Hugo-Not: Crossing the Border of Tyranny

Sometimes, even those toward whom you are favorably disposed cross a boundary and make you question how you'd ever thought kindly of them.

Granted, I've never felt completely warm and fuzzy about Hugo Chavez. True, I defended his right to live when Pat Robertson was ready to call out the Death Squads of Christ to Venezuela. And I did find Chavez's UN speech, in which he referred to Bush as a "demon" both entertaining and revealing.

But now he has crossed the line from socialist revolutionary to petty despot. He is taking over the businesses and the press of his country and turning them into state organs of profit and propaganda.

However you look at it, this is a brute force example of Stalinism. Hugo Chavez has crossed the line, and he had better step back quickly, or else he has taken the first step on the road to the destruction of his government and his former vision of a better, more just nation.

Who else is blaming the media for all his problems? Our buddy Paul Wolfowitz, who is just returning to his old employer's favorite fallback excuse: the liberal media is to blame for everything we do and for every seeming error we commit.

I've been fired a number of times in my career, and I have never had to sling shit or spit backwards at anyone in public over it. Where does this guy get off? He swung his main squeeze into a corporate cushion so he could more easily slap her up on the desktop whenever he felt like it during the day. And this is the media's fault?

This last one would be as funny as that, except that it's about an author I really do care a lot about. There are reports that the final Harry Potter tome is being printed in secret and amid darkness by employees who are under threat of immediate dismissal if they are caught reading, let alone copying, the text they are printing in a perpetual night of police-state fear.

If this is true (and if it's not, I blame the media), and Ms. Rowling is endorsing this insanity, then she too is setting herself up for a fall. This kind of obsession over plot, this compulsion over suspense, is what makes for bad stories--the kind we have not gotten from Rowling so far. Literature is not about what happens; it is about the meaning that each individual takes away from the story. Before I ever read Arundhati Roy's novel, The God of Small Things, I knew a lot about it, and I knew how it ended. But once I read it, it was just as beautiful and original as if I'd never heard about it before. I also remember seeing The Green Mile well before I read King's novel, and the book was still one of the most moving reads I've had in my life.

The same goes for Harry Potter: if you were to tell me everything that's going to be in this final book, I'd still read it and love it for its messages. In fact, I had seen the first movie before I read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, and its metaphor fairly leaped off the page at me nonetheless. Two years later, I was writing my own book about the penetrating social and personal messages contained in these stories of wizards and witches.

Ms. Rowling: if you are going to go stir-crazy over information leaks from printers, it will degrade the quality of your future work. Let go and let this phenomenon take its own course, so that you can remain an artist and not lower yourself to the level of a plot-hack. You stand in the forefront of fiction writers today because your work causes affliction to demagogues like this kook. Why do you think Bishop Burke (who, in addition to hating Harry Potter, also hates Ted Kennedy, Sheryl Crow, and Michael J. Fox) wishes to suppress your work, Ms. Rowling? Could it be that when he looks at Lord Voldemort, he sees himself? Could it be that you successfully strip away the purple veneer of piety and reveal the rotting corruption beneath it? Could it have something to do with the way a "Ministry"—either of "magic" (religion) or of state (no KR reporters allowed on our plane)—manipulates and intimidates the press? Yes, you've laid that bare as well, in front of the most dangerous audience of all—the children. Voldemorts like Bush, Burke, and Chavez can't stand that kind of treatment, you know.

So it doesn't matter to me, Ms. Rowling, what we hear or when about the outcome or the plot of the final book. What matters is the meaning, which no one can "spoil," try as they might. I am far less concerned about whether Voldemort dies in Book 7 as I am about whether we can succeed in killing him off in our world, before it's too late.
___________________


And now, your Bush Administration MSE moment. We'll be presenting these quotations from one of the core texts of every psych graduate student's bookbag, The Psychiatric Mental Status Examination, by Paula T. Trzepacz and Robert W. Baker, throughout the coming weeks. Today's comes from page 51, in the "Mood and Affect" section—just think of the Bushian comedic "search" for WMDs at the Correspondents Dinner a few years back:

La Belle Indifference: Lack of the normally expected concern for an apparently serious condition...La belle indifference is associated with conversion disorder (previously known as hysteria) and various neurologic disorders. These patients typically lack insight regarding the emotions or conflict that underlie the conversion.

Beyond the Numbers

Stewart catches Olmy napping, and the Israeli people speak out for justice (click to view)

A few weeks ago, I wrote that, no matter what we may think of its government's actions, Israel is a fairly healthy democracy--healthier, in fact, than ours is now. And here's further proof.

Next week, I'm going to take the wraps off some psychological research I've been doing into the leader of the free world. This is the kind of thing I have in mind. However, in case you haven't noticed, he's got plenty of company in the lunacy department: check out this nut and his baseball-is-like-Iraq rant. Do you think Jon Stewart is paying these people to feed him fresh material, right over C-Span?

I paid $25 to help get this ad about the Bush veto on the air; you may wish to have a look at it and decide for yourself.

Small money, indeed, but that's all I'm worth for now. But enough of all that, then. Here's a little piece about big money and statistics.

What can money not buy? It can buy the media; it can buy opinion or reputation; it can purchase a gleaming image, or a floating corporate island green in the middle of Rockefeller Center.

But it cannot buy sanity. In fact, when it comes to that, the more you use money, the further do you tend to drift from sanity. The more you rely on money to open doors around you, the further do you become unhinged within. The greater your dependence on purchase, the higher the cost to your true self. The slavish pursuit and use of money will inevitably trap you within a cage, whose four walls are conflict, conformity, estrangement, and cynicism.

Any one amid 300 million can be an American; any one among tens of thousands can become a representative of a great multi-national corporation; any one of about 2.5 million can be a millionaire; any one of billions can be a Christian, a Muslim, a Jew, or a Buddhist. But to become your true self, to fully actualize the destiny that was born within you--that takes more than numbers. And less.
________________________

Tomorrow: Harry Potter and the State

I'd Rather Whine Than Resign!

The UN Building, with about 7 stories lopped off the top, in honor of John Bolton (click to enlarge)


Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the world of corporate government, where incompetence and inflexibility are directly proportional. You might want to keep the following links bookmarked for the next time you screw up at work and have the pink slip waved in your face.

Olmert: yeah, I killed hundreds of innocents, so what? I'm stayin'!

Wolfowitz: yeah, I handed out a mega-salary job to my main squeeze in clear violation of the rules of my organization, so what? I'm stayin'!

Gonzales: yeah, I might have fired some attorneys for purely political reasons, though I don't exactly recall--so what? I'm stayin'!

And now, our feature piece for today comes from Shady Acres Mike, who we haven't heard from in a while. Today he answers the question, "is a Bush veto of the $124B Iraq Supplemental automatic?"



It appears so. These guys seem to be highly out of touch. Keep in mind though that they do have at least a year to forge a political deal (if it gets to be more than that, no one will deal with them--it will become the next administration's headache). If they are able to foster a political deal they would look somewhat reasonable.

As for the loyal opposition, they cannot lose in the eyes of the reasonable American. Thank God that the forces of reason won both houses because the position the Dems are in now is only because of their ability to set a legislative and oversight agenda.

However, I am not optimistic that a political deal is in the offing. There is no military solution to being an occupying force in the midst of a civil war where neither warring party wants you there. So only a political solution remains. This administration has not done the hard work needed to lay down a path for such a deal. As a matter of fact, they seemed to have done just the opposite by refusing, at least publicly, to deal with the various factions whether inside or outside of Iraq. They have been defiant by taking a unilateral course. They believe that the US no longer needs to be a participant in history-making with others, but rather be THE history maker. It is this hubris that will make it difficult to cut a deal. In effect, they thought they could take a short cut. They initially tried to favor the Shia so that they would hold sway over the country. That backfired and they are still in the process of backing out of that strategy.

In the meantime, no real centralized body or association of various Sunni factions exists. Who represents the Sunnis? The Shia seem split down the middle between two main factions as well. At the same time, this administration has threatened the neighbors who continue to fuel the sectarian violence. No short term political solution looks likely. This will take time, patience, negotiations, and compromise -all things this administration either lacks or has shown no actual ability to afford.

