten the visit we paid you back in 1985. You haven't told that story yet though... now have you."

Another pregnant pause.

"Because," he continued, "You, my friend, are a coward...a survivor, but, still a coward. You try so hard to fit in, even though you know you never will...until you use that inner voice you were given...And then...things will fit in around you...Look at yourself...How long do you plan to wait?"

I was reeling but still had plenty of fight left in me. As I reached for words, a passage from a book I had once read rose up and commanded a moment's thought. It was from a book entitled "The Unbearable Lightness of Being", by Milan Kundera.

The passage that had stuck to my head for so long went, "...He had never been able to engage himself completely in any love affair or any pleasure, he had never been really unhappy; he always felt as though he were somewhere else, that he was not yet wholly born...He waited."
Thunder Kachina had me on the run.
Still, I wanted to self indulge in my sorry mood, my bleeding heart, my
rage, my solitude. My highly evolved self defense mechanisms flared again and I decided to just bolt. I snatched my rifle up again, but before I could spout some snappy comeback and storm away, the angel morphed again.
Suddenly, the angel appeared as a gorgeous blond haired, green eyed
cowgirl with a dynamite smile and dressed only in a western hat and boots, nothing else...and holding a fine guitar. This time I WAS in awe. For the first time since the episode had begun, I questioned my own sanity. I thought I'd better verify whether or not I
was hallucinating phantasms. At least that was the handiest excuse as I stepped forward and ran my fingers through her golden hair. Then, I reached out and gently touched one of her perfect breasts. I stepped back flustered now.

"Whatever it takes to keep your attention," she/he/it, said.

I grinned sheepishly as I took in the beautiful visage in front of me. I was Still wanting to maintain my cocky bearing and so asked flirtatiously, "So is this like the modern day version of the burning bush?," smiling at my own tasteless joke.

"You are feeling fresh tonight aren't you?" she remarked with a twinkle in her eye.

She then said, " The Lord wants me to sing you a song now...Why don't you just have a seat over there and take a load off...You look so tired."

Her comment about my wear and tear showing wounded me a little and
softened me up a bit. The female sympathy made my eyes mist a little as I leaned my rifle on the old car and took a seat in the dirt leaning back on the fender, slack jawed. She began to play and sing with the voice of ...well an angel.

(listen below)

Desperado, why don't you come to your senses,

You've been out ridin fences for so long now,
Oh and you're a hard one, but I know that you've got your reasons,
The things that are pleasin' you can hurt you somehow.

Don't you draw the Queen of Diamonds boy, she'll beat you if she's able.
You know the Queen of Hearts is always your best bet.
Now it seems to me some fine things have been laid upon your table,
But you only want the ones you can't get.

Desperado, you ain't gettin no younger,
Your pain and your hunger, they're drivin you home,
And freedom, oh freedom, well that's just some people talkin.
Your prison is walking through this world all alone.

Don't your feet get cold in the wintertime,
The sky won't snow and the sun won't shine,
It's hard to tell the nighttime from the day.
And you're losin all your highs and lows,
Ain't it funny how the feelin goes away?

Desperado, why don't you come to your senses,
Come down from your fences- open the gates.
It may be rainin, but there's a rainbow above you.
You'd better let somebody love you,
LET SOMEBODY LOVE YOU.
You'd better let somebody love you,
before it's too late.

By the middle of the song, my heart was shattered. Still, I was somehow able to swallow it and stifle most of my tears.
"It's gonna take more than some sappy song to make things right," I tell myself. I struggle back to my feet like a prize fighter that had gone down hard from a crushing blow, but whose instinct to fight on lifted him again against all reason. Sensing she had nearly broken me, she started into another tune- a Bible school song I remembered from boyhood.

She sang, "This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine - This little light of mine-I'm gonna let it..."

I stepped up and muted the strings of the guitar by grabbing it by the neck. I resisted the urge to snatch that guitar and smash it over the hood of that rusty old car, figuring that it might be a good way to get myself smited or smitten or whatever. I figured there just might be an entire legion of angels standing by at the ready to turn me into a crispy smithereen to mingle with the desert sands and be tossed around by roving dust devils til the Earth itself became a smithereeen.
Still, I could not resist the urge to give more voice to the hurt inside me even though I knew the angel was right about everything and I was wrong as I could be.

"Ya know," I said, "I really did enjoy your little ditty and all...and I really do appreciate the Good Lord playing Casey Kasem up there with the long distance dedications and all...I mean I have always been a sucker for a good tune... rock and roll, country, blues, gospel, bluegrass, folk...you name it...but ya know I think right now that all of that music of the ages, all that expression of humanity - the longing -the yearning for something better- for truth and beauty and love...it don't mean nothing...it's just
NOISE!!!! You miss Eternal Angel, should know that...bound forever to sing praise and more praise in heavenly choirs just so you can keep doing it some more. I'm glad you are OK with that and can keep it up...But, I have had all the pointlessness I can stand."
I turned my back to her and I lowered my voice and said sarcastically,

"Let somebody love me, huh? Now why didn't I think of that?"

"Ohhhh Scott," she said, "You are loved."

"Yeah right," I said, "Nobody really knows me, my people like me mainly for my entertainment value...my so called charisma."
My voice began to crack.
I went on, "I'm out here chasing some myth, call it truth, true
love...whatever, I am the stupid one here. I see other people settle, take the path of least resistance, simply tolerate each other and they all look as happy as clams while I'm making myself miserable by believing someday I will find satisfaction...something to believe in...
a love that will move mountains...something real and honest and pure...some truth to cling to...meanwhile other people choose each other like they were picking out a new car...I know now that my romanticism of life must die and give way to reality."

"I know you are hurting Scott," she said sweetly, " But I also know that inside you know that the path to becoming a better person is about learning how to give love not how to get it. I see it in you. I see it in your actions...You have done so well."

I was shaking I was so worked up. My insides felt like a burning cinder. I was seething with spite.
I worked up a big fake smile, turned back to her and said sarcastically, "Ohhhh, I get it. It's like John Lennon once
said, "In the end the love you take is equal to the love you make."

"That's it," she said with a tentative smile.

I went on, "I always wondered though, what Lennon thought about that saying while he laid there on the sidewalk WITH ALL THOSE BULLET HOLES IN HIM AND HIS BLOOD SEEPING INTO THE GUTTER."

I took some vile pleasure in watching the smile drain from that lovely, angelic face. Then big tears formed in those beautiful eyes and the guitar slipped from her grasp to the desert floor.
My satisfaction was short lived. I had outdone myself. One thing I
cannot stand is to see a woman cry. I will say or do anything to avoid it. I had to turn away again. Hearing the soft and pitiful sobs of an angel made something inside of me break as well.
I dropped once again to my knees. I felt as though I was being turned
inside out. In the most pitiful human voice I have ever heard, I sobbed,

"Who will take care of me when I get old?"

She stepped up and embraced me from behind.
She said in the voice of a nurturing mother, "I wouldn't worry about that if I were you my son." She ran her fingers lovingly through my now sweaty hair. I sobbed like a baby.
After several epic moments she said with a humorous lilt,
"Besides, what makes you think that you are going to live long enough to be considered old."

I turned to look up a her gorgeous face and that tender teasing smile made me smile as well, right through my hot, passionate tears.
She then stepped back. In a minute, I staggered back to my feet again. Practice makes perfect. She picked up the guitar again and I retrieved my gun.

"I've really gotta get going now," I said, "There's a bunch of meeting planners that are gonna come apart at the seams if I don't get all these electronic toys to 'em on time for their little pep rally."

