Month: July 2010

The GOP: Not So Grand Anymore


Obama’s election sealed the fate for the Republican Party. It will continue to exist but in so many splintered forms and multi-faceted alliances it will look like a scene from The Survivor  television show.  The warnings of the demise of the party have been sounded for at least the last two years when the fruit cake, nutty birthers/tea baggers came along, but no one in the party seemed interested or they were afraid to speak out.  Now they are.

Too many Republican leaders are acquiescing to a poisonous “demagoguery” that threatens the party’s long-term credibility, says a veteran GOP House member who was defeated in South Carolina’s primary last month.

He cited a claim made famous by Palin that the Democratic health care bill would create “death panels” to decide whether elderly or sick people should get care.

“There were no death panels in the bill … and to encourage that kind of fear is just the lowest form of political leadership. It’s not leadership. It’s demagoguery,” said Inglis, one of three Republican incumbents who have lost their seats in Congress to primary and state party convention challengers this year.

Inglis said voters eventually will discover that you’re “preying on their fears” and turn away.

And again here

Warning that tea party “mischief” may be aiding Democrats this election season, defeated Utah Republican U.S. Sen. Bob Bennett says that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid likely will keep his seat and that the GOP may not win hotly contested Senate races in Colorado or Kentucky either.In an interview in his home state with The Associated Press, Bennett also suggested that Republicans may not have a clear plan to govern even if they do take control of the Senate this year.

What this suggests is the GOP is fear mongering and led by  personalities who have nothing to lose  by the death of the Party due to their betrayal.  The likes of radio and television personalities with contracts larger than any athlete with the exception of LaBron can continue their daily on air diatribe with no consequences to themselves when the Party fails.  Departing Republican senators seem to suggest as well that their Party has no plan of action to govern since all they can do is prey on the fears of constituents about the dangers of one group or another .  Both articles speak to a lack of any initiative on the part of the GOP for constructive governance. Eventually, we are to blame for not holding their feet to the fire and demanding they get out of the cellar of race baiting, pitting one side of Americans against another, brand of politics.

Alternate Universes


America is proposing another soldier/warrior to replace General Petraeus as CENTCOM commander.  General James Mattis takes delight in killing Muslims because they ‘slap around women for five years because they didn’t wear a veil’ and are less manly and as a result of his bravado he’s being promoted to lead the fight in two countries, Iraq and Afghanistan, that a) posed no threat to America, b) are essentially nation building clients of America, c) had/have no substantive military and d) are conflicts that degenerated into US forces fighting opponents made up of the very people we claimed to want to liberate.  This is the type of personality America wants to introduce to allies as the leader of America’s effort, one who likes shooting people, who believes it’s better to ‘kill them all and let God sort them out’ (good vs. bad).  Realizing just how obnoxious the general is for this job, check out the rehabilitation effort undertaken by main stream/corporate media on his behalf.  The allies whose help we need should be really comforted knowing the one we picked to help them rather prefers shooting them.

Contrast that to what happened earlier this week when a CNN reporter/producer expressed sorrow over the death of someone the above mentioned general likes to shoot/kill and she gets fired from her job.  Octavia Nasr’s expressions, made privately do not affect policy either of the US government or her employer, nor does she have the baggage of General Mattis of making inflammatory statements and she’s been dismissed quicker than you can see CNN because her sympathies were directed towards the wrong man, a man General Mattis would probably like if he likes people based on their attitude towards women. None of that matters, what matters is it is perfectly acceptable to denigrate Arabs/Muslims to the extent of inciting wholesale murder and slaughter, but it is not acceptable to extend them condolences or sympathy because they deserve none of that.  America used to be like that and it seems we still are; the more things change the more they remain the same.

Why Guantanamo will remain open for business


It’s almost a given, what ever the federal government assemblies, it won’t dismantle.  Gitmo Bay is no different, so whatever campaign comes along and promises you it will be closed, you can bet they are lying.  Obama is no different.  Although time (he’s been in office almost two years and nothing has happened)  is a contributing factor why we know he won’t close it  here’s another reason why.

Deprive a man of any and all contact with the outside world for eight years in the conditions we’ve all come to know exist in Gitmo Bay, including torture, death, and everything else revealed since the camp was formed and offer him the one sliver of hope of freedom that if he confesses to any and everything he will be set free to join his family is there anyone in this world who thinks he won’t confess?  Anyone?  So binLadin’s cook/security man has confessed to aiding al Qaida, the US gets its justification to keep Gitmo open to protect us from the evils of terrorism and Ibrahim al-Qosi gets to go home to his family and resume what’s left of a shattered life.  A win-win situation for all but the American people who have once again been lied to by a politician who thinks it far better to invest in and protect government than  the people who elect government.  Do we not get what we deserve?

