19 February 2009
Hey, It's Been Less than a Month!
One would think that this economic mess continues because of the Obama Administration's ineptitude or inaction, listening to the flood of criticisms in the media and from Republicans. They forget that President Obama was inaugurated less than a month ago--and they lost. By contrast, the Bush Administration came to life only on September 11, 2001, eight months after his inauguration. All I recall are the instructions to reduce government regulatory processes or not to fund programs in the federal budget.
Of course, many of us had very low expectations of President Bush's abilities on the job. I still fight the desire to tell some of those I know: I told you so, but you would not believe me! Oh well, I'll console myself very well by the fact that Barack Hussein Obama is now President of the United States.
Of course, many of us had very low expectations of President Bush's abilities on the job. I still fight the desire to tell some of those I know: I told you so, but you would not believe me! Oh well, I'll console myself very well by the fact that Barack Hussein Obama is now President of the United States.
18 February 2009
The Are Are We!
You know who you are and the 'are' are we. Try that one on your English teacher! The last time I watched Lou Dobbs on CNNtv, his entire hour was focused on Attorney General Eric Holders, Jr.'s remarks to the Department of Justice staff--not in an address to the public--on the occasion of Black History Month, February. Mr. Dobbs was railing against Attorney General Holder, because Dobbs thought it was an insult to the American people to be called "cowards."
Dobbs had a bevy of predictably Ultra-Right commentators to support his view. I haven't heard such vitriol since 2002 when the Bush-ites branded as "traitors," "un-American," or "un-patriotic" anyone who opposed attacking Iraq pre-emptively. Put Dobbs at a table with Rush Limbaugh and observe a blatant display of jejunness. My taking offense at Dobbs and his group softened a bit when I remembered that Dobbs is an entertainer, as is Limbaugh. The problem of this kind of entertainment is that it is believed as a news commentary by the thousands watching Dobbs daily programs.
Just two days ago, I was shopping at Big Lots when I overheard two men, probably in their thirties, joking about the Stimulus Bill President Obama would sign the next day. One of them asked the other "how many days it will take the stimulus measures to fail;" the response was "I don't think Obama knows how to write a check. even." They both laughed loudly at that. I was reminded immediately that I no longer lived in Oakland or San Francisco, but in the heart of the Inland Empire, home for many fundamentalist Christians, far right Republicans and people for whom Limbaugh and Dobbs speak their truth. The Attorney General nailed it when, later in a rather brief speech:
A part of those thoughts was the question "why do African-Americans claim a unique status among other, smaller racial groups fighting discrimination?" Why doesn't the African-American community support gay rights as a discrimination like theirs? I think I have an answer to that: the discrimination against African-Americans boils down to race. Opportunities to discriminate are visual and aural. Discrimination against gays is due to imagination, fear and religious dogma--invisible. Among the immigrants who founded this nation, who lived and worked here, African-American immigrants were brought here as slaves, considered property, not as among the human belings who had written the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
African-Americans, as slaves, did not become citizens after 1787 although their White counterparts, the indentured servants, did. Slavery would not end in the Constitution until 1863's Amendment, but indentured servitude had been proclaimed illegal from the beginning of our nation.
The difference had to be a racially-based criterion of a human being entitled to inalienable rights. I would argue, despite how obvious my conclusion may be to my readers, that race, and only race, made the difference. Women were not slaves, by law, but women were tantamount to property in much of Europe and in the English colonies in 1776. White women may have been second-class citizens without the right to vote, but they were citizens and human beings nonetheless. Enfranchisement was not the basis of discrimination that has been a constant thread of our history. White women's right vote was established by amending the Constitution.
Establishing the right to vote irrespective of race only exists as the result of the Voting Rights Act of 1965--which must be renewed every 25 years. The insidious prejudice against African-Americans has yet to become a subject for amending The Constitution, especially since the definition of 'marriage' seems for many people to be a more urgent priority. Except for Mexican-Americans living in Texas, I can't think of another racial group who have been unable to vote as an automatic right of being a citizen.
The authority with which Attorney General Holder spoke comes not only from his office, but from living his life as an African-American who has known that whenever he entered a store, he would be considered a high-potential thief. Whenever he drove through predominantly White neighborhoods, he knew that strangers usually wondered if he had stolen that car he drove. I remember reading that Myles Davis was once stopped by police in Malibu or Beverly Hills, because they assumed that this Black man had stolen the expensive sports car he drove. I think the corrective step taken was for the local police to list Myles Davis as owning such a car. At the time, no one used the term 'racial profiling'.
