The Jurassic Manifesto of 2010: Further Thoughts on the Election

I think Scott Brown’s victory shows what happens when firm leadership above the ticket is lacking. To be sure, Coakley ran a wretched campaign. But I’m not buying attempts to deflect criticism from the Obama Administration. The majority like the president personally and believe he means well, but if MA is any indication, they’re obviously not pleased with what he has done. Some of the displeasure may owe to political amnesia and stupid, childish expectations that the new chief would wave a magic wand and undo eight years of unbridled irresponsibility. But not all of it, and perhaps not even most of it. I thought the numbers Elizabeth provided in her comment on the previous post were extremely valuable in explaining why MA voters cast ballots as they did. So thanks.

The basic principle our lawyerly and cautious president has been ignoring, in my view, is this: if you want to get something done in politics, you need to make it very clear what that something is and then passionately keep the focus on it until you get what you want. Clarity, focus, intensity. Do you hear the mantra? Kind of like a caffeinated version of Om Mani Padme Hum. Then maybe the people will have some “compassion” – and even some passion – for what you want to do.

I’m hearing that passing the health-care bill now may actually backfire and already there are suggestions of retrenchment. President Obama himself is quoted as saying not to jam it through under the circumstances. That’s how I interpreted Barney Frank’s comments today, too—trying to push through the bill at the last minute may look like a hugger-mugger repudiation of the voters’ will, or at least it will be played that way to strong effect by the opposition. If so, forget the 10,000 page comprehensive bills—there’s no time for them now, with an election coming up in November. Policy-wise, the only route I see back to the good offices of the public is the following: offer, promote and quickly pass simple, well-defined pieces of legislation pertaining to health care and the economy and the financial sector in particular—proposals that address citizens’ needs and anxieties. In sum, this amounts to what we might call strong incrementalism:

1. Nobody, and I mean nobody (outside the Republican establishment, that is) favors certain practices on the part of health insurers: Democrats, Independents, and most rank-and-file Republicans surely don’t think it’s right to cancel an individual’s policy when he or she becomes sick, or because the payment got lost in the mail, etc. Kicking people when they’re down is something ordinary citizens find intolerable. Why not propose legislation outright banning such fraudulent practices? And then dare those obstructionist, corporatist mother-truckers in congress to go against it and watch their heads get handed to them in November.

2. While we’re at it, how about redefining more narrowly what can and cannot be labeled a “pre-existing condition,” and setting some limits on what insurers can charge for people with such conditions? Doing so would provide a measure of security for at least some individuals who have conditions that shouldn’t be much trouble if they have access to basic services. Obviously, making larger changes to this area of insurance policy threatens the private insurers’ whole way of making a profit (which is to say that it threatens the very concept of private health insurance as we now find it), so it can only be dealt with fully if and when there is some consensus on comprehensive reform. But what can be done in the meantime, should be.

3. Something straightforward might be doable regarding insurance portability—something that makes a considerable advance on COBRA. People are afraid of leaving their jobs, or losing them, and almost immediately finding themselves without affordable insurance. I’m no expert and don’t know exactly what that legislation would entail, but extending the window of coverage long enough to allow people some mobility, some maneuvering room between jobs, seems vital.

4. Nobody (again with the above caveat stated in #1) is anything short of angry at the way certain elements in the financial sector have been behaving. The Democrats’ cluelessness and/or cowardice in the face of glaring, cynical abuses makes them look like effete French aristocrats on the eve of the Revolution. Either they just don’t get it, or they do—and the latter possibility is much worse because it means they are complicit. It’s time for the Administration to bring in new, capable hands not associated (directly or indirectly) with the near-collapse of the financial sector or with designing subsequent bailouts—devices that seemed to many people like strings-free rewards to the very people and companies whose greedy practices have either caused, or at least exacerbated, our economic troubles. You cannot blame people for being upset with anyone who shows too much regard for execs taking seven-figure bonuses while others are sleeping under a bridge thanks to their unconscionable practices.

5. A new “jobs, jobs, jobs” bill. Construction in particular has been hit hard. Give them good things that need doing, fast. The 10% unemployment rate, and the much higher under-employment rate, is hammering the country’s morale and even its economic viability—not to mention its political sustainability. I don’t believe the current state of the economy is the effect of a normal business-cycle downturn. It’s due to an untreated disease in the vital organs of C21 American post-industrial capitalism, in which finance-sector hocus-pocus has become the engine of prosperity for a limited number of inside players in a cynical game. This is what is so manifest and so intolerable to so many.

