Republicans in Congress are the new Carpetbaggers!

Well, the Republicans went to Congress in January and became Carpetbaggers, sitting in their leather chairs and scheming how to undercut the democratic administration. As soon as they can, they will start cosying up again with their lobbying friends raising soft money from corporate financiers, and scheming to undercut the government’s food safety program, or our education programs, or our health care, or the retirement benefits of the elderly, and the food stamp programs for the homeless. 

Democrats had better go ahead and do their own thing. There is no healing this country. Hopefully, the democrats can save us from the destructiveness of the Right Wing.

The democrats should now simply run the government and stop listening to these sad and greedy little people.

Moderate Republican Senators Wield Great Power in New Senate

Not since the era of Richard Nixon have moderate Republicans wielded the power that today a few moderate Republican Senators wield. In those years, Republicans were not so rigidly identified with business and religious interests. That all changed with Ronald Reagan, whose influence extended into all facits of his party. Reagan pushed his own party to the right, resulting in the virulent, uncompromising politics of Newt Gingrich, George W. Bush, and John McCain. It is now plain that the “Change” promised by McCain in his 2008 campaign was hypocrisy and deception. He is at one with his right-wing friends in the Senate, and any possibility that he will be seen as a potential ally for change in the Senate is over.

The fact now is that, given the limited loyalty of Blue Dog Democrat party members in the Senate, the Obama administration is dependent upon a few moderate Republican senators to get his programs through a recalcitrant Senate.

If we needed any reminder, the country is still severely divided between the archconservative business and fundamentalist interests versus the progressive, liberal, and democratic left. But then, Obama only won by 4 percent of the popular vote. We shouldn’t be surprised when Obama has only limited success in fulfilling his promises with a virulent right-wing committed to stopping his reforms.

AARP urges everyone to vote on November 4th!

Will you vote on November 4^th or before? I hope so. AARP has a new video urging people to vote, and you really ought to see it. See you at the polls!

Check out the AARP video at:

http://www.aarpvote08.org/

 

 

Russian invasion of Georgia marks another failure of American intelligence services

With all the hoopla at the Beijing Olympics, both press and public have missed one big issue. While we watched President Bush playing volleyball with bikini-wearing Olympians and posing for pictures with vacationing Americans, Russia invaded Georgia.

Why has no one asked why America again got caught flat-footed, with no forewarning and with the President out of town, when Russian tanks rolled into Georgia? During the first hours of the Russian invasion, the President was interviewed entertaining himself in China. There seemed to be no emergency, no hurry, no announcement from the White House, and no urgency to return home to consult with his military or intelligence chiefs.

By the time Bush got back to the United States, the Russian invasion was already a rout, making our technical assistance and miliary training of Georgian troops look pretty ineffective. Then we witnessed a shaking and nervous President delivering his first real denouncing of the Russian move outside the White House and a grim Secretary of State being sent flying off to meet with the President of Georgia to “negotiate a cease fire” the Russians had no intention of honoring.

It would seem that Russia’s intrigues to re-establish its hegemony in the old Soviet Republics is by far the worst threat to America, yet Bush continues to tie up all the American military machine in chasing Taliban in Afghanistan and keeping a quarter million troops and supply personnel tied down in an endless war in Iraq. We have been left by these bankrupt policies without any options when some new front opens up. And this is a WAR president? For a War President, Bush has a habit of getting caught with his pants down in emergencies.

You’ve got to wonder how this government keeps its supporters with policies like this. Bush and American Intelligence (and intelligence) must be the laughing stock of Russia these days.

American Foreign Policy towards Russia an Issue for both Obama and McCain

Russia’s most recent thrust into Georgia has unsettled the entire world balance of power. Despite George Bush’s response of sabre rattling and sending his Secretary of State to Georgia to “negotiate a new cease fire”, he has already lost the battle and left the West much weakened. Why? Because he has tied up American forces in two theatres–Afghanistan and Iraq–and left nothing in reserve to meet the newly aggressive Russia which is moving towards re-establishing its hegemony in Asia. Putin’s ambitions to re-establish the Soviet Union and de-stabilize the newly emerging democracies surrounding him are now revealed. This is America’s most important foreign policy threat and our most critical strategic weakness, and it was naively ignored so that Bush could go “adventuring” with his military allies in the Middle East…a swamp in which America has been effectively bogged down in for 5 years and may be for another “100 years” if McCain has his way.