I found myself in rare agreement with Donald Trump the other day. He recently stated that he sees Condi flying all over the world, meeting with many world leaders, but he never sees a deal. What, he asked, is the secretary of state supposed to do other than cut deals? Perhaps it is too late and they have gone too far to be trusted at the negotiating table for any major negotiation, including peace in Iraq. What a mess they have made. What a mess they will most probably be leaving to the next administration.

Have you seen the new poll results form NBC? The Bushies are so out of touch once again. Large majorities of Americans think there should be a timetable - by approximately a twenty percent margin. Only 22% of Americans think we are headed in the right direction as a country. Large majorities of Americans thinks that the surge is not working - again, by approximately a twenty percent margin. This is why anyone associated with the quagmire that is Iraq is being painted with the same brush. McCain has hit free fall, even Hillary is sliding. Obama and Giuliani who did not vote on the subject have risen in their place.

As for the neocons, the noose is tightening around these hoodlums and incompetents: Abramoff and 10 other K Street influence-peddling convictions with three more Congressman to come about to go down, Plamegate and the Libby conviction, Tillman and Lynch, politicizing the Justice and other departments, Katrina, with investigations on torture, spying on the public without warrants, and intelligence manipulation yet to come. It's going to be hard for anyone who supported this administration to survive once it all comes out. Thank God for checks and balances, thank God for karma, for justice, for true oversight, and for the rooster coming home to roost. And the far right are out of touch again, they are simply trying to stall and deceive by making false comparisons with other administrations and by changing the subject.

If property values continue to sink and the economy slows down on top of all of the above, the 30 year trend to the right may be about to be swing the other way. The right could lose the independent vote for a long time to come. Even without the economy taking a slide, rising energy costs, rising health costs, rising education costs, and continued reliance on big oil and foreign carbon based energy at the expense of the very environment we live in could cost the Republicans the middle class independent vote for a long time to come. And the right is out of touch again if they think that can rely on all their past bromides with which they ran America into the ground.

It's time for a new America. Lets see who will be ready to usher that in.

--Shady Acres Mike

Monday with McKenna: President Lab Rat

I have two links for everyone who watched the Bill Moyers special last Wednesday, Buying the War (viewable here). Moyers featured the work of two young journalists whose work went largely ignored by the MSM. These two journalists, Jonathan Landay and Warren Strobel of Knight-Ridder's Washington bureau, set out to critically examine the deceptions that were being advanced as truth, the lies that were packaged and bought by the rest of the media establishment. You can keep up on the work of these two men by adding their RSS feeds to your news reader:

Warren Strobel

Jonathan Landay

For another example of Landay's truth-seeking-missile approach to journalism, see this post of ours from January, 2006. And now, here's Terry, to explain what a lab rat and the leader of the free world have in common.



Is there anything left to say about Iraq? Troop surge or no, we’re getting nowhere fast! Surely, even the president knows this. Or does he?

It's easy to say that George Bush doesn’t know this, or much of anything – that he’s stupid. We’ve said it in this blog, and it’s a belief that has wide currency. But let’s get serious for a minute. It’s hard to imagine anyone being as stupid as George Bush would have to be to not understand what’s going on with the war.

But if he’s not stupid, then what? One alternative might be that he possesses a unique mix of arrogance, intellectual mediocrity, and stubbornness. In any case, even lab rats can change their behavior when their actions don’t yield results, and certainly George Bush is at least as smart as a lab rat – so he too can’t fail to recognize that however hard we try, we remain stuck in the same Iraqi quagmire.

So yes, George Bush knows.

If there is no chance of winning, then why does he urge America to pour more men and money onto the pile? And here, I must state for the record that it usually is not a good idea to speculate about anyone else’s motives. If someone does something, it’s best to judge the action by its results. With most people, failure begets change, but with George Bush and Iraq, failure begets nothing but a series of repeated failures*. So just this once, let’s try to find out what motivates the decider.

One reason to continue our war effort is that if we leave, Iraq will devolve into complete chaos (as if it hasn’t already). This is in fact one of George Bush’s public explanations for fighting on. It’s also John McCain’s (in McCain’s case, I think he’s in earnest). It could be true, but it’s hard to imagine an even more urgent level of chaos. Still, let’s accept that it is not an unreasonable point of view. But if that’s the concern, then why not begin a regional conference on Iraq’s future? To do so, the US would have to go hat in hand to the Iranians and Syrians, but it is we who are losing lives, not they. To the Democrats' credit, those who fear even more chaos do support a regional conference. But Bush and his allies do not.

If Bush doesn’t want a peace conference, what other reason could he have for staying the course? (Staying the course has suddenly disappeared from the Bush talking points, but that’s what the troop surge is - staying the course).

I believe the reason is pure (and malicious) politics. And here, please remember the old saw that politics stops at the water’s edge, that when it comes to foreign policy, we are Americans first. Republicans keep reminding us about this when Democrats bring up the War’s failure. But it turns out, in this case, Republicans are the worst offenders. Here is the plan: Bush knows he can’t win; he also fears the long-term political damage to the Republican cause, and especially to conservatism if the US leaves Iraq while he is in power. As much as the American people have given up on Iraq, when we leave, the final exit will remain as a stain upon whomever presides over the last days. (Remember the picture of our last days in Saigon). George Bush is stalling for time – hoping to push the sting of his defeat onto his likely Democratic successor. If anyone believes that politics stops at the water’s edge, nonsense. George Bush plans to sacrifice maybe 2000 more Americans lives and spend as much as $200 Billion for what amounts to a small political advantage for his party. Shame on him!

Of course, there is another reason to stay, and that is that Bush never intended for the US to leave Iraq. Iraq was to be the new permanent base for future US military operations in the Middle East (the defense of our vital interests, which are oil and Israel). This is the thesis of Chalmers Johnson, a renowned foreign policy specialist. His notion is simple (not simplistic): US power depends on massive amounts of fuel, which is to say, oil. It takes millions of gallons of jet fuel to provide the air supremacy that allows us to create shock and awe. And our navy also gulps millions of gallons of diesel fuel (think of how much oil it takes to keeps an aircraft carrier group in the Persian Gulf. With the US having been thrown out of Saudi Arabia, we decided to construct permanent air bases in Iraq (we keep saying that we aren’t doing this, but what we build there has every appearance of permanence). Read this article, written before the Iraq war started. It’s not all that Mr. Johnson has to say on the subject, but it’s a good start. You can also check out his Blowback piece.

Here at Daily revolution, we are often reminded that human folly is not new. If we are conversant with our art and history, we have a chance of avoiding the repetition of human tragedy. George Bush may be closest to Shakespeare’s King Lear. Like Lear, he is pretty much alone now – note how few defenders he has in Congress. Of course, the Bush presidency hasn’t quite devolved into madness, but who knows how the next 19 months will go?

*To all those who urge us to fight on, and remind us that America has fought much harder wars than Iraq; I agree. But if we look at our other difficult wars, in each case, the commander in chief made lots of changes AND admitted mistakes when they occurred. In our revolutionary war, George Washington started out being aggressive, but after a series of disasters in New York, he learned never to jeopardize his army – that his job was to preserve the army and buy time. During our civil war, Lincoln admitted the many failures in the Eastern theater, and as a result, he replaced generals regularly until after three years he put Grant in charge. In WW2, Roosevelt was frank about our early difficulties. He too replaced all the early commanders and by the end of the war, the senior commander in Europe was a man who was a mere colonel when the war started. Bush has neither admitted problems (till way too late) nor made effective changes (also till way too late).

--T. McKenna

A Soldier Rebuts His Tyrant Bosses

This article, by Lt. Col. Paul Yingling, has been getting a lot of attention lately—particularly from lefty sites such as Truthout and Think Progress. It richly deserves all the attention it can get: it is a crisply written, orderly, and eminently sane exposure, from an officer who has served in Iraq, of all the managerial incompetence that has defined this war's corporate conduct.

My blogging partner Terry McKenna reminded me of something that helped to put Lt. Col. Yingling's message into context: before the war started, the Army held war games, which were meant to test the military's prevailing combat strategy against an enemy that lacked our resources and firepower. The commander of the "insurgency" in these tactical war games quit before they could conclude, because, once his forces started "winning," the Army told him to stop and play by its rules (Marquis of Queensbury, anyone?). Here's an excerpt; the whole expose—from August, 2002, mind you—is here:

The most elaborate war game the U.S. military has ever held was rigged so that it appeared to validate the modern, joint-service war-fighting concepts it was supposed to be testing, according to the retired Marine lieutenant general who commanded the game’s Opposing Force.
That general, Paul Van Riper, said he worries the United States will send troops into combat using doctrine and weapons systems based on false conclusions from the recently concluded Millennium Challenge 02. He was so frustrated with the rigged exercise that he said he quit midway through the game.