She stood pat.

I could only bear to stare at the ground, standing there in the cool desert night air with that gun over my shoulder. I turned toward the truck and spoke to her again.

I said, "You know, they'll all think I'm crazy, they already do...no one will ever believe I was out here talking to you...them...whatever."

"Does that really matter?" she asked.

"Naw," I said, I reckon It don't."

She said softly, "Stay the course Scott...allow yourself to be great...You have now defeated ignorance, greed, fear, pride and desire...there's nothing left to stop you. Most people live as though they had a thousand years in front of them...don't make that mistake...your fate is at your heels, you already know this. I just came to give you a reminder...a little lift."
"Thank you," I said in a whisper.
Then, shuffled back to my truck and loaded myself up.
She started strumming the guitar again and sung a few lines from the song from the rock band "Foreigner" that have given me my nickname back in high school when my old pal Anthony Mazza used to sing it to me.
She sung, "Starrrrriderrrr-Starrrrriderrrr nobody knows who you are."
I leaned out the truck window and said, "Cute... very Cute."
We shared a mischevious smile. I fired the engine and began to back up. I was amazed that the truck was not bogged in the sand. I thought this must surely be her/their work. I looked back in her direction just in time to see her/them/it morph again into the form of a coyote, the Native American Indian archetype of the trickster, a divine messenger and vessel of wisdom. The coyote dashed away into the desert night.
I backed on up to the pavement and aimed the truck down the pitch black
road.
After a bit, I put the radio on again and began to sing along with the song that was on:

I am a poor boy too
a rumpa pum pum

I have no gift to bring
a rumpa pum pum

That's fit to give a king
a rumpa pum pum, rumpapum pum, rumpapum pum

Shall I play for you?
a rumpa pum pum
On my drum?

There he nodded
a rumpa pum pum, rumpa pum pum, rumpapumpum....

copyright 2003- S. Starr

Wealth Redistribution, Socialism, Hypocrisy and Campaign Bull

2008-10-28T19:49:00.006-05:00

I have been writing commentary and responses to the negative YouTube videos I have been sent about Obama's tax plans. Most of the videos out on this have the comments either cut off or moderated pending approval. This is kind of funny when the videos are going off about someone (Biden) being asked and supposedly tough questions and supposedly dodging them.

I thought Biden's answers were good. I suspect that most people were not even listening to the answers- instead simply enjoying seeing the "tough" questions that they are hung up on being asked and then Biden being miffed about it. They don't seem to realize that Biden was the victor and beneficiary of that exchange. I realize that this is a highly subjective issue. People see what they want to see.

Here is what I see.

First, when Bush wanted to implement his tax cuts for the wealthier American citizens and businesses, McCain opposed it and voted NO (neaux).
McCain said it would hurt the middle class and the less fortunate. Go check the voting records.

Now that Obama seeks to essentially roll those tax cuts back and instead give them to the middle class and less fortunate (ironically, like Joe the plumber) suddenly Obama is a commie according to the incoherent, inconsistent, irrational, insult to the intelligence McCain- Palin campaign and right wing America. Whatever. It doesn't wash.

Secondly,

AMENDMENT XVI

Passed by Congress July 2, 1909. Ratified February 3, 1913.

So, we have had a progressive income tax in America for many years. That's the way its been done for a couple of lifetimes- so this charge of socialism and the evils of wealth redistribution and revolutionary radicalism against Obama regarding taxation doesn't really sound so apocalyptic after all. Anybody that believes Obama is a total communist obviously has not really read the Communist Manifesto. The best one can come up with is a few quotes by Karl Marx that seem to parallel some quotes by Obama. I can produce quotes from any American leader in the last 200 plus years that parallel ideas by any other notorious dictator from Saddam to Stalin to Hitler. So what.

For the record... communism, capitalism.... whatever... they are both worldly systems flawed by fallible humanity and self interests and vested interests and neither really more or less evil than the other. I have seen no convincing evidence that God is a capitalist. In fact, as C.S. Lewis observes, one may find within the Bible, both Old and New Testaments, concepts that in todays world would absolutely be considered Utopian, overly idealistic, unrealistic, leftist and possibly even communist. Now get this straight, I am neither capitalist or communist- both systems are worldly and ultimately doomed to failure by human factors... not to mention the natural cycles of history and/or God's intervention and plan for human history. So, ultimately this whole subject is something that I am scarcely interested in and only commenting on to challenge others to think outside the box.

Now, as far as all this hullabaloo about wealth redistribution people seem to have forgotten what Sarah Palin did in Alaska:

Palin’s criticisms of Obama’s “spread the wealth” remarks are ironic to put it nicely and plain old campaign Bull in the street vernacular. She recently characterized Alaska’s tax code in a very similar way. Just last month, in an interview with Philip Gourevitch of the New Yorker, Palin explained the windfall profits tax that she imposed on the oil industry in Alaska as a mechanism for ensuring that Alaskans “share in the wealth” generated by oil companies:

And Alaska—we’re set up, unlike other states in the union, where it’s collectively Alaskans own the resources. So we share in the wealth when the development of these resources occurs. … It’s to maximize benefits for Alaskans, not an individual company, not some multinational somewhere, but for Alaskans.

Perhaps there is some meaningful distinction between spreading the wealth and sharing it…

Perhaps the McCain- Palin ticket sees some important distinction between what Obama is talking about and what Palin has done to redistribute wealth in Alaska that I am missing it and I need a far greater intellect to tell the difference. However, I submit that it is at least possible that McCain and Palin are simply trying to win a campaign and are in fact self contradictory- and that seeing that only requires the analytic skills of say... a sincere fifth grader with a speck of curiosity, objectivity or self critical analysis.

Michael Scheuer: Obama and McCain Are Both Clueless On Terrorism

2008-10-26T22:53:00.005-05:00

Michael Scheuer - "Both front-runner Candidates need to tell the
American people the truth about what motivates terrorism against
America."

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

Michael F. Scheuer is a former CIA employee. In his 22-year career, he served as the Chief of the Bin Laden Issue Station (aka "Alec Station"), from 1996 to 1999, the Osama bin Laden tracking unit at the Counterterrorist Center. He then worked again as Special Advisor to the Chief of the bin Laden unit from September 2001 to November 2004.

Scheuer resigned in 2004. He is currently a news analyst for CBS News and a terrorism analyst for The Jamestown Foundation's online publication Global Terrorism Analysis.^[1] He also makes radio and television appearances and teaches a graduate-level course on Al-Qaeda at Georgetown University. He also participates in conferences on terrorism and national security issues, such as the New America Foundation's December 2004 conference, "Al Qaeda 2.0: Transnational Terrorism After 9/11." [3]

Scheuer is now known to be the anonymous author of both Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror and the earlier anonymous work, Through Our Enemies' Eyes: Osama bin Laden, Radical Islam, and the Future of America.^[2]

Osama bin Laden stated in his September 7, 2007 message:

"If you want to understand what's going on and if you would like to get to know some of the reasons for your losing the war against us, then read the book of Michael Scheuer." [4][5]

Scheuer's latest book, Marching Toward Hell: America and Islam After Iraq was released on February 12, 2008.