They don’t call the presidency a bully pulpit for nothing, and in my view, President Obama needs to start using it as one. You don’t overcome a filibuster by appealing gently to bipartisanship—your only chance is to get the people on your side and make the would-be filibusterers afraid for their political skins. If the president can’t do this, he will fail, and fail badly—maybe as badly as candidate Coakley—in spite of his considerable charm, intelligence, and good intentions. The only thing his initial and sustained appeal to “bipartisanship” yielded, it’s easy to see now, was otherwise unnecessary delay and, therefore, thanks to the election results in Massachusetts, the likely scuttling of large-scale health reform. True, nobody quite saw this particular turn coming, but strange things happen when you let months slip by in a quixotic search for an aliquot of good will. But transition quickly to a strong incrementalism, and who knows? The good will that seemed no more to be found where the president had sought it than the Renaissance alchemists’ lapis philosophorum, might just materialize from the self-concern of anxious politicians. One can hope.

HENRY POTTER REPUBLICANS vs. GEORGE BAILEY DEMOCRATS

Once again, the political pendulum has swung. A mental midget has replaced a legislative giant. His knowledge of baseball has qualified him for public office. The politics of ”I’ve-got-mine” matters more than citizenship. A former nude centerfold is the new Republican poster boy. It’s a wonderful life!

Now let us sing ...

The Three Great Alabama Icons

My latest creation:

Me too! I was disgusting too!

The first thing that came to mind when I saw George Bush and Bill Clinton trying to control their mutual loathing while sharing a podium for the President's bi-partisan humanitarian effort, was that Clinton shouldn't be forced to associate with the most embarrassing thing that ever crept into the White House on two legs; the most embarrassing president we have had in our history. He shouldn't be forced to work with a party whose major spokesmen are still giggling about it being a publicity stunt to gain favor with "light skinned and dark skinned" groups and recommending against saving any lives.

I think we should call it the Coulter principle: find some tragedy, some enormity, some egregious horror and turn it inside out.

" Clinton is a 'national embarrassment' and Bush shouldn't be 'forced' to partner with him" hissed the wicked witch on Fox News' Geraldo at Large last Sunday. "To force poor ex-President Bush -- like he hasn't suffered enough -- to be hanging around with Bill Clinton, who's leaving his essence on Kleenex in the White House..."

Sleazy enough for you?

As Raw Story tells us, Coulter seems to feel she missed the sleaze train with the tragedy in Haiti, with Robertson, Beck and Limbaugh scooping her badly while she was off in the bushes shedding her skin.

"Stop asking about Rush's statement. I made some controversial statements this week too,"

she warned Geraldo. I'm quite sure she did -- it's just that the screams of a quarter million maimed and dying people drowned her out.

On the Upcoming Vote in Massachusetts

One storied state among fifty has a big choice to make Tuesday, and it goes beyond an appraisal of the two senatorial candidates' personalities and campaigning skills. From the way it sounds to me outside Massachusetts, the Coakley campaign has for too long taken for granted what should have been fought for as a matter of principle even if losing seemed impossible. After all, voters don't owe anyone their vote. Scott Brown has shown energy and enthusiasm, and he has therefore done a better job, at least, of asking for the votes that might sweep him into office. A successful politician needs to engage with people, not avoid them.

Still, as I see things, there's just too much riding on this vote for Massachusetts to choose Brown. Hasn't he already pledged to oppose the current health-care legislation? Maybe the Democrats will push the bill through with lightning speed if he wins. I don't know, but I'm not optimistic. And what is Brown's stance on how to deal with abuses on Wall Street and at the big banks? Voting Republican will reduce the Democratic Senate supermajority of 60 to 59, and if that happens, it's hard to see how there will be any further movement on the president's agenda throughout 2010. With the 2010 elections and the likely loss of at least a moderate number of Democratic seats in the House and Senate, there's no reason to think much will get done from 2010 through 2012, either. What I see is an opposition party determined to quash anything and everything this president does, no matter what.

Does anybody not already far to the right really believe that voting Republican will improve matters? I don't see the logic in it: "The Dems are having trouble getting things done with sixty votes, so let's take a vital one away from them and see if that helps." It won't help. Coakley will support the president, and if you're a Democrat or a pragmatic Independent, how can you conclude that a move towards re-empowering the false conservatism that has done real harm to America can improve the situation? It's possible to argue one way or the other about Obama's policies, but anyone who thinks he is responsible for our current economic predicament is mistaken. Marring his efforts so early in his term isn't sensible.

