October 2010 Archives
We were attacked today, Friday October 29. Our country was attacked. Chicago was attacked, and two Jewish Synagogues were attacked. That no bombs went off and no one was hurt is not the point. We stopped an actual attack. We caught both a terrorist attack and a dry run. Whether intentionally or not, the bombers set the bar very low. When packages from Yemen are addressed to Jewish synagogues in Chicago, it should attract scrutiny. If that doesn't set the alarm bells off, then there is no point in having alarm bells.
This was just a feint, a test trying to figure out our defenses. The larger point, what should grab our attention is that we are under attack. We are being plotted against and have so far, since 9-11, been both very lucky and pretty good. However, eventually something will get through--either a single individual or the kind of multi-pronged attack that is Al Qaeda's signature.
Maybe the attacker will be homegrown like U.S. Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan who slaughtered our soldiers on our soil. Maybe it will be from someone like Farooq Ahmed, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Pakistan, who plotted to blow up the subway in DC. It could come from another Samir Hasoon, of Lebanon, who wanted to plant a bomb-containing knapsack in the bleachers of Wrigley Field.
Meanwhile, Americans are rising in the Al Qaeda hierarchy. Naturalized American from Yemen Anwar Awlaki is an intellectual star in Al Qaeda's firmament. Adnan Shukrijumah is a weapons expert, who was born in Saudi Arabia and grew up in America. And of course, Adam Gadahn, from Orange County California, has been a major, if stilted, Al Qaeda spokesman.
There are two things that we have to know. The first is that eventually someone will succeed. It might be "just" shooting up a public place, or a coordinated, Mumbai style, slaughter. It could be a bomb in a package or a private plane flown into a packed sports stadium. A homegrown suicide bomber, or twelve, could do immense damage. Adding radioactive medical waste to gunpowder, fertilizer and fusil oil, or plastique could do yet more physical and psychological damage.
The second thing we have to know and notice is that all of these names are Muslim. Yes, I know we are supposed to pretend not to notice. But this is impossible and leads us, and the 99.9% of the Muslim community who are indeed peace loving and against terrorism, to a dangerous place. Whatever is polite or politically correct, we read of arrests in Europe of cells of Muslim terrorists in Norway, Germany, England, France and Germany. Our newspapers, magazines, academic institutions and normally tasteless TV shows are self-censoring because of fear of violent Muslim reprisals. We recognize the names, and we see the faces on TV distorted by rage burning flags and promising "Death to America." This has become the face of Islam in America. This is wrong. It is a tragedy that will take us to another tragedy. Yes, our media are partly responsible but so too are Muslim leaders who have allowed this to become their face. True, they tried to stop it by complaining that it was unfair, but they did not speak clearly enough to inoculate their community.
This is not good for Muslims--and I care very deeply about what happens to Muslims. Having lived peacefully and well in a Muslim Arab country as a Jew, I know that we can live together. Having a Muslim in my own family, I know we can live peacefully together. Studying and teaching Islam, I know that peace is possible.
Yes, I know that didn't seem to be the direction of this article, but after the inevitable attack occurs, the context of the American reaction and over-reaction is important for everyone to understand, so that we might prevent it.
Yes, I fear an attack but I am far more worried for the Muslim community in America than by the Muslim community. I fear the reprisals will be unfocused, violent and fear based. While Muslims react with understandable indignation towards controversies concerning the building of Mosques, these will quickly fade in the wake of the violent rage of righteous-feeling Americans bent on revenge. The Manhattan Mosque will be off the radar, and every Muslim building, business and family will rightly feel vulnerable.
Since 9-11 Muslims in America have trusted too much in our generosity of spirit and commitment to our legal principles. When asked about 9-11 and terror they have mostly denounced it, which is of course good. But then they too often added a "but." "But you must understand," I read far too often, "We feel hurt by colonialism. We resent America's support of Israel. We loath America's support of corrupt regimes throughout the Muslim world." These positions may be understandable and are certainly within their rights, but they erase their repudiation of terror.
As a Muslim friend of mine commented, "No non-Muslim American remembers the first part of the sentence. The 'but' erases the tape and all that Americans hear are the anger and criticism of America which they internalize as hostility."
What will happen will be wrong on every level. I am adding no "but." There will be no good reason or moral justification. I am not asking my Muslims friends, family or neighbors to understand the rage of wounded Americans. I am begging them to inoculate themselves, as best they can, from what looks now to be inevitable tragedy for all of us.
There is a gathering storm and a fierce wind blowing from the east. Many will wither before its blasts. But we are not all helpless victims, inevitable though the storm itself might be. We can all take shelter in law, in knowledge and in truth. Non-Muslims must learn what real mainstream Islam is and not see all Muslims as terrorists, even when the terrorists whom they see are Muslim. They are only a tiny few. Muslims too must learn how to separate themselves from their very worst and most violent without the qualifications and nuances they too often use to parse their complex feelings.
These are not subtle times. We need, without qualification, to pledge ourselves to peace, to see each other as individuals and not groups and to hear each other with generosity. We can choose peace even in a time of war. Our common enemy is not simply the violent. Our common enemy is our fear.
©2010 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com
While we fight and lose wars in far-flung parts of the world, we are blind to the disasters in our own hemisphere--particularly to Mexico. While we worry about terrorists gaining control of Afghanistan, we ignore our own borders. And when we do turn our attention to Mexico it is with hysterical worry over economic refugees coming here to harvest our crops, raise our children and occupy the lower end of our economic food chain.
Our diplomats are banned from ever using the term but we share a border with a state that if not yet failed, is failing and is falling into the hands of terrorists. But since we so associate terrorism with religious and political ambitions, we fail to understand that narco-terrorism is indeed terrorism, and it is bringing Mexico down. We will feel and suffer from the tsunami this seismic event will produce.
Terrorism is not just random violence meant simply for destruction and killing. It has a purpose. Its aim is to remove from the population of any nation or people the idea that their government can protect them and offer them security. It counts on the Stockholm Syndrome, the reaction of people in danger to cast their lot, not by their values but towards those who seem to have the power of life and death over them.
The government of Mexico is at every level--Federal, State and City and Village--failing. They cannot protect the people from being killed, extorted, kidnapped and, well, terrorized. Penetrated by both normal corruption and agents of drug gangs, it offers no hope of governing the nation or assuring law and security to its citizens.
Guillermo Valdes, chief of Mexico's National Intelligence, said on 2 August that more than 28,000 people had died in drug-related violence since 2006. Nothing has gotten better or increased the power, prestige or legitimacy of the Mexican government since August.
On the contrary, every day we read about more deaths. This month 14 bodies found in Tijuana, 16 in Juarez, 70 in a mine near Taxco, 24 in Cancun, a dozen in Acapulco and another 16 in Tepic. It is endless. We might try to kid ourselves that it is just gangsters killing gangsters, but aside from the human costs, the sense and semblance of a legitimate government able to perform normally is disappearing in Mexico.