Not much is known about his personal history, though Scheuer was an analyst at the CIA and not a covert field operations officer. During a recent C-SPAN interview, he mentioned that he is a graduate of Canisius College. He also received a Ph.D. in British Empire-U.S.-Canada-U.K. relations from the University of Manitoba.^[3] Scheuer a 1974 graduate from Canisius university master’s degrees from Niagara University (1976) and Carleton University (1981).^[4]

In the 9/11 Commission Report, Scheuer is featured in Chapter 4, where his name is given only as "Mike". He is portrayed as being occasionally frustrated with his superiors' failure to aggressively target bin Laden.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

Osama bin Laden stated in his September 7, 2007 message:

"If you want to understand what's going on and if you would like to get to know some of the reasons for your losing the war against us, then read the book of Michael Scheuer." [4][5]

Scheuer's latest book, Marching Toward Hell: America and Islam After Iraq was released on February 12, 2008.

Israel and the Lobby

Michael Scheuer entered into the controversy surrounding the Mearsheimer and Walt paper on the "Israel Lobby". He said to NPR that Mearsheimer and Walt are basically right. Israel, according to Scheuer, has engaged in one of the most successful campaigns to influence public opinion in the United States ever conducted by a foreign government. Scheuer said to NPR that "They [Mearsheimer and Walt] should be credited for the courage they have had to actually present a paper on the subject. I hope they move on and do the Saudi lobby, which is probably more dangerous to the United States than the Israeli lobby."^[6]

In February, 2005, Scheuer gave an interview in which he discussed, among other things, Israeli lobbying in the United States.^[7] In the interview, the following exchange took place:

"QUESTIONER: I'm curious — Gary Rosen from Commentary magazine. If you could just elaborate a little bit on the clandestine ways in which Israel and presumably Jews have managed to so control debate over this fundamental foreign policy question.

SCHEUER: Well, the clandestine aspect is that, clearly, the ability to influence the Congress — that's a clandestine activity, a covert activity. You know to some extent, the idea that the Holocaust Museum here in our country is another great ability to somehow make people feel guilty about being the people who did the most to try to end the Holocaust. I find — I just find the whole debate in the United States unbearably restricted with the inability to factually discuss what goes on between our two countries."

Ron Paul

In the Republican Presidential Debate on May 15, 2007, presidential candidate Ron Paul stated that American foreign policy was a "contributing factor" in anti-Americanism in the Middle East. Rudy Giuliani denounced this as "absurd" and that he'd never heard such a thing before. In an interview on May 18, Michael Scheuer defended Paul, stating: "I thought Mr. Paul captured it the other night exactly correctly. This war is dangerous to America because it's based, not on gender equality, as Mr. Giuliani suggested, or any other kind of freedom, but simply because of what we do in the Islamic World – because "we're over there," basically, as Mr. Paul said in the debate."^[10]

On May 24, 2007, Ron Paul and Scheuer held a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. about the causes that led up to 9/11, American foreign policy and its implications on terrorism, security and Iraq.^[11] Paul and Scheuer argued that Rudy Giuliani is wrong on security and foreign policy and provided documentation about the unintended consequences of interventionism - known to many in the intelligence world as blowback - and assigned Giuliani a reading list of foreign policy books, including Dying to Win, Blowback, Imperial Hubris and the 9/11 Commission Report.^[12]

On Larry King Live, September 7, 2007, Scheuer alluded to the Fox News Republican Debate of September 5, 2007, where a Fox News moderator accused Ron Paul of taking "marching orders" from Al Qaeda. Scheuer said, "The truth of the matter is that it is all of the Democrats and the Republicans, except perhaps for Mr. Paul and Mr. Kucinich, who are marching to Osama Bin Laden's drum." Larry King Live Transcript

[edit] Iraq and al-Qaeda

Thomas Joscelyn of Weekly Standard wrote a highly critical piece on Scheuer and an interview Scheuer did on Chris Matthews Hardball. [11] Joscelyn wrote:

"When Michael Scheuer, the first head of the CIA's bin Laden unit, first emerged into public view almost a year ago, it was a curiosity how he could appear in the media--time after time--claiming that there was no evidence of a relationship between Saddam Hussein's Iraq and al Qaeda. It was curious because, in 2002, Scheuer wrote the book Through Our Enemies' Eyes, in which he cited numerous pieces of evidence showing that there was, in fact, a working relationship between Saddam and al Qaeda. That evidence directly contradicted his criticism of the intelligence that led this nation into the Iraq war, which he called a 'Christmas present' for bin Laden."

Scheuer wrote about the relationship between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda in his 2002 book (see above, 2002). Yet when interviewed in 2004 he stated that he had found no evidence of a Saddam/al-Qaeda connection. Tim Russert asked Scheuer to explain the seeming contradiction on Meet the Press (30 November 2004):

MR. SCHEUER: I certainly saw a link when I was writing the books in terms of the open-source literature, unclassified literature, but I had nothing to do with Iraq during my professional career until the run-up to the war. What I was talking about on "Hardball" was, I was assigned the duty of going back about nine or 10 years in the classified archives of the CIA. I went through roughly 19,000 documents, probably totaling 50,000 to 60,000 pages, and within that corpus of material, there was absolutely no connection in the terms of a--in the terms of a relationship.

MR. RUSSERT: But your [2002] book did point out some contacts?

MR. SCHEUER: Certainly it was available in the open-source material, yes, sir.[12]

Scheuer explains more fully in the revised edition of his 2002 book the exhaustive study of the evidence of Iraq-al-Qaeda cooperation that eventually led him to the conclusion that there was no relationship between the two forces:

For a number of reasons, I was available to perform the review of Agency files on Iraq and al Qaeda, and the chief of the bin Laden unit handed me the assignment. I was delighted with the task, eager to begin, and sure that my research would support the analysis I had presented in Through Our Enemies' Eyes. For about four weeks in late 2002 and early 2003, I and several others were engaged full time in searching CIA files -- seven days a week, often far more than eight hours a day. At the end of the effort, we had gone back ten years in the files and had reviewed nearly twenty thousand documents that amounted to well over fifty thousand pages of materials. I was both pleased and embarrassed by the results of the research. I was pleased because CIA's position was reaffirmed and the analysis of Mr. Feith's unit was discredited. There was no information that remotely supported the analysis that claimed there was a strong working relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda. I was embarrassed because this reality invalidated the analysis I had presented on the subject in my book.^[13]

Bibliography

[edit] Books

Scheuer, Michael (2003). Through Our Enemies' Eyes: Osama Bin Laden, Radical Islam & the Future of America. Brassey's Inc. ISBN 1-57488-553-7.
Scheuer, Michael (2004). Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror. Brassey's Inc. ISBN 1-57488-849-8.
Scheuer, Michael (2008). Marching Towards Hell: America and Islam After Iraq. Free Press, Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-74329-969-8.