Bush’s adventuring in the Middle East has gained the West nothing but a never ending conflict that eats up national resources and our military muscle, while Russian tyranny again moves to re-establish its power to counter and undermine World democracies. The greedy argument of occupying Iraq to ensure our supplies of oil is a weak one. In the current crisis, we don’t need oil but energy. Republican loyalities to the oil industry have long been misplaced, idealizing “business” over national strategic interests to always keep enough military assets available to face an unexpected threat. America should have been developing alternative energy sources since the fall of the Iron Curtain, but instead we defended the oil companies and our wasteful energy-intensive lifestyles. Now, not only will world oil supplies remain stressed as China and India continue their upward demands, but the Republican Party has prevented the development of the alternative energy technologies we now so desperately need. So we’re in a recession, facing inflation and quadrupled oil prices too.

It is a tragedy that politicians such as McCain continue their naive and narrow minded pursuit of “winning”an  emperialist adventure for oil that never should have been launched in the first place…a foreign policy blunder of the first magnitude…now revealed as a stupid, naive mistake that has betrayed not only America but the Western and new eastern democracies which need American strength to counter Russian threats. Unfortunately, Bush’s sabre rattling is now empty. America has no resources to place on the line against the new Russian threat and to stop the rolling tanks.

Obama Attempts to Shift US Perspective on Foreign Policies

In his speeches this week in Europe and Middle East, Obama has attempted to present a recasting of the US interest in these regions of the world, but few seem to be listening to the real message underlying his words. US media continues to ask the same questions which have lead the US to mistakenly adopt the anti-democratic policies of the Bush Administration. And if Obama doesn’t realize that he must recast the questions of this debate, the US will again elect a Republican majority and President who blindly follows the dark worldview of this Presidency into every escalating conflict and war. America is locked in a dark projection of its worst excesses upon others in the world who disagrees with Her, and She has embarked upon a militaristic foreign policy to force its Will upon the World.

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One thing you’ve got to give the Republicans credit for: they’ve embraced a dark worldview based upon fear and have successfully sold that view to the American public. Today’s America is darkly different than even the America of Ronald Reagan. Today, we support a President who confidently ignores American opinion about the Iraq War and a disastrous economic record, and that Presidency is uniformly backed by his party in Congress and hand-picked appointments to the Supreme Court. In its determination to restrict the role of Congress and the Supreme Court to 200 year old views of the nation, the Republican Party has become a force for totalitarian excesses in the Heartland and across the globe.

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This president has uniformly ignored the Congressional Branch of the Federal Government and has packed the Supreme Court with right-wing ideologues. And in the name of protecting “American values” and the public–lead by a fundamentalist religious constituency and a wealthy business class–has put in place policies that have politicized the role of religion in America, broken the safeguards against spying on American citizens, watered down our Constitutional protections of habeas corpus and ignored International Law and courts in their criticism of our human rights abuses.

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In fact, when one looks at what the Bush Administration and the religious right has accomplished to destructively impact democracy in the United States, you have to ask whether we are describing America or Iran. We have built a War Machine that has been wildly profitable for American business and rebuilt the Military Industrial Complex President Eisenhower warmed us about in the 1950‘s. We have restored a military that was badly demoralized following the Vietnam conflict and make it the frontispiece of American foreign policy. It is apparent that we are still determined not to learn the lesson of that conflict, and so we are off again on our power grabs anywhere we see an opportunity to grab some wealth or influence over others. What the people in power do not see is that there will never be an end to this. We will always have an excuse and argument to “keep our troops in patrol”, protecting us, fighting the patriotic fight. We will never stand down in Iraq with this worldview. We will never leave Afghanistan with this worldview. We will forever be fighting the Forever War with this Worldview.

 

Someone has got to begin thinking differently about these issues and seeing this conflict we are engaged in in a more even-handed context.

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It is now the opinions of military leaders that guide our choices of political leaders and foreign policy rather than the other way around. And trillions of dollars are allocated to military purposes while the federal government is systematically gutted, the national infrastructure of roads and bridges have been ignored, the need for major initiatives in energy and environment have been put off in defense of the oil industry and military objectives, and social programs like social security and Medicare hated by business interests are put into jeopardy.

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The way in which this Administration has behaved makes it clear that this party in power is guided by the same principles and methods as Al Queda or Iran. Murder, torture, invasion, occupation of foreign countries by invading armies, imprisonment without charges, incarceration without the right to legal representation, ignoring constitutional guarantees, unilaterally declaring that laws passed by Congress would not be followed, human rights violations, private armies and clandestine operations to avoid detection by the Press or foreign governments, all performed in defense…they say…of Freedom and Liberty.

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Adverse world opinion and suspicion of American motives by an increasing list of overseas leaders makes no difference to these politicos. These people pursue their anti-democratic agendas ruthlessly backed by a Congressional Republican Party who are uniformly in bed with the President and his worldview.