Monday with McKenna: Inside the Artist's Brain

Monday with McKenna today features a trip inside the mind of an artist, but first let's take a tour of the brain of neocon ignorance. The graphic here is the front page of this town's leading tabloid, a Rupert Murdoch property that lives to offend. And what can be more offensive than this cover insult to a man who's in the hospital, and was still listed in critical condition at the time this moronic Photoshop smut was created? And if Mr. Corzine was a good Bush Republican, do you think we'd have seen this? I think this crap makes Imus look like a choir boy by comparison. Kicking a man when he's down is one thing; kicking him when half the bones in his body have been broken and he's breathing through a tube...it's journalistic dementia.

And while I have you thinking about sick, psychotic institutions, check this out: the U.S. Army now has an insurance claims department. They examine claims arising from our military's incidental murders of innocent Iraqi civilians, and pay or deny based on the most randomly corrupt judgment imaginable. Read some of the examples from Greg Mitchell's column at E&P, and see whether your blood pressure hasn't gone up by a factor of two by the time you're done. Incidentally, it was the ACLU that got these files on military killings of civilians; so purchasing a membership would not be a waste of $35, if you ask me.


So this isn't just a troop surge, ladies and gentlemen; it's a bureaucracy surge. But according to Clueless from Crawford, the Dems are "handing victory to our enemies" because they refuse to fund this shit without a timeline for ending it all. Click the graphic for Stewart's roundup, which includes the "airing of the platitudes."

Ah, god, if there's anybody from Norway reading this: how's the job market there, and could I get a green card? Will it help me if I tell you that my kid's playing Grieg on the piano these days?

Never mind, let's all just escape from it for a few minutes, to go inside the mind of my artist co-blogger. So while I go onto my ISP's servers and delete a few thousand emails (for more on that, join us on Geek Wednesday), here's Monday with McKenna...



Where does artistic inspiration come from? And I don’t mean this to be an abstract question. If we are to discover the poetry within ourselves, we’ll need to know how to muster the force of artistic inspiration.

This week I’ll review inspiration from the initial flicker to the finished work of art. In my example, I’ll use inspiration from this past week. The finished work is also mine, though from a long time ago. And by the way, if I haven’t made it clear in past essays, I am a trained fine artist; so, while I earn my living in business, I still paint from time to time.

Artistic inspiration varies a little bit with the specific art involved. The same flicker may tickle the painter or poet, and both may pick up a notebook to memorialize their ideas, but then their courses diverge. The visual artist works with line and tone. If words are included at all, they supplement a sketch. On the other hand, the poet works exclusively with words. And we include a musician, who would compose by setting down notes on a staff.

This week, my inspiration came from the return of Spring. And despite our being solidly into April, Spring did not seem all that present for those of us in the New York City area. Our weather was cold and blustery, and as of this writing, we await a Nor’easter and possibly snow. Still, it was Spring that aroused me from my drowsy train ride home. My daily commute starts in dank Penn Station; we spend the first 10 minutes in a dark tunnel. After we emerge into the light, we pass through the dreary salt marsh known as the Jersey Meadows. Newark is our first city. As we move past, the towns get progressively smaller, the lawns get larger and the people whiter. My ride ends more than an hour later in suburban Morris County.

On a typical day, I read and slumber. Last Tuesday, I suddenly noticed a flicker of bright colors and movement. In the middle distance, on a playing field, a group of girls were arrayed in a circle practicing wheeling motions with their arms. They were led by an adult (their coach?) stationed in the center. I guessed they were junior high school girls, and were practicing cheerleading.


As I said, I was dozing, but the late-afternoon raking sunlight and the bright colors on the girls clothes sparked my interest, so I opened up my notebook and scrawled the following scribble.

The scene vanished before I finished. On the same ride home, I made a few more sketches for later use. But as far as getting a second shot at drawing the scene again, I was never able to. I had my pad and pencil at the ready the rest of the week, but the girls and their teacher never reappeared. Still, I had my inspiration.

But how do I turn a brief notion into a finished painting?

In the days of the “academy,” artists went to great lengths to reassemble a scene. They would dress models in the correct garb, and sometimes recreate an entire battlefield or similar large scale backdrop. Contemporary artists by and large shun such practices. For myself, I will make lots of preparatory sketches, but that’s as far as I go.

Then it’s on to the grunt work of artistic composition. And as much as the several arts differ each from the other, there remain lots of similarities. Painters cover their canvas once and then re-paint again and again. So too, writers make a first draft and rewrite obsessively. From what I’ve heard, Ernest Hemingway’s first drafts were remarkably pedestrian. Each draft tries to push closer to the original spark. Countless re-paintings or redrafts eventually reach a conclusion (or a stalemate, when a work is abandoned). The key is to be unafraid to destroy (tear up – paint over) your previous hard work, even if a particular passage seems a great success. Finish occurs when the work clicks.

Works that fail may be picked up again after months or years.

And that’s it. An obsessive process of rewriting or repainting until the work is done.

So… how do you keep reaction fresh when you’ve had a work of art in front of you for months?

For painters, we can re-assess several times a day. After each break, your return to the studio gives you a brief moment for a fresh reaction. But for writers of novels, re-engagement comes slowly. Nonetheless, the artistic quest remains the same: did I get what I was after? If not, keep trying.

The what you are after is much less solid matter. Unvoiced, the artist tries to keep it alive in mind’s eye while continuing to prune and refine. But the specific “what” is never explicitly stated. Eventually, a work is finished. Even then, you may give yourself a time off, and one more look. Did you get what you wanted? If yes, then you are done.


So… what about my finished work. This one was finished some 34 Springs ago after a month of daily painting. I no longer have my original studies, but I can remember what I saw and what I was after. It was late March, and I was home from art school (I was sick for about eight days… a rare experience for me). I passed a local park and watched two boys take turns with a basketball. I can’t say what it was about the scene inspired me, and the work changed a lot as I painted. After a month of painting, I stopped with the following entitled the Rites of Spring.

By the way, if you pay for Showtime, you ought to watch the new series: This American Life. In an episode entitled ‘God’s Close-Up’ a young Mormon painter is shown selecting his models, posing them in an elaborate crucifixion scene, and photographing the scene to use are reference for a finished work. The links won’t allow you to see all that much, but if you have access to Showtime, watch this interesting episode. The art itself is relentlessly pedestrian. And no, I don’t know the artists name, nor do I have a link for him.

—T. McKenna

Philosophy and Punditry, Part Two

Today we present Part 2 of Terry McKenna's piece on spin, action, and understanding in an era of vapid punditry. And just to assure readers that Terry and I don't quite agree on everything (see our commenting duel on Sunday's post), I'll have a response tomorrow. But first, Part 2 of Terry's "Philosophy and Punditry":



If the beliefs of hardliners like John Bolton have been discredited, then what about the opposition? Well, sadly, the left also has lots to account for. I’ll just note a few concerns: a misguided reliance on the UN; a similar misjudgment of US strength (think of Darfur – we worry that genocide is going on – forgetting that we can’t stop it anyway); and a blind spot regarding arms control – which works with members of the nuclear club, but not at all for those on the outside who want to join.

No matter the issue, an attempt to secure a deeper understanding of the current day yields the same frustrating dualism. (Pick your topic – I suggest that you start with the environment!) To sum up, we are left with:

An era that devalues the search for meaning

A plethora of valueless voices (the bloviators)

Dualism in all spheres

So what to do? Maybe the composer Beethoven, expressed it best in his Ninth Symphony. Composing in the traditional sonata form, his search for musical meaning led him to conclude by switching gears altogether – by moving to a vocal composition. His gear switch was abrupt and self referential – that is, he used words to comment on the change about to take place in his own piece. Beethoven recognized that he needed to move outside the constricting box of the orchestral symphony. He used this introduction (first in German, then in English):

O Freunde, nicht diese Töne! Sondern laßt uns angenehmere anstimmen, und freudenvollere!

Oh friends, not these tones! Let us raise our voices in more pleasing and more joyful sounds!