[edit] Articles

"Battling the terrorists" Washington Times December 26, 2004.
"Unraveling the Saga of Zarqawi's Injury" Terrorism Focus 2:11 10 June 2005.
"Embracing a Lethal Tar Baby." Antiwar.com February 27, 2006.
"How Bush Helps Jihadists." Washington Times 13 March 2006.
"Al-Qaeda Doctrine: Training the Individual Warrior." Terrorism Focus 3:12 28 March 2006.
"Does Israel Conduct Covert Action in America? You Bet it Does." Antiwar.com 8 April 2006.
"Tenet Tries to Shift the Blame. Don't Buy It." Washington Post 29 April 2007.
"Reading Bin Laden's Mind: The State of the Jihad, As He Might See It." Washington Post 17 February 2008.
"Why Doesn't al-Qaeda Attack the US?" Antiwar.com May 29, 2008
"Turning the Tables on the Israel-Firsters" Antiwar.com July 16, 2008

[edit] External links

The latest Michael Scheuer articles at AntiWar.com [13]
The latest Michael Scheuer articles at Jamestown Foundation [14]

[edit] Other

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

Michael Scheuer

Michael Scheuer Young Turks Interview on Video
Bin Laden Expert Steps Forward - CBS News, November 14, 2004
Interview in 2004-08-02 The American Conservative [15]
Goss pushes change at CIA - Bill Gertz of The Washington Times, November 19, 2004
C-Span discussion (requires RealPlayer) (current file -needs updating)
12-02-04 C-Span panel appearance on the War on Terror (no link yet)
Why I resigned from the CIA, 2004-12-05 LA Times [16]
“How Not to Catch a Terrorist”, The Atlantic Monthly, 2004-12
BuzzFlash interview on January 5, 2005 [17]
PBS Frontline interview on January 25, 2005 [18]
Speech at Council on Foreign Relations on February 3, 2005 [19]
BBC Radio 4, February 8, 2005 [20]
Charles Goyette show, February 9, 2005: Part I / Part II
CBC Radio 1, The Current, April 12, 2005 [21]
Charles Goyette show, February 25, 2005: [22]
Michael Scheuer's interview with Scott Horton [23]
On NPR's Morning Edition, July 7, 2005 [24]
A photograph! [25]
34 (or more) quotations from Scheuer [26]
Leaking at All Costs Weekly Standard, November 30, 2005
Scheuer's Response to "Leaking At All Costs" Powelineblog.com December 7, 2005
"Hayden Seek" May 9, 2006 The Brian Lehrer Show
Michael Scheuer's articles at The Jamestown Foundation [27]
After a Decade at War With West, Al-Qaeda Still Impervious to Spies by Craig Whitlock of the Washington Post March 20, 2008
CIA Antiwar Radio with Scott Horton and Charles Goyette interview Michael Scheuer, Antiwar.com April 17, 2008 41 minute audio.

[edit] Notes and references

^ Global Terrorism Analysis.
^ The authorship of these books is now widely known, and advertised as such. See [1] Council on Foreign Relations, Transcript of Interview Winning or Losing? An Inside Look at the War on Terror by Nicholas Lemann Dean of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, February 3, 2005. Also see: The Phoenix
^ Georgetown Bio
^ Canisius school News Story
^ Foreign Policy: Seven Questions: Fixing U.S. Intelligence - May 16, 2006 (free registration needed to view the article)
^ Paper on Israel Lobby Sparks Heated Debate, Deborah Amos, National Public Radio, April 21, 2006
^ Council on Foreign Relations,[2], February 3, 2005
^ Michael F. Scheuer, "Bill and Dick, Osama and Sandy," Washington Times (5 July 2006).
^ "Transcript: Counterterror Experts Debate Clinton Claims on 'FNS'", Fox News (October 1, 2006).
^ Antiwar.com Blog · Michael Scheuer
^ Venue: National Press Club - Upcoming
^ Reuters: N24342743.htm U.S. candidate Paul assigns reading to Giuliani. May 24, 2007.
^ Michael Scheuer, Through Our Enemies' Eyes (revised edition). Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2006) p. 136.

The War on Voting

2008-10-26T18:58:00.005-05:00

Using the Department of Justice, friendly governors, and its usual propaganda outlets, the GOP has propagated the myth of voter fraud to purge the rolls of non-Republicans.

