Citizens United By-Product?

We need to start making things again in this country, and we can do that by reducing the tax and regulatory burdens on job creators. America will have the highest corporate tax rate in the world. Think about that. Look no further to see why jobs are moving overseas. – Michelle Bachmann Response

I cannot remember ever having three State of the Union speeches in one year. Normally the party in the White House gives the traditional State of the Union speech followed by the out of office party giving a response. Now thanks to our political system being awash in cash any crank can go on television and get their 15 minutes of fame. My question is who funded this little Bachmann escapade? Michelle Bachmann is supposed to be a money maker and according to reports she is a fund-raising machine, but where does this money come from? No one knows. I would venture to guess that it is the same AstroTurf funders who started the teabagger movement.

I have a hard time believing that it would be difficult to raise money with a platform of tax-cuts for the wealthy, removing regulations on businesses, and repealing health-care reform. I think there are a number of wealthy folks who would contribute to those causes, so the fact that she raises money should not be falsely correlated to her popularity. Cranks like Bachmann will always appeal to 15-20% of the population and while this sells a lot of gold and dog food it doesn’t translate well in national elections. Michelle Bachmann and her ilk are the pit-bulls of the right to make sure any compromise will be their compromise which is no compromise at all. Moving forward the new hostages won’t just be the unemployed, the poor, and the middle-class it will be the full faith and credit of the United States.

The new target will be the infamous entitlements. The line will be that you can’t be serious about deficits if you don’t cut entitlements. This of course will come from the same folks who want to make the Bush tax-cuts for the wealthy permanent. What I fail to understand is that we are having this one sided conversation about cutting the deficit without the other side of the equation which is to increase revenues. The way that Bill Clinton created a surplus was not by cutting Social Security and our safety net; he did it by raising revenues. And guess what the sky didn’t fall and the wealthy and the corporations did not move to Eastern Europe where the rates are much lower. The idea that you are going to cut your way out of this debt is ludicrous.

Is it just me or is it coincidental that following the Citizens United decision we are now being provided with every extremist view on full display. My concern is that we will be bombarded by these fanatical views not because those who espouse them are credible or even electable. The strategy will be to push the center further and further to their extreme view so that views that were once unthinkable are now being debated as mainstream. How many formerly extreme views are now a part of our political discussions? Anyone remember the 14th Amendment and how now it is open for public debate and re-litigation against Latinos? It wasn’t that long ago that this would have been considered an extreme remedy for the immigration crisis. Or how about referring to the unemployed and seniors as lazy and stopping benefits in the middle of an economic downturn like we haven’t seen since the Great Depression? Even the most ardent critics would not have proposed cutting off unemployment benefits in the midst of the "Great Recession".

The upcoming Presidential election is going to be full of cranks and fanatics and their goal will be to distract and confuse the electorate. They will be able to do so with the help of the Citizens United decision and the 501(c)4 organizations flush with cash that it spawned. These unnamed donors will be able to manipulate the issues and steer the debate away from the real issues and towards the dark hordes that are storming our borders or the socialist liberals who have the audacity to ask them to pay their fair share of taxes. Thanks to 24/7 cable news and the Supreme Court the airwaves will be flooded with the likes of Palin, Bachmann, and O’Donnell. The teabagger Barbie’s will be on full display and in rare form providing not only verbal, but visual distractions for the punditry.

We now have Supreme Court Justices hiding income from their spouses and conducting behind the scenes political talks for congressional audiences. My question is what job did Ms. Thomas perform to make $686,589 from the Heritage Foundation? Whether there is criminal intent or conflict of interest is not the issue. The issue is that under this Court more controversial decisions have been made and it doesn’t appear those decisions were based in Constitutional law, but instead on a political agenda. It is odd to me that the citizen’s of this country are overwhelmingly opposed to the Citizens United decision and yet our judiciary blatantly and apologetically displays their partisanship in a way that would have been unheard of just a few years ago.

It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first. - Ronald Reagan

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The Older Unemployed and Social Security Reform

But that does not seem to matter, not for her and not for a growing number of people in their 50s and 60s who desperately want or need to work to pay for retirement and who are starting to worry that they may be discarded from the work force — forever...Of the 14.9 million unemployed, more than 2.2 million are 55 or older. Nearly half of them have been unemployed six months or longer, according to the Labor Department. The unemployment rate in the group — 7.3 percent — is at a record, more than double what it was at the beginning of the latest recession. - New York Times

One of the least covered issues facing this country is the growing number of older workers who are now unemployed and who because of it have gone through their savings, investments, and retirement accounts and who may never become employed again. Many of these workers had planned to retire with their savings and retirement accounts to supplement their Social Security and now they will have to rely entirely on the government for their retirement and medical needs. While this is a tragedy in and of itself, the real calamity is that not only will these people be old and poor but they have become the means by which the wealthy has decided to balance the budget. The really sad thing is that many of them will also be highly in debt and will spend their golden years struggling to survive.

