Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

It is interesting to note that Fox News, the media arm of the Republican Party, has signed up Sarah Palin as a commentator.  This should be a good fit for an obvious reason.

Fox and the Republicans have a distinct tendency to fuzz up the facts and Palin with her wild, off the top of her head commentaries on global warming, international affairs, or virtually any other issue one could name makes her a fitting prospect to follow in the tradition of Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity.

One issue that the Republicans are notably fuzzing up is Harry Reid's unfortunate comments about his belief as to why Barack Obama would make a successful presidential candidate.  They definitely displayed racial insensitivity and he had every reason to apologize.

So now Michael Steele, the Republican National Committee's chairman and an African American himself, is shouting "double standard" from the rooftops.  

One of the factors generating disgust and driving people away from the political process is excessive spin control, the art of telling the public one thing while initiating feints and doing something else.

The current health care bill features an excise tax on so-called Cadillac health plans, conveying the instant impression of a rich guy out for a spin, living the life of luxury.  The idea is that this is the guy who will provide a break for Joe Six Pack based on the excise tax that will generate funds that in turn will assist the middle class.

According to Bob Herbert's reading of what is happening, revealed in his December 29 New York Times column, the tax will "kick in" on plans exceeding $23,000 annually for family coverage and $8,500 for individuals, beginning in 2013.

Now here is the story on what is considered wealth and how it will play out:

When Jeff Greenfield was not long out of Yale Law School and was a regular on William F. Buckley's PBS interview program "Firing Line" he reminisced about the period he had served as a volunteer in the 1968 presidential campaign of Senator Robert F. Kennedy.

Greenfield recalled a discussion featuring one of the leading figures of the Kennedy campaign, Richard Goodwin, with younger staffers such as Greenfield.  Greenfield noted the seriousness of Goodwin, assuredly reflecting the view of Kennedy, who also happened to be Goodwin's closest friend, on the subject of presidential power.

The framers of the U.S. Constitution, save Alexander Hamilton and others who believed in the very system being overthrown in America and favored, if not a king, a strong executive, subscribed to the philosophical concepts enunciated by French thinkers such as Montesquieu concerning the importance of limiting power in that branch and dividing it instead.  

The Virginians Jefferson and Madison were staunch Francophiles and believed that, unless checked, an executive dictatorship could well emerge.  Indeed, the elder statesman at Philadelphia's Constitutional Convention, the venerable Benjamin Franklin, when being asked at the conclusion of the final session what kind of government the new nation had, replied, "A republic if you can keep it."

Ever expanding numbers of people refuse to participate in a political process they consider a sham.  The current ongoing health care debate reflects what drove them out of a system under the suffocating domination of special interests.

National polling on the health care issue delivered an overwhelming result.  The American people in substantial numbers support a single payer system such as currently exists in Canada.  

What we hear from our elected representatives is that this is a democracy and they listen to the voices of the people.  Really?  In the current instance, where support for a single payer system has been amply manifested, it is not even a subject for debate despite the fervent efforts of a few independent minds in Washington clamoring for such a discussion, such as Congressman Dennis Kucinich of Ohio.

The ongoing process in which President Barack Obama sought a bipartisan health care bill has been pathetic.  Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa was courted.  

The latest running debate between Al Gore and Sarah Palin reveals once more the absurdity behind today's Republican Party, which looms increasingly as a far right pressure group rather than a viable political entity.

The Republicans indicated the direction where they were heading when Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele dared to speak of right wing talk show host Rush Limbaugh as an "entertainer," which was construed to mean that he was undermining his stature as a serious political analyst.

A furious Limbaugh demanded an apology.  The blustery talk show host had declared himself to be the titular head of the Republican Party.  Generally that title is conferred on the party's last presidential nominee, in this case Senator John McCain of Arizona.

It was soon learned how much clout Limbaugh wields on the Republican Party as a penitent Steele issued an apology.  This prompted Limbaugh to reiterate his claim as titular party head.  

Many throughout the world were highly stunned when President Obama was selected for the Nobel Peace Prize since he had just taken office and had scant time to deal with global issues.

Considering the foregoing, it would seem that Obama should have delivered a speech emphasizing a sturdy global effort to make the achievement of peace a front burner imperative.  Instead what he delivered was a speech defending the concept of "just wars."

