2008-03-24T20:50:44Z User 350 http://www.newciv.org/nl/newslog.php/_v350/ OrgSpace NewsLog

For Hillary Clinton to step aside? To “suspend” her candidacy? A political analyst parsing the race the other night on TV claimed Hillary would have to acquire at least 64% of all the remaining delegate vote to top Obama. That numerically she can not win the primary race without a miracle.

But instead of Hillary calling it quits the race continues and the two sides rip each other to shreds only bolstering a possible McCain victory in November.

The only thing which can happen between now and August (when the Demos have their convention in Denver) which can change the numerical outcome without tearing the party apart is if Obama is caught selling sex slaves (most of them about thirteen years old) out of the basement of his house. Only then can the Super Delegates vote overwhelmingly for Hillary without tearing the party apart.

Shouldn’t Hillary step aside, suspend her campaign and get behind Obama as the Democratic Party’s obvious choice? Hasn’t her continuing candidacy only evolved into a form of wishful thinking and a stubborn denial of reality? If not just a gross ego trip?

True enough, many Hillary backers would be shattered, but if she puts her party first in order to elect a Democrat instead of a Republican in November then she should begin to seriously work for that victory. For her persistent campaign clearly undermines that chance at success.

If Hillary “suspends” her candidacy and that “miracle” (“miracle” for Hillary) occurs then she can step in and take Obama’s place. Under those circumstances the Super Delegates would have no choice but vote for Hillary and most of Obama’s backers would forgive them. Other than that, if the Super Delegates ignore the will of the primary’s voters and give the nomination to Hillary, the black vote will in all probability be gone and many others who would have voted Democratic in November will probably stay home too. Or vote third party. Or vote even for McCain.]]> http://www.newciv.org/nl/newslog.php/_v350/__show_article/_a000350-000036.htm 2008-03-24T20:50:44Z 2008-03-24T20:50:44Z

Way back in 1938, when Spain was the central front against fascism, the League of American Writers sent out a questionnaire to several hundred American writers. The question they asked was simple: “Are you for, or are you against Franco and fascism? Are you for, or are you against the legal govern...

This was 1938, seventy years ago. In some respects the same old battle is being fought today. And setting the historic aspects of the struggle in Spain aside, I thought it might be interesting to see what some of these writers had to say about fascism. For reading their remarks should also reveal some familiar parallels to today.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

“I hate fascism because, as I see it in Germany and Italy, it involves these three things: the suppression of civil liberties, the assertion that the state has absolute rights over the individual, and the acceptance of a ‘leader’ - a superior man who knows what’s what and who pushes the rest of us around....” Herbert Agar

“Three years’ residence in Italy was more than enough to convince me that fascism is an unmixed evil. It is dull and stupid and cruel in itself and it leads invariably to increasing dullness, stupidity, and cruelty. Fascism kills art and science just as it kills individuals." Leonard Bacon

“It is impossible for me to understand how any sensitive, sensible or civilized person could be a supporter of the fascist theory of government. It is a contradiction of all that mankind has been fighting its way toward for the past five thousand years, even in its more possible manifestations a return to the Dark Ages.” Louis Bromfield

“No age can escape its destiny. It is the destiny of our age to confront the most modern incarnation of the ancient savagery that lurks in every man, a savagery bred of fear and organized into large-scale social violence by ruthless power groups within our competitive society. It is the destiny of our generation to crush fascism or perish... “ Haakon M. Chevalier

“I am against Franco and fascism generally. My reasons are that I believe that fascism means a lack of intellectual freedom, a strongly militaristic and repressive social control joined seemingly with the continuance and strengthening of false religious, racial and economic ideologies, and generally speaking, the antithesis of any hope for equitable treatment which other forms of government at least pretend to offer the individual.” Theodore Dreiser

“I most sincerely wish to go on record as being unalterably opposed to Franco and fascism, to all violations of the legal government and outrages against the people of Republican Spain.” William Faulkner (I included this one since Faulkner is not known for making any political comments unrelated to southern race relations.)

“I am glad to say, in black and white, that I am not only opposed to Franco and his fascism, but to Hitler and Mussolini and their brands of this horrible social disease. Allow these men and their machines to crawl onward and the entire world will become a place of ceaseless war, poverty and famine with whip-driven masses bitterly obeying the rule of a few ruthless madmen.” Reed Harris

“Of course, I am against fascism with its spread of color prejudice and race hatred and working class oppression. How could any sensible Negro be otherwise?” Langston Hughes

“I am against smallpox, murder, race prejudice, war, injustice, diluted milk, fascism, stealing pennies off dead men’s eyes and shell-shocked Chinese babies.” Fannie Hurst

“In defense of those values to which men of imagination and charity have always been dedicated, no writer can refrain from testifying that whatever he stands for, humanly and culturally, denies and is denied by fascist economics, fascist imperialism, the fascist terror, and the fascist dream.” Stanley Kunitz