The search for information brings us to the same dead end that we find when art reaches an artistic end point. To begin with, none of us can be experts at everything, and then we have the limited value of specialization. For example, I give money to environmental causes, but the more information I try to gather on the topic, the more enveloped I get in minutiae. My question to myself becomes, do I really need to become an expert in the fire threat to western coniferous forests in order to understand current day US policy?

Faced with the short term and the trivial, maybe what we should go after is the search for the same genuine meaning that has been discredited. Of course, such a search is life long; it should start by examining the following core values: honesty, integrity; loyalty; gentleness; earnestness; and an openness to new things.

Note – these “values” look nothing at all like the values expressed by some of our politicians when they discuss values. (By the way, how in hell did opposition to gun control and gay marriage morph into being part of the consideration of “values”?)

If you want to see how these values are useful to an analysis of the present state of affairs, let’s try a simple exercise. Let’s examine a few men in terms of genuine traditional values: George Bush II, Jerry Falwell, John McCain and Bill Clinton.

George Bush: he fails on all but loyalty.

Jerry Falwell: he is certainly not open to new ideas, he’s also a thug if not a liar.

John McCain: he’s loses on honesty, integrity and earnestness.

Bill Clinton: loses on honesty and loyalty, but has genuine openness and earnestness – and maybe, despite some dishonesty, he has integrity after all.

And regarding policy: Maybe if we elected people with strong core values, we could rely upon them to be the representatives that their constitutional role implies.

—T. McKenna

Monday with McKenna: Philosophy vs. Punditry

We're going back to back with Terry McKenna to start the week. He'll be with us today and Tuesday. You may recall Terry's piece on McCain from a few weeks back. As Frank Rich observed Sunday, McCain's lies (the subject of Terry's piece) have finally caught up with him (and W.R. Pitt of Truthout also weighs in with a similar insight).

Being a philosophy graduate myself, I feel a particular resonance with Terry's theme today. So here comes Part 1 of Terry's reflections on philosophy and punditry.


It’s the day after Easter; what better day to consider man’s search for meaning? Sadly, our era no longer values such a search. In an earlier era, the philosopher Rene Descartes corresponded with nobility and was granted a pension by the king of France. Half a half century later, Isaac Newton was England’s man of the age. But today, if a bright high school student admitted an interest in the study of philosophy as their college major, surely he or she would be vigorously discouraged.

Philosophers seem as irrelevant as poets and goldsmiths, though perhaps not quite so irrelevant as alchemists. We’ve replaced philosophy with journalism, and replaced philosophers with opinion makers such as newspaper columnists and the like. If philosophers created works of permanent value, today’s columns and OP-ED pieces are mere ephemera. If likened to food, the works of Plato nourished generations of scholars, today’s writings are mere snack food; useful only to fill our flabby minds with empty calories.

This week was a good one for our bloviators. In addition to the Iraq war and Nancy Pelosi’s unscripted comments during her middle east trip, we had the resolution of Iran’s seizure of fifteen British sailors and marines.

I’m happy for the sailors. Though their professional rigor turns out to be less than impressive (come on, you guys gave up about three days!) still they came home alive and unharmed, and in the middle east, maybe that’s remarkable enough.

Fifteen sailors and marines and a minor border incident don’t mean much in the scheme of things, but you wouldn’t know it from all the noise in the news media. For the bloviating class, the past two weeks became just another opportunity to show off in print, on the radio, or on camera. Were their guesses on the mark? Thing happened so quickly that it’s easy to check. It turns out no one was right (except maybe Tony Blair when he attempted to cool the rhetoric). The end came much sooner than anticipated. And – although there may have been some behind the scenes bargaining - it doesn’t look like either side gave away much. It could be this simple: Iran recognized that it got as much mileage as it could and ended it. But look at the headlines from a sample of articles (I selected a screen shot of sample articles via Google). Note the breathless energy (click graphic to enlarge).

So, if our pundits are full of shit (and if you track almost any issue, you’ll see that they are) then whither the search for information at a deeper level?

Sadly, the search for a deeper understanding of current affairs is led by the self same bloviators who are so disappointing. I had the opportunity to hear one of them on two occasions this past week, John Bolton. If you don’t remember him, he’s the hardliner that Bush appointed as UN ambassador (in a recess appointment). Though he’s a bully, he is also considered a serious man. He has spent a lot of time in and around government working on international affairs - particularly arms control. At the risk of over simplifying his position, he is suspicious of attempts to sign treaties with rogue states that have no intention of doing what they promise. His bottom line is that negotiating with such states quickly morphs into an attempt to reform them, and such efforts are doomed to failure. He prefers instead a policy of regime change.

Regime change sounded good until we found out that regime change is only half the battle. And war itself is much more complicated than just sending out a bunch of smart bombs. With the disaster in Iraq, we are now faced with the recognition that war is a dirty business that almost never yields the desired outcome. The deeper lesson is that the US is not quite strong enough to remake the world on its own terms.

—T. McKenna

Tomorrow: Part 2

Monday with McKenna: The NeoCon Threat to Good Government

It's been a couple of weeks since we last heard from Mr. Terry McKenna, and I'm sure you've had more than your fill of my New Age nonsense. Therefore, without further prologue, Monday with McKenna:


This week my topic is the Bush Administration’s attack on America’s history of open and honest government. But first, and by way of introduction, a couple of brief comments.

George Bush continues to trumpet alternative fuel vehicles as an answer to our over-consumption of oil.

Comment: NO, asshole, we need to mandate fuel economy, not a switch to a different carbon based fuel source.*

George Bush, John McCain, Joe Lieberman and the rest of the war mongers believe that setting a date for withdrawal is announcing the date of our defeat.

Comment: We have already lost this one. Neither are we surrendering to Iraq – they didn’t conquer us: if we leave, we are just LEAVING.

BushCo and the Assault on Good Government

America at its heart has been a very successful experiment in self-government. There are lots of reasons for this, one being the entry of millions of energetic Europeans and Asians to a vast and under populated** land full of rich soil and mineral wealth. Another is the absence of a ruling class of petty nobles and landlords who in other societies have been empowered to exact rents and other restrictions upon commerce. Thus, citizens have been able to engage in commercial activity with much less interference than almost anywhere else. We expect our public officials to behave fairly, and for the most part - except when it involves contracts to provide goods or services to the government itself – they do. Building permits, licenses and all manner of government activities are carried out for the genuine public interest. Town engineers practice engineering in a professional manner; geological surveys are genuine; and our national weather service provides solid and sound weather information. By and large, American civil servants have no agenda but to provide service. (To Chomsky-ites, followers of Howard Zinn and old leftists who dote on America’s failures, you are right as far as it goes, but so what—in the scheme of things, America is as good as many and better than most. Fairer as a whole than nations like Russia, China or Zimbabwe, and not quite as fair as places like Sweden and Norway.)

Oh yes, to those who say we are a nation of laws and not men – hogwash! Just think of Iraq and its constitution. Or of the UN and its numerous covenants and protocols. Suffice it to say that it takes a lot more than a signed document to generate a civil society or to inspire good behavior.

Starting with the New Deal, Congress created agencies that took on various roles that conservatives claimed were properly left to the states or to the people. The Supreme Court also took on a more activist role to re-make America into the free land implied by our founding documents. When a conservative president was finally elected after a space of five decades (with the election of Ronald Reagan), conservatives decided to use the executive branch to destroy programs that they were unable to attack directly.

Thus, Reagan appointed James G Watt – an avowed opponent of federal conservation programs, to manage the Department of the Interior. Reaganites especially hated environmental laws, housing programs, the Department of Education and the enforcement of civil rights laws. But Reagan operated before the flowering of modern Right Wing think tanks, so his efforts were not as focused as those today.

Enter Bush II (Really Ronald Reagan II) and cadres of trained right wing professionals, each ready to speak the newspeak of corporate evasion and to hide their mission, which was to bend federal programs into supporting the right wing policy arm - actually, anti-policy arm, since the right wing has no real policy, just newspeak meant to build a consensus against policy. Gail Norton at the Department of the Interior was one example. She was a protégé of James G. Watt and built her career setting up what are known as astro turf groups*** with a fake environmental agenda. And think of the FDA. This formerly proud servant of public health was shaped into an instrument of conservative Christianity when it stalled the approval of the morning after pill.