The list of ingrained racial discrimination is too long to recite here. I will provide just two examples. One instance occurred when the New York Times reported on the 1995 Million Man March. The article's accompanying photo showed a part of the Mall littered with all sorts of paper refuse. That photo was the article's only visual depiction of that event. No photos of the participants, of fathers with their young sons, no other photos of the assemblage existed, apparently. I wrote the NYT editor expressing my disbelief that there was only one photo taken by photo-journalists to publish with its article. There probably was a lot to clean up afterward because of the thousands who had been there, so I didn't doubt that such a photo could have been taken. What I don't understand is why a photo of refuse was chosen to illustrate this remarkable and important event in our history. No response.
The second instance happened yesterday when a cartoonist depicted a chimpanzee within an opinion cartoon about the Obama stimulus plan. That this cartoon could have passed, without objection, through a number of people before publication shows how unconscious to and unaware of racial discrimination they were. This blatant lack of sensitivity clearly makes the Attorney General's point.
To conclude, you may assume that I won't be watching Lou Dobbs in the future. To read Attorney General's speech, please go to: http://www.usdoj.gov/ag/speeches/2009/ag-speech-090218.html
Dobbs had a bevy of predictably Ultra-Right commentators to support his view. I haven't heard such vitriol since 2002 when the Bush-ites branded as "traitors," "un-American," or "un-patriotic" anyone who opposed attacking Iraq pre-emptively. Put Dobbs at a table with Rush Limbaugh and observe a blatant display of jejunness. My taking offense at Dobbs and his group softened a bit when I remembered that Dobbs is an entertainer, as is Limbaugh. The problem of this kind of entertainment is that it is believed as a news commentary by the thousands watching Dobbs daily programs.
Just two days ago, I was shopping at Big Lots when I overheard two men, probably in their thirties, joking about the Stimulus Bill President Obama would sign the next day. One of them asked the other "how many days it will take the stimulus measures to fail;" the response was "I don't think Obama knows how to write a check. even." They both laughed loudly at that. I was reminded immediately that I no longer lived in Oakland or San Francisco, but in the heart of the Inland Empire, home for many fundamentalist Christians, far right Republicans and people for whom Limbaugh and Dobbs speak their truth. The Attorney General nailed it when, later in a rather brief speech:
Our history has demonstrated that the vast majority of Americans are uncomfortable with, and would like to not have to deal with, racial matters and that is why those, black or white, elected or self-appointed, who promise relief in easy, quick solutions, no matter how divisive, are embraced. We are then free to retreat to our race protected cocoons where much is comfortable and where progress is not really made.Since that television program and, after reading Holder's speech, I've been thinking about our nation's history of racial discrimination, discrimination in general and my own in particular.
A part of those thoughts was the question "why do African-Americans claim a unique status among other, smaller racial groups fighting discrimination?" Why doesn't the African-American community support gay rights as a discrimination like theirs? I think I have an answer to that: the discrimination against African-Americans boils down to race. Opportunities to discriminate are visual and aural. Discrimination against gays is due to imagination, fear and religious dogma--invisible. Among the immigrants who founded this nation, who lived and worked here, African-American immigrants were brought here as slaves, considered property, not as among the human belings who had written the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
African-Americans, as slaves, did not become citizens after 1787 although their White counterparts, the indentured servants, did. Slavery would not end in the Constitution until 1863's Amendment, but indentured servitude had been proclaimed illegal from the beginning of our nation.
The difference had to be a racially-based criterion of a human being entitled to inalienable rights. I would argue, despite how obvious my conclusion may be to my readers, that race, and only race, made the difference. Women were not slaves, by law, but women were tantamount to property in much of Europe and in the English colonies in 1776. White women may have been second-class citizens without the right to vote, but they were citizens and human beings nonetheless. Enfranchisement was not the basis of discrimination that has been a constant thread of our history. White women's right vote was established by amending the Constitution.