“Fascism not only sets up a form of government objectionable to us, and threatens the peace of the world, but it is a move to set the clock back by whole centuries. It is the flight into the refuge of force and prejudice of limited and perverted men who cannot face the effort and the sacrifice required by true democracy or the mental courage demanded by modern science.” Oliver La Farge

“Regardless of Franco who to me is just a manifestation of an almost world-wide disease, I am unalterably opposed to fascism as I am to any other form of government which aims to place the power and the glory of the state above the satisfaction and happiness of its individual members. I believe that the only function of any government is to make possible a free, joyous and independent life for as great a majority of its citizens as possible. Any political ideal that strives to impose the will of the few on the lives of many must as I see it inevitably be false and ultimately be discarded.” Hannah Lees

“I am and have been since I became conscious of political and economic questions, now more than twenty years, unalterably opposed to the whole principle and practice of dictatorship in any form, by any class and for whatever reason. I am opposed to any nation attempting to impose its own form of government, no matter what it may be, upon any other nation, either by propaganda or by acts of war.” Katherine Anne Porter

“Any writer who chooses the side of fascism confesses that the property he has, or hopes to have has corrupted him, that it is more to him than his art, more to him than civilization. Any writer who professes unconcern abnegates his function as a writer. The mental territory he would withdraw into does not exist in life. if he attempts to reflect it in his writing it is condemned to be a reflection of nothing; or it will be a reflection of death that the Fascists will find a use for.” Isidor Schneider

“Just returned from a little tour in the agricultural fields of California. We have our own fascist groups here. They haven’t bombed open towns yet but in Salinas last year tear gas was thrown in a Union Hall and through the windows of workingmen’s houses. That’s rather close, isn’t it?

“Your question as to whether I am for Franco is rather insulting. Have you seen anyone not actuated by greed who was for Franco? No, I’m not for Franco and his Moors and Italians and Germans. But some Americans are. Some Americans were for the Hessians England sent against our own revolutionary army. They were for the Hessians because they were selling things to them. The descendants of some of these Americans are still very rich and still touchy concerning the American Way, and our ‘ancient liberties.’ I am treasonable enough not to believe in the liberty of a man or a group to exploit, torment, or slaughter other men or groups. I believe in the despotism of human life and happiness against the liberty of money and possessions.” John Steinbeck

“Only the writer who draws his sustenance from the caved-in teat of a decayed past can be a Fascist. Fascism is capitalism seeking by brutality to evade the logic that moves mankind inexorably toward the common-sense solution of the paradox that puts want amid plenty, idle men beside idle factories, underfed children in a land of rotting crops. Fascism, by its very nature, must be antirational and antihumane.

“Criminal disunity among liberals and the left helped fascism to victory in Italy and Germany. The Popular Front has made it possible for the people of Spain to fight the greatest battle against fascism the world has yet seen. it is not strange that the allies of Spanish fascism are to be found in brown shirt and in black shirt, in the most backward section of the Catholic Church, among ignorant Moors and in those refined upper circles of the British aristocracy so delicately bred that they prefer the murder of children in Barcelona to the loss of a penny on their profits from Rio Tinto.

“If the Spanish people win, the forces of fascism will be set back the world over. Should the Loyalists lose, we may expect a tidal wave of reaction, obscurantism, race hatred and thuggery, menacing our own lives and our own homes. We must never forget that the barricades in Madrid are barricades everywhere - in defense of freedom, of culture, and of humanity? I. F. Stone

“If Italian history could look down on Mussolini today it would vomit! Think of the century-long struggles for freedom waged by Florence, by Milan, by Venice against what odds and with what world-shaking effect and then think of the decay of freedom rotting its way into Spain today and you have a picture not equaled save in some lepers’ colony on some outlawed island in the Pacific. Without Mussolini there could not be Franco, it is the same rot eating in. I am for the legal government and the people of Republican Spain. They are the threatened inheritors of all that Italy has lost.” William Carlos Williams

“I feel we have come to a fork in the road nations have trodden; it is very rare in history that the paths are so clearly marked, that the future can be so clearly foretold. We can follow the road of the fascist nations and go back to intolerance, tyranny, material misery for the great mass of the people, the suppression of all individuality and its expression in the arts, in science, in life. We can undo what progress has achieved. Or we can go the other road which marks the continuation of the best in the past and a new flowering of the human mind under conditions of freedom and experimentation.... “ Ella Winter]]> http://www.newciv.org/nl/newslog.php/_v350/__show_article/_a000350-000035.htm 2008-03-04T21:24:10Z 2008-03-04T21:30:53Z

Has anyone seen John McCain on TV recently? He becomes violently passionate when he discusses "Islamo fascism," claiming the US under his presidency will never accept "defeat." He even beat his chest in one performance. As the piece below describes he still even thinks we should have 'won" the Vie...