One week before the close of voter registration in Kentucky last fall, in an election that culminated with the victory of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Steve Beshear, Johanna Sharrard, a fresh-faced 26-year-old national organizer for the low-income advocacy group ACORN, gathered her canvassers in a run-down Louisville office and told them some good news: "We got 396 people yesterday -- that's really great!" Then she added what could have seemed a jarringly discordant note: "We know it's getting harder to reach people with the cards in this area. It's really important that you guys are not slipping up and turning to filling out your own applications or other fraudulent activity. Just yesterday we had to let another person go because she did not follow protocols." Sharrard continued sternly, "What's important is that we get 15,000 new voters. We're not out there to get 10,000 new voters and 5,000 false applications."
Indeed, the voter registration waged by ACORN (the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) in Kentucky was also an effort to test the group's new system for rooting out any fraud. The organization is readying itself for the challenges to voter participation that the poor and minorities -- and Democrats -- are sure to face in 2008.
Sharrard's cautionary tone was a response to the Republican Party's ongoing nationwide campaign to suppress the low-income minority vote by propagating the myth of voter fraud. Using various tactics -- including media smears, bogus lawsuits, restrictive new voting laws and policies, and flimsy prosecutions -- Republican operatives, election officials, and the GOP-controlled Justice Department have limited voting access and gone after voter-registration groups such as ACORN. Which should come as no surprise: In building support for initiatives raising the minimum wage and kindred ballot measures, ACORN has registered, in partnership with Project Vote, 1.6 million largely Democratic-leaning voters since 2004. All told, non-profit groups registered over three million new voters in 2004, about the same time that Republican and Justice Department efforts to publicize ?voter fraud? and limit voting access became more widespread. And attacking ACORN has been a central element of a systematic GOP disenfranchisement agenda to undermine Democratic prospects before each Election Day.
Revelations that U.S. attorneys were fired for their failure to successfully prosecute voter fraud have revealed how fictitious the allegations of widespread fraud actually were -- but the allegations haven't gone away. They live on in all the vote-suppressing laws and regulations that will likely affect this year's election, in GOP rhetoric and, most recently, in the arguments presented by champions of Indiana's restrictive voter-identification law in a case currently before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Unfortunately, progressives have tended to pay more attention to Election Day dirty tricks and to electronic voting machines than to a more systemic threat: the Republican campaign to suppress the votes of low-income, young, and minority voters through restrictive legislation and rulings, all based on the mythic specter of voter fraud. Those relatively transient voters, drawn to the polls this year by the Obama and Clinton campaigns, could find themselves thwarted in November and thereafter by the GOP-driven regime of voting restrictions -- particularly if, as many observers believe, the Court upholds Indiana's restrictive law before it adjourns this June.
Voter fraud is actually less likely to occur than lightning striking a person, according to data compiled by New York University's Brennan Center for Justice. As Lorraine Minnite, a Columbia University professor, observed in the Project Vote report, The Politics of Voter Fraud, "The claim that voter fraud threatens the integrity of American elections is itself a fraud." In October 2002, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft launched an intensive "Ballot Access and Voting Integrity Initiative" that required all U.S. attorney offices to coordinate with local officials in combating voter fraud. Yet even after the Justice Department declared the war against voter fraud a "high priority," only 24 people were convicted of illegal voting in federal elections between 2002 and 2005 -- and nobody was even charged by Justice with impersonating another voter. (The Justice Department declined to answer questions about more recent fraud prosecutions.) And despite the anti-immigrant frenzy fueling photo-ID laws, only 14 noncitizens were convicted of illegally voting in federal elections from 2002 through 2005 -- mostly because of their ignorance of election law.
Unfortunately, the public hasn't heard just how nonexistent the voter fraud epidemic actually is. While progressives have successfully challenged some of the most restrictive laws in court, they're still playing catch-up when it comes to combating the glib sound bites of voter-fraud alarmists. Republicans and the Bush Justice Department have cloaked their schemes under such noble-sounding concepts as "ballot integrity." The GOP's vote-suppression playbook features everything from phony lawsuits to questionable investigations to authoritative-seeming reports, all with the aim of promoting restrictive laws. These tactics were first perfected in the hotly contested swing state of Missouri.
The roots of John Ashcroft's passion on this issue go back to the chaos of Election Day 2000 in St. Louis, when hundreds, if not thousands, of mostly inner-city voters were turned away from polling places because their names were not on voting rolls. The resulting last-minute court battle kept some polling places open for 45 minutes after their scheduled closing time of 7 P.M. Ashcroft, then the Republican U.S. Senate nominee, lost his race to the dead Democratic governor, Mel Carnahan, whose name stayed on the ballot weeks after he died in a plane crash. At an election-night party, an infuriated Republican Sen. Kit Bond pounded the podium and screamed, "This is an outrage!" -- and subsequently charged that Republican losses were due in part to dogs and dead people voting. As one local government official observed, "In St. Louis, 'dogs and dead people' is code for black people [voting fraudulently]."
That election night gave birth to the new right-wing voter-fraud movement, while Missouri became a proving ground for the vote-suppression campaigns that later spread to other key states. Missouri's then-Secretary of State Matt Blunt, now governor, launched a trumped-up investigation that concluded that more than 1,000 fraudulent ballots had been cast in an organized scheme. A Justice Department Civil Rights Division investigation, started before Ashcroft shifted the department's priorities, found no fraudulent ballots, however. Instead, it discovered that the St. Louis election board had improperly purged 50,000 voters from the rolls.
Nonetheless, the template for smear campaigns, groundless lawsuits, and politicized prosecutions used across the country had been set in Missouri. Key roles were played by many of the same GOP zealots who later made their mark on the national drive to fight voter fraud, among them St. Louis attorney Thor Hearne, the 2004 Bush-Cheney campaign election counsel who later launched the GOP front group, the American Center for Voting Rights (ACVR). And as early as 2002, the executive director of the Missouri Republican Party pioneered a new dirty trick: publicly "filing" with the Federal Election Commission a 26-page complaint against the state's leading registration group, known as Pro Vote, that charged it with secretly conspiring with Democrats in the Senate race -- but then failing to sign the document so the agency never considered it.
The goal of such complaints and allegations was to create a barrage of negative publicity about voter-registration groups and the voter-fraud menace that could pave the way for restrictive laws. In Missouri, the Republicans' cries for a new state photo-ID law began in 2002, before the GOP blitz in most other states. The legislature passed such a bill in early 2006, before it was struck down that September by a Missouri state court as unconstitutional.
The GOP in Missouri also turned to prosecutions and lawsuits, most either overblown or groundless. In November 2005, Bradley Schlozman, then the Justice Department's acting civil-rights chief, insisted on filing a lawsuit that accused Missouri's secretary of state, Robin Carnahan, a Democrat, of failing to purge supposedly ineligible voters under federal law. (U.S. Attorney Todd Graves was forced out in March 2006 for having balked at filing the suit.) A federal judge, who found that the Justice Department did not produce any evidence showing fraud justifying the purges, dismissed the lawsuit in April 2007. The department continues to appeal the ruling.
The fraud-obsessed Schlozman was then moved into Graves' old post without Senate confirmation, through a loophole in the Patriot Act. In an apparent effort to discredit both Democrats and ACORN, just five days before the tight Senate election in 2006 between incumbent Republican Jim Talent and Democrat Claire McCaskill, Schlozman announced, in violation of the department's own standards, the indictment of four former ACORN workers who had been fired by ACORN for filling out false voter-registration forms. The indictments were part of a broader effort to tilt the campaign against Democrats by bashing ACORN and limiting voter access. St. Louis' Republican election director, Scott Leiendecker, sent out a chilling letter shortly before the election to 5,000 mostly African Americans registered by ACORN, asking them to verify to the election board that they were eligible to vote. Leiendecker backed off after he faced the threat of a voting-rights lawsuit and received a warning letter from Secretary of State Carnahan.
*** What began in Missouri soon went nationwide. Starting in 2003, the Justice Department's civil-rights division issued a flurry of advisory letters, rulings, and lawsuits under the guise of fighting fraud that appear designed to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of voters. Federal and state courts have struck down some of the laws shaped by policies promoted by the Justice Department, such as strict database-matching laws limiting new voters in Washington state and Florida. Even so, Justice Department-backed secretive purging policies have targeted voter-registration applicants and current voters in several key states: In Ohio in 2006, 303,000 voters were purged in three major urban counties, while the Brennan Center reported that Pennsylvania's rigid database rules, later loosened, had excluded up to 30 percent of eligible registrants. Karl Rove aide Tim Griffin played a major role in state GOP voter "caging" operations (that is, challenging the eligibility of registered voters) in such states as Ohio and Florida. These schemes, Project Vote reports, challenged the right of 77,000 mostly minority voters to cast ballots between 2004 and 2006, under the pretext that non-forwardable letters sent by GOP activists to their addresses were returned as undelivered. Thor Hearne's now-vanished ACVR lobbied for strict voter-ID laws in nine states, according to McClatchy and other news organizations. Voter-ID laws in states such as Georgia, Arizona, and Indiana have, for now, been allowed to stand.
All these campaigns have created a kind of GOP vote-suppression playbook that aims to limit voting rights in the states and attack registration groups such as ACORN. In most states where ACORN wages ballot-initiative and voter-registration campaigns, Republican lawyers, officials, and some prosecutors routinely file dubious lawsuits and complaints to generate bad press for the voter-registration drives. The lawsuits seldom if ever succeed, but the bad press they engender creates a climate to pass restrictive voting laws.
In New Mexico by the summer of 2004, ACORN's effort to register voters in advance of the closely fought presidential election was a stunning success: The organization registered 35,000 voters, mostly in the Albuquerque area. "Republicans were freaking out," recalls John Boyd, an attorney for the state Democratic Party. Republicans accused ACORN of "manufacturing voters," conflating error-plagued cards with fraud while trumpeting one registration card filled out in the name of a 13-year-old boy. The boy's card became the centerpiece of the lawsuit Rep. Joe Thompson, an Albuquerque Republican, filed in August 2004 demanding that the state government require photo ID for voters registered by ACORN and other nonprofits. The lawsuit claimed that the Republican plaintiffs' votes were "diluted" by supposedly false registrations.
Their case fell apart in court, and by September, a judge dismissed the lawsuit. But Republicans were not deterred by their loss in civil court and pressed for a criminal investigation, a probe which U.S. Attorney for New Mexico David Iglesias started on the same day that the court ruled against the GOP. Iglesias was a true believer in the menace of voter fraud. As one of just two U.S. attorneys in the nation to form such task forces, he was invited to lecture other U.S. attorneys in 2005 as part of the annual Justice Department ballot-integrity conference.
Iglesias' efforts weren't enough for Patrick Rogers, the Republican National Lawyers Association point person in the state, who mounted a campaign to pressure Iglesias to bring criminal charges before the election, rather than form a task force. Indeed, even before Iglesias concluded in 2006 that there wasn't enough evidence to indict on voter fraud, major Republicans in the state had started asking the Bush administration for his removal. In early December 2006, Iglesias was one of seven U.S. attorneys whom the Justice Department fired.
Today, Iglesias says of voter fraud: "It's like the boogeymen parents use to scare their children. It's very frightening, and it doesn't exist. U.S. attorneys have better things to do with their time than chasing voter-fraud phantoms."
But the damage of chasing phantoms proved more substantial. In 2005, the state legislature, with the blessing of its Democratic governor, Bill Richardson, passed legislation that essentially crippled the ability of groups like ACORN to do mass voter registration. In 2006, ACORN had only 10 certified canvassers in the whole state, and registration plunged to 2,000 new applicants from 35,000 two years before, according to ACORN's top New Mexico organizer, Matt Henderson.
In Florida in 2004, ACORN's initiative to raise the state's minimum wage looked to be cruising to victory (it won with 71 percent of the vote), and brought in over 200,000 newly registered voters. That led business lobbies and the GOP to find a poster boy for fraud in a fired ACORN employee and ex-con named Mac Stuart, who spun elaborate tales of ACORN squirreling away hundreds of GOP voter applications it gathered but did not turn over to election officials. Republican attorneys filed two lawsuits featuring Stuart's claims. After the election, Stuart ultimately conceded that he made false statements about ACORN. In December 2005, federal judges dismissed both lawsuits.
But in the same month, the legislature passed one of the most restrictive voting-registration laws in the country. The new law fined every registration worker $5,000 for any lost application, potentially wiping out the entire budget of the state League of Women Voters if just 14 forms were lost and forcing the group to stop registering voters for the first time in over 70 years. It was not until August 2006 that a federal judge blocked enforcement of the law. However, a slightly revised version passed last year.
Responding to the GOP-generated hysteria over voter fraud, criminal investigations were launched in 2004 and 2005 in Wisconsin, Colorado, Florida, and Ohio, with ACORN often a target. But by the end of 2005, the investigations ended after finding either no evidence of wrongdoing by ACORN or any pervasive voter fraud. Nationally, only six former ACORN employees were charged with registration fraud or other election-related crimes in the 2004 election, offenses involving fewer than 20 forms. That's out of 1 million new voters registered by ACORN during that cycle.
Yet Thor Hearne, among others, took advantage of these assorted investigations and news accounts about fraud to create the fictional appearance of an epidemic, then added some fabrications of his own. Perhaps the wildest ACVR whopper -- seized on by The Wall Street Journal as late as November 2006 -- was the charge that ACORN and an affiliated group were under criminal investigation for "paying crack cocaine for fraudulent registration forms." Actually, the tale originated with the arrest of a Toledo-area man who may have received drugs while working for another volunteer for a now-defunct organization, not ACORN. Without substantiation, ACVR identified Democratic-leaning cities as hotspots for fraud. They were generally the same locations where U.S. attorneys later faced pressure over prosecutions, including Seattle, St. Louis, and Milwaukee. (The one exception to overblown investigations targeting ACORN was the indictment last year by a local Seattle prosecutor, welcomed by ACORN, of seven rogue ex-employees who had fabricated nearly 2,000 registration forms.)
The hyped reports, indictments, and hearings had their intended effect after the 2004 elections. Nearly 30 states considered bills to require photo ID or proof of citizenship to register or vote. While most of these measures haven't yet passed, those that have can be severe: An Arizona law requiring proof of citizenship to register has disenfranchised up to 60 percent of applicants in some counties.
Over the past few years, what began as local phony lawsuits and investigations escalated into a concerted drive by the Civil Rights Division to restrict voting. Since 2004, the goal of the state GOP vote-caging initiatives has become official Justice Department policy. The department has also promoted the equivalent of caging by pressuring 16 states and cities to speed up their purging of hundreds of thousands of voters through letters and lawsuits, as first reported by Alternet.
Alarmingly, the insubstantiality of the claims of pervasive voter fraud may not deter the U.S. Supreme Court from upholding Indiana's restrictive voter-ID law -- which, according to a new University of Washington study, could disenfranchise the more than 20 percent of the state's African American voters who lack the ID required by Indiana's law. Amazingly, Indiana has admitted that there hasn't been a single alleged case of in-person voter fraud in the state's history. Instead, Indiana's attorneys and legal allies, including the federal government, have submitted virtually nothing but unverified newspaper clippings and right-wing claims about fraud allegations in other states.
Indeed, the Supreme Court, in a little-noticed comment in an earlier ruling on Arizona's ID law, has already granted government the leeway to enact laws denying the vote based merely on fears of fraud, regardless of evidence. But outside of the world of voting experts, little attention has been paid to the lack of evidence in the federal court rulings leading up to the Indiana case. As Wendy Weiser of the Brennan Center observes, "The way this case has been decided so far [in lower courts] is that a state doesn't have to justify measures to suppress the vote."
The Supreme Court is expected to issue its Indiana ruling in the next few months, and it's considered unlikely that the Court will strike down the law.
*** These days, weakened by the publicity over the U.S. attorneys scandal, the savvier voter-fraud propagandists are shifting their now-discredited arguments about massive voting by illegal immigrants to yet another "menace": "double voting." Republicans and some newspapers point to lists of the same names in different states to claim there has been large-scale double voting. Yet such sweeping double-voting claims are almost always due to administrative errors and the statistical probability that people with the same name and birth date will show up in large pools of voters.
Regardless of the facts, the drive for new voter-ID restrictions will likely be strengthened in the wake of the upcoming Supreme Court decision. There's little sign that progressives or Democrats are going to launch what the Brennan Center's Deborah Goldberg has called the "huge public education effort" needed to raise awareness about the problems with voter-ID laws. Democrats seemingly haven't yet grasped the political importance of fighting these restrictive policies, though they could prove a major impediment to minority voting (and if minorities voted at the same rate as whites, there would be 7.5 million more voters on Election Day).
But Johanna Sharrard and other ACORN leaders aren't going to be deterred by Republican obstacles and smears as they gear up for new registration drives this year that could be their most successful yet. Sharrard's campaign in Kentucky last year brought in over 14,000 new voters, a state record. And after seeing all the attacks against ACORN in Missouri and elsewhere, she realizes, "It's a good motivator; it showed us that that things we were doing are important." It's an open question, though, whether progressives will realize that it's worth fighting to make sure that the voters ACORN is trying to reach will actually have their votes count.
Research assistance for this article was provided bvy the Investigative Fund of the Nation Institute.