One half of one branch of our government – I mean the Senate as half of the legislative branch – has become all but a burial ground of the nation's hopes for a sustainable market economy and much else. They are only able to act for the present time because of that sixty-vote majority; take that away, and, I suspect, all we will have in the Senate is one hundred wealthy, well-dressed people doing nothing for the next several years—even if strong and immediate action is necessary. A once quaint-seeming rule (sixty votes for cloture to facilitate an up-down vote) has become an engine of destruction pointed straight at the republic's well-being and even its viability, whatever the intentions of those who wield that engine may be. What's the use of crippling an administration that is at least trying to make some rational changes? Things can get worse—they almost always can. This may be one of the most important votes the people of Massachusetts have cast in a long time. All politics may be local at base, but sometimes local and statewide politics have huge consequences for us all.

DERRICK ASHONG: THE POWER OF PEACE

If you don’t know who Derrick Ashong is now you probably will soon. Derrick first came to my attention due to his work on The Shift movie. If you haven’t watched the trailer, click HERE and see it now. It is only a few minutes long but it is a powerful , awe-inspiring piece of film like no other you have seen.

Derrick has written an op-ed piece for Oprah.com HERE in honor of Dr Martin Luther King where he speaks about the strife in the world today and he tells us nonviolence is STILL the answer.

A native of Ghana, West Africa, he is also a Harvard graduate and founding member of the musical group, Soulfege. Having lived in an Islamic dominated society and in the West, Derrick offers a unique perspective on the world we live in.

Derrick has dedicated his life to building bridges and brokering for peace, both on the lecture circuit and as a member of Next Generation Leadership Forum.

“It can be difficult at a time when our nation is avowedly "at war" with extremists to put that lesson in perspective. After all, what role does the principle of peace play when some people are willing to blow themselves up to make a political statement?”

“Most people of every culture and creed would prefer to live and thrive rather than see others die. As a person who grew up in both the West and the Islamic world, I can say with comfort that the value and sanctity of human life is indeed a shared belief, despite any punditry to the contrary.”

“The fact is, terrorists do not have the military wherewithal to invade or destroy our nation. But they do have the ability to invade our hearts and minds and to sow seeds of fear and doubt in the fabric of our national consciousness.”

"Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time: the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence. Man must evolve for all human conflict a method that rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.”

“And by striving together toward our greater humanity, we, like our forebears, shall overcome every challenge to it.”

While it is good we honor a great man who started a movement on the premise of peaceful protest and nonviolence that several generations have benefitted from, it is time to move on and hear the new voices of a new generation taking that message to a new level and relating it to the world as it is now. The tide is turning, it is in the air and coming across the airwaves.

Today I posted a quote from Desmond Tutu on my facebook page: “One day we are going to wake up and discover, WE ARE FAMILY.”

To all my family, I wish you peace and love.

Glenn Beck is Satan incarnate

So if Rush Limbaugh is the worst person in the world, what does that make Glenn Beck, whose latest excretion regarding Haiti rides on Limbaugh like a rocket on a big fat booster stage? What did he say, you ask? He said that Obama is dividing the nation by responding too quickly to the apocalypse in Haiti.

I like to think I have a foul-mouth vocabulary second to none, but I'm nearly speechless.

"I also believe this is dividing the nation…to where the nation sees him react so rapidly on Haiti and yet he couldn’t react rapidly on Afghanistan. He couldn’t react rapidly on Ft. Hood. He couldn’t react rapidly on our own airplanes with an underwear bomber…it doesn’t make sense. [...] Three different events and Haiti is the only one. I think personally that it deepens he divide to see him react this rapidly to Haiti."

Yes, the divide is clear: it's Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh and Pat Robertson on one side and everything good, compassionate or concerned in any way with humanity on the other. This is simply the voice of smug, self-satisfied evil; snickering, whining, mocking evil.

And the Foxes are talking about running him for president. The other side of the "divide" would like to run him out of the country on a rail.

This Just in:

Iowa Representative Steve King has a brilliant idea. Instead of giving Haitian illegals in the US an extra 18 months to stay here rather than recieve what is today a death sentence, King would have us deport them immediately. Presumably that would entail pushing them out of an Airplane, since there's no place to land or walking the plank since the seaport is destroyed. Need I mention that King is a Republican.

Hey God -- are you listening to this shit?

Fox can't count

Either that or they just lie, and lie, and lie. I've lost count of how many grossly misstated or simply invented figures have been given out on Fox News recently. Not that it's a new thing, but someone needs to remind them that there is a substantial difference between 15% and 0.15%

"The big banks are set to pay out a record $145 billion in bonuses for 2009. Some Americans outraged by this. President Obama looking to ease some of that anger, promoting a 15 percent tax on the banks that remained or have remained or have returned to profitability."

No, Foxy Friends, President Obama is not supporting a 15% tax on banks that have already repaid the TARP money; the discussion is about a 0.15 percent fee on the largest and most highly leveraged banks like Citibank, with more than $50 billion in consolidated assets. Here's the actual news.