Who? Al Qaeda? Which according to most sources is no more than three or four thousand strong? For McCain still conflates our enemies in Iraq with al Qaeda. Though most sources claim they only represent two or three percent of those we have been fighting. He must mean the Muslim world then. All two or three billion of them. Swarming over our northern and southern borders, raping our women, slaughtering our livestock, setting our farms and towns on fire. Oh, that's not it? Perhaps he's referring to the suitcase bomber? The cell transporting the little container which can blow the guts out of midtown Manhattan. That must be it. But will those terrorist cells be fought with Abrams tanks on the sands of Iraq, with tens of thousands of American troops? By bombing them? Or would that only anger more Arabs, creating more enemies? People who hate us and want to join those cells?

Don't be fooled by the myth of John McCain

JOHANN HARI

A lazy, hazy myth has arisen out of the mists of New Hampshire and South Carolina. Across the pan-Atlantic press, the grizzled 71-year-old Vietnam vet, John McCain, is being billed as the Republican liberals can live with.

He is "a bipartisan progressive," "a principled hard liberal," "a decent man" -- in the words of liberal newspapers. His fragile new frontrunner status as we go into Super Tuesday is being seen as something to cautiously welcome, a kick to the rotten Republican establishment.

But the truth is that McCain is the candidate we should most fear. Not only is he to the right of Bush on a whole range of subjects, he is also the Republican candidate most likely to dispense with Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama.

McCain is third-generation Navy royalty, raised from a young age to be a senior figure in the armed forces, like his father and grandfather before him. He was sent to one of the most elite boarding schools in America, then to a naval academy where he ranked 894th of 899 students in ability. He used nepotism to get ahead: When he was rejected by the National War College, he used his father's contacts with the Secretary of the Navy to make them reconsider. He later married the heiress to a multi-million dollar fortune.

Right up to his twenties, he remained a strikingly violent man, "ready to fight at the drop of a hat," according to his biographer Robert Timberg.

This rage seems to be at the core of his personality: describing his own childhood, McCain has written: "At the smallest provocation I would go off into a mad frenzy, and then suddenly crash to the floor unconscious. When I got angry I held my breath until I blacked out."

But he claims he was transformed by his experiences in Vietnam -- a war he still defends as "noble" and "winnable," if only it had been fought harder.

(More than three million Vietnamese died; how much harder could it be?) His plane was shot down on a bombing raid over Hanoi, and he was captured and tortured for five years. To this day, he cannot lift his arms high enough to comb his own hair.

On his release, he used second his wife's fortune to run to as a Republican senator. He was a standard-issue Reaganite corporate Republican n until the Keating Five corruption scandal consumed him. In 1987, it was revealed that McCain, along with four other senators, had taken huge campaign donations from a fraudster called Charles Keating. In return they pressured government regulators not to look too hard into Keating's affairs, allowing him to commit even more fraud. McCain later admitted: "I did it for no other reason than I valued [Keating's] support."

McCain took the only course that could possibly preserve his reputation: He turned the scandal into a debate about the political system, rather than his own personal corruption. He said it showed how "we need to drive the special interests out of Washington," and became a high-profile campaigner for campaign finance reform. But privately, his behavior hasn't changed much. For example, in 2000 he lobbied federal regulators hard on behalf of a major campaign contributor, Paxson Communications, in an act the regulators spluttered was "highly unusual." He has never won an election without outspending his opponent.

But McCain has distinguished himself most as an über-hawk on foreign policy.

To give a brief smorgasbord of his views: at a recent rally, he sang "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran," to the tune of the Beach Boys' "Barbara Ann." He says North Korea should be threatened with "extinction."

McCain has mostly opposed using U.S. power for humanitarian goals, jeering at proposals to intervene in Rwanda or Bosnia -- but he is very keen to use it for great power imperialism. He learned this philosophy from his father and his granddad Slew, who fought in the Philippine wars at the turn of the 20th century, where he was part of a mission to crush the local resistance to the U.S. invasion. They did it by forcing the entire population from their homes at gunpoint into "protection zones," and gunning down anybody over the age of 10 who was found outside them. Today, McCain dreamily describes this as "an exotic adventure" which his grandfather "generally enjoyed."

Then McCain's father, John, led the U.S. invasion of the Dominican Republic in 1965, at a time when there was a conflict on the Caribbean island. On one side, there were forces loyal to Juan Bosch, the democratically elected left-wing president who was committed to land redistribution and helping the poor. On the other side, there were forces who had overthrown the elected government and looked nostalgically to the playboy tyranny of Rafael Trujillo. John McCain Sr. intervened to ensure the supporters of the democratic government were crushed, bragging that it taught the natives "how to behave themselves." He saw this as part of a wider mission, where the U.S. would take over Britain's role as a "world empire."