As a nation we have decided that our best years are behind us and we are determined to repeat them especially the “Gilded Age”. If the wealthy and the wing-nuts have their way not only will there be no retirement accounts for many but there will also be little if any Social Security to sustain them. Folks this isn’t about class warfare, this isn’t about being envious or hating on the rich, and this isn’t even about taxes, this is about what is the fundamental character of this country. Many of these workers through no fault of their own have found themselves unemployed through downsizing and the “great recession” created by the same folks who want to displace them from the only thing that will separate them from elderly poverty the likes of which we haven’t seen since prior to Social Security.

The insidiousness of what the wealthy are trying to do with Social Security reform is that they recognize that not only is America getting older, but also the aged are going to have fewer resources. Prior to the real estate bubble crashing many of these workers had already racked up tremendous debt using their homes as credit cards which they will be carry into retirement. This environment will cause many people to have to continue to work beyond retirement and thus increasing the pressure to extend the retirement age for Social Security. I suppose the thinking will be since they can’t afford to retire anyway we may as well hold off on their government checks. The unfortunate aspect of all of this is that the wealthy through their minions have convinced a number of Americans to believe that these programs have become obsolete and a waste of taxpayer money. The main impetus of this strategy is to blame the poor and the elderly mantra casting them as lazy and a drain on society.

These were the same folks who lambasted this administration for “pulling the plug” on grandma during the health-care reform debate. I guess they want the elderly to live, but only in poverty. The strategy is the same in all of their proposals. They fight for the unborn until they are born then they are on their own. They refuse to provide for their education, to stabilize their families, or offer a pathway out of poverty besides their bumper sticker rhetoric. It is obvious they see the writing on the wall and realize that in order to address the long-term structural problems of this nation revenues will have to be increased so in their usual preemptive fashion they are laying the groundwork to minimize their portion or to shift those obligations to others. It is becoming painfully clear that reducing spending will not be enough but I guess they have adopted a scorched earth policy to squeeze as much from the most vulnerable as they can before we even begin to discuss increasing revenues.

I predict in the coming years that poverty amongst the elderly will increase dramatically as they watch their investments being looted, their homes being devalued, and their pensions disappear. These won’t be people who were marginally involved in our economic system but people who had worked hard and played by the rules but who have become expendable like so many before them. These people will be the collateral damage of globalization and free trade. Those who have profited from these strategies will continue to obstruct and demonize any policies to help those they have sacrificed for their own gain. We can continue to ignore the coming catastrophe by clinging to the fear and uncertainty being propagated by the wealthy or we can take a cue from our European brethren and demand that the system begin to work for the 98% for whom it no longer does.

If we refuse to act then many of our parents and relatives who have been replaced way before their time will become the new faces of poverty. Millions of workers will be too young for retirement and too old to work in a shrinking job market. They will have no health-care, no savings, and plenty of debt as they float in this purgatory of not knowing what their future will hold. In this backdrop the true character of America will emerge and to be honest I am not sure what that character will be. The more I read comments from folks extolling the virtues of giving the wealthy more the less hopeful I am for the future.

“You know, if I listened to him [Michael Dukakis] long enough, I would be convinced we're in an economic downturn and people are homeless and going without food and medical attention and that we've got to do something about the unemployed.” - Ronald Reagan

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Conservatives Have Been Right More Often Than Not?

Conservative policies have on the whole worked — insofar as any set of policies can be said to “work” in the real world. Conservatives of the Reagan-Bush-Gingrich-Bush years have a fair amount to be proud of.[1]

When I read the editorial by William Kristol it seemed incredulous to me that anyone living on the planet earth the last few decades could make such a claim. The first thing that I was struck by was the intentional vagueness of his statements. How exactly were the Conservatives right about jihadist, crime. welfare, education, and the family? What specific policies are you referring to Mr. Kristol? It is precisely this type of revisionist history that has kept America from moving into the future. It is these delusional recollections of calling wrong right and losing winning that more and more Americans are repudiating.