Several days ago an entire police department resigned and walked away. They were not willing to die for nothing, for no hope of a victory over the warring cartels. A newspaper put out a front-page editorial (a plea really) to the cartels asking them what it is permitted to write about. They don't want to die or have their children killed for a story that might offend a drug lord. They do not fear governmental censorship. They fear governmental impotence.
While we buy their drugs--helping to destabilize them--they use some of our billions to buy guns, grenades and other weapons. We help out some more by laundering their drug money. Our mainstream banks (Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Wachovia, HSBC and American Express International) have all been cited as handling Mexican drug money.
So, we buy the drugs, sell the weapons and clean the money. We are actively complicit in the destruction of the Mexican state and civil society. We are helping to create a failed state and replace it with a bunch of violently warring drug cartels. And we hardly notice. We're too busy fighting the Afghan Taliban.
There may be reasons to be involved half way around the world. There is no way we can escape being involved in the collapse of our neighbor and its terrible consequences. Our neighbor's house is on fire. We are feeding the flames with drug demands, indifference and xenophobia. We need to help put this fire out. We can escape neither the needs of those who flee the burning building nor the spreading flames.
©2010 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas can and should be impeached. The case and the grounds for impeachment proceedings against him are virtually iron-clad. The evidence is compelling that Thomas perjured himself in his testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee during his court confirmation hearings in 1991. The evidence is equally compelling that this constituted lying under oath to Congress during the hearings.
The impeachment case against Thomas is not based on personal or political disagreement over his views, decisions, opinions and rulings on the bench, his penchant for pornographic material, or for sexual harassment. It is based on clear legal and constitutional grounds, precedents, and Congressional mandates. Article III, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution explicitly states that a Supreme Court Justice that "lacks good behavior" can be impeached. This is not an ambiguous, subjective term. It has been interpreted by the courts to equate to the same level of seriousness as the 'high crimes and misdemeanors" clause that unequivocally mandates that the House of Representatives initiate impeachment proceedings against any public official, or federal judge in violation of that provision.
The Constitutional precept is the first legal ground for impeachment proceedings against Thomas. The second is Title 18 of the U.S. Code. It states that any official of the executive, legislative, or judicial branch of the government of the United States who knowingly and willfully falsifies, conceals, or covers up by any trick, scheme, or device a material fact, makes any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation; or makes or uses any false writing or document knowing the same to contain any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or entry can be impeached. In other words lying to Congress is not only an impeachable offense. It's also illegal.
It's also clearly established that a public official whether the president, presidential appointees, or judges can be punished for giving false information and that's any false information of any nature to the House or Senate.
The Nixon impeachment debates and Clinton impeachment hearings were ample proof that the constitutional phrase of "good behavior" embraces not only indictable crimes but "conduct ... grossly incompatible with the office held and subversive of that office and of our constitutional system of government."
Thomas was asked directly by Utah senator Orin Hatch during his confirmation hearings about Anita Hill's allegations of sexual harassment and misconduct and whether he used sexually suggestive language. Thomas answered: "I deny each and every single allegation against me today that suggested in any way that I had conversations of a sexual nature or about pornographic material with Anita Hill, that I ever attempted to date her, that I ever had any personal sexual interest in her, or that I in any way ever harassed her. "
Thomas was emphatic, "If I used that kind of grotesque language with one person, it would seem to me that there would be traces of it throughout the employees who worked closely with me, or the other individuals who heard bits and pieces of it or various levels of it." This was stated under oath to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Thomas's sworn testimony was clearly contradicted even then in public statements by witnesses. The witnesses were not called to testify. The one witness that contradicted Thomas's sworn testimony, Angela Wright, did testify. She worked with Thomas at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and was emphatic that Thomas sexually harassed her and used explicit and graphic sexual language. Her story was corroborated by a former EEOC speechwriter who told investigators about Thomas' penchant for improper sexual talk. Letters to the committee from other women who worked with Thomas confirmed that he was a serial sexual harasser and had a penchant for sexually perverse talk. The Senate panel had other sources to corroborate the Hill-Wright charge that Thomas engaged in sexual harassment and obsessive interest in sexual smut. These sources were ignored too.
Two decades later Thomas's apparent perjured testimony to Congress is now squarely back on the legal table. Lillian McEwen put it there. Her legal credentials are impressive. She is a former assistant U.S. attorney and Senate Judiciary Committee counsel. She also dated Thomas. In interviews, she again confirmed that Hill and the other women's allegations that Thomas engaged in sexual harassment, was addicted to pornography, and talked incessantly and graphically about it and women were truthful.
Thomas's personal warped sexual predilections and perversions are not the issue as personally reprehensible as some may find them. The issue is his apparent perjured testimony to a congressional body about his words and conduct. There is no statute of limitations on bringing impeachment proceedings against officials who lie to Congress. The U.S. Code and the Constitution clearly spell out that when there's evidence a Supreme Court justice may have lied under oath the House must bring articles of impeachment to determine guilt or innocence.
The ball is now squarely in the court of House judiciary Committee Chair John Conyers Jr. He is legally bound to do his and the House's legal and Constitutional duty and begin impeachment proceedings immediately against Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He hosts nationally broadcast political affairs radio talk shows on Pacifica and KTYM Radio Los Angeles.
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson
The controversy over the firing of Juan Williams is not about if he is a wonderful journalist, analyst or commentator. Nor ultimately is it about NPR and how badly, in my view, they handled this at the start or how much worse they have made it by telling him to work out his fears with his psychiatrist. This is not about even Muslims.
This is about the United States and if we have the maturity to talk about serious things in a serious and honest manner. The early evidence is that we don't. We are busy trying not to offend. We are distracted from real issues by equating, falsely in my view, discomfort, phobia and bigotry.
We are arguing about the propriety of admitting that we all profile, instead of working to come to terms with our instincts and fears. Oh, you don't profile? Well when someone comes to date one of my granddaughters you can bet I'll be looking a class, dress, language, IQ and resume. When I see a white skinhead, you know my gut is tightening. When I get a flat in certain neighborhoods, my blood pressure is tied to my perception of the socioeconomic profile of the area. Yes, I know Bill Cosby's son was murdered in Bell Air. Still, we all do actuarial calculations. They might just be wrong. But it is always wrong to deny that we do them.
Juan Williams confessed, not bragged, that he felt discomfort when seeing people in Muslim garb at airports--it triggering memories of 9-11. I felt the same prejudiced impulse when I flew on 9-11 two years after the attack. I dealt with the impulse not with denial but by confronting it and working through it. My admission of my momentary fears was not a slur on Muslims but a recognition of my own prejudice. And, by the way, I have lots of prejudices--and I fight them. But to fight them I have to call them out of hiding.