These beliefs drive McCain today. He brags he would be happy for U.S. troops to remain in Iraq for 100 years, and declares: "I'm not at all embarrassed of my friendship with Henry Kissinger; I'm proud of it." His most thorough biographer -- and recent supporter -- Matt Welch concludes: "McCain's program for fighting foreign wars would be the most openly militaristic and interventionist platform in the White House since Teddy Roosevelt...[it] is considerably more hawkish than anything George Bush has ever practiced." With him as president, we could expect much more aggressive destabilization of Venezuela and Bolivia -- and more.

So why do so many nice liberals have a weak spot for McCain? Well, to his credit, he doesn't hate immigrants: He proposed a program to legalize the 12 million undocumented workers in the U.S. He sincerely opposes torture, as a survivor of it himself. He has apologized for denying global warming and now advocates a cap on greenhouse gas emissions but only if China and India can also be locked into the system. He is somewhat uncomfortable with the religious right (while supporting a ban on abortion and gay marriage).

It is a sign of how far to the right the Republican Party has drifted that these are considered signs of liberalism, rather than basic humanity.

Yet these sprinklings of sanity -- onto a very extreme program -- are enough for a superficial, glib press to present McCain as "bipartisan" and "centrist." Will this be enough to put white hair into the White House? At the moment, he has considerably higher positive ratings than Clinton, and beats her in some match-up polls. If we don't start warning that the Real McCain is not the Real McCoy, we might sleepwalk into four more years of Republicanism.

Johann Hari writes for The Independent in Britain.]]> http://www.newciv.org/nl/newslog.php/_v350/__show_article/_a000350-000034.htm 2008-02-04T19:45:27Z 2008-02-04T19:54:25Z

If the Devil is at play here, and he is setting us up for the one two punch, then Barack is his main man. The perfect front. For after eight years of George Bush, of nightly seeing a President of the United States on television smirk, lie, mangle the language, and smile confidently and broadl...

And a horrible mockery, in this moment of our history, if he is not the “real thing.”

If Obama is a fake then he is truly the King of Mountebanks. And there has never been anyone quite like him.

He comes at a time when this country lays prone on the mat, not knocked out, but certainly down. He comes at a time when he appears as the perfect man to stretch out his hand and help the country back up. The man who knows what to say, what will make us feel good, how to begin the healing.

But is he more than that?

When Bill Clinton came onto the scene sixteen years ago he offered pretty much the same promise. And he was - if you happen to be progressive - a bust. He caved constantly to the right, gave us NAFTA, free trade, sacked the poor, and “triangulated” whenever he faced a fight. Now he is teaching us a new meaning for his crown “Slick Willy.” A title we can thank the Republican right for which those of us who once were Clinton apologists can fully understand and see. Though Kenneth Starr and his pack of rabid wolves were far worse.

What are the problems facing us? I won’t go through the lengthy list, yet again. What are Obama’s remedies? They don't actually appear that much different from Hillary’s. Where Obama truly shines is in the hope department, in uplifting the American spirit. His critics say much more than that is needed. And that millions of Americans have merely been mesmerized, irrationally projecting all their hopes and desires on this one man no one really knows.

They may be right.

But can those qualities Obama brings us be truly faked? Those of us who watch the passing scene see many fakes and phonies parade by. Romney is an excellent example over on the Republican side. Often they are too vulgar to be taken seriously. If Obama is a fake he is a fake with an enormous amount of class. He has perfected the appearance of a heightened nobility, and most mountebanks rarely succeed in those qualities. They in fact appeal frequently to the baser emotions, which is why if Obama is a fake he is the King of Mountebanks. And truly the Devil’s tool. For he has discovered how to employ a heightened noble air to fool the public. Let’s not forget, the candidate of choice is often the guy the voter would like to “have a beer” with. Like George Bush who convinced many voters he was a just a “regular guy” who really cared about them.

An early reviewer of Malcolm Lowry’s novel, Under the Volcano, criticized Lowry, an unknown novelist at the time, of having written a book which only simulated a great novel. Future critics and scholars have had some fun at the expense of this early critic’s assessment. For, of course, Under the Volcano was eventually accepted into the cannon. And has since then been recognized as a great novel.

It appeared like a great novel because it was.

I think it is normal and natural to balk, to wonder if we are being offered the real thing. Especially in politics (and in art) where fakes often abound. But if Obama’s not the real thing then he is indeed the King of Mountebanks. So I’m going to take a chance. Hillary is no alternative. And if we are heading toward the edge of a cliff anyway I’m curious to see what Obama will do.]]> http://www.newciv.org/nl/newslog.php/_v350/__show_article/_a000350-000033.htm 2008-01-31T19:53:26Z 2008-02-01T20:06:05Z

Is he for real? John Kerry seems to think so, closely echoing his message when he endorsed him the other day in South Carolina. Is he, Barack Obama, a new Lincoln or FDR or is he merely another Huey Long? He is, undoubtedly, one of the best political orators who has come along in a long, long t...