Unlike Mr. Kristol who only has fond if somewhat dubious memories of Conservative positions I would like to present the real picture of the Conservative agenda and how it has played out in America and the world. And you can decide for yourselves how right they have been. The problem for Mr. Kristol and the other Conservative apologists is that after you remove the rhetoric and outright falsehoods all you are left with are the facts. And based on the facts I would hardly call the Conservative agenda a ringing success.


The jihadist – I am assuming here that Mr. Kristol is referring to al Qaeda and other Islamic terrorist groups. If this is in fact correct then wasn’t it Reagan who began his administration by trading arms for hostages with one of the current members of the axis of evil? Wasn’t it Reagan and Bush who armed and help form al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan to fight the Russians? And wasn’t it Reagan and the first Bush who armed Saddam Hussein during the 80’s to make war with Iran? The only possible victory during this period was by the first Bush in developing the coalition to oust Saddam Hussein from Kuwait and having the good sense not to occupy Iraq. And let’s not forget the culmination of neo-con policies that led to the number of terrorist attacks increasing during the second Bush years and the creation of al Qaeda in Iraq. Then of course there’s that whole business of transferring attention and resources away from capturing Osama to invading and occupying Iraq. Yes sir, Mr. Kristol the conservatives were definitely right about the jihadists.

Crime – The right in crime I guess would be the ill-fated war on drugs that turned our police officers from members of the community into armed militias taking over the streets of our neighborhoods? Or maybe it’s the crime policies that have sought to privatize our prison system and has led to the largest incarceration percentage in the world? And again these policies culminate in the failed policy of George W. of politicizing the Justice Department so that instead of focusing on crime they were focusing on bogus voter fraud cases attempting to suppress the voting rights of many Americans.

Welfare – Conservatives have always viewed Social Programs as transferring wealth from the rich to the poor. These so-called Christians did not feel an obligation to provide for the neediest of their fellow citizens. They often would resort to racially charged rhetoric about “welfare queens” rather than any real data or facts to back their positions. You see it is easier to shirk your responsibility if you are able to demonize your victims. The problem I have with the Conservatives is not necessarily with their philosophy, but in how they apply it. They expect everyone else to pull themselves up by their boot straps, but then they refuse to provide any boot straps. Of course what Mr. Kristol failed to mention is where would we be today if W. Bush had been able to privatize Social Security?

Education – How the Conservatives could have been right on the department they wanted to abolish is beyond me. Are we to assume that replacing public education with vouchers has been an effective policy? Or how about pricing middle-class and poor children out of college by reducing grants and raising the cost of student loans? The Bush administration’s No Child Left Behind was an attempt to bankrupt public education by creating these standards and then not providing the funding to bring about any real change. It is one thing to identify failing schools; it is another to come up with solutions to failing schools.

It is precisely this selective amnesia by partisan hacks that have prevented this country from advancing past the same cultural arguments for the past 30 years. No, Mr. Kristol the Conservatives have not been right and once you begin to get back on your meds you will be able to see that in fact they have created fear, division, and strife for years to come.

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/26/opinion/26kristol.html?hp

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The Sleeping Giant Has Awakened

As I have watched the early hours of the new Obama administration taking charge of the levers of power one thing is apparent. From the massive turnout at the inauguration to the overwhelming receptions being received by his cabinet it is clear that the most damage done by the Bush administration was not to the general public, although we were damaged severely but to the apparatus of government. For eight years the Bush administration worked to try and dismantle the government from the inside.

It has been the goal of every Republican administration since the “New Deal” to try and undo its social framework and safety nets created by the Roosevelt administrations. From its over-reaching policies of Food Stamps for the poor, Social Security for the old, and that communist inspired doctrine of equal pay for equal work they have tried to sabotage them. Each and every Republican administration has had the goal to a varying degree and a platform to undermine the “New Deal” which the Republicans have always viewed as unconstitutional and unnecessary. From Reagan’s “New Federalism” to George W’s. attempts to privatize Social Security the pattern is clear. What most Americans don’t realize is that George W. almost succeeded in the long sought after Republican goal of dismantling the “New Deal” not through legislation, but instead by bankrupting the federal government. Why else would anyone in their right mind in the middle of two wars give out tax-cuts to the wealthy if their goal was not to bankrupt the government. There was a day when the Republicans supposedly stood for fiscal conservatism, not any longer. Think about it; if you can’t shutdown a department through legislation the next best thing to do is to bankrupt the government. If there isn’t any money for those departments then they can only perform their missions on a limited basis or not at all. There would be no money for regulatory agencies, education, or for Medicaid/Medicare. Instead of using a scalpel the Bush administration was using a chainsaw to gut the federal government. He was going to starve the programs designed to help the poor and the middle-class while at the same time feeding the greed of the wealthy through deregulation.