Art Levine is a contributing editor of U.S. News and World Report and of The Washington Monthly and has written for The New Republic, The Atlantic Monthly, and many other publications.

By Liza Porteus Viana
Oct 17th 2008 5:52PM

Barack Obama's campaign fought back hard today against the ongoing accusations that the Illinois senator is connected to voter fraud.

Obama general counsel Robert Bauer wrote to Attorney General Michael Mukasey, asking that a special prosecutor look into what role, if any, Justice Department and White House officials have had in supporting the McCain-Palin campaign and the Republican National Committee's "systematic development and dissemination of unsupported, spurious allegations of vote fraud."

The Republican White House ticket has been hammering Obama on his connection to ACORN, a voter-registration group being investigated by the FBI for voter fraud.

The special prosecutor on the case is Nora Dannehy, the same one investigating the removal of U.S. attorneys by the Bush administration.

Obama's camp says the same exact type of improper behavior that led to the firing of some of those U.S. attorneys several years ago - removals based on "improper political factors, including to affect the way they handled certain voter fraud or public corruption investigations and prosecutions" in 2006 - is being acted out now by Republican Party officials around the country.

"It has become clear, in these remaining weeks of the Presidential campaign, that 'the fact and law require' the Special Prosecutor's urgent attention to recent partisan Republican activities throughout the country," Bauer writes. "These activities seek both to suppress the vote and to unduly influence investigations and prosecutions through baseless allegations of vote fraud - exactly as in the 2006 election cycle."

Some of those activities cited included GOP claims of "fraud" by John McCain and Sarah Palin surrounding ACORN, and Republican lawmakers calling on the DOJ to launch an investigation into "these manufactured allegations of 'fraud'" involving ACORN. Bauer said those McCain-Pain surrogates who have sent such letters include: Sens. George Voinovich of Ohio, John Cornyn of Texas, and Reps. Roy Blunt of Missouri and Paul Ryan of Wisconsin.