Juan Williams and I are products of inter-racial dialogues where the starting point was admitting that we carried uncomfortable feelings and fears. We were encouraged to do a frank inventory of our selves, find our demons and call them out. This, apparently, is no longer permitted.
Therapeutically, we cannot heal what we cannot talk about. If we only pretend to happy and politically correct thoughts, we will find neither truth nor reconciliation. We must admit that we have problems in this country around race, religion and ethnicity. When we pretend to equanimity, it is like going to a marriage counselor and saying, "Oh, no, we don't have any problems. I love everything he/she does."
We have a stark choice between denial and disclosure. We need to learn to tell our flawed truths honestly and kindly.
©2010 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com
Juan Williams' bosses at NPR are either crazy or must love the idea of getting sued. By firing the commentator for voicing an opinion about Muslims wearing standard garb in airports, they could wind up making Williams and his descendants quite comfortable, should he chose to take the primrose path of the law.
The station is funded in part by public funds, which means that they must follow the Constitution, especially the part about free speech. Had he used his free speech to threaten to blow anything up, that would have been one thing, but he was expressing an honest fear about his body safety, which is not all that unusual for anyone who has read a newspaper, watched television or hasn't been living in a cave over the past several years.
In ways, this one is no different from Don Imus being fired from CBS radio after his remarks about the "nappy-headed ho's" playing for Rutgers' University women's basketball team. While his remarks were off-color and rude, they were not termination-worthy. After all, offensiveness is part of his brand and his shtick.
Imus is suing and hopefully Williams will too. Although he wound up with a pretty sweet deal over at Fox, the NPR has it coming. Who knows? Maybe in the best-case scenario, his former bosses will either get canned or have to repeat Journalism 101.
Was NPR's decision to sever ties with news analyst Juan Williams done in haste and without necessity? Yes. Does NPR have the right to decide who they employ based on their definition of analysis verse opinion? Probably. In the end, should such a large amount of focus be put on this particular issue? Not really.
Williams' contract with NPR ended Wednesday, only two days from the time in which he said on the Fox News show "The O'Reilly Factor," that seeing people in Muslim garb on planes makes him nervous.
The infringement of First Amendment rights is of the utmost importance and is a right that every American should fight for resiliently. However, Williams' right to free speech wasn't impeded. His comments were merely not in line with the values of NPR.
NPR president and CEO Vivian Schiller is quoted by CNN as saying, "There have been several instances over the years where Juan has strayed from that line and we have had discussions with him and we have asked him not to do it again. It's not the first time, quite honestly."
Williams has every right to be upset that his life has been turned upside down by his unexpected termination - anyone would. However, I'm not going to lose too much sleep over this one. And much like others who've "gone too far" with their public remarks, there always seems to be some employment guardian angel ready to swoop down and save the day. In this case, as the Los Angeles Times reported, Williams received a three-year contract worth nearly $2 million with Fox News, which includes appearances on the network and a FoxNews.com column.
I say, let's focus on true freedom of speech issues. Or better yet, focus on the problems that face those who remain unemployed for more than a day.
Former NPR analyst Juan Williams should been canned at NPR for his silly, bigoted crack about Muslims making him nervous. But NPR if it had the ounce of integrity and fairness that it incessantly brags about should have dumped Williams a long time ago for his equally great offense. And that's his two decade con job as a liberal, civil rights expert and even supporter. Williams never missed a chance to boast about his two decades plus stint with the liberal Washington Post and tout his track record of authoring books on the civil rights movement. Williams sold himself as a man that backed even championed the civil rights struggles of the past and that his sworn mission was to accurately and instructively chronicle that struggle. Here are some of his titles that he used to sell his self-serving title as Mr. Civil Rights sold as Mr., civil rights expert, Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years, 1954-1965.Thurgood Marshall: American Revolutionary, This Far by Faith: Stories from the African American Religious Experience, I'll Find a Way or Make One : A Tribute to Historically Black Colleges and Universities, My Soul Looks Back in Wonder: Voices of the Civil Rights Experience among others.
But Williams was a fraud. That was more than apparent in the clashes that I had with him on Fox when he instantly assumed the requisite attack dog role and jumped all over any criticism made of some of the dumbest inanities from black conservatives. That was a consistent pattern with Williams. Front himself off as a Dr. Jekyll moderate, thoughtful, and balanced commentator that strived for fair and accurate analysis of issues on NPR. And then quickly transform himself into a raving take-no-prisoner right leaning Mr. Hyde on Fox bashing Obama, civil rights leaders, and shilling the GOP line on race.
But Williams couldn't have gotten away with this con job without the wink and nod complicity of NPR, maybe the better word is disingenuousness. NPR officials certainly were not clueless about Williams two faced con. There he was for all to see shaking and nodding his head in agreement with every conservative flack that paraded across the stage on the O'Reilley show and other conservative gab fests on Fox. His confrontational hit style on Fox fit in neatly with the tone, temper and rabid right echo chamber sound box of the network.
No, NPR knew exactly what Williams represented and stood for, and it was not balance, moderation, and certainly not liberalism. Williams, though, served a purpose for NPR. The networks has sweated for years and at times have been scared stiff by the conservative hit pack that's had the network squarely in its sights keeping a hawk like watch for any hint of a "liberal bias." Williams was there answer, and in some ways there protective cover. After all, how could a guy who routinely flashes across Fox be accused of spouting liberal biased views on NPR?
NPR needed Williams far more than he needed them. He was their perfect cover. That is until he became a liability. The hard truth though is that Williams' phony liberal front was and should have been a liability from the start. The pity is it took an outrageous, bigoted crack by him for NPR to do what it should have done a long time ago. And that's give him the boot.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He hosts a nationally broadcast political affairs radio talk show on Pacifica and KTYM Radio Los Angeles.Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson
To dismiss or lessen the issue of race as it pertains to the Tea Party is to neglect a major characteristic of this rogue movement that has so embittered the nation's political and social landscape. While speaking in absolutes on almost any issue is ludicrous - a concept Tea Partiers seem to have missed since its 2009 inception - Tea Partiers, whether respectable conservatives with reasonable ideas or not, have awakened members of hate organizations who find comfort in the unabashedly extreme rhetoric of the group.
The Tea Party may have emerged out of dissatisfaction with health care reform and massive bailouts but without a leader or any concrete ideas (you want tax cuts and smaller government but where's the plan to achieve that?), it is not a movement. Rather, it's a radical group of individuals who have so irresponsibly distributed a message that its supporters are allowed to interpret it as they see fit.
CBS News/New York Times' 2010 poll "The Tea Party Movement: What They Think" revealed 89 percent of Tea Party supporters identify as white and 52 percent think too much is made of the problems facing African-Americans. It's these features and ideologies of the Tea P arty that create a perfect environment for hate groups to listen to messages of frustration and translate them in to ones of hate.