The first time I saw him (on TV) was at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. He was fine, I thought, turning out an energetic and spirited speech. But didn’t actually say much. Chris Matthews, who oversaw the proceedings for his cable network, went wild predicting a new major political superstar had arrived. As usual, Matthews’ enthusiasms seemed overblown. The kind of stuff reflective of San Francisco’s lively saloon scene, when the local writers and newspapermen gather. A lot of fun, but mostly gas. Those who love language sometimes like it colorful, and Matthews always seeks to turn its levels up. He often markets himself on that.

So I pretty much forgot Obama, remembering only that the “pundocracy” had anointed him. Predicting he was a new star on the scene. Someone they would watch.

Then 2007 came along. And there were still murmurs out there that Obama was quite impressive on stage. Still I paid little attention. We know how overblown all this media stuff can be. And that they have an undue exagerated influence which is unattached to reality.

Then I finally saw him offer a full campaign speech. He was serious, he was hugely dignified, he treated his theme with the eloquent sobriety it deserved. I was impressed. This was no “smirking chimp” speech with our orator delivering it giggling and moronically winking reassuringly in a false manner. Obviously lying through his teeth.

Okay, chalk one up for Obama. He’s a serious man. What was lacking from the speech, though, was any real substance. It sounded good but he didn’t actually say much. Though he delivered it in quite an impressive manner. One which was troubling, because the suspicion lingered there may not have actually been anything there. That its sentiments may have merely come straight off the shelf.

But what if he meant it?

Then there was New Hampshire. January 8, 2008. And Obama came on stage after his narrow defeat to Hillary Clinton smiling as if in victory and gave a speech which can only be fairly described as transcendent. And it may have had this powerful impact on me because it was almost totally unexpected.

It was unlike anything I ever heard before. And I have been thinking about it deeply ever since, wondering what to make of it.

The speech started out inauspiciously enough, with Obama displaying the grace of both a victor and a loser, calmly congratulating Hillary for her close primary victory. Responding frequently to the love of the audience, an audience, we should perhaps recall, which was mostly white. And then he went into his delivery, offering the same speech, perhaps, he had prepared to give if he had won. No matter. Not one word need have been changed: in victory or close defeat. He would be moving on. And nothing came to an end in New Hampshire. The speech was about the future, fully appropriate to that moment.

It lasted about twelve minutes. And as he approached the end he went into his “yes we can” theme. Repeating it. But repeating that simple phrase with a passion which resounded throughout that packed hall of supporters. Inflecting his voice as if it were an instrument directly expressing his soul, bringing forth a deep beauty.

His delivery had an aspect of the black preacher about it (Obama’s background is not actually like most black Americans’): and listening closely the rhythms were slightly evocative of Dr. Martin Luther King. His delivery was polished, refined, possessing great class in all the good senses of the word. This was a poet speaking. An oracle. A man whose passionate vision touched everyone there with an uplifting eloquence.

Once again he said little that was specific, offering his concepts in a broad, general sweep. But his message was, “yes we can.” His message was inspirational. He made hope real, alive, possible. And when we look out at our country today, following seven years of presidential giddiness and lies leading on toward greater fear and uncertainty, what better message can there be?

For isn’t hope - “yes we can” - the most significant spiritual prescription our nation needs today? Isn’t a sense of collective hope the logical beginning? A candidate who establishes decent goals and expectations and a possible future to work for? A beginning and roadmap out of the current morass?

If so, we may have a great man in Obama seeking the presidency. If not, if Obama turns out to be a fake, another “vain, empty, and bullying body of our time,” as Norman Mailer decades ago described so many candidates seeking the presidency, then we are truly damned. Our country is truly cursed.

During these quadrennial nominating seasons I’m often deeply touched by the aspirations and hopes so many American voters put into their choices of candidates. How willing the candidates are to say anything to gain that hope and faith. The Hillarys and Mitt Romneys who will be whatever you want them to be in order to obtain your vote. Who soon forget all that faith and hope and human need which was put into their candidacies once they are elected.

Who can not be touched by that? Especially today, with so many enormous problems facing us? Some of them truly existential?

Let’s hope Obama is the real thing. For now I am deeply curious to see what kind of journey he will take this country on. Not long before he died, Norman Mailer once again rebuked our current president for routinely debasing the language. Mailer, among all our great writers, was deeply conscious of how a president’s use of language could influence our country, its national outlook and spirit. I wish Mailer were alive to hear Obama. I don’t think he would be disappointed.

"Yes We Can"
]]> http://www.newciv.org/nl/newslog.php/_v350/__show_article/_a000350-000032.htm 2008-01-14T19:59:30Z 2008-01-14T20:51:30Z

Recent estimates of how much this war in Iraq will cost us surpass one trillion dollars. One trillion dollars.

What a waste. What a waste. If we had gone to Saddam early in 2003 and had offered him (“We’re going to make you an offer you can’t refuse.”) one trillion for the entire country of Iraq - or, at least, his oil producing regions - do you think, staring the gun in the face, he would have declined?