If we look at the record it is abundantly clear what the plan was. He would provide tax-cuts for the wealthy, fight two wars, and allow the greed of Wall Street to go unchecked. All of this of course would strain the federal government to the breaking point. Because of our “war posture” we couldn’t cut defense spending leaving our domestic programs as the only way to cut spending. The result is we starve these programs to death. George W. leaves behind the biggest foreign and economic fiascos in the history of this country. Do not be fooled. I originally thought it was due to sheer incompetence, but as all this plays out it is something more ominous. We have all assumed that Bush was just a likeable bumbling fool with good if not misguided intentions. I now disagree with that assessment because underneath that persona of ineptitude hid a conniving and sinister man with a definite agenda.

Not only was his goal to bankrupt the government, he also sowed the seeds of distrust and bad morale in the institutions of our government. Shortly after the Iraq War began he allowed the Defense Department in the person of Donald Rumsfeld to take over the State Department ending a long tradition of diplomacy as an even partner with defense. He politicized and morally bankrupted the Justice Department through the use of torture and domestic surveillance programs. Instead of appointing competent bureaucrats he appointed political hacks evidenced by the FEMA response to Hurricane Katrina. These are just too many coincidences. No one is this incompetent and rises to the most powerful position in the free world.

But there is a new day in America. Those of us who have been sleepwalking and living a nightmare for the last eight years have finally stopped hitting the snooze button. All over America millions are getting up and starting the task of remaking America. We are restoring more than just our physical infrastructure we are also restoring our moral infrastructure as well. And judging by the reception Secretary Clinton received upon her arrival at State it is long overdue. I would venture to guess that the reception to Secretary Holder will be just as dramatic at the Justice Department. This nation, this government with all its citizens and employees are awakening to the call for change. I don’t think we realized the strain that so many of our federal employees were toiling under with the Bush administration. I think now that the national nightmare is over there will be a litany of revelations from current and former employees of the many illegal and immoral deeds done by the Bush administration in the name of security.

The alarm has sounded. The call to action has been made. I believe that there will be an outpouring of spirit and volunteerism the likes of which this nation has never seen. I caution the Republicans still standing you do not want to be on the wrong side of this tidal wave. Once the sleeping giant awakens there is often backlash, anger, and frustration. We are heading in a new direction and foolish is the man who thinks that he can stop it or reverse it.

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I Just Can’t Put My Finger On It

Lois Coar, the mother of two grown children, supported Mitt Romney this year and is undecided for November. She cannot see voting for Obama -- "not because he's black, but I just can't put it in words." She likes McCain as a person, but "I can't understand why he keeps talking about this Ayers guy" -- William Ayers, the 1960s radical who became an occasional colleague and supporter of Obama in Chicago. "He should be focusing on the economy and real terrorists; that's what people worry about," she said.[1]

If you are white and you do not consider yourself a racist, a wing-nut, or rich and your answer for not voting for Senator Barack Obama is, “It isn’t because he’s black, but I just can’t put my finger on it.” I have sad news for you; it is because he is black! I read this response and I was immediately struck by the number of people who share this same sentiment. With our economy experiencing a “China Syndrome” meltdown, the war in Afghanistan on the verge of defeat, and a whole host of other problems besetting this country anyone who would even consider supporting the Republican brand in this election needs to have their voting rights revoked. What this election has finally shown is just how bankrupt the Republican Party is, of course after they have bankrupted most of the free world. I mean there are only so many ways you can screw the public and get away with it. The sad part is that there are still those who would allow the divisiveness of race to keep them from supporting an obviously more qualified candidate.

It is reminiscent of the people on the Titanic after it has hit the iceberg and they are flailing around in a frigid ocean and refuse to get in the lifeboat because a black man is steering it. Well my friends my response to those folks is let them drink sea water. Anyone that stupid and stubborn probably deserves to drown. Anyone who had any doubts about John McCain’s judgment needs to look no further than his choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate. Fortunately there aren’t enough of those folks to prevent the inevitable from happening. Despite the Fox News poll that has McCain down by 2 points, this election is over. It won’t even be close. Anyone remember the Reagan revolution? We are about to experience the Obama revolution.