TV personality and conservative Glenn Beck, who is highly regarded by Tea Partiers, once said in response to President Obama commending the AFC-CIO, "Did I slip through a wormhole in the middle of the night and this looks like America? It's like the damn 'Planet of the Apes.'" Some may say the obvious and simple reaction to this comment is to declare it racist. However, it's important to recognize that the majority of the population does compute things in their simplest terms and cultural meanings. These moments provide a perfect opportunity for the spread of hate.
Carl Paladino, a Tea Party-backed Republican candidate for New York State governor, also hit nerves and strengthened stereotypes long-held in hate organizations with his "Dignity Corps" proposal, which would require those on welfare or unemployed to attend "welfare camps" to receive job training and learn personal hygiene.
Though the Tea Party's glare reaches minority groups, the elite and big government alike, we cannot dilute race from the discussion simply because it is too easy an explanation. To do so would be a fallacy.
Juan Williams: Martyr to Truth-Telling
NPR terminated commentator Juan Williams today because he confessed that Muslims dressed in, well, Muslim garb make him nervous when flying. This is the kind of political correctness against which many Americans are in revolt. It was not an "I hate Muslims." It was not even a "I feel justified in being nervous around Muslims in planes." It was simply a confession of discomfort. I know Muslims who have the same discomfort.
I myself--and here goes my once promising career with NPR--was flying on 9-11 two years after the attack. In the Chicago airport, as I was walking to my plane, I saw a woman in full burqa. I uttered a small silent prayer that she was not getting on my plane. All the while I knew that the next bomber would not be in a burqa or a man in Muslim regalia. I knew that the person least likely to be a terrorist was that woman in the burqa. I laughed at my own irrational discomfort, but understood its source. Should I really not tell you this story? Is it about my prejudice or my learning? If we cannot share our fears, how shall we either grow or heal?
There is anti-Muslim sentiment. There are real bigots. WE put the moron minister who wanted to burn Qurans all over our media and then fire a commentator who confesses discomfort? Huh?! We do have a problem but we cannot fix what we cannot discuss. If merely confessing being ill at ease is equated with bigotry we are doomed to pull away from each other and just stay safe in our isolated echochambers.
In the 60s Black-White racial dialogues almost always began with a confession of prejudice. We white liberals were constantly chastised by our Black interlocutors for not admitting our latent racism or at least discomfort. Now the rules seem to have changed and our problems, discomfort or aversions have to be denied. This is a mistake. Pretending and suppressing seldom work well for either side.
We can have no dialogue on race, religion or any sensitive subject if the rule becomes: one strike and you're out. NPR has made a very silly mistake, but I'm going to give them another chance and will not fire them by withholding my pledge...yet. They have some time to see the error of their way and pledge themselves to supporting open and honest dialogue--even when it is uncomfortable. No, that's not quite right. It should be: Especially when it is uncomfortable. All Things cannot be Considered if we try to keep all things safe from any potential for offending.
©2010 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com
In politics, as in biology and life, nuttiness usually begets only more nuttiness. Take a look at many parents and their kids. Tattooed mamas with bad makeup and too much cleavage often spawn mini-tattoo mamas with bad make up, attitudes and cleavage who they then drop off at nursery school each morning.
There must be a mathematical theorem for this. But I don't know what it is.
Lo and behold, the same goes for politics. Maybe I was under false pretenses, but for a while, I thought everything seemed okay. Sure there was urban crime, unemployment and homelessness, but they looked to be contained. Then came the deflated housing bubble, the election of a guy who ran under the motto of "Change," and everything wound up in the dumps.
It is things like this that spawn change and not in the way they thought. This one started one cold February day in 2009 when CNBC's Rick Santelli stood on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and said something like "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore." The Tea Party Movement came shortly thereafter.
In theory and on Google, many of the Party's ideas look good. It's just on their website and in person that things start to run afoul. Yes there should, for example, be at least a little government intervention. Human nature being what it is, someone is going to be up to no good one way or another, so it will help insure a system of checks and balances. While no one wants to pay crazy high taxes, there is no way around them especially for when it comes to things like roads and a fire department. Also, everyone is going to be down on his luck from time to time and need a little boost. As long as these people don't become the career unemployed, and I don't have to pay for them to sit around and eat Cheese Puffs and watch TV all day, then I am all for helping out the nouveau unemployed.
The truth is that the Republicans, who are supposed to have some sense, did it to themselves by allowing things to fall too far asunder. It is really a cry for help from the uber Republicans who are as mad as hell and aren't going to take it anymore.
The relentless mantra from the NAACP, liberals, many in the media, and most Democrats is that the Tea Party is chock full of blatant or closet racists. It's true that the very thought of a black man in the White House turns the stomachs of many tea party activists and they make no bones about that. But the race rap against the Tea Party misses the point -- why its roared on the scene seemingly from nowhere, caught the fancy of the public and the media, triggered a nervous twitch among Democrats, and sent terror through the GOP mainstream.
Two decades ago, the GOP found that the volatile mix of big government and economics could whip frustrated, rebellious, angry whites into a tizzy far better than crude race baiting. Many blue-collar white males were losing ground to minorities and women in the workplace, schools, and in society. The target of their anger was big government that tilted unfairly in spending priorities toward social programs that benefited minorities at the expense of hard-working whites. Tea baggers rail at Obama, the Democrats, big government, the elites, and Wall Street. Yet, they also grouse about abortion, family values, gay rights, and tax cuts -- not race.
Rightwing populism, with its mix of xenophobia, loath of government as too liberal, too tax-and-spend, and too permissive, and a killer of personal freedom has been the engine that powered Reagan and Bush White House wins. Blowing off the tea party as a bunch of closet and hooded rednecks misses that point, too.
For the Mad Hatter, in Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, life is a perpetual tea party, and it is always 6 PM. Nothing, of course, makes sense. Criminals are punished before they commit a crime rather than after. Sometimes they are punished even when no crime is ever committed. In other words, this is a satire for today's topsy-turvy time.
As with all radicals, left or right, Tea Party people tend towards both absolutist and reductionist positions. Compromise, otherwise known as central to the art of politics, is the enemy of principled integrity and almost every principle is taken past its logical conclusion to a point of Louis Carroll absurdity, "The Queen had one way of settling all difficulties, great or small. "Off with his head!" she said without even looking around."...Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Chapter 8
So, if one believes that government is the problem then eliminate as much of it as possible. Get rid of regulation. Let the magic of the market work its, well, magic. Department of Education is a bureaucracy. Get rid of it. Some Tea Party folks want to eliminate public education itself. ObamaCare, a government takeover? Perform the Obamaectomy. Medicare a wasteful unconstitutional assault? Off with it's head. Down with Social Security. Minimum wage is, as with all regulation, a job killer. Gone in 60 seconds. Workplace safety? Who needs it? Unions? Socialists ruining America. Laissez Faire is the only fair way to go.