One cool easy trillion dollars. He could have bought, perhaps, a chunk of southern France for that. He could have had the biggest and most luxurious beach resort in the world. He could have lived at ease and comfort, envied by millions, the most successful gangster ever, evolving into a figure of romance and legend in the history books.

But, no. Instead we decided to waste our money. To let our children die needlessly in Iraq. To murder and slaughter hundreds of thousands of Arabs making ourselves unpopular throughout the world. Hated, stuck in an unending violent quagmire, suffering an enormous loss of face.

And the cost of the war, according to experts, will go way beyond a trillion dollars. We could have saved billions!

With a billion bucks we could have bought off George Bush too. He could have bought the biggest ranch in Texas and may have left the rest of the world alone. For a lousy billion it would certainly have been worth it. At least, George wouldn’t have been obliged to be successful at anything. He could have lived at leisure, not a care in the sky. And had we known then what we know now we would have considered ourselves lucky.

Why, we just don’t seem to have our priorities straight in this country.
]]> http://www.newciv.org/nl/newslog.php/_v350/__show_article/_a000350-000031.htm 2007-11-21T23:59:23Z 2007-11-22T00:11:17Z

Now that the Democrats control the Congress the possibility of reinstating the Fairness Doctrine has been raised. By Democrats, of course. And by liberals and those who feel mute and unheard today over the nation’s airwaves on the left. Certainly not by the rightwing. When Ronald Reagan was...

The rightwing’s reaction to the proposal to bring the Fairness Doctrine back was predictable. Indeed inevitable, for they have much to lose.

Those corporate and rightwing interests who currently control the nation’s radio airwaves have let out a mighty howl of indignant protest. And they have all leapt upon the easy and quite accessible argument that reinstating the Fairness Doctrine would be an all out assault on free speech. That it would be an attempt to muzzle their Constitutional right to speak freely, unimpaired, unmolested by government, over the public airwaves.

But an honest glance beneath the surface of these arguments should reveal these complaints are actually fundamentally hypocritical and self-serving. For if the far right, which controls nearly all the nation’s radio airwaves, were truly interested in the principal of “free speech” they would welcome a diversity of opinions. Which is, after all, what the Fairness Doctrine requires. Diversity. The idea being that a well informed citizenry should be exposed to many different points of view, facts and ideas. Not just to those opinions which promote one particular faction, that currently being today, on nearly all the nation’s radio stations, predominantly the far right.

Yes, there may be some disagreement among rightwing talk jocks: but this is usually one faction on the right merely disagreeing with another, without any other viewpoint from the broad spectrum genuinely included. What’s more, opposing progressive points of view are routinely defined by the right so that those opinions are not only excluded but presented to the listening public within a rightwing framework. This hardly constitutes diversity. Nor is it at all fair if the left is denied equal time to reply and truly present its own “unshaped” arguments. Which rarely, very rarely, happens on rightwing talk radio.

What’s more, those opposing the Doctrine’s reinstatement confuse free speech with corporate controlled speech. There is a difference, and an important one. For those who defend the corporate monopoly of the airwaves, as it today exists, equate the “free marketplace” with “free speech.”

For that speech which is currently offered over most of America’s airwaves is merely profit driven and motivated. Nor is it shaped by any basic philosophical principals regarding “the free exchange of ideas.”

Let’s at least be honest about that. For it is primarily the far right and powerful corporate interests which oppose the return of the Fairness Doctrine. In itself, free speech is not their primary concern. It is holding onto their corporate control, profits, and power. That is what they fear losing. And that is what they are fighting for: not free speech.

Some would say that corporate ownership is actually reflective of true freedom of speech. That corporate owners and a monopolistic rightwing have a right to dominate and control the airwaves simply because they own them. That the equipment, the stations, the property the stations sit on belong to them. And that therefore they have a right to do whatever they please with their own private property: allowing whoever they want through the door, keeping everyone else out.

But the simple truth is that corporate profit and intellectual debate are two very different things. And that in a free, well-informed society the former interest should not guide and determine the latter, more important interest. The airwaves belong to us, the American people, and the current emphasis on private sovereignty of the airwaves should be reversed and changed. For free speech in a monopolistic corporate environment can not exist.

When Enlightenment philosophers argued for the “free exchange of ideas” they weren’t arguing for corporate ownership, or dominance, or a strict monopoly on any one side. That being the one with the most money and merely profit driven. And the Fairness Doctrine has always reflected the Founder’s original democratic point of view. I would hope that if matters were reversed, and the left enjoyed a stranglehold on the nation’s airwaves, they would allow equal access to the rightwing and other divergent points of view. For under such conditions the Fairness Doctrine would be equally applicable and valid. It sponsors free speech and debate. That is what matters.