Establishing the right to vote irrespective of race only exists as the result of the Voting Rights Act of 1965--which must be renewed every 25 years. The insidious prejudice against African-Americans has yet to become a subject for amending The Constitution, especially since the definition of 'marriage' seems for many people to be a more urgent priority. Except for Mexican-Americans living in Texas, I can't think of another racial group who have been unable to vote as an automatic right of being a citizen.
The authority with which Attorney General Holder spoke comes not only from his office, but from living his life as an African-American who has known that whenever he entered a store, he would be considered a high-potential thief. Whenever he drove through predominantly White neighborhoods, he knew that strangers usually wondered if he had stolen that car he drove. I remember reading that Myles Davis was once stopped by police in Malibu or Beverly Hills, because they assumed that this Black man had stolen the expensive sports car he drove. I think the corrective step taken was for the local police to list Myles Davis as owning such a car. At the time, no one used the term 'racial profiling'.
The list of ingrained racial discrimination is too long to recite here. I will provide just two examples. One instance occurred when the New York Times reported on the 1995 Million Man March. The article's accompanying photo showed a part of the Mall littered with all sorts of paper refuse. That photo was the article's only visual depiction of that event. No photos of the participants, of fathers with their young sons, no other photos of the assemblage existed, apparently. I wrote the NYT editor expressing my disbelief that there was only one photo taken by photo-journalists to publish with its article. There probably was a lot to clean up afterward because of the thousands who had been there, so I didn't doubt that such a photo could have been taken. What I don't understand is why a photo of refuse was chosen to illustrate this remarkable and important event in our history. No response.
The second instance happened yesterday when a cartoonist depicted a chimpanzee within an opinion cartoon about the Obama stimulus plan. That this cartoon could have passed, without objection, through a number of people before publication shows how unconscious to and unaware of racial discrimination they were. This blatant lack of sensitivity clearly makes the Attorney General's point.
To conclude, you may assume that I won't be watching Lou Dobbs in the future. To read Attorney General's speech, please go to: http://www.usdoj.gov/ag/speeches/2009/ag-speech-090218.html
10 February 2009
"Past is prologue. We learn from it." - Nancy Pelosi
I don't like the tone of Speaker Pelosi's continuing rebuff of calls for investigations by Congress into the crimes that characterized the Bush Administration's shattering of the Bill of Rights in the name of convenience and expediency. Almot forty years ago, when I was stationed with the 130th Engineer Brigade, I observed our brigade adjutant consoling his very young daughter. She was crying and angry in frustration that a flat tire was delaying their departure on vacation. Art, speaking gently yet authoritatively, told his daughter, "This is not a television show; this is life. When we don't like something in life, we can't switch the channel for something nicer." In the years since that brief father-daughter talk, I have rarely found a better reality check or a more effective way to focus my attention on what really is happening now and I have to deal with it.
Speaker Pelosi seems ready to launch a new Winter-Spring line-up of new shows for the nation's attention and viewing pleasure. One of her first comments in 2006 when she became Speaker of the House was that "impeachment is off the table." Then as now I feel denied, cheated of my Constitution-based due process for the actions ordered and encouraged by President Bush and Vice-President Cheney between September 12, 2001, and January 19, 2009.
Speaker Pelosi may conclude that the symptoms of un-Constitutional acts are the proper focus for the new President and Congress in 2009. My views tend to concur with those of Senator Leahy and Representatives Waxman and Conyers who believe that Congress can and should begin due process for the charges of causality for the "symptoms" that threaten or have lowered our quality of life, our national security and our moral reputation as perceived internally and externally.
I made a list to help Congress with its investigations.
04 February 2009
Whither Integrity?
Whatever happened to personal responsibility? During Viet Nam, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara wanted kill-counts and other numbers to convince America that we were winning that war. He repents of this 30 years after the fact in a book he authored. McNamara was given his numbers by others, individuals complicit in the cooking of the statistical books. News reporters and draftee veterans finally achieved enough countra data that the American people no longer supported the generals and cabinet secretaries feeding the public pablum. Watergate cinched it for the Nixon Administration. Arrogance and the Domino Theory.
There were more indictments and convictions of Administration staff during the Reagan presidency than ever before. Why, to acquire wealth and power through the status of the federal offices. Greed.
When Desert Storm put thousands of US military personnel into Kuwait, the President ensured that media information would be controlled by the military so that the war would not be in everyone's living rooms every day. Did we, America, achieve its strategic objectives in that war? What was so important to the US that required us to intervene militarily into a regional war involving Iraq taking over Kuwait? Oil.