In the eternal 6 PM of the Tea Party, there is no stem-cell research and no theory of evolution. Private property reigns supreme, and we don't have to open our businesses to Blacks, Jews or Gays if we don't want. There is no abortion because we have taught abstinence so successfully. The Constitution is in its original form, slavery is legal and women can't vote. No Mama Grizzlies were envisioned by the Founders. Pity.
Through the astigmatism of nostalgia for a past imperfectly remembered, we see the world in black and white (but without too much black) . This is a prelapsarian world where the state of man, and nature, is innocence. A tempting vision. Truly. Not evil but naïve.
Someone must have put something in the Tea.
©2010 Jonathan Dobrer
This election makes me want to take an extra shower or two every day. It is so dirty and degrading, so toxic to the body politic that I go around with an airsickness bag from all the sickness that is on the air in the form of attack ads.
The old clichés are wrong. Once upon a time we may have campaigned in poetry and governed in prose, but today it is an unending barrage of garbage, half-truths, distortions and lies. Despite the partisanship that threatens to sink the ship of state, both sides offend. I have learned from TV that Carli Fiorina just loves shipping American jobs to China and that (Jewish) Barbara Boxer hates Israel. I now know that Meg Whitman loves sending jobs to Iran and Jerry Brown is pro cop killer. Sigh.
While I have strong political feelings, these distortions of record and character are not good for us as a nation. They discourage the middle of our political spectrum which is rapidly and understandably becoming cynical even despondent. Only the extremes are energized by these ersatz facts.
This is not simply a California problem. From taking on Rand Paul's college silliness to taking seriously the charge that Christine O'Donnell is witch or her very wealthy capitalist opponent Chris Coons was actually a "bearded Marxist" in college, this election is about everything but the real issues: Job, war and how to build up the economy.
No one dares actually present any substantive plans because any Democratic idea is a "job killer", and any Republican idea only "for the rich." And one more nauseating development: The xenophobia is dangerous and disgusting. In a truly global economy, both parties are running against outsourcing and the evil Chinese. Both are playing on our fear of immigrants--which is code for Hispanics.
I would like to think that we, as a nation, are better than this. But every day I am bombarded with evidence to the contrary. Time to shower again.
©2010 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com
The new Gallup survey can't get much more galling. It shows that more Democrats would be more likely to vote for a Democratic candidate for office if Bill Clinton pitched the candidate than if President Obama did. Even more galling than that is that independents say that they would be far less likely to vote for a candidate that Obama pitched than one that Clinton pitched. So what does Bill have that Obama doesn't have for far too many Democrats and just about all independents?
To start with he's not a sitting president who has been pounded from pillar to post from the instant that he put his toe in the White House. Clinton has the luxury of not just the time and distance he's been removed from the White House, but the image and embrace as a wise, elder statesman who has much to offer Democrats on winning elections. That's just the start. The even tougher truth to swallow for the White House is that Clinton is still fondly even rapturously regarded as the Democrat who got things done. He was not embroiled in a major war, the economy hummed, be beat back every major political and legal challenge from the GOP Clinton loathers and baiters, he was a cash cow for Democratic candidates and incumbents, he did a course correction with the Democratic Party that transformed it from a party stigmatized as one that pandered to minorities, and thumbed its nose at the White middle class, to one that championed their interests. He was and obviously is still seen by Democrats as the consummate professional, charismatic, Democrat that can deliver the goods. It's the Clinton mystique all over again, and it hasn't lost one bit of allure.
There's one more thing that makes Clinton the one Democrat who's still most in demand and listened to by other Democrats, that thing is desperation. The GOP hatchet job on Obama has been so diabolically effective that Democrats have scattered to the hills in panic, despair and disillusionment. The mantra from virtually every political analyst, pundit, GOP echo box, and even many top Democrats, is that the midterms will be a colossal wipe out for Democrats. And the blame for that lay with one Democrat, and only one Democrat, President Obama. Many of the Democrats that rode Obama's coat tails to victory in November 2008 are avoiding him like the plague. Some have gone further and depicted themselves in ads and saber rattling speeches and interviews as the anti-Democrat Democrat. They brag that they have cut bait with Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi at every turn. Clinton then is the shining light, their one beacon of hope if not to stem the alleged November massacre at least to dampen some of the worst effects.
There's a final galling note in the Gallup survey. It found that Obama's negative impact as recorded in its survey data showed that if he campaigned for a Democratic candidate or incumbent that it could rev up GOP voters to vote for the Democrat's GOP rival. Some of that is already seen in Nevada where Senate minority leader Harry Reid is in a race to the wire with Tea Party backed Looney Sharron Angle.
Obama has repeatedly gone to bat for Reid in campaign appearances in the state with Reid in tow. But Clinton pitched Reid in the state too. If Gallup is right then that didn't hurt Reid. The hurt though is in the thought that a former president can do more for his party than the man who heads the party.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He hosts a nationally broadcast political affairs radio talk show on Pacifica and KTYM Radio Los Angeles.
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson
President Obama will play the race card when he needs to play it. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. He shouted to a crowd at Bowie State University in Maryland not to make him look bad. The pitch to black voters is to get out in November and vote like your life depends on it. That means voting to save a slew of endangered Congressional Democrats. The stakes are well-known. A GOP grab of the House, even without the Senate, will almost certainly mean endless committee investigations of Obama administration actions, funding and appropriation stalls and sabotage, and a relentless no to every Obama initiative from energy to immigration reform. The escalation of congressional wars would be distracting, debilitating, and pose deep danger to Obama's reelection bid in 2012.
Appealing directly to black voters for help is not a desperation move. It's a smart and necessary political move. Black voters are more than just the underpin of the Democratic Party. They also make up a significant percent of the voters in districts in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Alabama, Indiana, and Florida where endangered Democrats are battling insurgent GOP candidates to keep their seats. The strategic placement of black voters made the difference in Ohio, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania in 2008 in his White House win. In these states McCain gapped Obama with white blue collar, rural, and older white voters. Black voters filled in the gap. November is no different. Polls show that there is a high interest among black voters in the mid-term election. Apathy and indifference is not as endemic as assumed.
But it will take soul stirring and direct appeals to insure that they get to the polls. Obama is the only Democrat that can do it. He's still wildly popular among blacks. And their anger and fear that his presidency is in danger heightens the sense of urgency to vote.
This isn't the first time Obama has made a racial pitch. During the campaign his candidacy was on the line in the first Democratic presidential primary in January 2008 in South Carolina. Then Democratic rival Hillary Clinton was the front runner. She appeared to have a lock on the black vote in the state where blacks made up nearly half the Democratic voting numbers. A win there and she would have had the wind blowing gale force at her back as she rolled into the other primaries in the South where black voters made up a substantial percent of the Democratic primary voters. Obama quickly dialed up the one African-American with the name recognition, cachet and appeal to stir a racial course correction away from Hillary. That was Oprah. She held two giant campaign rallies complete with the gay bashing, but immensely popular Gospel singer Donnie McClurkin. Oprah virtually commanded blacks to do their racial duty and back Obama. It worked and the rest is history.
