Existential Politics in the 21st Century
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July 1, 2009The Confessor -- This idiot Governor Sanford -- auch! Why doesn't he just get up at a press conference and take his pants off? What is left to tell? He just looks more and more foolish as he continues to moon in public about his lost "soul mate", whom he cannot be with because of his duty to "fall in love again" with his wife. How much more can he humiliate his wife and have a prayer of actually going back to her? This idiot managed to snatch the spotlight back from the ghoulish media fascination with the death of Michael Jackson. What is this fool doing? Because he just cannot let go of the power, wealth, fame and privilege of his political career he thinks he has to go forward this way, flogging himself and his wife in public over and over, telling more and more of what hardly anyone wants or needs to hear. What a fool! No one forced this guy to be a sanctimonious moralizer who used other people's indiscretions against them as a political weapon, as he did with Bill Clinton. Now that he's been caught, he daily commits acts that are even stupider than his original indiscretions. Every day now he is letting out a few more facts of indiscretions previously private, presumably to exercise pre-damage control in case those facts come out. We've seen this scene, essentially, many times, such as the painfully sordid Larry Craig story, the "wide stance" senator of Idaho, who got caught soliciting sex in a men's bathroom at the Minnestoa airport and is still a senator. The new thing with these hypocritical moralistic Christian Right politicians is to weather the storm, just say any insane thing that enters their heads to eat up the time until it's over and they can get back to the trough. It is a window onto the sweet life of our supposed public servants. The privilege, power, glory, fame, graft of the successful polician is so heady, so sweetly intoxicating, so addictive, that they will go through the most demeaning imaginable public embarrassment just for the chance to hold on. (See Republican demands for his resignation, multiple affairs, and the best thing I have read on the whole sordid affair: by Maureen Dowd.
June 3, 2009Obeney -- In "Watching Obama Morph Into Dick Cheney" Paul Craig Roberts, former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury under President Reagan, discusses Obama's change from his advocacy of change. Remember the scene in The Shining when Jack Nicholson hugs the woman who has just emerged from the bathtub looking elegant and beautiful and all the sudden he sees that she has changed into something horrible. Why is Obama so diligently carrying out the National Security State policies of Bush/Cheney? Who is in charge?
May 24, 2009
May 11, 2009What is with Dick Cheney? Was there ever a more evil, horrible man in politics? I predict that the depth of his evil is yet to be made public. He can't shut up. He can't stand having to give up the role of being the most powerful man in the world, able to wreak havoc behind the curtain while he props up the dunce puppet. Word is that he and Bush are not on speaking terms. What vice president ever stayed on the public stage, casting judgment on every issue after leaving office like Cheney has? Bush has faded into the customary silence of ex-presidents for at least a year or two after leaving office. You rarely hear of them in the early part of a new president's term. But Cheney the madman, in this as in other things, breaks the rules, shatters convention. The Darth Vader force of ultimate evil cannot relent, cannot stop. Now he is spitting his venom at Colin Powell, pronouncing the superiority of obese drug addict bigmouth Rush Limbaugh over Powell -- Oh God! (New York Times) How disgustingly vile can this man be? He is actively campaigning in support of torture. Oh yes, it worked, he said, though no one was ever apprehended or punished for 9/11. And, speaking of that, what did he really mean when he confirmed that the order still stands to leave the hijacked airliner alone as it speeded toward the Pentagon?
April 14, 2009Disillusionment and Beyond -- Rob Kall at opednews.com sums up well the precipice at which we the people stand: "It's drizzling this morning, here in Bucks County PA, perhaps representative of the state of America-- so many out of work, the hope for change Obama promised splashed in puddles, with no sign of the clear skys of justice and fairness in sight. Roosevelt said that it was the people who forced him to do the right things. Well, we're at that point now. Obama's lousy appointees are maintaining the status quo that Obama told us would be unacceptable. We-- you, me, your family, friends and neighbors have to get active-- more active than ever. Electing a Democrat did not do the job. It set the stage so the job could be done, but the democrats need to be pushed and shoved or they will sit on their fat, comfortable, well-insured with government health care asses until we make them get off them and do what is right, what America desperately needs to have done."