The entire period of George Bush's presidency, that ended less than 3 weeks ago, was a willful disregard of our laws, lying before the United Nations Security Council, forbidding photos of the caskets of US military personnel as they arrived, flag draped, in the US. Who ran the war against Iraq and remain committed to its fraudulent premise? The revolving door within the Central Command's commanding generals and admirals withheld the truths on the ground by limiting their briefings to the Congress and to the news media. When Abu Ghraive Prison was unveiled as mismanaged, out-of-control and horrible treatment of the prisoners there, the first blame fell on the squad seen in the videos as "a few bad apples." Then, the brigadier general, called to active duty from the Reserves, became the sacraficial lamb. She had no political allies in Washington powerful enough to question the actual and implied errors of judgment she may have made. In any event, she was sent back home and retired. To remedy the international criticisms of the US's treatment of prisoners, the different terms used to describe detainees as anything but prisoners of war, the prisoners were demonized and dehumanized by the Administration and a compliant mainstream media simply reported what the Administration told them was true. To top it off, the replacement general for all foreign detainment centers in Iraq was General Sanchez, former commandant of Guantanamo. Members of the Club.
I believe that Barack Obama is now President because of the degree of irresponsibility and illegal behavior of George Bush and his Administration. The political composition of Congress changed for the same reason. The inept, confused George Bush established the ethics of laissez-faire from Day One of his administration. Not only did his executive departments follow his lead and out-sourced what could not be shut down through attrition, but Bush's Core: Wall Street got the message as well. And here America is with two wars in the Middle East, with the poorest public health system among the top 50 industrial nations and with a collapse of our credit based economy built on smooth and mirrors. Greed.
The suddenly obstinate, tight-fisted underwriters, who had profited and promoted the laissez-faire business and consumer credit markets, who discovered that their brother bankers were as insolvent as they were, stopped lending money and initiated thousands of foreclosures on the very loans they had approved only a couple of months prior. Now the global economy is shutting down for lack of operating cash formerly available from loans and purchases by consumers using personal credit. Professional Arrogance.
Is there a pattern here? You bet. The voters saw it all and voted for a change in the way government operates and the economy runs. Now, living in the same house as Honest Abe, President Obama seems to be the only one who is taking personal responsibility for an inadequate vetting group and, just as importantly, for his nominees who were not forthcoming with their tax and legal problems to the vetting group.
When I worked at North American Aviation [viz. Rockwell International] in 1966, there was a huge sign posted on the wall of the main work building: PRIDE Personal Respnsibility In Daily Effort. I don't know how long that sign had been there, because many of the workers had been there since World War II. That sign if updated today could add: Yes We Can!
The President and Vice President should not be held accountable for the omissions of facts each nomicee knows, even if others do not (at the time.) Governor Richardson excused himself from being nominated because he could not foresee how the legale process might compromise his ability to serve in the Cabinet. He was not admitting to any hidden malfeasance--the court case has been well known. To me, Governor Richardson took responsibility for the unknown but possible problems that his nomination would cause President-Elect Obama. Integrity.
Others may have withdrawn their names from consideration, too. Yet, the new Treasury Secretary's unreported tax liabilities did not prevent him from Senate acceptance. One has to wonder why a person in the highest tier of our financial movers and shakers prepared his own tax returns using TurboTax. The complexity of his tax reporting should have led him to an independent CPA to prepare his returns. Perspective.
One also has to wonder about the former Democratic leader of the Senate, a man acclaimed for his political savvy, would withhold his failure to pay over $120,000 in taxes. Tom Daschle is reported to have known about this last June, yet he did nothing about it until his nomination for HHS Secretary was official. Is it the arrogance of accreted reknown and expertise that allowed him to minimize his tax problem as such a small thing compared to his record in the Senate and his connections within the health care industry? I do not know his intensions, but I cannot accept his characterizing his actions as an oversight or a mistake. If he had any ambition for a Cabinet appointment when he joined the Obama team last year, he should have called in a reputable CPA firm to review his taxes and resolve those problems a year ago, not ten days after President Obama's inauguration. Arrogance or Stupidity.