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And it was the American people who put these people in power and keep them there. Sadly, there is no way to avoid the conclusion that America the Light has become America the Dark. It is sadly ironic that the democratic ideals that broke the Soviet Union’s iron grip are themselves falling to the same forces, only 20 years later, and that took that part of the world into tyranny in 1917. And the wildly incredible thing about this is that American’s are doing this to themselves! Which only goes to show the shallowness of democratic ideals in the soil of north America.

 

When George Bush originally went to visit Putin, and announced to the world that “he saw into Putin’s soul”, he was only saying that he recognized a brother. The methods of the KGB of Russia’s past and America’s CIA and military were destined to grow closer together in the following half decade as the American military became determined to be as ruthless as their enemies. The two men surely “understood one another.” Neither had much respect for democratic institutions or the rule of democratic ideals. Both had essentially the same style of leadership.

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Obama is attempting to recast the American worldview into one which current antagonists and polarized sides might find some common ground for relationship and cooperation. His thrust is consistent with America’s traditional mistrust of “involvement in foreign wars” or imperialism. He still might do it. If he can’t, we will continue this spiral of foreign wars and escalating military adventures and spending. Social security, medicare and government roles in our culture will be destroyed. And the implacable foes determined to kill Americans wherever they can find us will continue their fanatical jihad until they finally succeed in manifesting some catastropic event in America or Europe that leads us into World War III.

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Always accusing Obama of choosing to surrender or lose continues the poor thinking that got us here in the first place. Despite Bush’s determination to make Iraq into a base for America to maintain a standing army in the Middle East, the policy is antagonistic and strategically flawed.

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International peace and prosperity for all of us on this planet has got to be a view that Americans can see as realistic; and that marks a Way in which everyone wins something. Arguing that America must not lose is a narrow and unsophisticated defense of American ego–but more specifically George Bush’s ego that he is right and everyone else is wrong. To argue that America can’t change its past policies or course is an idiot’s policy or a tyrant’s defense of his mistaken and dark view of the world. You don’t have to be a genius to know that if Bush and McCain win this argument, American loses its future and its peace.

Hypocrisy, Deceit and Greed of Oil Companies on Display in Congress

If there is any greater measure of the corruption and manipulation in the Bush Administrations cosy partnership with big business generally and the oil companies specifically, it all came out at this week’s testimonies of oil company CEOs before Congress. Granted access to policy formation in the early days of the Bush Administration through the good offices of Vice President Cheney, the Oil Companies have taken home vast wealth, excessive tax breaks, unprecedented access to national preserves and protected national lands, and protection from environmentalists and congressional oversight.

This has, in my opinion, been a sign of high treason against these United States. After the end of this administration, hopefully CBO investigators and the Department of Justice will look into the files of these invidious back-room political dealings and bring those office holders and political sycophants appointed to the leadership jobs in governmental offices to justice under criminal charges. It will undoubtedly take a decade to do so, with all the corruption rampant in Bush Administration dealings with business interests.

So much for the virtue of the private sector. For once and for all, this administration will prove the hypocrisy of a pro-business government and the lie in the myth of private sector efficiency, for business does best when it is able to obtain preferential treatment from government buddies. American business has its hands, feet and money deep in corrupt dealings with American government officials and with government officials throughout the world.

Unfortunately, the American public has bought into the myths of the virtue of private enterprise without seeing the “wolf in sheep’s clothing” behind the myth. But you see, the wolf is in us. We American’s have the values that create these disasters in our political system…the disasters that destroy our savings in the stock market, that lead to high levels of taxation, to unfair legislation. We are the wolves who sit in our business offices and make these decisions. We believe the myth passed down to us in our schoolbooks that private enterprise protects our freedom; what we fail to see is that we cannot protect ourselves from ourselves. The values we have are the same values that lead to our victimization. We do the things to our neighbors that our neighbors do to us, and all in the name of freedom and the right to do as we please to make ourselves better off.

The lessons have been taught many times: trust, but keep our hands in our pockets on our wallets. The purpose of business is to make profits, and there are few ethics which will prevail before that law. We have yet to learn that we can act “wolfishly” in our private lives and expect those just like us to behave any different than we.

Unfortunately, in this country, no administration has chosen the course of confronting the myth of business virtue and therefore has never had the courage or the common sense and wisdom to pursue appropriate safeguards, safeguards including close regulation, oversight of business practices, and the extension of criminal laws into the domain of business behavior.