For his part, Reagan, the charismatic former Governor of California, repeatedly ridiculed Carter, and won a decisive victory; in the simultaneous Congressional elections, Republicans won control of the United States Senate for the first time in 28 years. This win marked the beginning of the "Reagan Revolution."[2]

McCain has run one of the worst general election campaigns in my memory. He has stumbled and fumbled every step of the way. I guess a campaign run by lobbyists isn’t the best campaign money can buy. Of course to be fair McCain did have a difficult task to overcome. All of the major issues in this campaign favored Obama and the Democrats and how hard is it to run as the agent of change candidate when you have been sitting in Washington for the last 25 years? Though most liberal journalists and pundits are too afraid to state the obvious for fear of jinxing the election, many of their Republican counterparts are already heading for the exits. Every day we are treated to another Republican mouthpiece laying the groundwork for a major Republican defeat. It’s as if the Republican Party is disintegrating right before our eyes. You have half the Party wanting McCain to go really negative and throw everything including the kitchen sink at Senator Obama and the other half watching in disbelief as this election becomes historic. The problem with going really negative is that the polls are showing it isn’t working, but more importantly the damage that it would do not to Senator Obama but to the office of the Presidency. And God knows we don’t need the office diminished anymore than George W. has already done.

The problem for McCain is two-fold. The first is that if Mr. Ayers were the American equivalent of Osama bin Laden as he is being compared, why is he still walking around a free man? Surely any man as dangerous as him would have to be on his way to Guantanamo not sitting in some mansion is Chicago dispersing 100’s of millions of dollars for educational foundations. Not to mention that Senator Obama was all of 8 when this Mr. Ayers was committing these acts of terrorism and probably not even in the country. It is hard to compare a man that we all see on television walking around free to a man that is living in caves while there is a worldwide manhunt for him; the symbolism kind of gets lost somewhere.

The second problem is that if this gets anymore negative then the McCain campaigns does something that we cannot allow in a democracy and that is too diminish the office of the Presidency. In other words you may disagree with the officeholder but the office is supposed to remain above the fray. You may not respect the man, but you must respect the office or anarchy will prevail. By personally attacking Senator Obama the way the McCain campaign has been doing then even if he is elected Senator Obama as President could not govern. This would be an intolerable condition for all of us. Not only would the man be tainted but also the office itself. I don’t have to follow any terrorist sympathizer, Muslim, or ni**er! Any President is only in command for a limited period, but the office must continue to hold its dignity and prestige regardless of its occupant. Let’s face it there will already be plenty of people who will resent Senator Obama as Commander in Chief, but we cannot tolerate any public ambiguity about who is in charge. Nor can we give any latitude to those voices of intolerance to reinterpret the law of the land.

If you dehumanize or devalue the person in such a way then the office is tainted. Mr. McCain is fond of stating that he puts country first, the final days of this election will allow him the opportunity to prove it based on the direction he allows his campaign to take. So, if the best you can do is I don’t know why I can’t vote for him, then I think we all know why and you are just unable to get honest with yourself.


[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/13/AR2008101302170.html?hpid=opinionsbox1
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1980

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You Call That A Debate?

Ever since the much anticipated on again off again debate between the two Presidential candidates, there has been a lot of concern from Democrats and pundits concerning the performance or lack thereof from Senator Obama. Many people feel that the debate was full of “moments loss” for the Senator to “take it to” McCain. Many felt that after the disastrous week McCain had that he was prime for a final knockout blow. It’s funny because I remember the week prior to the debate I was visiting my parents and jokingly said that if I were Senator Obama I would do something deliberate to anger John McCain and show that he was temperamentally unfit to be President. I had even jokingly and somewhat cruelly suggested that I would mention McCain’s adopted daughter that Bush had used to derail the McCain candidacy in 2000.

For the many people who feel that Senator Obama needs to go after McCain during the debates, I would just like to interject some thoughts from my own experience of being a black man working in a white world. The first thing that I would remind all of those people who are calling for Senator Obama to get tough with McCain is that they are already going to vote for Obama. What a supporter looks for in a candidate may not be what an undecided voter might find appealing. What many supporters don’t understand is the fine line that Senator Obama has to walk; despite all the pronouncements to the contrary we are still living in America where blacks are expected to carry themselves in certain ways when it comes to interacting with whites. While many people want to use Senator Obama’s historical candidacy as the death knell to our racist past there are many others who are not so willing to put our racist history to bed.