He should have disclosed this to the vetting group and withdrawn. Further, he knew he was part of the revolving door between industry lobbyists and the federal department whose direction he had tried to influence. President Obama had pledged to not allow this lobbyist-federal department relationship to continue. He issued an Executive Order within two days of his Presidency spelling out rules that would have precluded Tom Daschle from being considered qualified for nomination. Even then, Daschle did not withdraw from consideration. Perhaps Governor Dean can be qualified for nomination. There's always Mitt Romney, too.
For the first head of a newly created federal Department, the nominee should have told the vetting group about her tax reporting issues. As soon as her discrepancy was public, she withdrew--but not before. False image.
Media commentators seem to excuse the vetting group because it is comprised of bright lawyers. That group needs senior tax accountants, too. In tax court, a clever tax accountant can defeat a prosecutor because just knowing the verbiage of the law is insufficient to having used the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles to the benefit of their clients. With almost 20 years of auditing experience, I know that I have to orient the lawyer to the accounting basics that will reveal the substance of the investigation. I am sure that President Obama can call upon the IRS to assist his vetting group.
So, whither integrity? Today requires a combination of PRIDE and Yes We Can. Perhaps more of the people involved should adopt a new mantra: YES WE WILL!
Labels: Daschle, integrity, nominations, President Obama, taxes
03 February 2009
Hey, It's Only Been 11 Days
Listening to the news media, one might think that President Obama has been in office for a year. Where are the changes he promised? The Republicans do not show any willingness to cooperate and join in with Democrats in Congress according to the votes in the House and Senate divided. Likewise, the Democrats have not acted with open arms and ears to their colleagues' concerns.
The President was elected in part for his pledge to bring our troops out of the Iraqi occupation. Now, the generals (who are very smart, political beings) will attempt to revise the President's January 29th statement of intent. We, the public, have insufficient information to believe the generals or to dispute them. The public does know, however, that every week that we continue a deployment of 160,000 military personnel in Iraq, millions of unbudgeted dollars sustain troop levels and operations, money needed for a greater crisis--the economy--than a tenuous attempt to establish a stable government in Iraq. As far as recorded history describes the most consistent, predictable governance in Southwest Asia as that of an autocratic monarch who is sustained by the merchant class and tightly controlled military force.
What rational argument can the generals make to try to change President Obama's mind on withdrawal within 16 months? It is a fear among the international corporations that Middle Eastern oil will become a volatile commodity without politial stability. Business hates unpredictability, so I think the pressure is really coming from the economic global economy's leadership, the oligarchs, not from any military need.
The neo-conservatives and the generals might recall that Barack Obama won, their candidate did not. The wasteful ongoing occupation and support of the Iraqi Government under occupation was and remains the major reason for Mr. Obama's victory at the polls. I think it is presumptuous to believe that the United States military could establish a model, secular democracy in a region of the world in which the only democratic process occurs among the tribal leaders sitting in council within an extended familial culture. Now that I think about it, democracy works best within an extended family social unit. Democracy requires mutual respect and trust of the other, not by dint of force.
The President was elected in part for his pledge to bring our troops out of the Iraqi occupation. Now, the generals (who are very smart, political beings) will attempt to revise the President's January 29th statement of intent. We, the public, have insufficient information to believe the generals or to dispute them. The public does know, however, that every week that we continue a deployment of 160,000 military personnel in Iraq, millions of unbudgeted dollars sustain troop levels and operations, money needed for a greater crisis--the economy--than a tenuous attempt to establish a stable government in Iraq. As far as recorded history describes the most consistent, predictable governance in Southwest Asia as that of an autocratic monarch who is sustained by the merchant class and tightly controlled military force.
What rational argument can the generals make to try to change President Obama's mind on withdrawal within 16 months? It is a fear among the international corporations that Middle Eastern oil will become a volatile commodity without politial stability. Business hates unpredictability, so I think the pressure is really coming from the economic global economy's leadership, the oligarchs, not from any military need.
The neo-conservatives and the generals might recall that Barack Obama won, their candidate did not. The wasteful ongoing occupation and support of the Iraqi Government under occupation was and remains the major reason for Mr. Obama's victory at the polls. I think it is presumptuous to believe that the United States military could establish a model, secular democracy in a region of the world in which the only democratic process occurs among the tribal leaders sitting in council within an extended familial culture. Now that I think about it, democracy works best within an extended family social unit. Democracy requires mutual respect and trust of the other, not by dint of force.