There's another compelling reason to justify Obama's politically practical and savvy necessity to use race. The GOP has done it for four decades and is doing it openly and quietly this time around.
The shouts, taunts, spitting, catcalls, joker posters, N word slurs, Confederate and Texas Lone Star flag waving by tea party activists at their early rallies, the billboards that crop up along highways and back roads that depict Obama as a communist, terrorist, and racially mocking caricatures, and the recycled racially leaden code words, slogans, and digs have been an indispensable political necessity for the GOP.
The GOP could not have been competitive during campaign 2008 without the bail out from white conservative voters. Elections are usually won by candidates with a solid and impassioned core of bloc voters. The GOP's conservative, white base, vote consistently and faithfully. And in elections going back three decades have voted in a far greater percentage than Hispanics and blacks in midterm elections. Polls have repeatedly shown that they are just as enthusiastic about this election partly stirred by rage at Obama, the Democrats, and government. The usual undertow of race is a driving force.
The GOP leaders have long known that their constituents can be easily aroused to vote and shout loudly on the emotional wedge issues; abortion, family values, anti-gay marriage and tax cuts. For fourteen months, they whipped up their hysteria and borderline racism against health care reform. These are the very voters that GOP presidents and aspiring presidents, Nixon, Reagan, Bush Sr. and W. Bush, and McCain and legions of GOP governors, senators and congresspersons banked for victory and to seize and maintain regional and national political dominance.
Obama did the right thing when faced with the prospect of defeat in a key presidential primary by Hillary. He played directly to the black vote. In November his presidency doesn't hinge on a massive black voter turnout. His prestige, legislative agenda, and orderly White House governance do. If it takes playing the race card to get results then there's nothing wrong with that.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He hosts a nationally broadcast political affairs radio talk show on Pacifica and KTYM Radio Los Angeles.
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson
Seventeen NATO soldiers were killed in Afghanistan in the last three days. NATO is not immediately releasing the nationalities of these troops. Yes, we know that there are other nations participating--in small numbers--and that each death is a tragedy, but this non-disclosure of nationalities is, or should be, unacceptable to the American people and to our media.
I can personally be as angry and upset at our policy (actually Obama's policy) as I want, but there is little I can do to change it. Voting does not seem a good option since the Republicans can be counted on to pursue the same policy or even worse. But I am truly at a loss to understand why anyone right, left or center accepts this cover up.
Not releasing the numbers of Americans killed in action is Obama's version of the Bush administration's refusal to allow the photographing of the returning caskets containing our soldiers. Bush was afraid of the negative impact that the truth would have on our morale and so is Obama.
I am sure that this is particularly difficult for Obama now that we have reached that iconic moment that John Kerry created in 1971 when he asked rhetorically, "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?"
Make no mistake, we have once again clearly come to that moment. We are now facilitating talks between the corrupt narco-regime of our "friend" Hamid Karzai and the brutal and evil Taliban. We are rightly itching to declare victory and get out, but in the mean time, in these mean times, we are asking our people to die. And they are.
Obama understands that there will be no victory. No peace treaty will end this hell. There will be no moment when the Taliban is tamed or the War Lords stipulate to the democratic process. Obama understands that we are mired in the mud and blood of ancient enmities and that our mighty technology is sunk in the mud and immobilized. Pakistan stopping our convoys of fuel trucks at the border and making them targets for destruction is both symbol and reality. From Alexander to the mighty British Empire, from the now-defunct Soviet Union, to this: our time in hell, we know, Obama also knows there is no winning. Yet for political reasons he has to move in a deliberate and dignified appearing manner.
This gives, however, only the shallowest appearance of dignity. It is, in fact, morally monstrous to sacrifice one more life, spend one more dollar, remain one more day when we know that we have no realistic plan and that our delusions concerning our non-realistic hopes have been dashed on the hard rocks of the reality of Afghanistan.
I believe that "We the People" would not tolerate this if it were reported in a timely and accurate manner. Yes, I blame Obama for the continuation of this clearly failed policy. I also blame the media. We are not doing our due-diligence. The People have a right to know.
©2010 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com
Today's the day, young people. And more than ever, which has been made abundantly clear in the ruthless, circuslike midterm election campaigning by what truly have become political "characters," we cannot afford to disengage from politics. Not now.
Tonight, President Barack Obama will host a townhall meeting geared toward young adults. The hour-long discussion, sponsored by MTV, BET and CMT networks, will air live at 4 p.m. E.T. Live coverage will also be available on MTV.com, BET.com and CMT.com.
Questions will be solicited via Twitter. Here's how to ask your questions as described via The White House Blog.
The President will be taking questions from the live audience and Twitter. To ask your question, just use the hashtag #ask plus the topic of your question. For example, if your question is about jobs use #askjobs, if it's about energy use #askenergy. You can also comment the event using the hashtag #comment. Be sure to tune in tomorrow at 4 PM EDT to see if your question gets asked.
Our job as U.S. citizens didn't stop in 2008 with the presidential election. Let's keep the fire in our bellies.
Jonathan, that incident between Hotlips and Frank was funny. Even Frank Burns having a nervous breakdown was funny because he was neurotic, and it went with the character. But that is television, and it isn't real. Even the reality shows aren't completely real because the producers are often goading the contestants to fight.
But there is a line between television and real life. And even though the boundaries of normal, common decency have dropped faster than the Zeppelin, I've seen things on TV that may cause someone to get carted away on the streets.
I agree that the problem is that all the cyber bullying and the incident with Tyler Clementi and his roommate, Dharun Ravi and his friend, Molly Wei, crossed the line. The difference between you and me is that I believe that they knew full well what they were doing and that they knew that they were being cruel. What they and no one could have predicted is that Tyler Clementi would react by taking his own life. Molly Wei's lawyer says that she is innocent, but he is being bribed/paid to say that as most people would assume that she and Ravi knew they were doing the wrong thing. Otherwise, they wouldn't have acted in secret. They knew that they were humiliating Clementi to the point where he would have been afraid to show his face in public, and for this those two spoiled brats and their parents should pay, and dearly. They should also be expelled from school.
Most troubling is the frequency with which this has been happening. At Mentor High School in a small suburb of Cleveland, Ohio had four suicides in the past two years spurred on by bullying. In the case of, Sladjana Vidovic, the bullies who taunted her shortly before she hung herself had the utter audacity to laugh at her in front of her family as she lay in her casket.
These kids almost make Hawkeye Pierce look like a five year-old playing with matches. So what has changed from then until now? Some point to videos and misfits like Snoop Dogg, Soulja Boy and other rappers and hip hop artists who have about as much social conscience as a cannonball, but it really goes beyond that.