Somewhere in the great beyond George Orwell could be expected to exclaim, "This is what '1984' was all about.  Peace and war are used interchangeably."  In this instance the "1984" concept elucidated so cleverly by Orwell was exemplified by Obama in his effort to sell the concept of "just wars" as means of sustaining peace.

The speech regrettably carried the familiar ring of the New World Order and President George Herbert Walker Bush justifying the Gulf War when Mikhail Gorbachev and others in the world community sought diplomacy short of war.  

This action was probably inevitable.

The right with its strong proclaimed proclivities for Christianity and devotion to biblical principles just had to make an effort to shift the focus in the wake of so many years of theologians such as Reinhold Niebuhr quoting the words of Jesus Christ with such pronouncements as loving one's enemies and forgiveness.

On a few occasions I had great fun with some fire breathing rightists on the Internet.  This came when they predictably hurled those same incendiary verbal grenades in the direction of William Jefferson Clinton, vicious words of hatred mingled with some profanity, all the while assigning him to perdition for daring to stray from his marital bonds.

I responded that the words of Christ were filled with forgiveness and suggested that they read the New Testament before making such angry declarations and damning Bill Clinton to the eternal fires of hell.  Such an approach resulted in no response.  Robertson, Limbaugh, O'Reilly and Hannity had not provided them with a programmed response.

Amid the swirl of commentary following Obama's West Point speech in which he laid out his Afghanistan War policy the commentary that was the most brutally perceptive and historically decisive was that of Rachel Maddow on MSNBC.

Maddow followed the historical roots of Obama's comments and reached the conclusion that he sounds like George W. Bush in 2002 enunciating what was thereafter called the Bush Doctrine, which tragically espoused an aggressive concept of preventive war based on a posture of what might happen in the future.

A clip was played of retired U.S. Marine General James Jones, Obama's National Security Advisor, stating that there is no current threat to America's security from Afghanistan.  

Meanwhile Obama made his frequent effort to link Afghanistan and Osama bin Laden to the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center, indicating that the deploying of 30,000 more troops can help head off more of the same kind of terrorist action.

When then Congressman John Tunney was running in the California U.S. Senate primary in 1970, a race which would culminate with his unseating of Senator George Murphy in the November election, he made reference to the still raging Vietnam War as a "mirage."

Tunney used the word to accent what he perceived as a wrong-headed view of the United States being able to resolve conflicts through a continuing military commitment.  The people of Vietnam would see that the best hope for their future resided in linkage to American power.

The Vietnam War ended with over 59,000 U.S. losses.  The foreign losses, counting Cambodia as neighboring offshoot as well as Vietnam, is unknown in any kind of precise calculation but estimated at 2.5 million or more according to some estimates.

The tragic human suffering did not end with the termination of life.  The dropping of Agent Orange to remove the heavy jungle forestation that U.S. strategists were convinced would make it easier to fight a hit and run smaller guerilla force did not deter a determined enemy that engaged and disengaged under its own strategic terms.

A tragic loss was suffered to this site and advocates of peace and justice throughout the world with the death of regular columnist Robert Kendall Thursday afternoon.

Robert died of a sudden heart attack while he was parking his car in the garage of the Seattle condominium building where he resided after returning from shopping at a local store.  

While it is a grave tragedy to lose Robert at a time when he was striving so mightily to express his enlightened views advocating a better world through his writings, the merciful element about his death is that it was sudden and devoid of the kind of sustained pain associated with so many deaths.

Robert Kendall was born June 26, 1927 in Stephenson, Michigan.  His lifelong role of a talented and successful striver was established early.  He won a "Trip to Hollywood" talent contest at Battle Creek's Kellogg Auditorium.  The anticipated prize was a screen test.

Social Security recipients in 2010 will be cheated out of cash they deserve.

The annual cost of living increase will not rise for the first time since they began being calculated yearly for seniors on Social Security.  

This injustice has been accomplished through an accounting cheating system.  The soaring cost of health care and gas are not included within the cost of living scale, thus giving a completely false calculation.

How interesting that congressional salaries, however, have increased while Social Security payments did not.  

Visit any right wing propaganda outlet such as Fox News and listen to "analysts" such as Glenn Beck or Sean Hannity and one message reverberates repeatedly:  We are in Aghanistan to help its people overcome the scourge of terrorism and only those who side with terrorists are opposed to that mission.

One important element to the post 9/11 attack response that an alert few noticed and discussed was that the government did not seek to investigate how the tragedies occurred, treating them instead as old news and expressing a desire to move on from there.  