Yes, if the Doctrine is brought back in all likelihood there will be a great change in what’s heard on the air. And many of the current rightwing talk stations will switch formats, reverting, perhaps, to music, rather than allowing a balanced diversity of opinions to take up time - “market time” - on the air. Some rightwing talk jocks will lose their jobs and their corporate employers will fear a substantial loss of profits. That is why their struggle against the Fairness Doctrine has been so fierce. And will continue to be fierce.

Here in Providence, Rhode Island, where I live, there is not one radio station, not one program on the local airwaves (this within the hub of “liberal” New England) which can even be regarded as a voice for the Democratic Party, not to mention progressives, liberals, Greens or leftists of one kind or another. And nearly all the voices which enter my house over various radio stations are not merely Republican, but the far right. “Conservative,” as they like to call themselves. And these voices, which would like to be perceived as representing the American “mainstream,” include the likes of Rush Limbough, Melanie Morgan, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, Mark Levin, Laura Ingraham, Matthew Drudge, Quinn and Rose, to name only a few of the better known. True, occasionally a “progressive” voice can be heard, but this is within a very vast sea of rightwing talk. And it continues unabated twenty four hours a day.

Would it bring the world to an end if there were at least one dissenting peep in all this daily, nightly, roundtheclock chorus of the far right? They enjoy a near complete monopoly now. Maintaining it by savaging the Fairness Doctrine is all they truly desire. And that they claim to believe in “free speech” is just one more added deception they jointly offer their vast listening audience, enjoying their monopoly of the nation’s airwaves.
]]> http://www.newciv.org/nl/newslog.php/_v350/__show_article/_a000350-000030.htm 2007-10-06T20:17:06Z 2007-10-06T20:32:10Z

After Saddam Hussein destroyed the World Trade Center - with the help of what’sname, oh you know, that guy who’s head of al Qaeda (if Bush can’t think of his name why should I?) - and we drove Saddam from power, thereby removing a greater threat than Hitler from the world’s stage, all his terroris...

That’s because our president boldly told them to “bring it on.” And they did. With a stroke of inspired genius, President Bush brought all the world’s terrorists to Iraq, where we can “fight them there instead of here.”

What would happen if we brought our troops out of Iraq now? Why, do you think that as our troops pull out, board those ships and planes to come back all those Muslim terrorists won’t board their own planes and ships to follow them here? Of course they will! They’ll be right behind them. And then what will we have? Baghdad in New York? Felluja in Chicago? Tikrit in Philadelphia! IEDs exploding as you drive your car out of your garage to go to work in the morning? Some way to start the day, huh?

Yes, my fellow Americans, we have much to fear. There is much to be truly scared of in the world. Do you fear enough? it is patriotic, you know, to fear. And when you fear you back the troops too, who will stay in Iraq to fight the terrorists there so that we won’t have to fight them here. Just be certain you maintain a high level of fear, which is what it means to be an American today. And believe whatever your president tells you. And be suspicious: inform on your neighbors, tell on your children's’ teachers if they ever question George Bush or the war, and put a nice little magnetic yellow ribbon on the back of your car. And remember Christ loves you. And that when He kills us all in the Rapture we will all go up to Heaven. Where you will never see a Muslim, or an illegal alien, or any tree huggers or feminazis or liberals. Where nobody reads the New York Times or Harpers or The Nation but only the Murdoch press. For God reads the New York Post and watches Fox. Yes, remember, virtue is stupidity. And stupidity is virtue. Smile, don’t knock. Boost! Back the troops. Kill them more! And we will never have to fight the Islamofascists here. How do I know all this? Because Rupert Murdoch and Fox News and the president tell me so. And that so long as we wave the flag and beat our chests with patriotism God will be on our side.]]> http://www.newciv.org/nl/newslog.php/_v350/__show_article/_a000350-000029.htm 2007-07-12T23:14:04Z 2007-07-12T23:27:12Z

(The portrait to your right is of Richard Wright, as a “crossword puzzle.” It was painted by my father, Luis Quintanilla. For more portraits of writers as “how they see themselves,” go to “www.lqart.org/portsfold/writports.html”) Well now it’s here. It’s happened. A rightwing Supreme Court.

Prophets warned against it during the last presidential election. But as a national concern it ranked very low among the voters’ priorities.

More than fifty years of progressive change has come to an end. Dwight Eisenhower selected a solid Republican, Earl Warren, to be the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court more than half a century ago. And in 1954 he stunned the world by overturning Jim Crow, brilliantly, movingly: uniting the Court in a unanimous decision. To make sure the moral point got across.

That has come to an end.

Why was bussing begun in the first place? It was a bold corrective move against the deep racist roots Jim Crow and segregation had established in this country. It attempted to rectify an uneven, unbalanced ingrained social bias against African Americans. It recognized that separate was not equal. That the best way of insuring little black children had the same advantages little white children had was by putting them all together in the same class. In the same schools. What’s more, in a heterogeneous society it is good for all the children to learn about each other, and to accept, at an early age, that all kinds of differences exist. And that we should respect each other no matter what our backgrounds. In a democratic society this is a good starting point. And it helps avoid future struggles and troubles.