In almost all spheres of activity, officials have switched from serving the American people to serving the president. Thus Treasury lied to the nation about the cost of the Bush tax cuts; and the Defense Department lied about the cost of the Iraq folly. And when they are not lying to us, the feds are simple nincompoops like Brownie.

So Alberto Gonzalez’s lies are not surprising. The entire executive is bathed in deceit.

But are we ready to conclude that the future is lost too? I don’t think so. At the local level, our civil servants still serve us honestly. And Democrats by and large believe in the government that they serve, but we won’t know how they will act until they win back the White House, which they surely will do in 2008.

And before I go, an expression of thanks to the hospitality of San Francisco and the surrounding towns within northern California. I just returned from a seven day trip to California, my first ever. Now I understand what led many of my generation to extend their stays in this strange but attractive land.

____________________


*If you think ethanol is a solution, then please read up about the cost of raising the corn necessary to produce it. The net energy yield is close to zero. And for those interested in sugar instead (especially as produced in Brazil) the yield and costs are better, but the bad news is, the Brazilians use slave indigenous labor to clear the Amazon jungle in order to get open land for sugar can.

**Yes, I know that North America was populated by millions of what used to be called Indians, but after the European settlements had been established, disease and warfare (especially disease) so shrunk the existing population that the later immigrants felt they were entering a virgin land.

***Astro Turf groups are funded by industry, or sometimes by wealthy right wing zealots (for example, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, Move America Forward, and Focus on the Family). They are named to sound friendly, but beware, they have a mission and are to be feared.

—T. McKenna

Practicing Inner Elimination: The Way Beyond Guilt

Yesterday, we suggested that guilt is error's dark companion, and is responsible for most of the resistance to the admission of a mistake, especially from people who have made so many of them, like the members of the BushCo team.

Well, as luck would have it for us, Bush did issue an apology yesterday, on behalf of "the system."

"The system failed you and it failed our troops and we're going to fix it...I apologize for what they went through and we're going to fix the problem."

Apology accepted, Dub. Now, "fix the problem"—fire your VP, your AG, and your rap-dancing marketing director, and then leave office yourself. Then, all of you, get out of the public eye and work on expelling the demons that have driven you and our nation to this desperate point of geopolitical chaos, murder, domestic waste, and pervasive corruption. Get treatment for the disease that has so long afflicted you.



It all begins, as it can for many of us, with a recognition of the falsehood of guilt as a principle of human nature. As I say in The Tao of Hogwarts:

...is there anything, anywhere, in Nature that experiences guilt, except humans? Do animals or plants or rocks or stars or the earth itself feel guilt—do any of these things subject themselves to the punishments and the hideous self-torment of one who perceives himself as inherently flawed and poisoned by Nature with Sin? Or is guilt what makes us who we are—original, uniquely human, the Lords of the Earth and the fullness thereof? If guilt is what makes us special, what distinguishes us from all other forms of creation, then I would suggest that it is time to renounce the distinction and return to our pre-human evolutionary roots.

Fortunately, that last bit is quite unnecessary. We can, in fact, "fix the system," by committing ourselves to a program of "inner elimination." We all value good habits and practices of physical elimination, because we know that if we couldn't shit, pee, sweat, fart, or belch properly, toxins would build up in our bodies and make us very sick. But we often fail to apply the same principle to our minds. That's where the "inner No" comes in. Here is another excerpt from my book, which includes guidance on some basic principles of "inner elimination:"

Say an inner No to the validity of guilt as a principle of human nature. In a brief, daily meditation, ask for help from the hidden world and firmly, yet without bitterness or hatred, say the word "No" three times to the idea of guilt as a natural aspect of your being. Say a further No to any group ideology, pseudo-scientific theory, religious belief, or social doctrine that arises to your consciousness as a specifically intrusive source of the belief in guilt as a natural human trait. Ask the teaching Presence of the Cosmos and the helping cosmic energy of dispersion to dissolve the notion of guilt from within you. Finish each meditation with an expression of thanks to the cosmic energies that are thus clearing you of these destructive attachments and prejudices against your true nature. Many people have found this to be an extraordinarily restorative and cleansing exercise, and the best part of it is that it costs you almost no outer effort and only about two or three minutes out of each day.

Identify the areas in your life where you are bound by group affiliation, and sever the ties on the inner plane. In Hexagram 59 of the I Ching ("Dispersion"), Line 4 has this poem:

He dissolves his bond with his group.
Supreme good fortune.
Dispersion leads to accumulation.
This is something that ordinary men do not think of.
(from the Wilhelm/Baynes translation)


Let this insight lead you to reflect on the aspects of your life—work, national affiliation, an academic, social, religious, or other group allegiance, and even family life—that need to be examined for the limitations they may be imposing on your true nature and the fulfillment of your individual uniqueness as an independent moment within the Cosmic Consciousness. Many of us have spent much of our lives trying to live up to the group self-images projected upon us by collective ideologies—the obedient child, the good and sacrificing husband/wife/parent, the loyal, hardworking employee, the patriotic citizen of a particular nation. The fact is that children naturally behave as adults would like them to, when obedience is not beaten into them as an ideological imperative engraved on the stone of an institution's moral code; we are all of us more natural, loving, and enduring marriage partners when we are allowed to live independently, even as we maintain the inner connection with our beloved, free of the darkly threatening decree to "honor and obey" another; we become more loyal, supportive, and nurturing parents when we give up the lugubrious self-consciousness of "sacrificial duty" towards our children; we are more productive and creative workers when we are liberated from that obsessive and vaguely paranoid attachment to the institutional ethic of "hard work"; and we are far more beneficial to our community and our nation when we consider ourselves as citizens of the Cosmic Whole, rather than as parochially allied to some tribe, clan, or state and its prevailing ideology of the moment.

So consider which of the institutionally-programmed self-images of the collective ego are most limiting you in your inner growth as an individual, and work on releasing these bonds, in the knowledge that you are truly benefiting the natural family, community, business organization, and nation by doing so.

Be led to a more accurate and personally viable understanding of error and its place in our lives. In the I Ching, there is no direct mention of guilt, because, as we have discussed, guilt has no basis in cosmic reality. However, it is understood throughout the oracle's text that error is an aspect of the way of inner growth for humans, and so the I Ching speaks in many places of "remorse" or "regret." This, indeed, is how we are meant to understand the role of error in our lives. In contrast to what the collective ego and its ideologies would have us believe, there are no spots that won't wash out: our bodies, after all, are 75% water—the basic element of the baptismal ritual is already within us in abundance! So when you have said or done something which you regret, and that you recognize as an error, a temporary separation from your true nature, try the following steps in a brief meditation:

♦ Ask for help from the Cosmic realm in understanding the cause, nature, and the correct resolution of your mistake, and apologize to the Cosmos for the error, in a free and open inner expression of remorse that is unstained by guilt, self-blame, or bitterness.

♦ If it is an interpersonal issue that has occasioned your error, then apologize to the person you believe you have wronged, on the inner plane. Simply let your consciousness speak to that person and express your regret sincerely, as if they were right beside you in the room. This practice has a far greater transformative effect than most people would be willing to acknowledge, until they experience it for themselves.

♦ Finally, ask the Sage, the teaching energy of the Cosmic Consciousness, to guide you in understanding what, if anything, must be done, in addition to the above, to resolve the effect of your mistake and return you to harmony with the principle of Te, or Modesty. You may use the I Ching or other oracle, or simply attend to the messages you receive in meditations, in dreams, or through your own reflection. If you feel that any action or communication on the outer plane would be helpful in completing the resolution of your error, ask for help in learning the correct approach in this respect. And remember this: the capacity to say from your heart, "I am sorry" reveals an ability of such greatness as the leaders of the most powerful nations on earth completely lack. As with any meditation, finish by expressing your thanks to the Cosmos for its help in guiding you through this process of self-understanding amid an awareness of remorse.

If guilt, blame, and fear are severely troubling you, seek help from a professional. The guilt and self-blame that are engendered by our futile efforts to live up to the institutional ego's monumental self-images lie at the root of many depressive and anxiety disorders. We are not born to live in an inner state of slavery, ever fearful that we will be deemed insufficient to the self-images that cultural laws, moral codes, religious beliefs, and societal norms define for us and program into us. Your need for help is not a manifestation of something aberrant or weak in your true nature, but is rather a result of cultural conditioning. You can find a counselor, therapist, or other professional through talking to family and friends, or via professional organizations that offer referrals based on your needs and resources.