"Of course, the timing of the opening of this investigation and leaking of this information is damning, 19 days before the general election - and less than 24 hours after the Republican Presidential nominee announced the advent of fraud so pervasive that it threatened the very 'fabric of democracy,'" Bauer writes.

But the McCain-Palin attack against ACORN marches on.

Palin today said Obama hasn't been forthcoming about his ties to the Association of Community Activists for Reform Now, even though Obama has said he doesn't have any significant links to the group.

"You deserve to know," Palin told thousands surrounding her stage in a suburban community park in Ohio. "This group needs to learn that you here in Ohio won't let them turn the Buckeye State into the Acorn State."

In a press call today, Bauer said ACORN is not "an agent of this campaign, they did not perform registration services for this campaign."

McCain-Palin campaign manager Rick Davis told reporters Friday that he sent a letter to Obama campaign manager David Plouffe, encouraging them to join a group called "The Honest and Open Election Committee" organized by the McCain campaign.

"We've gotten little to no response back from the Obama campaign on this issue," Davis said, adding that you can't just "blow off" these allegations as a "cynical ploy to reduce voter turnout," "like David Plouffe did."

The ACORN allegations are "not anything less than disturbing," Davis added.

To add to the ACORN debacle, AP reports that the group has another nasty issue on its agenda when its board of directors meets in New Orleans this weekend: missing money.

ACORN leaders are locked in a legal dispute stemming from allegations that the brother of the group's founder misappropriated nearly $1 million of the nonprofit's money several years ago. The embezzlement case has spawned a lawsuit and set off a power struggle inside ACORN.

Bertha Lewis, ACORN's interim chief organizer, called the lawsuit "a distraction from us marshaling our forces to deal with the Republican right-wing attacks" over ACORN's voter registration.

This all came on the heels of the High court rejecting the GOP in Ohio voting dispute.
Republicans had won an order that the state do more to check eligibility but were overturned by the USSC.

Iglesias: "I'm Astounded" By DOJ's ACORN Probe

By Zachary Roth - October 16, 2008, 6:50PM

David Iglesias says he's shocked by the news, leaked today to the Associated Press, that the FBI is pursuing a voter-fraud investigation into ACORN just weeks before the election.
"I'm astounded that this issue is being trotted out again," Iglesias told TPMmuckraker. "Based on what I saw in 2004 and 2006, it's a scare tactic." In 2006, Iglesias was fired as U.S. attorney thanks partly to his reluctance to pursue voter-fraud cases as aggressively as DOJ wanted -- one of several U.S. attorneys fired for inappropriate political reasons, according to a recently released report by DOJ's Office of the Inspector General.
Iglesias, who has been the most outspoken of the fired U.S. attorneys, went on to say that the FBI's investigation seemed designed to inappropriately create a "boogeyman" out of voter fraud.
And he added that it "stands to reason" that the investigation was launched in response to GOP complaints. In recent weeks, national Republican figures -- including John McCain at last night's debate -- have sought to make an issue out of ACORN's voter-registration activities.
As we noted earlier, last year, Sen. Dianne Feinstein publicly highlighted changes made to DOJ's election crimes manual, which lowered the bar for voter-fraud prosecutions, and made it easier to bring vote-fraud cases close to the election.
Speaking today to TPMmuckraker, Iglesias called such changes "extremely problematic."
The way in which the news was revealed today -- Associated Press sourced its report to two "senior law enforcement officials" who "spoke on condition of anonymity because Justice Department regulations forbid discussing ongoing investigations particularly so close to an election" -- is also raising eyebrows.
Both Iglesias and Bud Cummins -- another of the U.S. attorneys who, according to the IG report, was also fired for political reasons -- told TPMmuckraker that DOJ guidelines do allow US attorneys to speak publicly about an investigation, even before bringing an indictment, if it's to allay public concern over an issue.
But that certainly wouldn't cover anonymous leaks. "If you can't say it with your name on it, it's fair to say you should not be saying it," Cummins told TPMmuckraker.
Earlier this afternoon, House Judiciary Chair John Conyers (D-MI) released a letter he sent to Attorney General Michael Mukasey and FBI director Robert Mueller, which connected today's news to the U.S. attorney firings, and to recent GOP efforts to stoke fears over voter fraud.

My Priorites for the 2008 Election

2008-10-26T18:10:00.004-05:00

I recently read an article by Jim Wallis of Sojourners magazine entitled "My Personal 'Faith Priorities' for this Election". I agree with his priorities as listed which are as follows.

"I am in no position to tell anyone what is "non-negotiable," and neither is any bishop or megachurch pastor, but let me tell you the "faith priorities" and values I will be voting on this year:

With more than 2,000 verses in the Bible about how we treat the poor and oppressed, I will examine the record, plans, policies, and promises made by the candidates on what they will do to overcome the scandal of extreme global poverty and the shame of such unnecessary domestic poverty in the richest nation in the world. Such a central theme of the Bible simply cannot be ignored at election time, as too many Christians have done for years. And any solution to the economic crisis that simply bails out the rich, and even the middle class, but ignores those at the bottom should simply be unacceptable to people of faith.

From the biblical prophets to Jesus, there is, at least, a biblical presumption against war and the hope of beating our swords into instruments of peace. So I will choose the candidates who will be least likely to lead us into more disastrous wars and find better ways to resolve the inevitable conflicts in the world and make us all safer. I will choose the candidates who seem to best understand that our security depends upon other people’s security (everyone having "their own vine and fig tree, so no one can make them afraid," as the prophets say) more than upon how high we can build walls or a stockpile of weapons. Christians should never expect a pacifist president, but we can insist on one who views military force only as a very last resort, when all other diplomatic and economic measures have failed, and never as a preferred or habitual response to conflict.

"Choosing life" is a constant biblical theme, so I will choose candidates who have the most consistent ethic of life, addressing all the threats to human life and dignity that we face — not just one. Thirty-thousand children dying globally each day of preventable hunger and disease is a life issue. The genocide in Darfur is a life issue. Health care is a life issue. War is a life issue. The death penalty is a life issue. And on abortion, I will choose candidates who have the best chance to pursue the practical and proven policies which could dramatically reduce the number of abortions in America and therefore save precious unborn lives, rather than those who simply repeat the polarized legal debates and "pro-choice" and "pro-life" mantras from either side.

God’s fragile creation is clearly under assault, and I will choose the candidates who will likely be most faithful in our care of the environment. In particular, I will choose the candidates who will most clearly take on the growing threat of climate change, and who have the strongest commitment to the conversion of our economy and way of life to a cleaner, safer, and more renewable energy future. And that choice could accomplish other key moral priorities like the redemption of a dangerous foreign policy built on Middle East oil dependence, and the great prospects of job creation and economic renewal from a new "green" economy built on more spiritual values of conservation, stewardship, sustainability, respect, responsibility, co-dependence, modesty, and even humility.

Every human being is made in the image of God, so I will choose the candidates who are most likely to protect human rights and human dignity. Sexual and economic slavery is on the rise around the world, and an end to human trafficking must become a top priority. As many religious leaders have now said, torture is completely morally unacceptable, under any circumstances, and I will choose the candidates who are most committed to reversing American policy on the treatment of prisoners. And I will choose the candidates who understand that the immigration system is totally broken and needs comprehensive reform, but must be changed in ways that are compassionate, fair, just, and consistent with the biblical command to "welcome the stranger."