The latitude that many whites accord each other in interactions is not the same they accord minorities during those same interactions. Senator Obama could in fact dissect McCain very easily with facts that are surfacing daily about the ruthlessness, incompetence, and gimmickry of the McCain campaign in the news media. But what many don’t understand is that even if he were to undress McCain publically during the debates he could still be viewed as the loser by many of the undecided voters. We must not lose track of what this election and many elections in this country have boiled down to; about 20% of all eligible registered voters. Who can gauge the mindset of these voters? I mean think about it; anyone with all that has gone on in this country the last 8 years who has not made a decision about what direction they want this country to go in at this late date how can you expect to know what is going on in their minds. The worse thing that Senator Obama could do is to offend those voters by being seen as picking on this poor old white man who has sacrificed so much for his country. Whether you agree or disagree with this narrative it is the one that many Americans accept as the truth.

This election despite the pundits and media talking heads pronouncements to the contrary is Senator Obama’s to lose. Would we rather he win the debate and lose the election? Wouldn’t it be a better strategy to let the news media continue to pound the McCain campaign with daily charges of incompetence and collusion with lobbyist? While I agree that if it were me I would do more to tie McCain to the current economic crisis and the past policies of the Bush administration during the debates, but despite his seeming ineptitude Senator Obama is rising in the polls; all polls. Many of Senator Obama’s supporters would like to believe that he will be judged by the electorate based entirely on his character and his competency. I beg to disagree. We must not mistake our own judgments for the judgments of others. There are some voters who are looking for a reason not to vote for Obama. They will vote for him, albeit reluctantly. As we get closer to Election Day the McCain camp will become more desperate and will begin to try more and more gimmicks and take even more risks, as they do so they will make bigger mistakes. These mistakes will not only derail their campaign but hopefully will take down other Republicans in the process.

To all of those who are watching every twist and turn of this election through the media’s microscope I would just like to suggest you “GET OUT MORE”. Turn off the television or the computer and go out to dinner or go to a movie. The media is not going to let this election become a landslide even if is. Think about it if people begin to view this election as being over the public’s interest goes down and media outlets lose advertising dollars. They will continue to try and peak the public’s interest in this election until the final vote hoping to capture every advertising dollar they can get their greedy hands on. Keep tuned to the future debates and watch how Senator Obama methodically exposes McCain for the fraud that he is, but remember how Mondale tried to expose Reagan and those results.

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The Magical Mystery President

Every time I think we have reached the lowest point of the Bush presidency, he proves that I haven’t seen anything yet. In one of the rare press conferences of his presidency, President Bush demonstrated just how insignificant and out of it he has become. What happened to the arrogant and impotent man who was so full of himself and his political capital just a few years ago. Bush has been reduced to a world of fantasy and make believe, where he no longer wields any real political power, but just an imaginary magic wand. In his new found “Harry Potter” fantasyland, instead of actually doing something about the mounting economic crisis and the other important issues we face as a nation, Mr. Bush has decided that the best he can do is to invoke magic.

The incredible shrinking presidency of George Walker Bush hit a new milestone yesterday: The commander in chief turned to sorcery.

"You know, if there was a magic wand to wave, I'd be waving it," Bush informed Sheryl Gay Stolberg of the New York Times in a Rose Garden news conference. She had asked him about the recession, which everybody seems to be acknowledging but Bush.

Further, the wizard of the West Wing said he would use his supernatural powers, if he had them, to conjure up lower gas prices. "I think that if there was a magic wand and say, 'Okay, drop price,' I'd do that," said the illusionist.[1]

It has become painfully obvious that Mr. Bush has no intention of doing anything prior to leaving office about any of the many crisis’s his presidency has created. He refuses to change policy in Iraq, on the economy, or in his ineffectual rhetorical foreign policy. How anyone can or will be ever able to endorse this presidency as anything but a disaster is beyond me, but leave it up to the revisionist Republicans who in a few years will try and rewrite this presidency as reshaping the Middle-East and bringing prescription drugs to Medicare. It will take more than a magic wand to turn this sow’s ear into a silk purse.

I’ve got an idea Mr. President how about showing some leadership and using your last few months in office to change the direction and the tone of the public discourse, but considering that you have used your presidency and political capital to raise it to this level I guess it would be an apparition to expect it now. You would think that leaving office with a 30% approval rating would cause most people to try and elevate their status, but not George W. he knows that by the time the wing-nuts are through he will be the greatest Republican president since Ronald Reagan. It is amazing that he will be compared to Reagan since he is already displaying the same Alzheimer’s symptoms that Reagan exhibited prior to leaving office. But if I remember correctly it was Nancy that relied on the Ouija board for direction. I guess if your reality is so awful it only makes sense to want to retreat into escapism, however we as a nation can not afford for our leader to be off in la-la-land while we suffer from a imploding economy and a war with no end in sight.