The disasters of business corruption displayed during the 1990’s obviously didn’t take. Worldcom and its corrupt business brotherhood should never have been permitted to happen, and yet this country goes blithely on–believing in the basic goodness of private enterprise. The disaster of the sub-prime mortgage disarray in our current markets is just another example. Preventive measures are necessary. It is never sufficient to give huge business interests a bailout using tax payer monies after the fact; the damage has already been done. This is the grossest sort of mismanagement…a mismanagement that cannot disguise the corrupt values and political betrayals behind the event. It is not that private enterprise is not necessary as a means to deliver goods and services, and even as the basic mechanism for making economic decisions in this country. It is that one can never trust business motives nor take its behavior for granted. At the core of every corporation is a potential mobster, awaiting his opportunity to take special advantage of any opportunity to gain wealth. Severe legal and personal consequences are the only guide for guarding against business power–and perhaps for guarding against the corrupt within government as well. The role of the press as safeguard of the public interest has been compromised here as the international conglomerates have cemented their control of the news networks and turned the investigative function of the press into a joke.

Will this be changed in 2008 if the Democratic Party wins? No, certainly not. Business knows to butter the toast of both sides of the aisle to ensure that it has access to power and to the legislative process. Both political parties are machine politicians, understanding the hard facts of winning support from monied interests in order to fund their campaign and survive legislatively. The naivite in the Obama camp, even should it win the primary campaigns, will inevitably have to confront the harsh world of American back-room politics and its demands for wealth.

It would truly be a good thing if the actual behavior of business people were in alignment with the “assumptions” of classical and neo-Classical economists that “that government governs best which governs least” but unfortunately American business gives the lie to that myth. That government runs smoothest and those officials get rich quietly when they give business access to the policy making process and give rich favors or pork barrel support to local politicians who are already in bed with local business interests.

The name of the game is screw the people–get rich instead. The name of the game of those us in the labor force is screw business–get rich instead. We have met the enemy, and he is us. This is the darkness at the heart of the American myth.

Time for a new game.

Aging Political Parties Splintering as Nation Enters the 21st Century

The current split within the Democratic Party marks another sign of the changes in the American political structure. These splits were apparent as early as the 1980’s, when it was already apparent that the Civil Rights Revolution was beginning to bear fruit. African Americans were–in part during that decade–beginning to break into the middle class in substantial numbers and breaking the glass ceiling many had experienced in the workplace. The breakthrough was, in fact, not a solution to the economic problems of the greater part of American Blacks, but politically the improvements effectively split the African American vote and changed the base for the Democratic Party.

American in the 1980’s was becoming a nation of ethnic, economic and religious villages. Marketers picked up on these demographic and economic changes quickly and began “target marketing” approaches. Politically however, the major beneficiary of these changes were the conservative movement, which saw in these changes the splintering of the democratic party base and an opportunity to increasingly base their appeals upon fear of change and fear of the new demographics among the well-off.

Today, the Democrats continue to try to patch together a splintering coalition of political interests which no longer are viable. The demographic split between Obama and Clinton supporters is only the most recent example of trying to build a national party upon a demographic which no longer provides a foundation for a national two-party system.

The basis for a single democratic party has not existed since the 1970’s, and it is past time to recognize this and begin planning to move to a multiple party system in the United States. The same can be said of the Republican Party, of course. The growth of the new NeoCon movement into emperialist advertures overseas leaves behind traditional Republican values of small government and balanced budgets and the more liberal party wing headed years before by Rockefeller ande Nixon. And the growing importance of religious fundamentalists and Catholic and anti-Communist hispanic/Cuban voters pull at the party base as well. Signs that the base which propelled the Republican Party into Power in 2000 are also fraying are clear. Probably no more than 30 percent of the American public now are clear supporters of current Republican priorties, but the disarray on the left provides democrats little hope to find a party platform which represents all the various interests aligned against the Right. Both parties are afflicted by the partitioning of the voter marketplace, but the party bosses are fighting to preserve their traditional roles in determining the future of the country and the old ideological divisions.

It is time to begin planning a new multiple party system in the United States, to break up these two aging senex parties, and to replace them with a more vigorous and dynamic party system. The politics of the past no longer work here.

Obama the Idealist versus Clinton the Old Guard

I’ve been watching this contest evolve between the followers of Obama and Clinton with many misgivings. The democrats seem to be setting themselves up to lose–no matter what the outcome of the primaries–and it is sad to see, given the dreadful state of American policy and economic policy.

The disaster of Bush policies and ideological leadership has primed the nation for a change in direction. But the structure in place to support the transition of power is compromised. It is not just that the neo-conservative movement has corrupted the Republican Pary and its traditions. The truth is more that both parties are corrupt in that they share a common understanding of how the political process is conducted and a common dependence upon financing by big business and wealthy patrons who “buy” economic and political access. Both are compromised by the system for funding campaigns and securing compromises in Congress to pass legislation.