Healthy families are the foundation of our community life, and nothing is more important than how we are raising up the next generation. As the father of two young boys, I am deeply concerned about the values our leaders model in the midst of the cultural degeneracy assaulting our children. Which candidates will best exemplify and articulate strong family values, using the White House and other offices as bully pulpits to speak of sexual restraint and integrity, marital fidelity, strong parenting, and putting family values over economic values? And I will choose the candidates who promise to really deal with the enormous economic and cultural pressures that have made parenting such a "countercultural activity" in America today, rather than those who merely scapegoat gay people for the serious problems of heterosexual family breakdown.

That is my list of personal "faith priorities" for the election year of 2008, but they are not "non-negotiables" for anyone else. It’s time for each of us to make up our own list in these next 12 days. Make your list and send this on to your friends and family members, inviting them to do the same thing."

Sarah Palin Refuses To Answer Whether Or Not Abortion Clinic Bombers Are Terrorists

2008-10-26T14:20:00.003-05:00

In her interview with NBC’s Brian Williams, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin said that Bill Ayers is “no question” a terrorist because he sought to destroy the U.S. Capitol and the Pentagon. Palin, however, refused to apply the same label to abortion clinic bombers:

Q: Is an abortion clinic bomber a terrorist, under this definition, governor?
PALIN: (Sigh). There’s no question that Bill Ayers via his own admittance was one who sought to destroy our U.S. Capitol and our Pentagon. That is a domestic terrorist. There’s no question there. Now, others who would want to engage in harming innocent Americans or facilities that uh, it would be unacceptable. I don’t know if you’re going to use the word terrorist there.

The FBI and other government security institutions may differ with Ms. Palin on this one. It is just about intellectually impossible to back a candidate with this kind of logic problems... at least for me. -SS

Abortion clinic bombers not terrorists?

2 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, who has accused Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama of "palling around with terrorists," has refused to call people who bomb abortion clinics by the same name.When asked Thursday night by NBC television presenter Brian Williams whether an abortion clinic bomber was a terrorist, Palin heaved a sigh and, at first, circumvented the question.
"There's no question that Bill Ayers by his own admittance was one who sought to destroy our US Capitol and our Pentagon. That is a domestic terrorist," Palin said, referring to a 1960s leftist who founded a radical violent gang dubbed the "Weathermen" -- and who years later supported Obama's first run for public office in the state of Illinois.
"Now, others who would want to engage in harming innocent Americans or facilities that it would be unacceptable to... I don't know if you're gonna use the word 'terrorist' there," the ardently pro-life running mate of John McCain said.
Early this month, after the New York Times ran an article highlighting the ties between Obama and Ayers, Palin told a campaign rally in Colorado that Obama "sees America it seems as being so imperfect that he's palling around with terrorists who would target their own country."
Attacks on doctors who practice abortion and on family planning clinics in the United States in the 1980s and 1990s left several people dead and scores wounded.
Eric Rudolph, the extreme right winger who planted a bomb at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996, which killed one person, was sentenced three years ago to two life terms in jail for an abortion clinic bombing in Alabama in which a policeman was killed.

I am wondering what is so difficult about the question. How could a person not just say, "Of course they are, anytime a person or political interest group resorts to planting bombs to inflict violence and/or damage and intimidation to promote any political agenda they are essentially operating with the same philosophy of jihadists like Osama bin Laden."

I can tell you why she didn't say that. Its because she is not morally grounded or intelligent enough to figure that out.

When she didn't say something like that she implied as much- that she was either ignorant and/or morally stunted or that she condoned the practice. It was she that put those words in her own mouth as implied by her lack of willingness to state what should be obvious. It is my personal belief that she probably thinks of abortion clinic bombers as noble warriors of God or at least that she has some kind of sympathy for such TERRORIST acts. Then again I suppose such a definition would raise several valid questions about American foreign and domestic policy...
like what makes an atomic bomb moral and a carbomb immoral?

Now, check this out: McCain’s Terror Connection: G. Gordon Liddy

McCain’s Terror Connection: G. Gordon Liddy

2008-10-24T23:52:00.000-05:00

John McCain.

Here’s what the mainstream media won’t tell you when they’re busying parroting the Republican line on how what William Ayers did when Barack Obama was 8 actually having any relevance.

As Media Matters for America has noted, Liddy served four and a half years in prison in connection with his conviction for his role in the Watergate break-in and the break-in at the office of the psychiatrist of Daniel Ellsberg, the military analyst who leaked the Pentagon Papers. Liddy has acknowledged preparing to kill someone during the Ellsberg break-in “if necessary”; plotting to murder journalist Jack Anderson; plotting with a “gangland figure” to murder Howard Hunt to stop him from cooperating with investigators; plotting to firebomb the Brookings Institution; and plotting to kidnap “leftist guerillas” at the 1972 Republican National Convention — a plan he outlined to the Nixon administration using terminology borrowed from the Nazis. (The murder, firebombing, and kidnapping plots were never carried out; the break-ins were.) During the 1990s, Liddy reportedly instructed his radio audience on multiple occasions on how to shoot Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms agents and also reportedly said he had named his shooting targets after Bill and Hillary Clinton.

Liddy has donated $5,000 to McCain’s campaigns since 1998, including $1,000 in February 2008. In addition, McCain has appeared on Liddy’s radio show during the presidential campaign, including as recently as May. An online video labeled “John McCain On The G. Gordon Liddy Show 11/8/07″ includes a discussion between Liddy and McCain, whom Liddy described as an “old friend.” During the segment, McCain praised Liddy’s “adherence to the principles and philosophies that keep our nation great,” said he was “proud” of Liddy, and said that “it’s always a pleasure for me to come on your program.”

Liddy called for the murder of federal agents, served time in jail, plotted murder - and after that, John McCain applauded him and took his money.

Al Qaeda-Linked Web Site Backs McCain for President

2008-10-22T20:26:00.002-05:00

Terror group supporters seek 'big operation' against U.S. to 'push Americans deliberately to vote for McCain'

I picked this article up HERE from the Fox news Website.

WASHINGTON -- Al Qaeda supporters suggested in a Web site message this week they would welcome a pre-election terror attack on the U.S. as a way to usher in a McCain presidency.

The message, posted Monday on the password-protected al-Hesbah Web site, said if Al Qaeda wants to exhaust the United States militarily and economically, "impetuous" Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain is the better choice because he is more likely to continue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"This requires presence of an impetuous American leader such as McCain, who pledged to continue the war till the last American soldier," the message said. "Then, Al Qaeda will have to support McCain in the coming elections so that he continues the failing march of his predecessor, Bush."

SITE Intelligence Group, based in Bethesda, Maryland, monitors the Web site and translated the message.

"If Al Qaeda carries out a big operation against American interests," the message said, "this act will be support of McCain because it will push the Americans deliberately to vote for McCain so that he takes revenge for them against Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda then will succeed in exhausting America till its last year in it."

Mark Salter, a senior McCain adviser, said he had heard about the Web site chatter but had no immediate comment.

The message is credited to a frequent and apparently respected contributor named Muhammad Haafid. However, Haafid is not believed to have a direct affiliation with Al Qaeda plans or knowledge of its operations, according to SITE.

SITE senior analyst Adam Raisman said this message caught SITE's attention because there has been little other chatter on the forums about the U.S. election.

SITE was struck by the message's detailed analysis -- and apparent jubilation -- about American financial woes.

"What we try to do is get the pulse of the jihadist community," Raisman said. "And it's about the financial crisis."

Al Qaeda leader Usama bin Laden issued a videotape just four days before the 2004 U.S. presidential election directly addressing the American people.