The problem is that such a response is illogical and that the first thing one must do following any tragedy is to investigate, learn, and carry out policies benefiting from such investigation.

When George W. Bush stood side by side with New York City police and fire department personnel at Ground Zero he stated that he felt their outrage over the attacks and received a strong ovation when he promised to seek out the perpetrators and deliver fitting punishment in the names of the victims of 9/11.

Now that we have fallen as the world's leading economic giant, the burning question is why has the U.S. fallen into a crushing deficit?

First and foremost, we ignored the winged warning of former President Dwight D. Eisenhower to beware of the unwarranted influence of the military-industrial complex.

Conducting wars has proven to be such a money maker for every industry of the gigantic U.S. war machine.  It appears that the U.S. is now locked into a perpetual war machine mentality.  The airplane industry is making billions supplying the latest aviation technical expertise.  The oil services company Halliburton has made billions for their war services in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Vietnam War was a fiasco where almost 60,000 U.S. service personnel lost their lives, based upon the false fears that if Vietnam fell under Communist rule, a domino effect would take place and all of Asia would ultimately fall into the Red orbit.  

The latest wave of Baghdad car bombings reported in Sunday's New York Times flies in the face of the latest reassurances of neocons that America's Iraq War strategy has been successful.

The latest synchronized suicide car bombings, according to Times reporter Timothy Williams, "struck at the heart of the Iraqi government, severely damaging the Justice Ministry and provincial council complexes in Baghdad on Sunday, killing at least 132 people and raising new questions about the government's ability to secure its most vital operations."  

The grim reality of what occurred is further described by Timothy Williams:

"The bombers apparently passed through multiple security checkpoints before detonating their vehicles within a minute of each other, leaving the dead and more than 520 wounded strewn across crowded downtown streets.  Blast walls had been moved back off the road in front of both buildings in recent weeks.

On ABC TV Charlie Gibson on October 21 presented a doctor who claimed that PSA testing for prostate cancer was being done too frequently.  As if that false medical message wasn't enough for one evening's TV news show, the same doctor said that breast cancer testing was being overdone.

Where is this dangerously deluded doctor coming from?  Where did he get his medical degree?

A friend of mine died due to lack of testing in time to save his life.  He happened to be a medical man himself and practiced dentistry in California. My friend just happened to have a million dollar medical policy and was only 55 when he passed on in 1982.

In 1980 both he and his then wife experienced rectal bleeding.  They both went to a doctor in the same medical complex where he had his own office.  After explaining their medical problem the doctor told them it was no doubt just a simple hemorrhoid problem and nothing more.  He never tested either one of them.

Biochar, the modern version of an ancient Amazonian agricultural practice called Terra Preta (black earth, TP), is gaining widespread credibility as a way to address world hunger, climate change, rural poverty, deforestation, and energy shortages... SIMULTANEOUSLY!

If you talk to God, you are praying; If God talks to you, you have schizophrenia.~~Thomas S. Szasz, The Second Sin

If you keep on excusing, you eventually give your blessing to the slave camp, to cowardly force, to organized executioners, to the cynicism of great political monsters; you finally hand over your brothers~~Albert Camus

What better weapon is there to use against starving populations than food?

What is more frightening -- that the C.I.A. got its jollies by torturing, even murdering human beings in its secret sodomy frat-houses -- or that the F.B.I. took one look, fled the scene and remained silent for years?

Glenn Beck has always been desperate for two things -- attention and ratings.  And he learned early in his career that nothing works as quickly nor as well with the media as personal insults, public humiliation and character assassination.

The H1N1 vaccine is being spread around the nation, free of charge, in limited doses. If the internet is any indicator, people have decided to freak out about it.

Choices are all things we have to learn to make. The fortunate among us are guided by loving responsible parents. Others have equally responsible and loving relatives and family mentors.
One of the things my Grandfather taught me about making choices was that `you will be known by the associations you keep'.
Barack Hussein Obama has some very interesting associations. He has also had some interesting mentors. From Frank Marshall Davis to Alice Palmer, Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, Mike Krulik, Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Gregory Galluzo. Hard core leftists all. An exponent of the Saul Alinski school of radical organizing, he forged many other interesting associations such as Wayne Radke's ACORN for whom he taught classes as a community rabble rouser.

One of the most controversial parts of President Obama's healthcare proposals is the public option.  It's also badly needed. Nonetheless, the insurance industry and conservatives and even Blue Dogs in Congress are fighting it tooth and nail.