It goes all the way back to where it starts. It goes back to the ones who birthed them, and supposedly loved them and did a half-baked job of raising them. It goes back to the first people who taught them their values and right from wrong. It goes back to their parents, or loosely speaking, the ones who brought them into this world before hoisting them onto society shortly thereafter. Heaven help us all some of the time.
Perhaps the aunt of one of the ne'er do-wells of the Latin King Goonies charged with the recent beatings of a homosexual teenager and his adult partner in New York City say it all. When questioned about her nephew's presence in the gathering that spawned the violence against these two men, she said her nephew is "innocent and does not belong to any gang."
Like a wise sage once opined, "Denial ain't necessarily a river in Egypt.
An only slightly repentant former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told a well-heeled, prestigious conference crowd on the Future of Asia at the Chinese University of Hong Kong last March that she had doubts and misgivings over the way things ultimately turned out in Iraq. If she had it to do all over again she'd press her boss, President Bush, to make a better effort to get the Iraqis more involved in the grunt work of actually rebuilding the war ravaged country.
Rice, of course, tactfully left out to two important omissions to the conference crowd. One it was her and the circle of hardnosed war hawks that hectored, badgered, and hammered Bush to launch the war that ravaged the country. A war that is now virtually universally regarded as a failed, flawed, wasteful, and grotesquely unnecessary war.
Rice's second even more damning omission is that to sell the war as indispensable to the war on terrorism she and the hawks distorted, exaggerated facts and events, and flat out lied. But seven years later, with Bush safely gone from the White House, and more than a few fingers happily but wrongly pointing at the Obama administration for Bush's Iraq misadventure, and Rice safely ensconced back at Stanford University, she can gloss over Iraq, and instead concentrate on painting a compelling and sympathetic picture of herself as a black woman who suffered the sting of racial persecution, bigotry and even the threat of violence to rise to a pivotal political figure.
At first glance, the story she tells in her memoir, "Extraordinary, Ordinary People" is extraordinary. She recounts the segregated schools, swimming pools, libraries, and housing, the voting exclusion, and the always ever pervasive threat of physical violence, that was part of the tapestry of 1950s Jim Crow, Bull Conner terrorized Birmingham, Alabama she grew up in. She talks about the strength, perseverance and determination of her parents and their constant push to instill in their sons and daughters the value of education. Education they knew was a surefire ticket out of a self-imposed America's self-imposed racial trap for blacks.
Rice took the message to heart and her personal success story is well-known. She obtained her bachelor's degree in political science, cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, from the University of Denver in 1974 where she enrolled at the age of 15; her master's degree from the University of Notre Dame in 1975. And she got her Ph.D. from the Graduate School of International Studies at the University of Denver in 1981. Her years as an influential and much sought after international affairs expert and planner which culminated in her pick as Bush's first National security Advisor and then Secretary of State are just as well-known.
These are truly breakthroughs, even pioneering, glass ceiling shattering breakthroughs for a woman of color and can inspire other young women to attain the heights. In any other time, place, and especially with any other administration other than Bush's, Rice would be hailed and lauded as the political affairs Rosa Parks. She would deservedly be held up as a worthy model of what a black woman with grit and tenacity can do to smash her way out of the suffocating racial and gender boxes.
That's not the case with Rice, though. Mention the name Condoleezza Rice even now and the reaction among Bush bashers and most blacks is still pretty much the same as what it was when singer-activist Harry Belafonte in 2006 blasted her and Colin Powell as "house Negroes." Belafonte's blast drew near universal applause from blacks. It almost certainly would still get the same reaction today from most blacks.
It would be the rarest of sights to find Rice's picture on the walls and in the showcases of inner city schools that festoon them with the faces and names of prominent black figures. The hostility to and dismissal of Rice hinges on that as part of the reviled Bush administration she was a racial traitor. It's grossly unfair to lay that tag on her. Her accomplishments are undeniable, and they shouldn't be cavalierly sloughed off. There's even some evidence that she spoke up at a critical point when Bush was gung ho to scrap the affirmative action program at the University of Michigan in 2003. Rice softened the Bush position by publicly protesting that race could be used as a factor in school admissions. The court agreed.
This didn't change the loathe of Rice by many blacks and Bush loathers then. And her admirable fight to overcome racial adversity won't change or soften their opinion of her now. Condi's remarkable personal triumphant over the racial odds were praiseworthy then and they still are. Unfortunately, her moving civil rights story can't trump the role she played in Bush's despicable Iraq folly.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He hosts a nationally broadcast political affairs radio talk show on Pacifica and KTYM Radio Los Angeles.
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson
In the 1970 movie M*A*S*H*, Hawkeye Pierce and Trapper John, put a microphone in the tent where uptight Frank Burns and Hotlips O'Houlihan were trysting. Their lovemaking, the sighs, the moans and the urgency, was broadcast throughout the base.
Of course, in 1970, I laughed. It was funny, a prank. As I think about the movie today, I remember something that had slipped my mind. Yes, I laughed at Hotlips, but she recovered and got past the incident. Frank Burns did not. He had a mental breakdown and was taken away in a straightjacket. He was broken by a limited live broadcast of a heterosexual encounter. Imagine if it had been on the Net, where it would have lived forever, and it had been gay.
Rutgers student Tyler Clementi committed suicide after webcam pictures of him having gay sex were put up on the Net. While I have no way of knowing the feelings or intentions of the students who took these and distributed these pictures, it was clearly an act of cruelty meant to embarrass him. It clearly and tragically worked.
It is possible that to the other students this was meant only to embarrass and not truly humiliate or destroy Clementi; perhaps it was only a joke. Now however the consequences should be obvious to everyone considering invading the privacy of anyone--gay or straight. This kind of activity is not a prank. It isn't funny.
The world has changed in the last 40 years. In at least one way, it has changed for the better. We no longer accept as a prank the humiliating of another person or the destruction of their dignity.
God knows some volunteer for humiliation by lining up to do reality TV, but that is their choice. Because some waive any concept of privacy or shame does not imply that others can be subjected to public humiliation at the pleasure, or for the pleasure, of others.
This is a story rich with material for serious discussion and consideration. It involves expectations of privacy, bullying and, of course, gay bashing. It is a kind of microcosm of some of our society's most sensitive issues.
©2010 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com
Talk about a page from Ripley's Believe it or not. A new CNN poll now claims that the one-time universally battered, bruised, hectored and in virtual disgrace George W. Bush is almost as popular as President Obama. Here's an even more incredible way to put it. If the presidential election were held today it would be a toss-up between Bush and Obama over which one would bag the White House. The poll finding is: Americans say Obama is a better president than Bush by a statistically insignificant 2 percent. This scant two percent Obama edge is down a whopping 23 percent from where it was a year ago.