But now the Supreme Court has told us there is no such thing as institutional racism. That our society is color blind and that any race based social planning is wrong. That there is no need to rectify the problems of the past for they do not exist. And that any consciousness of color is in itself racism.

It is ironic, isn’t it, that this historic struggle for equality has been characterized as racist, isn’t it? Because color consciousness puts whites at a disadvantage. Because, according to this attitude, there is no racism, no cultural bias against minorities. We are all just one big color blind society.

The court has swung to the right. Does this mean prayer will someday become a sanctioned and promoted activity in public schools? That the Ten Commandments will appear on the walls of court rooms? That Roe v. Wade will be chipped away and eventually made meaningless? That the “rights” of power and money will take precedence over basic human rights?

I think so. The trend of the past half century has come to an end. It does matter who we elect to high office. The consequences, as George Bush has amply proved, are enormous.
]]> http://www.newciv.org/nl/newslog.php/_v350/__show_article/_a000350-000028.htm 2007-07-06T23:16:56Z 2007-07-06T23:22:23Z

My Google web crawler brought up this piece I wrote two years ago, which appeared on Bemusings on July 14, 2005. For whatever it’s worth, here’s a glmpse at the past, and through the past at the present, since nothing appears to have changed in two years. Except the mounting dead and destruction. ...

Some backers of the war may say, "well, if al Qaeda is attempting to break our will, our resolve, we must stay the course. We can't let the terrorists win!"

But if the policy is wrong, if the "course" is wrong, if we have no business being there - none of the rationales for the invasion and occupation proving true - should we continue to lose American lives, billions of dollars, and American prestige in this futile war?

The quagmire we are now in? Oh what a fantasy it is to believe that "democracy will bloom from the desert" if we stay the course. And the terrorists will go away. Sure: especially with permanent US military bases there.

What are the reasons then to remain in Iraq?

Pig headiness? Patriotism? Pride? The inability to admit we were wrong? The humiliation of losing a war? The latest fantasy the Bush administration has offered us? (That democracy will expand throughout the Middle East? Or that most absurd argument that if we "don’t fight the terrorists there we will have to fight them here?")

Welcome to the quagmire!

Is national pride, patriotism, and refusing to give up our dream of an Americanized Iraq worth:

Two or three American dead a day? Many more wounded?

More than a billion dollars a week?

The loss of respect of most of the world? Not to mention fanning Arabic hatred and resentment?

How many times does it have to be said that our presence in Iraq creates terrorism? That our occupation offers an incentive to terrorist recruits? Is this what we want to continue? And if we stay, whose side will we take in the growing civil war? The Shiite or the Sunni?

And what about the recent alliance the Iraqi government made with Iran? Does this indicate a desire on Iraq's part to become a compliant ally of the United States? For if they truly have a democracy they can go whichever way they want, right? They are free to choose. Or is it a Pax Americana we are actually attempting impose?

And then there are the permanent military bases. We rarely hear about them. Did the Bush administration ever intend to leave? I think not. They just didn't expect the quagmire? They lived in never never land.

And now they are attempting to lie their way out of their follies and mistakes, hoping for the best. No. To use a vulgar phrase, this is just throwing good money after bad money. It is foolish to remain out of pig headiness, pride, patriotism, an inability to admit you were wrong. Or because you can't accept that your policies (GWB, the neocons, the lockstep Republicans) have lead to a bloody and useless military fiasco.

Yes, we are in a quagmire. I don't know what the best answer is, or even if there is any good solution. I do know that we can not continue the same.


2.

And what about allowing terrorists to enjoy their successes? Here is an argument I recently read which sums it up. "Most nations have a policy of not giving in to terrorist demands just as most cities do not capitulate to the demands of hostage takers. It does tend to encourage that action each time you give in."

Spain is often brought up as the no. 1 example of this. But why should Spain have stayed? A vast majority of Spaniards opposed the war? Why follow the baton major in chief (GWB) when he's leading everyone off a cliff? Continuing a mistake does not make it right.

Many of the so-called "coalition of the willing" countries are quitting. Why? For the simple reason that they do not believe in wasting their resources, political capital, and the lives of their young. "Giving in" certainly does encourage terrorists. And Al Qaeda must gloat over their vicious victories.

But once again we must ask ourselves: is maintaining face, our national pride, waving the flag ever more vigorously postponing what may be inevitable (like Vietnam?) worth:

Telling mothers and fathers their sons and daughters must die in Iraq?

Betraying the faith and confidence young soldiers have in their nation and government?

Continuing the horror? The countless mounting dead, both Iraqi and American? Not to mention thousands more maimed and wounded?]]> http://www.newciv.org/nl/newslog.php/_v350/__show_article/_a000350-000027.htm 2007-06-26T23:56:45Z 2007-06-27T00:54:21Z