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June 25, 2009The Kettle is Black -- As I listened to Obama's speech about Iran at a press conference a couple of days ago it was encouraging to hear him speaking about universal human rights and so forth in connection with the crackdown on demonstrators in Iran, encouraging because I wasn't sure the American government recognized any universal human rights anymore. But after all the tearing down of human rights during the Bush administration and Obama's refusal to address those constitutional issues, saying he prefers to "look forward" instead, I wonder if those words don't just fall flat in the presence of deeds that contradict them.After Guantanamo, torture, government spying, and so forth, the American government has no moral high ground to lecture other countries about the rights America used to stand for. What is Obama supposed to say to Korea about unfair detentions? And after the way the U.S. has treated demonstrators during the last eight years, what can he say about the right of assembly? As Juan Cole points out, "The number of demonstrators arrested in Tehran on Saturday is estimated at 550 or so, which is less than those arrested by the NYPD for protesting Bush policies in 2004." (See Alternet). Cole says, "The kind of unlicensed, city-wide demonstrations being held in Tehran last week would not be allowed to be held in the United States. Senator John McCain led the charge against Obama for not having sufficiently intervened in Iran. At the Republican National Committee convention in St. Paul, 250 protesters were arrested shortly before John McCain took the podium. Most were innocent activists and even journalists. Amy Goodman and her staff were assaulted. In New York in 2004, 'protest zones' were assigned, and 1800 protesters were arrested, who have now been awarded civil damages by the courts. Spontaneous, city-wide demonstrations outside designated 'protest zones' would be illegal in New York City, apparently." By not standing up for human rights and constitutional law, including accountability of political leaders who break these laws and "international norms", Obama has undermined his own authority to speak out against abuses in Iran, Korea or anywhere else.
May 30, 2009Obama Sides With Cheney Against Plame -- I guess it should have stopped being bewildering by now as we see Obama morph into Bush-Cheney, but it is still strange to see the Obama administration side with Cheney in the case against him by Valerie Plame, who was a casualty of Cheney's rampage against any who opposed his fraudulent claims to justify war with Iraq. It's like Invasion of the Body Snatchers to see in case after case the Obama administration lining up in support of the most egregious offenses of the Bush administration. For details on this most recent demoralizing development, see Citizens for Ethics.
May 22, 2009Cheney on the Run -- I came back from two weeks in Africa where I had taken the opportunity to ignore the American news, and I wasn't eager to re-immerse myself when I came back. I did pick up on some news without really trying and it was demoralizing. I get a lot of e-mails that keep me up on events if I merely bother to go online and check my e-mail. I saw reports of Obama seemingly taking on more and more of the Bush administration's most egregious policies. I find it so demoralizing I don't really want to hear the news. And then I think to myself, have they -- the big powers, whoever they are -- finally succeeded in breaking me, forcing me to submit myself entirely, to become inert politically.The commercials alone on the news are too much to handle. They really grate on me. Some are clever and funny, but most are desperate lies, told hysterically, manipulatively. Noise, brain-scrambling signals, gut poisoning. But somehow I ended up in front of a television and Keith Olbermann was playing on MSNBC. There is Obama arguing against the vast majority of the Senate who voted against providing the funds required to close Guantanamo. And there is Cheney arguing the opposite position, that torture was a good thing, it kept America safe, and people who falsely turn it into a moral issue are treasonous. Cheney, who barely appeared in public when he was the vice president running the show while manipulating Baby Bush, is now one of the most visible political figures in America. Olbermann played some pieces from his speech Thursday after Obama gave his speech to the Senate to persuade them and the American people to his cause. Obama performed well, made a good case for a good position. He used his capacities as a communicator and analyst for a worthy cause: shaming the entire senate into dropping their opposition to the closing of Guantanamo. His arguments were right, and were forceful. There were some extremely onerous compromises to the right wing fanatics, his statement that the imprisonment of people for years without trial would continue. In any case, it's a compelling drama about real issues. As much as I would fault him for compromising to the Cheneyites' medieval ways in regard to pre-Magna Carta laws about detention without trial, he is still far to the left of nearly all the senate, who apparently don't want to close Guantanamo. Cheney, on the other hand. Now there is a study. Cheney looks really like a deer in headlights. He looks really scared when he's talking. Much of the demeanor is still there, but he is stripped of the power of his hands on the levers of the most powerful office in the world. His attempts to look tough now come off like fright. It seems unlikely the man will live very much longer. He was in terrible shape when he took office in 2001. Now he lives in fear. That's very hard on the health. But he apparently is not going to die without making it very clear who he is, what he was, and who was responsible for the most horrendous acts of the Bush administration. He no longer has the Bush puppet to hold up in front of him. Now he has come out into the open. He's pathetic. He has already admitted to his culpability in the administration of torture. Now all he can do is argue to justify it. Call it, as senior Bush did of Iran Contra, "the politicization of policy." But his face, when he attempts to feign eye contact with the audience, looks terrified. Meanwhile, check out these comments:
May 4, 2009A Date with Destiny -- Bruce Fein, former deputy attorney general under President Ronald Reagan and chairman of the American Freedom Agenda: "The President of the United States, the Attorney General, when I was in office, I took an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States. Meaning, to enforce it. And there's a way out of that. You can issue pardons. You don't have a right to consult the political forces, say, 'I'll just ignore the law.' And in fact, in 2004, we confronted the same problem we had with Nixon. He wasn't going investigate Watergate and the obstruction of himself. That's why I had a special prosecutor, and ultimately an independent counsel. That hasn't been done in this case. But now, the President and the Vice President who authorized this are gone. So, there's no obstacle. If President Obama didn't want to be President and faithfully enforce the laws, he shouldn't be there. . . . This is the whole idea of who we are as a country. If you think the law is handcuffing you, you change the law. The President can't say, 'I just flout the law.' That's what banana republics and tyrannies do." Bill Moyers Journal.