Friday Reflection: Error's Uninvited Guest

The depth and scope of the depravity and corruption of the Bush administration—here, in Iraq, and around the world, in fact—has been abundantly documented here and in many other places on the Internet (not to mention the published literature on the same topic). It may seem difficult to understand, then, how Congress has been so ignorant of what to most of us is as plain as a drowned city in the Gulf Coast or a chaos of medieval proportions in Baghdad.

Clearly, the author of our banner quote shares the same confusion. How can these politicians, most of them Senators, even think of campaigning around the country, some 20 months ahead of the election, when the nation is under a constitutional crisis (several of them, in fact) and a losing war is being ramped up amid a tightening knot of tyranny at home?

Anyway, the author of the remarks we quoted goes by the name "The Pen," whose email dispatch I receive regularly. You can click on the "Join the Peace Team" graphic at the top of the sidebar and sign up for it yourself.



Friday Reflection: Error's Uninvited Guest

Something we always try to do here, whenever we write about the BushCo tyranny or the Iraq War, is to scratch deeper at the surface of world events and figureheads of state than others do. The point is to go beyond the spin and then keep digging from there. Often, as you've seen, we only come up with more questions rather than any conclusive answers. But that's not a problem, after all: I would suggest, in fact, that if we conducted our own lives that way, we'd experience some amazing results.

But this time, I think I have an answer to offer to a nagging question that is contained in what was discussed in the first part of this post. Our question today is: "Why can't Bush, Cheney, and their ilk admit error? Why do these guys continue to preach their own perfection to a narrowing chorus of ignorance?"

The answer, as I often say, lies within ourselves. I think the question is important because it reveals truths about our culture that the mass media entirely ignore, and that we ourselves often overlook.

In our culture, the admission of error rarely happens in isolation: you don't just say "I was wrong, I'm sorry" and move on. Something else happens instead: to confess to a mistake in our society is to accept guilt. It is this uninvited guest, this dark companion to error, that causes all the trouble and incites all our inhibitions to admitting error.

I personally sense this in Bush's famous and frequent malapropisms, word salad speech, his stiff and skittish mannerisms, and his blatant distortion of both facts and their meaning. I sense the insidious, toxic influence of hidden guilt in his persistent and flagrant acts of denial. If I had time and some grant money to do it with, I'd study this and see whether these feelings are supported by analysis of events and data.

But for now we just have our own inner laboratory to work in, and that should be enough to come to some understanding. It is difficult enough to admit one's error in a mistake at work or a misunderstanding with a spouse, because the projected stain of guilt that goes along with many such moments tends to stick our feet to the very spot that we should leaving behind. We can be thus trapped in an error that is perhaps years or even decades old, if we cannot detect the inner tar of guilt that is falsely holding us back in the swamp of a mistake that we've already confessed. As I mention in the text quoted below, this is one reason why recidivism rates for convicts in our society are so shockingly high: guilt as an inextinguishable stain, as the spot that never washes clean, is programmed into our religion, our morality, and our law.

If we in our personal lives face so much struggle with error's uninvited guest, imagine that you happened to have started a war four years ago; a war that has resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocents; a war that is being irretrievably lost amid a vortex of human and economic waste. Then imagine that more than two-thirds of your nation's citizens now realize the extent and depravity of your error. You have been personally steeped, from childhood on, in the very ideology that we've been talking about here—the indissoluble marriage of error and guilt—and you know that the weakest admission of a mistake would bring down a mountain of guilt upon you. Well, doesn't that explain something about the positively psychotic cult of denial that has defined this Bush administration?

For more on guilt and its insidious dangers, here is an excerpt from my book, The Tao of Hogwarts, where I discuss the meaning of J.K. Rowling's metaphor on government and its institutions, "The Ministry of Magic":

The ideologies of religion, law, and institutional morality—personified in Dostoyevsky's tale as the Grand Inquisitor—offer each person who will follow them the security of their protection, the comfort of a forced order, and the glossy emolument of their entitlements, but only at an incalculable price: that of the sacrifice of one's true, autonomous, and unique self. This is, in reality, a classic inner shakedown—the original bait-and-switch scheme. The need for the sacrifice has been manufactured via advertisement; the market is concocted. There is, in fact, no natural danger, disorder, or inner failing that requires the sacrifice demanded of the individual. Of even more concern is the consequence that the price of self-sacrifice conceals: a hidden tax or surcharge which will make it inevitably intolerable to the purchaser. This tax is the precondition of guilt; it is the ideological staining of one's true being. All have sinned, so all must repent (the religious embodiment of the tax); all of us are brutal, predatory, evil animals, and so must submit to the rule of a forced Code of Law in order to live peacefully with one another (the moral embodiment of the tax); all of us are lacking, incapable of living successfully out of the inner resources that Nature has provided, and so we must gain the additional support of institutionally-provided sustenance and social standing (the governmental embodiment of the tax).

Implicit in every one of these formulations is the threat of punishment: if you don't repent, you'll be punished (and according to some religious ideologies, you will even if you do repent, though not as badly or eternally as you would be if you didn't); if you disobey or question the code of conduct prescribed by the collective, you will be punished; if you attempt to live independently, according to the inborn means and social skills that Nature has given you, and without regard to the personal restrictions established by the ruling authority, you will be punished.

But mere physical punishment, while temporarily or sporadically effective, has proven itself to be an incomplete means of oppression, so the abstractions of guilt and blame were projected beneath our hearts by the collective ego—very much like the fires of the Grand Inquisitor's auto-da-fe. Through thousands of years of deep, behaviorist-style programming, these concepts have been driven deep into our psyches, forming a vast architecture of damnation. It has evolved into quite a massive structure, so perhaps a brief walk around this monument will help us as we prepare to destroy it.

Guilt is a blanket of blame thrown over all of human nature, and even over Nature itself. If you are human, you are guilty—to the collective ego, the proof is in the perpetuation of the delusion: "doesn't everyone feel guilty at one time or another?" it asks. If you are alive, you are stained; if you dare to reject, or even to question, the dogma that casts this blot on your being, then you are branded as one in denial, and you are threatened with "correction"—i.e., punishment.

Therefore, guilt is a part of your identity—you are forced to acknowledge that culpritude is a part of your nature—as an individual and as a representative of your species. Even God, in His human transmutation, was a sinner, and he admitted it! If God Himself was a sinner and therefore guilty, how much more so are you?

Guilt is an admission of the fact that one deserves to be punished by a vengeful God or an indifferent Cosmos (take your pick), and its human, self-appointed representatives. Many ideologies add to this axiom the codicil that the more painful and brutal the punishment, the better—this is the doctrine of asceticism in a nutshell. Again, God got himself nailed to a cross and only complained a little, right near the very end, so we may as well accept our punishment with open arms, whenever it falls our way.

Guilt is not only natural to humans, but also often perfectly justified. Many therapists will ask a client or patient who is feeling guilty about something, "is the guilt logical?" What they mean by this is, "did you do or say something for which you deserve to feel guilty?" They never stop to wonder whether the client should rather be undertaking an inner revolution upon the very idea of guilt itself, because they have accepted the reified notion of guilt that has been programmed into them by their culture—and even by their "science" (Freud believed that guilt was a perfectly natural consequence of the Oedipus complex, in which a child combined a sexual desire for its opposite-sex parent with a murderous wish against the same-sex parent).

Guilt is one of those spots that never washes clean. In America, the recidivism rate of ex-convicts released from prison hovers around 70 percent, closer to 90 percent in many areas. Their unemployment rates are also enormous—to have been deemed legally guilty in this society is a life sentence, whether you are within or outside of a correctional facility. This derives from our religious ideologies, which presuppose that sin can never be washed clean in this lifetime (which in turn, by the way, lies at the root of many obsessive-compulsive disorders).

_______________________

This weekend, I'll offer another excerpt, which discusses ways that we can clear ourselves from within of that muddy delusion, error's uninvited guest.

Meat in Rove's Market, Bush on the Bone...