First to the dictionary ...

 

  twit  

    To taunt, ridicule, or tease, especially for embarrassing mistakes or faults.

    n.
    1. The act or an instance of twitting.
    2. A reproach, gibe, or taunt.
    3. Slang A foolishly annoying person.

Then, to The Twit ... (obviously, choose which meaning has most meaning for you ...)

Senator Clair McCaskill (D-MO) loves twitter. On more than one occasion and re more than one issue, Claire's Twitter comments have raised eyebrows for their "embarrassing mistakes or faults". And, on more than one occasion, people have used Twitter to twit Claire about her statements.

The topic below was originally posted on my blog, the Intrepid Liberal Journal.

It seems no matter which political party in America holds the majority, a Washington/Wall Street corporate centric axis dominates policy making. Indeed, Illinois Democratic Senator Dick Durbin recently observed that banks, "Frankly Own the Place." Among liberal-progressive activists like myself, this condition has facilitated a confrontational mindset.

Our experience suggests that the power and wealth concentrated in the hands of a few will not be voluntarily relinquished. Hence, everything from healthcare reform to bankruptcy protection for aggrieved homeowners is perceived by many of us as a high stakes pitched battle between struggling families and feculent corporate behemoths. Although activism has certainly facilitated important victories on behalf of working people, fighting for economic justice often seems analogous to climbing an endless wall.

The topic below was originally posted on my blog, the Intrepid Liberal Journal.

In the age of Barack Obama, both the Republican Party as well as the South appear marginalized and out of step with the rest of America. Yet it wasn't so long ago that the South represented the foundation of America's conservative hegemony. Starting with Dwight Eisenhower in 1952, the Republican Party prevailed in nine out of the next fourteen presidential elections with a reliable Southern base.

Specifically, the Republican Party exploited white Southern resentment against the cause of civil rights and integration. The "Southern strategy" as it was later called, enabled Republicans to end the Democratic Party's previous domination of the South following the Civil War. A key figure in that realignment was the renowned evangelist Billy Graham.

The topic below was originally posted on my blog, the Intrepid Liberal Journal.

On January 1, 2007, Yale Law School professor Heather Gerken  published a widely read article in the LegalTimes entitled, "How Does Your State Rank on The Democracy Index." Gerken argued that just as the Environmental Performance Index ("EPI") shamed countries such as Belgium to upgrade their environmental practices, a "Democracy Index" would embarrass state and localities into reforming their electoral administration through competition.

Since Bush vs. Gore in 2000, the debate about electoral reform has been dominated by anecdotes and overheated abstractions. Liberals like me have long suspected that states such as Ohio and Florida were deliberately disenfranchising minority voters sympathetic to Democratic candidates. Conservatives complained that voter fraud and urban political machines were allowing ineligible voters to cast ballots at the expense of Republican candidates. With her article, Gerken contended that a Democracy Index would replace a debate dominated by shouting with data driven arguments instead:

Amid all the discussions about potential paths forward in terms climate legislation, there is basic agreement about the need to 'put a price on carbon' to incentivize reducing carbon intensity (and usage ... or, actually, dumping into the atmosphere) throughout the economy.

Should we pursue a Carbon Cap (or A CAT, a Cap, Auction, and Trade) or some form of Carbon Tax (or fee)?

And, then the debate turns to "what to do with the resources".  For many, the best answer seems to be some form of Cap & Dividend program.  The idea of sending money "back" to people has great appeal, for many reasons but what about looking behind the curtain. Does it continue to make as much sense?

What REALLY Happened in the Churchyard

Steve Best and Jason Miller with Joan Court, Janet Tomlinson, and Lynn Sawyer

I. Background

Anyone who follows the animal rights movement in England knows that the direct action element has become increasingly powerful and controversial. By abandoning what they see to be futile efforts to persuade a government beholden to corporate interests and speciesist ideology to respect the rights of animals, a growing number of activists have taken the fight directly to the animal exploiters themselves. Over the last few decades, groups such as the Animal Liberation Front (ALF), Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC), SPEAK (originally named Stop Primate Experiments at Cambridge), and Save the Newchurch Guinea Pigs (SNGP) have developed highly effective campaigns against all facets of the vivisection industry. While the ALF is an underground network of activists engaged in "criminal" actions involving sabotage, arson, and break-ins, other direct action groups such as SHAC and SPEAK are aboveground organizations and employ legal approaches.