Book Credits:
 In the 21st Century, being naive to the workings of corporate media can get you killed. Chomsky For Beginners written by David Cogswell, illustrated by Paul Gordon, published by Writers and Readers, is a documentary comicbook about Noam Chomsky the man, the linguist and the political voice, but more than anything, it is a guide to media propaganda, how the corporate-owned mass media are designed not to inform you but to manipulate you for the benefit of the owners. Order Chomsky For Beginners from Amazon.com or Barnesandnoble.com
See also Existentialism For Beginners. 
Post Script, Fortunate Son: The Making of an American President by J.H. Hatfield, second paperback edition, published by Soft Skull Press, 2001 For more on the late J.H. Hatfield, who wrote the controversial Bush biography Fortunate Son: The Making of an American President, see below The following piece was written for the French and Spanish translations of J.H. Hatfield's Fortunate Son: The Making of an American President, published by Editions Timeli in Geneva, Switzerland. (See www.timeli.ch.)
 More Book Credits:
Interviews with Noam Chomsky
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July 3, 2009Mind Reading is Here -- The technology exists for reading the thoughts in the mind, and it is improving. See 60 Minutes to see it in action. Imagine the implications. You know the Cheneyite authoritarian types have their finger on this stuff. They quite likely have things in the intelligence agencies that surpasses what is shown in this segment. Sleep well! Your National Security State can read your thoughts.
June 24, 2009Resonating Theme -- In the last month and a half I've been in South Africa, Tanzania, Morocco and Rhode Island. Little time to keep up on things or post to this site, but I saw a very good article a day or two ago to pass on: "Hoping for Audacity" at Huffington Post. Here's another on the same subject at legalschnauzer.blogspot.com, "Is Obama Squandering His Opportunity for Change?". And one more, " Obama's promise of a new beginning now hollow" by Joseph Galloway at McClatchy. Here's a quote: "Oh, he can still talk the talk and he does that incessantly. But he seemingly can't walk the walk. He may still sound like a revolutionary but more and more he looks and acts like George W. Bush, albeit a George W. Bush who can speak a complete sentence in the English language. Obama's approval ratings are beginning to unwind and begin a long downward spiral among those who had believed in the promises of change. There was a golden moment when change was possible, but it is gone now. There was one thing Obama absolutely had to do, even before tackling an economic meltdown and the Wall Street and big bank rip-offs: He had to reassure Americans that we all live under the rule of law; that no one by virtue of holding the highest offices in the land, or having the biggest bank account, is above the law. It was incumbent on new President Obama to step back and let justice be done. Let the investigators do their job, Not only to let justice be done but let justice be seen to be done. But no. He said he wanted to focus on the future, not revisit the past..."May 28, 2009General Says Prisoners Were Raped -- In the twisted mind of archvillain Dick (Uriah Heep) Cheney, the "enhanced interrogation" methods "kept America safe." I will give the man credit for really believing this to be true, though he seems so hideously cynical in his every action. So we now know unequivocably that the Bush administration set up an environment so driven by fear and hatred that it led to the lowest forms of abuse in the repertoire of human behavior. Do you feel safer now? Some one said to me today, "You don't think it was sanctioned rape, do you?" Of course I can only speculate. I don't suppose the administration specifically authorized rape. But they opened the door to "enhanced interrogation" methods, which are torture by another name. Waterboarding was specifically recognized as torture in the Nuremburg Nazi war crimes trials. And then there was the great variety of abuse that was revealed at Abu Ghraib, some of which surely qualifies as torture. And of course once events were in motion along that track, they went to the obvious inevitable conclusion of such behavior. The Bush administration set up a frame of mind in which the prisoners were seen as "bad people", terrorists who were attacking the United States, if not the actual perpetrators of 9/11, then people who wanted to plan new attacks like 9/11. The restrictions on torture were lifted and of course it went to the limit. Now we have specific testimony from a general that rape took place under the heading of enhanced interrogations. Is it really such a surprise? Is it so far from what we already knew? No doubt some people have been tortured to death. What we are seeing laid bare now is the very extreme absurd conclusion reached by the flawed thinking of the dinosaur minds of the Bush administration.