I found this item in my daily email from Progress today (link with video here):

DAILY GRILL
"General Petraeus goes out there almost every day in an unarmed humvee."
-- Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), 3/27/07, on how safe Iraq is because of President Bush's escalation

VERSUS
"I mean, in the hour since Sen. McCain's said this, I've spoken to military sources and there was laughter down the line. I mean, certainly the general travels in a humvee. There's multiple humvees around it, heavily armed."
-- CNN's Baghdad correspondent Michael Ware, 3/27/07

Mother Jones joins in on the grim fun with this quiz on the war, which is fairly challenging—I only rate at the "cable news TV pundit" level. And while you're there, subscribe, why don't ya? It's $10 for a whole year of some of the best research and journalism you can find out there.

And while we're having fun, our buddy Norm Jenson discovered this video and posted it to his outstanding blog. Creationism, evolution, and peanut butter. Hilarious stuff—Jon Stewart couldn't have come up with anything so raucously bizarre.

The best argument ever for vegetarianism: And what's President Meathead up to, you ask? Why, he's been speaking before the American Cattlemen's Association to talk foreign policy (now how could I make up any of this?). In an obvious swipe at his audience's competition, the pig farmers, the Meathead-in-Chief said, "the House and Senate bills have too much pork, too many conditions on our commanders and an artificial timetable for withdrawal. And I have made it clear for weeks if either version comes to my desk, I’m going to veto it."

And then came his old warhorse: “The best way to protect this country is to defeat the enemy overseas, so we don’t have to face them here at home.”

Now if I were a conservative pundit, I'd have been all over this one long ago. Check out the stats: every war we've ever fought on our own soil, we've won*. Overseas, we've won a few, lost two, and had a number of ties. So if I were a true conserva-hawk, I'd want to fight 'em over here! Bring 'em on!

But since I'm just a liberal blogger, I'll simply say that this is yet another example of the disconnect with reality so recurrently typical of this Prez. In fact, I'm working on a Mental Status Examination based on recent speeches and press conferences, which I'll be able to present next week sometime. So come back then to learn a little about psychiatry and the certifiable leader of the free world. Meanwhile, a word from Bob Herbert in today's Times:

The executive branch is under the control of a belligerent and often amateurish group that has hacked away at civil liberties and is adamant about pursuing a war that neither Congress nor the public wants.

_____________________

*"we," of course, refers to the armies led by the person or government of Washington. So Washington's army won the Rev War, and Abe's squad carried the day nearly a century later—albeit at the loss of virtually an entire generation of the country's male youth. We also won the war of 1812, beat back the Mexicans, and of course genocidally annihilated dem pesky Injuns. A proud domestic military history, indeed.

Corporate Conduct, De-coded

We pay a lot of attention here to the exposure of fundementalist religion and corporate greed because, under a fascist tyranny such as we have now in the White House, these two demons tend to march in lockstep (just check out the salaries that the godly pull down). The motivation that fuels both is the compulsion for control and conformity, which is in turn powered by a cynical fear of natural human freedom. Call it, if you will, the Dick Cheney syndrome.

We had a glimpse of this yesterday when our rightful, elected President appeared in Congress to speak about global warming. He told his former colleagues, “There is a sense of hope in this country that this United States Congress will rise to the occasion and present meaningful solutions to this crisis.”

Naive? Maybe, but I think we can forgive the man: after all, he's been out of politics for awhile. He was reminded of the myopic reality of Capitol Hill soon enough, when the Republicans were allowed to take their potshots. Rep. Barton of Texas told Gore, “You’re not just off a little, you’re totally wrong,”

Congressman Barton will be dead and gone (though not for long) by the time the cosmic bill for greenhouse gas emissions comes due. His attitude is a typically corporate one: let's keep the profits going strong now, and if there are long-term consequences, that's why we have children. They'll deal with all that. Meanwhile, let us tell ourselves and the people some comforting lies. (Our friend Tom over at Current Era has more on the delusion being received and perpetuated by people like Barton).

In corporate America, the impulse for profit and conformity today and the hell with whatever comes of it tomorrow has never been more ascendant than it is now. I was recently reminded of this myself, when I had to go and pee in a cup for my next job. It's a requirement: no urine drug screen, no job. No job, no rent for April. No rent for April, I'm out on the street by May, June at the latest.

So I consented to what is truly, at best, a practice of questionable ethics, and in reality, a form of tyranny in itself. The issue is something I've been thinking a lot about lately, since I'm working on a new book about maintaining one's human integrity amid a corporate culture. The following is to appear somewhere in that book; it's a reflection on the Bill of Rights and its absence in those places where most of us spend a third of our lives—the workplaces of America.



Many of us wonder and lament, "where has our democracy gone?" It is, to be sure, a legitimate question in an era of abusive, profit-drunk, deceit-driven government. Yet perhaps we might be further asking, "where else have we lost democracy?" For example, at work. Have you ever seen a Bill of Rights—or anything like it—at your workplace? We have mission statements, employee handbooks, codes of conduct, corporate vision documents, and security manuals in our corporate workplaces; but we have no such thing as a Bill of Rights.

Let's review a few of the Constitution's principal articles and see how or whether they are followed in a typical corporate American workplace.

Article [I.] Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Well, do you feel free to speak your mind at work? Is there a free press at your company, where people are allowed to write critically of management or its policies? The proverbial watercooler aside, is there anytime or place where you are free to gather with others on company time to evaluate and discuss corporate leadership, strategies, or employment practices? Are those compulsory staff meetings a forum for debate and free expression?

So much for Article I.

Article [IV.] The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

In corporate America today, we have thought police, speech police, email police, and click police. Every movement you make on the Internet, every email you write, every word you say, is monitored and recorded. Your identity is captured in a laminated badge; your movements tracked; your communications watched and heard. I was once fired from a company over an email containing a fairly bland criticism of management—an email that I presumed at the time was confidential to the person I'd sent it to. Perhaps you have your own stories in this vein. In short, there is no such thing as being "secure in your person" in corporate America. Once you walk through those revolving doors and swipe your badge at the gate, you are owned; you are a property of the corporation; and everything you do, say, write, and even think can be monitored.

Article [V.]...nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself...

This is the language of the famous Fifth Amendment, which protects individuals from providing testimony against themselves. Even when you are arrested for a crime in this nation, you must be informed by the police or other arresting officer that you have a right to remain silent. The law compels no one to deliver information against himself, no matter the circumstances.

But does this apply at the workplace? Well, it all depends on who you are, what you do, what position you hold, and who you know. Article V, in fact, is probably the most blatantly abused item from the Bill of Rights in the American workplace.

We could go on (how about the 13th Amendment—you know, the one that says, "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude...shall exist within the United States..."?); but the point, I think has been made. The foundation of our democracy, the Bill of Rights, is arrogantly ignored or blatantly violated in the corporate American workplace, every single day. Why, then, should it be such a shock to see a definitively corporate government, the Bush administration, consistently violating both the letter and spirit of the Bill of Rights? After all, it happens every day at the workplace—why not make it official?

"War is Over, If You Want It"

The Collateral Damage Dance Troupe performs prior to the start of the UFPJ NYC Peace March on Sunday (click to enlarge)

Well, I looked around the American mass media for awhile today, just to see whether citizen protests mattered as news; apparently they do not—that is, on this side of the pond. But over in England, the BBC had it on their front page, here.



But our media wouldn't be interested in this past weekend's marches because, (a) aside from some verbal shit-slinging from a few disordered Bush supporters in Washington, there was no conflict, no violence; and (b) no star appeal. It appears as if either the weather or the limelight potential didn't suit the Hollywood peace glitterati or anyone else among the rich and famous this time around. Which, after all, is fine with most of us.

This was very much our march, our statement. There was no flowery rhetoric, no makeup trailer, not a speck of glamour, at the march I attended here in New York. Boy, it was great: old folks, young folks, baby strollers, toddlers, teenagers, gays and straights, Communists and Democrats (and, I suspect, a few Republicans), walking side by side. Nameless to the network media or the rest of the National Enquirer set. Just ordinary people; small but strong.

For those of you who don't live here, New York is not a glamour, culture, or fashion capitol for the vast majority of us who call the city home. Who can afford to do Sardi's or the Hard Rock or Tavern on the Green or Elaine's or Broadway? Nah, that stuff is for the wealthy minority and tourists who have probably saved for years to get tix to The Producers and a table at SPQR or Sparks. I've lived here 25 years, been to one Broadway show and little else besides. For us, New York is more about a sun-splashed afternoon on Strawberry Fields or a pedal boat on Prosect Park Lake or the top deck at Yankee Stadium (not lately, though) or a long walk on the Piers or a bike ride over the Brooklyn Bridge and up the West Side Promenade. Or a protest march in midtown. It's inexpensive, fun, refreshing, and gives you the chance to meet your real neighbors. But again, it's not exactly stuff for the Cindy Adams set, which is fine by us.