More French Racism


I’m about to get on board with the notion of freedom fries and it’s not because of their opposition to anything America has done, rather it’s because the French keep making one bone headed faux pas on the world stage after another.  First it was women’s clothing and now it’s people’s skin color. The aspersions cast on the French National soccer team once again put to rest France’s notions of equality.  It simply doesn’t exist.

Octavia Nasr is gone


There appears to be another fatality in the war on free speech and no it’s not some Danish cartoonist who drew a caricature of the Prophet of Islam, nor is it a tea party/birther who insulted the lineage of today’s President of the United States.  Rather it was a CNN Middle East correspondent, Octavia Nasr who had worked for that network for 20 years all because of a less than 140 word expression of regret at the death of a prominent personality from her country of birth, Lebanon.  There is no free speech among American institutions when it comes to views about the Middle East that do not conform with convention.

Ms. Nasr didn’t ask anyone on CNN to air her views, nor did she express them during a report she made on the air, rather she “tweeted” her expressions of regret or sorrow in a medium that doesn’t accept more than 140 characters and for that her 20 year career came to an end.  Her employers probably didn’t blink an eye when they told her, albeit circuitously that she has no right to freedom of expression or belief if it contradicts corporate media’s own.  This act of censorship, along with the furor created over Helen Thomas’ words, highlights the thought control which permeates corporate media when it comes to issues regarding the Middle East.

At the very same time Larry King is interviewing an Israeli Prime Minister in an attempt to soften his country’s image where very little if any rebuttal will be made to Israel’s claims of righteousness in the face of overwhelming proof of their murder, Nasr was handed her walking papers because she expressed her sorrow over the death of a man with whom she had personal contact during a very tumultuous time in Lebanon’s history.  She isn’t the only one to have felt that way about Fadlallah.

Frankly, no one is able to express sympathy towards an enemy of Israel, the darling of US media, nor against Israel itself.  Nasr’s firing was another among many shots across the bow to those who dare oppose the demonization of Israel’s enemies, be they Lebanese, Palestinians, Iranians, Syrians and on the list goes.  Free speech is not free within the ranks of corporate America and perhaps, to paraphrase Glen Greenwald, all institutions should just tell everyone in the beginning you  have no right to expect the 1st amendment applies to you; rather you must accept what others consider acceptable and not acceptable to utter, even in your private life, in order to avoid any further illusions of freedom.

Crab barrell politics


We get what we deserve.  For eight years we had a Republican president who completely overturned by neglect and more often than not, intentionally all that America has stood for in the last 200 years, so much so that over 200 presidential historians went on record to say George W. Bush was the 5th worst president in American history.

The political acumen of the American electorate hasn’t gotten sharper with the end of the Bush era, it seems to have gotten nastier.  It is as if we relish dirty politics, far worse than anything seen during the Nixon campaign of 1972 when the forces of darkness were let loose on America’s political stage.  Politicians have become like crabs in a barrel, climbing on the backs of constituents with inflammatory remarks in order get smirks, nods of approval, political contributions from others. Now, the gloves are off and politicians seem to be intent on denigrating segments of America’s mosaic for what has become, a very expensive seat in Congress.

Arizona has enacted legislation which will end up directly targeting brown skin people with Latin names, in a throwback to the days of Jim Crowism and stars of David on the clothes of citizens of the state.  No one is expected to carry with them their birth certificate except people with names like Gomez, Rodriquez, Abdullah, Muhammad et.al. and it is perfectly acceptable in the minds of many for that to be a legitimate request, even though a similar one wouldn’t be made of a Jones, or a Goldberg, a Johnson or a Smith.  It was politicians who made this stupid law in Arizona, and now Arizonans and the rest of us have to suffer because of their political xenophobia.

Listen to the latest elected official make a complete jackass of himself. The only stupid people he mentions in his speech on the floor of the US congress are the people who elected him in, not surprisingly, Texas, the home of the 5th worst president in America.  Please America, get rid of politicians who want to get to political office, or keep it, by getting you to hate your fellow citizens of this country, or want you to be afraid of or angry with people who are different than yourself.  This is an election year; let them know with your vote that America has come a long way from the racism and hatred of a bygone era and that we can today feel comfortable in who or what we are, appreciate the differences we have in our social fabric and live by laws that meant for all citizens, and not just those we hate, don’t know or don’t like.