Rather than hope for magic and a superhero to appear and rescue us from his disastrous policies maybe the President could actually act like a president for a change and clean up some of the damage he has wrecked on not only the US, but the world. It is hard to believe the level of disconnect being displayed by this president, talk about a Nero complex. I can hardly wait for the magician to come and do tricks in the Rose Garden to cover Mr. Bush’s lack of action on any issues. Instead of being presidential Mr. Bush continues his stale refrain of blaming the Congress. For most of his presidency he has been given unlimited power and a free hand to lead this nation, now as he nears the end of his presidency instead of having accomplishments that he can herald the best he can do is to blame the cowardly Congress that has shown no backbone in standing up to him. Talk about biting the hand that has fed you.

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[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/29/AR2008042902548.html?hpid=topnews&sid=ST2008042901305

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Brooks to the Rescue of the Reagan Myth

It seems that pundit and Republican apologist David Brooks could not sit idly by and listen to the truth about his hero Ronald Reagan. Because of the recent talk surrounding the Reagan visit to Mississippi to kick-off his campaign and its racist overtones, Mr. Brooks is trying once again to write revisionist history concerning “The Gipper”. I wrote an essay detailing this phenomenon called “Revisionist History”, it seems the Republicans have to keep the image of Reagan as the populist hero because of the damage done by the Bush clan. It explains why all of the candidates are falling all over themselves to be the “next Reagan”. So, needless to say his image must not be tarnished by a small little detail like the truth.

The current complaint of Brooks and other revisionists revolves around a speech Reagan gave to kick-off his presidential campaign following the Republican convention. The speech took place in Philadelphia, Mississippi, where three civil rights workers had been murdered just 16 years earlier. In the speech Reagan used the term “states rights” stating that, “I believe in states’ rights.” The term states’ rights has a long history in America and in the South particularly. States’ rights was the false justification used by the Confederacy to secede from the Union and to condone slavery.

The term "states' rights" has been used as a code word by defenders of segregation, and was the official name of the "Dixiecrat" party led by segregationist presidential candidate Strom Thurmond. George Wallace, the Alabama governor, who famously declared in his inaugural address, "Segregation now! Segregation tomorrow! Segregation forever!", later remarked that he should have said, "States' rights now! States' rights tomorrow! States' rights forever!" Wallace, however, claimed that segregation was but one issue symbolic of a larger struggle for states' rights; in that view, which historians dispute, his replacement of segregation with states' rights would be more of a clarification than a euphemism.[1]

Mr. Brooks would have us believe that Mr. Reagan and his campaign were unaware of these facts at the time of the scheduling of this stop or the location of the stop. For Mr. Brooks to make this claim is incredulous and completely dishonest, you would have had to be a moron not to know the implications of being in Philadelphia, Mississippi and making a statement concerning states’ rights. If there is one thing we do know the campaign staff for Reagan were no idiots, they carefully fashioned a brand that is still being used today as the standard bearer for Republican and conservative ideas. A brand that began with this speech and as we have gained more insight into the Reagan years it has become obvious that every speech, every movement was carefully choreographed. The idea that this was some campaign oversight or slip up flies in the face of reality.

In reality, Reagan strategists decided to spend the week following the 1980 Republican convention courting African-American votes. Reagan delivered a major address at the Urban League, visited Vernon Jordan in the hospital where he was recovering from gunshot wounds, toured the South Bronx and traveled to Chicago to meet with the editorial boards of Ebony and Jet magazines.

You can look back on this history in many ways. It’s callous, at least, to use the phrase “states’ rights” in any context in Philadelphia. Reagan could have done something wonderful if he’d mentioned civil rights at the fair. He didn’t. And it’s obviously true that race played a role in the G.O.P.’s ascent.[2]

Based on his own argument Mr. Brooks makes the case that race played a major role in the rise of the Republican Party, so how did this rise take place? Why would millions of voters flock to a party that didn’t support their views concerning race? According to his article the goal of the Reagan campaign was to move away from the racists roots of the “Southern Strategy” begun by Nixon. I’m sorry you want to move away from racism by going to Mississippi and giving a speech on states’ rights the day your general election campaign begins, am I the only one who is missing something here? That would be like me trying to court the Hispanic vote by going to a rally given by the Minutemen declaring my support of native-born rights and then attending a Cinco de Mayo celebration the same day. How stupid do these people take us for?