May 10, 2009Free at LastDURBAN, South Africa -- I've been coming here a while now, following the progress of this fledgling democracy, marveling at the flowering of Nelson Mandela's Rainbow Nation, and it continues to amaze me. Yesterday I attended the opening ceremony of Indaba, the travel trade show of Africa. Of course Saturday, May 9, was inauguration day for the new president, Jacob Zuma, but the big buzz here is that the FIFA World Cup is going to take place in South Africa next year. At the opening ceremony of Indaba they threw and extravaganza at which many teenagers were singing and dancing in celebration of their country and its coming out ceremony in the form of the World Cup. I didn't go to the opening thinking I was going to be moved, but in fact I spent much of it holding back the tears of joy as I saw these young kids of a multitude of ethnicities, who have grown up in the post-apartheid era, expressing the joy of their freedom and their young democracy. This country boosts my faith in the future. These kids represent the hope that we old folks have not totally destroyed our world beyond redemption. Thank God for them.The acting CEO of South Africa Tourism, Didi Moyle, represented that same exuberance from a more mature point of view. She told the audience, "We are a very fortunate generation of South Africans. We just completed our fourth election. We were led to democracy by a giant among world leaders..." And to these people, as with China with the Olympics, the World Cup will be its coming out party for the world. It is different from China, in that China entered the community of capitalist nations, but did not become a democracy. In South Africa we see the unleashing not only of economic power, but of all human power when unleashed from the bonds of oppression. It is a deeply spiritual country and its spiritual resources are strengthened by the cross-pollination of cultures, the same ethnic and cultural diversity that apartheid was designed to suppress. It's a joy to behold. Free at last, free at last, good God Almighty, I'm free at last! It's also nice to experience this place in the post-Bush/Cheney era. It was so painful to be an American during that ghastly occupation. At that time I looked to South Africa as one of the few places that was going through a positive political progression, one of the few places that seemed immune to the Bush/Cheney affliction. Now that Americans have thrown off that particular yoke of oppression, imperfect as things may be, an American can hold one's head up again when traveling in the rest of the world. We have something to be proud of. They tried to turn us into a medieval state and we finally succeeded in throwing them off, notwithstanding their election fraud and their abuse of all channels of power. We have a long way to go, but at least we have begun. If we don't get destroyed by global warming or the utter failure of the world capitalist system we may yet overcome corporatist tyranny. Those young dancers and singers give me new hope. Great Godalmighty!
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April 4, 2009Unconundrum -- Josh Mitteldorf, a senior editor at OpEdNews, who was educated as an astrophysicist has worked with mathematical modeling in a variety of areas and taught mathematics, statistics, and physics at several universities, wrote an article at OpEdNews reporting that "new article in the Open Chemical Physics Journal details chemical evidence from the 9/11 dust of thermite cutting charges." Many find the persistence of these suspicions to be annoying, prefering not to "dwell on the past," rather to move on, get over it. Let the crime go unsolved. It is inevitable, however, that the parts of the official explanation of the collapse of the three WTC towers that day -- or non-explanation, to be more accurate -- that don't stand up to scientific reasoning will eventually be exposed. It is not possible to stop scientific thinking from progressing. Scientists give you "just the facts, ma'am" and it is up to the politicians, pundits, and others to determine what the implications are in terms of their own frames of reference. Those three buildings did not fall because of fire. They fell because of thermite reactions that cut the steel beams into uniform pieces and allowed the towers to fall neatly into themselves. Now that the Bush administration is losing its grip on power, perhaps science will once again be able to progress in an unhindered way. The US may again become a progressive country.
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