Favorite sign seen at the protest: "Hillary is Bush with Tits". Really, it was there.

Speaking of Hillary-with-a-penis, guess who might have noticed the protests this weekend in Washington, New York, Portland, San Francisco, Chicago, and elsewhere? Yep, you guessed it: why else did he whine to Congress today about getting his escalation funding bill passed? Think maybe he heard all those tens or hundreds of thousands of people yelling all weekend in the streets "no more money for war!"? Now he wants to play rough with the blue Congress, turn the screws on them a little, show them who's still boss.

Well, will they let him get away with it? Probably: Democratic majority or not, cojones are still decidedly in the minority on Capitol Hill.

Here's Bush's nod to reality in this moment: “There will be good days and bad days ahead as the security plan unfolds.”

Let's clarify for a minute what he's talking about, because when we normally talk about "bad days," it usually involves a deal at work not going through, or your kid getting an F in math, or a fight with the spouse or significant other...that sort of stuff. But when Dub talks "bad days," he's saying, "there will be hundreds, probably thousands more deaths...there will be massive amounts of human life and taxpayer treasure wasted in the carnage, soaked up by the desert sands...there will be more terrorists, more bodies, more widows, more orphans, more desolation." That, folks, is what we have to look forward to if Congress does the jelly-spine act again (we know the mass media will).

I would suggest that, whether or not you voted with your legs and your voice this past weekend, it's high time to:

get on the phone

write some letters

send some emails to the fat cats in DC and let them know what you voted for with your ballot last November.

And remember..."War is over, if you want it."

Monday with McKenna: Dissent is Developmental

Dissent is developmental: It's one of the guiding principles of this blog, and of many like it, that dissent makes government, corporations, and society in general more alive, more responsive to the people. Therefore, they are more popular and usually more profitable, whenever they give dissenters a free voice.

This is, to me, such a self-evident truth (to borrow an old phrase) that it always astonishes me to discover that many people can't understand it. Yet on Saturday in Washington, there were the wingnuts, insulting protesters and accusing them of treason—as they "guarded" national monuments threatened by defamatory rumors that almost certainly started from within their own disordered brains.

Fortunately, we had no such business here in New York on Sunday. Overall, it seemed a tad smaller than last April's; yet spirited and vibrant nonetheless. I walked the whole route and saw no signs of disorder or conflict—even the cops lining the route seemed relaxed. At the very end, two lonely counter-protesters held up a sign labeling the other 50,000 or so of us "left-wing protesters bent on demoralizing our troops."

I'll have more on the march and its meaning later this week, along with more pictures. But today is Monday with McKenna, always a celebration of dissent in itself. Today, he takes on the image of "straight-talking" John McCain, and finds little, if anything, of substance.


A public figure caught in a lie.  Don’t you just love when that happens?  This week, the news highlighted two more such public figures, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and former straight talker, John McCain. 
 
Mr. Gonzales was in the news in a big way until out of nowhere, the US released a transcript of terrorist Khalid Shaikh Mohammed’s testimony.  It seems that the good Shaikh has admitted complicity for nearly every terrorist act committed against US interests, as well as many more that he may only have imagined.  So this bit of manufactured news knocked Al Gonzales and his lies off the front page.  On the other hand, John McCain’s verbal misdeeds have garnered scant interest.  Still, his faltering presidential campaign is so desperate that it has resurrected the STRAIGHT TALK EXPRESS – a campaign bus decorated with that formerly apt slogan.  But this time, the bus’s incumbent is no longer quite the reporter’s friend that he was 7 years ago. 



It is easy to make light of Mr. Gonzales’ lies.  Who expected better from a person whose entire career has consisted of crafting false or exaggerated claims.  He is, after all, a lawyer. In his public role as the president’s counsel, we’ve all become familiar with Al Gonzales’s frozen grin (or is it a shit eating grin?).  And if Americans of ten years ago were once titillated by Bill Clinton’s Socratic dialogue over the meaning of “IS,” then we should now be in perpetual stitches over Al Gonzales’ tautological defense of our use of torture - first he defined torture out of existence, then he assured us that America doesn’t use torture… (because we’ve defined it out of existence!)  This grandchild of illegal immigrants achieved his American Dream when he became Attorney General; now it’s about to come an American nightmare.  If he survives in office, it will be as a shriveled and powerless figure.
 
The lies of John McCain are more troubling.  The son of an Admiral, and the grandson of another, success was his birthright.  He graduated from Annapolis, and began his naval career as a pilot.  Shot down during the Viet Nam war, he served honorably as a prisoner of war, inspiring his fellow prisoners, and gaining fame when his inspiring story became better known.  After leaving the Navy, he attained quick political success, and until recently was known as a maverick and gadfly.    
 
His troubles began after his 2000 campaign loss.  Having learned that honesty is not the best policy after all, he morphed into a strong Bush supporter, but at first he kept his independence.  As we got closer to the 2008 campaign, McCain has moved ever closer to the right wing ideologues he formerly inveighed against.    
 
Am I being too hard on John McCain?  He is hardly the first person to sell his soul for the big prize.  Ronald Reagan began his presidential bid in 1981 in Philadelphia, Mississippi, heart of the segregationist south.  And even John McCain’s STRAIGHT TALK EXPRESS faltered briefly in the 2000 primary season over the use of images of the confederate flag in Southern states.. 
 
But is McCain a liar? While Mr. Gonzales’ statements would probably meet anyone’s definition of lie, John McCain’s would not.  But McCain’s strange transition from giving open explanations to speaking political Newspeak is a sad one to his admirers.  Those on the right who are being persuaded to vote for him now, must somehow be made to think of McCain’s past as a lie.  The political moderates who have admired him must instead think of his current statements as untrue – and that if elected, that the old John McCain would emerge.  Thus the entire McCain campaign is embedded with deceit.  His new positions have been crafted carefully to hide the truth behind a political smokescreen.  Thus, from a big picture point of view, John McCain is lying.  His deceit started a few years ago, when he reversed course on the president’s tax cuts.  Now he can’t give a straight answer to a reporter’s simple question about HIV.
 
I recommend that you go and study his website. On a superficial basis it looks harmless enough, but when you delve into the articles, you see right wing poison.  Try the article “Addressing the Moral Concerns of Advanced Technology.”  Dealing with a number of issues, the article highlights McCain’s supposed concern about "fetal farming."   This is a straw man, raised to scare voters away from a sober consideration of the issue.  Stem cells were unknown except in theory as late as two decades ago.  We still know little about them, but research on embryonic stem cells seems the likeliest avenue to gain new knowledge, since the stem cell represents an embryonic state – before cells specialize.  We are lying to ourselves if we believe that by avoiding such research, we have preserved the least shred of human dignity for the thousands of embryos locked in cold storage.  If these cells have dignity, then how dare we consign them to eternal nothingness.  But they are not human life, only potential.  Until successfully implanted in a healthy uterus, they do not deserve the least legal protection.  But troglodytes on the political right have managed to sway a media too poorly educated in the sciences to understand that they are being spun. 
 
There you have it.  Two men and dreams either broken or about to break.  And you have to ask – especially with regard to John McCain: was it really, really worth it?
 
A note to a few of my young friends who read the blog and often point out the seeming extremity of my arguments. The blog is a polemic.  We present short arguments with an intense point of view.  Yes, I do gloss over a few of the details, and stretch my points for effect.  And yes, lawyers are not all liars (though I stand by my characterization of many of them).  And I’m still willing to hope that if elected, which I see as unlikely, the real John McCain will emerge.

—T. McKenna
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Site Note: Our new banner graphic is a Photoshopped selection from some eclipse photography I found at APOD. I think it's cool, and anyway, the poor cat needs a break.

Now as this is my last free week before returning nose to corporate grindstone, there will be a content-fest here. More from the weekend protests; a fascinating look on Geek Wednesday at how a Microsoft exec bashes his company better than I could ever hope to; and some selections from a new book I'm working on about corporate America, its alternatives, and how we might go about tranforming the former through aligning ourselves with the latter. I suspect it's also going to be a fairly busy week in the news.