Despite their attempts to whitewash history, the truth is that Reagan and his staff knew exactly what they were doing and it is borne out by the policies of his administration. Mr. Brooks states that Reagan could have done something wonderful that day by instead of supporting states’ rights he had said he supported civil rights, but imagine how that would have played with that crowd, so he didn’t. These brand preservers forget one tiny detail, we have a historical record of Mr. Reagan’s policies and legislative agenda and they contain outright pandering and inward support for racist policies. Has Mr. Brooks forgotten about South Africa and Bob Jones University? To have a serious debate it requires a certain amount of honesty, honesty that Mr. Books and his ilk refuse to display.

The Reagan brand is a myth and like all good myths it requires fabricators to keep it alive and flourishing. I can’t say that Reagan was a racist or he wasn’t; only God can know a man’s heart, but I can say that he supported policies that had racist overtones. Mr. Brooks calling a duck a chicken doesn’t make it one.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/States'_rights
[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/09/opinion/09brooks.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

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Revisionist History

I’m sorry, I normally don’t speak ill of the dead, but that is based on the preposition that they stay dead. I don’t know how it happens, but it seems to happen a lot in America; people rise from the grave. There was Elvis, Tupac, Marilyn Monroe, and now Ronald Reagan.

The reincarnate Ronald Reagan is a lot different from the original, I guess being dead for 3 years will do that to you. The reincarnate Ronald Reagan was last spotted at the Republican candidate debate, but since that appearance he is being booked all over the media. I thought it was crazy that Tupac wrote more albums after he died than he did when he was living, but Mr. Reagan has written a diary. Of course the diary is not new, but as usual when things are going badly there are some who long for the “good ole days”. The reincarnation of Ronald Reagan would be humorous if not for its nefarious intentions.

I asked myself, why is it necessary for the conservatives to create this mythical “white knight” that is now Ronald Reagan? The answer is simple really and very ingenious, you see people can have flaws, but icons do not. If the conservatives are able to succeed in making Ronald Reagan bigger than life, then they can hitch their flawed policies to him and give these ideas credibility that they do not deserve. The beginning of this was readily on display with the republican candidates falling all over themselves to out-Reagan one another. With all the money and spin being utilized to remake Mr. Reagan maybe we should look at who he really was and what he represented free; from the hype.

To many Ronald Reagan represented a return to “good ole” American values. His handlers had crafted this image of John Wayne with a heart, the beginning of compassionate conservatism. The thing you have to hand it to these conservatives is that they will craft a strategy and continue to play it out over years. If they are nothing else they are patient. Think about it, there was a time in this country when conservatism was a mockery. After the Barry Goldwater melt down, few took conservatism seriously as a viable strategy to govern and considered it a fringe element even in the Republican Party. It was at this bleak time that they begin the long push to make conservatism mainstream. They began by attacking liberalism. By the time they were done, calling someone a liberal was tantamount to a personal affront.

Ronald Reagan despite his short comings was an opportunist and he appeared on the scene at just the right time. He was a natural for the greatest role he would ever play and had the credentials from his years as an informant for the McCarthy crew and as the Governor of California. It is interesting to note that for most of his presidency, Mr. Reagan was not popular. Despite today’s spin being spewed by former Reaganites, his only period of decent popularity was during his reelection period of 1984 to 1986. That was due almost entirely on the surging economy and not any proposal or ideas offered up by Reagan. So let’s go to the record.

Reagan brought down communism is one of the main talking points of Reagan promoters. Ok, just because you happen to be in office when an event occurred doesn’t mean you caused the event. There has never been any direct evidence that any of Reagan’s policies or rhetoric had any effect on the fall of the Communist block. Mr. Reagan take down that wall of lies that was built around you.

Ronald Reagan was a tax cutter. Actually no, he signed the biggest middle-class tax increase in history. The whole “Reagan Recovery” was a farce. In truth most Americans paid more taxes under Reagan than before Reagan.

Then of course there was that Iran-Contra thing, the union busting (PATCO), the racist policy of engaging South Africa, the illegal war in Central America, the ignoring of AIDS, there was the 138 administration officials convicted, there was the whole Alzheimer’s rumors, and the governing by astrology.

When you look at the true record of Ronald Reagan, you see that this reincarnation of Reagan is a right wing conservative trick to put forward its agenda under a new brand. Thanks to the right wing onslaught, there are many who think Reagan was a great President, but the truth is that he wasn’t. Divisive politics should be rejected no matter what brand they are being packaged under. Let’s let sleeping dogs lie. We don’t need another Reagan, we need another Lincoln…

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