Unlike the British system which requires an elected party member to vote with his party, individual politicians may go their own way here and vote against their party’s policies. Thus, the democrats are plagued by their “yellow dog democrats” who vote with the Republicans much of the time. It takes money and favors to “buy their cooperation” and this is where corruption of a viable, honest political system enters.

Obama’s followers represent a rebellion against these “old politics”. His idealistic and often youthful followers hope for a new basis for leadership, but they are up against an old-style political machine in the campaign of the Clintons. Old style politics dispense favors, jobs, and contracts to supporters in return for support. So here in what was once a promising progressive political family, we witness a return to old city-style politics which still thrives in the old industrially-based  economies of the mid-west and Northeast. These are the states where the old industries were displaced by the newly expanding states of the Southeast and Southwest, where jobs shifted and industries declined, leaving desperate aging families trapped in depressed areas. No matter what lies politicians mutter about “bringing the jobs back” they are gone. The free trade policies of the last half of the 20th Century ended the hopes of those areas and false promises are not going to reverse the losses.  But old style politics still work there, raising false hopes and building a politics of corruption that reminds us of the old style political machines of Chicago, Boston and New York City during the early part of the 20th Century.

So today, we see the idealism of Obama’s followers pitted against the Old Style political machine of the Clintons. The sad thing is that neither is viable nor worth trusting. Politics must deal with very real and practical problems, and that requires compromise. Obama’s followers, should he win, will inevitably be disillusioned once the idealistic phase of campaigning end and the realities of governing set in. Obama will have to compromise, and in doing so he will violate the principle of leadership he campaigned on. Clinton’s image among the Obama crowd is already irremediably tarnished. She is running a campaign reminescent of the worst of the Republican campaigns of the 1990s. She lacks the ideals and vision needed to attract those who demand an end to Bush policies and a return to a more idealistic posture for America in the world. In the end, should she win, the Obama crowd will turn away from her and give up. It is likely to cost her the election.

There are increasing numbers of voters who simply look at the two-party system as hopelessly corrupt. There is no way to save it. The Republican Party has come to be hopelessly dominated by fanatical conservatives who see the role of our national government pursuing an emperial policy of control and acquisition overseas and gutting the social welfare system at home; it is hopelessly corrupt now. McCain can’t save it. Hopefully, failure in the upcoming election will generate some soul-searching among local party leaders and some will see what they have allowed to happen to their party.

In the meantime, the democratic party is also too corrupt to base future policies upon. Split, compromised, and just as ideologically compromised as the cabal of Republicans now controlling in the White House and Congress, it needs a fundamental revisioning as well.

Neither party will permit the fundamental ethical reforms necessary to remove the basis for their corruption.

So, sad to say, the only option for people who no longer can support this sad game is a third-party–not because it will actually produce a winning candidate, but because it is the only place to go if you can no longer stomach the losers now running our country. The game is compromised, fixed, so that the people will lose no matter who wins.  

The Flaw in the Vessel

An elderly Navajo grandmother had two large pots, each hung on the end of a pole, which she carried across her neck as she brought water back to her home from the spring each day. One of the pots had a crack in it while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water at the end of her walk.

At the end of the long walk from the stream to the house, the cracked pot arrived only half full. For a full two years this went on daily, with the woman bringing home only one and a half pots of water. Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments. But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection, and miserable that it could only do half of what the perfect pot could do. After 2 years of what it perceived to be bitter failure, it spoke to the woman one day by the stream.

“I am ashamed of myself, because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your house.”

 The old woman smiled, ” I have always known about your flaw. But you see, my grandchild made you, whereas I bought the other pot in the market. So you were the one I always loved. Because I loved her, I saw your “flaw” as her gift to me. I planted flower seeds on your side of the path. Did you notice that there are flowers on your side of the path, but not on the other pot’s side? We would water them together as I walked back from the spring each day.

Because of you, I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate the table. Without you being just the way you are, I would not have all those beautiful flowers to grace our house and remind me of all the people and things which I love–all those people and things which make my life rich and meaningful. You remind me of the love I feel for her–my grandchild–each day.”

Each of us has flaws, but our weaknesses do not diminish our “value.” We don’t understand that our flaws make us vulnerable, open us to feel our hearts, and drive us out of our fear of life. Our flaws make us need others.

We compare ourselves to others and feel small, unimportant, worthless. We see only our weaknesses, our failures, our losses. We don’t understand that it’s the cracks and flaws we each have that are our gifts and that make us unique, fragile, precious and special. It is the flaws which make us loveable.