Here's the Fox News:

"It's being assessed only against the banks that have already paid back with interest the TARP money they got. So essentially they're paying back for the banks, they're paying back for Fannie and Freddie, who are not paying -- paying back for the cars, rather. Not the weak ones still in the red which continue to be a drain on the Treasury, like for example, Citibank."

Sloppy journalism? Egregious lie? It's hard to prove either way, but it happens again and again and somehow the misleading, or fake or distorted "news" always favors the Fox Faithful and damns the Democrats. In either case, that Fox is a genuine news organization is not in doubt -- they're not. Rarely will a Fox only viewer ever hear a retraction or correction or apology and only sometimes will they hear the truth. You can count on that.

Let them die - not one more dollar!

I've lived in declared disaster areas several times and have been involved in emergency communications and food distribution during three category 2 hurricanes in the last 5 years alone and of course, the destruction of property, the loss of power for months is no fun, but to compare any of that with what's going on in Haiti right at this moment shows the inadequacy of the word disaster. In Haiti, the lives of almost all have been a disaster all along and they are a living hell for the lucky survivors.

The first I heard about the earthquake in Haiti was a communication from the ARRL, which represents Amateur Radio in the US, asking us to keep certain emergency frequencies open and to listen for any communications coming out of Haiti. I heard nothing myself, although the Caribbean is at my doorstep. There was nothing but background noise on 14,300 Mhz -- the Intercontinental Assistance and Traffic Net (IATN) until the Rev John Henault, HH6JH, made contact late Wednesday morning. He said that he was safe, but had no power and no phone service. He was operating on battery power and hoping to get a generator running later in the day so he could report on conditions.

It's been reported that the UN peacekeeping force headquarters building has collapsed and may have killed everyone inside including the UN envoy. About 150 U.N. staff members remain unaccounted for and 22 are confirmed dead.

It may be a while before any final death toll can be determined. In a country of such massive poverty people will continue to succumb to disease, starvation and dehydration, but it will, no doubt be a very large number. France has airplanes on the way and the US has arrived and secured the airport so that emergency aid can land safely. President Obama has pledged $100 million in relief and has assured what remains of the Haitian people that they will not be forgotten. The Red Cross is actively soliciting funds with telethons and operators are standing by as you read this.

Rush Limbaugh wasted no time weighing in on the suffering of millions, on the slow, sordid, lonely deaths of countless children, on the agony of those crushed by fallen buildings:

"This will play right into Obama's hands. He's humanitarian, compassionate. They'll use this to burnish their, shall we say, "credibility" with the black community--in the both light-skinned and dark-skinned black community in this country. It's made-to-order for them. That's why he couldn't wait to get out there, could not wait to get out there."

Yes, Rush is a heavyweight in more than one way. Limbaugh, who lives in barely imaginable luxury simply doesn't want another damned thing done for those ungrateful "light-skinned and dark-skinned" people, dying of thirst, hunger and disease. As to private donations to the Red Cross? Forget it!

"we've already donated to Haiti--it's called the U.S. income tax."

Of course Rush cares about some people, particularly when he can use their deaths to defame anything he defines as liberal: things other people call decency or charity, or humanity, or compassion. We're supposed to be outraged in perpetuity at the death of any American citizen at the hands of Muslims - White citizens preferred of course, but Rush doesn't give a damn or a dollar for anyone else.

Remember that the next time you listen to him, the next time you think it's so cute how he lampoons his shoddy straw men. Remember the next time you patronize his sponsors. This is the man who looks into the eyes of a bereaved mother, a dying child and says "screw you and screw anyone who gives a damn."

THE NINCOMPOOPERY OF TELEVANGELIST, PAT ROBERTSON

He's at it again. Just like his asinine remarks after 9/11 where he agreed with the charlatan "minister" Jerry Falwell when he said 9/11 was caused by feminists and gays, Robertson has pronounced on his scam "700 Club" show that the Haitian earthquake is the result of the Haitians having made a "pact with the devil" two centuries ago.

Here is the report:

Pat Robertson said Wednesday that earthquake-ravaged Haiti has been "cursed" by a "pact to the devil."


"Something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it," he said on Christian Broadcasting Network's "The 700 Club." "They were under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon III, or whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, we will serve you if you'll get us free from the French. True story. And so, the devil said, okay it's a deal.


Robertson said that "ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after the other"

This miserable Gantryite piles on the poor Haitian people by suggesting that God is punishing them for something that happened centuries ago?

While all people of compassion and good will, Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Atheists, are trying to help the injured, the sick, and the dying, this jackass used his position as a "Christian" spokesman to blame the afflicted for this catastrophe.

Pat Robertson is a fool and beyond contempt and is no more a "Christian" than is the devil he stupidly believes in.