The first thought is that CNN pollsters hung out at Republican National Committee headquarters to get their sample respondents or are toking something that unless voters in California vote to legalize it still can get you jail time for smoking it. But that's the charitable way to look at what on the surface seems an absurdity. More than a few political pundits say that the single biggest reason Obama is in the White House can be summed up in one word Bush. He turned his administration into the poster administration for everything wrong with America. The colossal giveaways to the corporate rich and Wall Street, a failed, flawed, and absolutely unnecessary war, a bungled Katrina response, off the chart sex, and corruption scandals within the GOP, a tanked economy, and a general clueless, governing incompetence that defied political belief. It was a textbook perfect storm for an Obama win. But what a difference a year can make. In that time the memory of Bush ruin have dimmed, and that's just enough time for the GOP historical revisionists to get busy and rewrite, revise, and plainly lie, about the alleged good things that Bush did.
The year is also enough time for a resurgent GOP and its shock troops the Tea Party horde, Glenn Beck, Limbaugh, Palin the endless pack of shrill, hatchet job righstide bloggers, websites, and talk show hacks to paint a picture of an Obama who take your pick is: an alien, anti-American, a closet Muslim terrorist sympathizer, a socialist, communist, and an inveterate America basher and hater.
The post Bush year has also been ample time to stoke and inflame the latent, and in some quarters unabashed, racial bigotry of millions of whites whose stomach churns in knots at the sight of an African American president. They will say and do anything to rid the White House of him. Even if that means dredging up by almost any standard one of the worst and disastrous presidents and presidential administrations saddled on the American people in the last century.
So, it's really no wonder or mystery that so many could actually pine for the return of a miserable administration and actually compare the man that was the architect of so much of that misery to Obama. Bush versus Obama should draw a laugh if not a gag. But believe it or not, it doesn't. Could Bush beat Obama? That's definitely one for believe it or not?
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He hosts a nationally broadcast political affairs radio talk show on Pacifica and KTYM Radio Los Angeles.
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson
First came the letter of the law. Then came its spirit. Shouting obscenities at a gay marriage ceremony violates the spirit of the law, but not the letter because people can have whatever opinion they want. But the Constitution has its system of checks and balances, and that's why people cannot say and do whatever comes into their heads.
The former Supreme Court Chief Justice, Oliver Wendell Holmes, once said, "The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins," and it applies here as well. Fred Phelps and his followers at the Westboro Baptist Church hit Albert Snyder's nose when they taunted him at his son's funeral and that's why the Supreme Court should favor him in his lawsuit against them. It would have been one thing had Phelps et. al had the time of their sanctimonious lives holding placards and marching up and down at gay bashing rally. But they crossed the line when they showed up at Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder's funeral and taunted the deceased Marine's father at what surely must have been the worst day of his life.
It is easy to see why the media outlets support overturning Snyder's suit; it could curtail much of their freefalling journalism and may even make honest reporters out of some of them. Why it may even cause some of them do some research. And heaven forbid, write about it!
In the case of Phelps and followers, it was not that they had an opinion; it was how they expressed it. By harassing Albert Snyder at his son's funeral, of all places, they veered from free speech to intentional infliction of emotional distress, and for this they should dearly pay. Jesus must surely be rolling over in his grave over this one.
A Church that Preaches Hate
The Supreme Court has been asked to decide if obnoxious, offensive and hateful speech must have the same freedom as nice, reasonable and rational speech. In oral arguments on Wednesday, the Court seemed to lean towards not distinguishing between the two. At some intellectual level they may be right. On an emotional level, I want to silence the hate-filled morons who embarrass Christianity, not to mention humanity, with the vile projections of their own fears and unhealthy obsession with homosexuality.
Between the absolute positions of equal protection for all speech and hard restrictions for some speech is there no compromise, no reasonable middle that protects both our freedoms and our ears from spite-filled garbage? I think there may be.
We know that freedom of speech is not absolute--we can't cry "Fire!" in a crowded theater. Public safety has to be considered. This is not the only restriction we recognize. You may not come to my home at three in the morning and blast either love songs or epithets over a loud speaker. The content doesn't matter, the effect does. There is a standard, however blurry, for the greater good and comfort of the community. Picketing and screaming hate at funerals is surely as disruptive and toxic as loud music in the night. It is disturbing the peace and peace of mind of the mourners.
With all the avenues available for the Phelps Church of Hate to gay bash, preventing them from harassing and bullying the grieving families of our dead soldiers is not vital to their getting their perverse message across. We are dealing this week with stories about several suicides that are the tragic consequences of bullying--both personal and in cyber-space. This Phelps case is ultimately about harassing and bullying and has the same foreseeable and tragic consequences. If we can stop and prosecute bullies, surely Phelps' hate speech qualifies for both criminal and civil remedies.
©2010 Jonathan Dobrer
WWW. Dobrer.com
I feel pain for Albert Snyder. I feel pain for all the grieving mothers, fathers, relatives and friends of soldiers killed in combat. And every fiber of my marrow screams at the clowns of Westboro Baptist Church who picketed the funeral of Albert's son, Matthew Snyder who died in Iraq in 2006. They shame and disgrace even the most elementary particle of decency. I wish the fate that they wished on Snyder on their picket signs outside the church where his funeral was held, "God is your enemy" and "You're going to hell" be swiftly and even more terribly visited on them.
The family sued and won a $11 million judgment (later lowered to $5 million) against the Godless Westboro Church. The evil church wants it tossed. I feel greater pain in saying that the Supreme Court must reject the lawsuit of the Snyder family. The court must toss the suit for the simplest, oldest, and most cherished principle and precept that Americans live and die by. That's the right to say what we think and what we believe, no matter how nutty, zany, offensive, repulsive, and yes, even hateful and hurtful, that it may be.
Westboro exhibited all of those odious and repugnant traits in abundance in picketing Snyder's funeral. The rub, of course, is that the freedom that Snyder died for is to defend their right to picket and express their hate. Westboro church members disgraced themselves in doing that. The Supreme Court shouldn't.
Rick Sanchez let drop a stupid ethnic stereotype and slur. First lightly coded as being about "North Eastern Liberals," he soon decrypted himself and sneered about Jews owning and controlling the media. He also thought that it was ridiculous to consider Jews a minority because they (we) own everything. He was quickly fired.
Frankly, I'd have preferred him suspended and asked to do a special on racism and Anti-Semitism in modern America. I'd sooner he'd become informed rather than banished. But in the modern media world it can be one strike and you're out if the whiff is grand and stupid enough. And this is certainly close. Like al Campanis, once of the Dodgers, he had ample opportunity to pull back, but instead he plodded on making his poisonous point.
Anti-Semites will, of course, claim that his firing confirms his accusation. Had the bigots any perspective they might wonder how Rush Limbaugh says what he says about Blacks. But I guess there is more latitude for partisan commentators and entertainers than for actual news people. This is a strange world where the context of Sanchez's slur was criticism of Jon Stewart for being a bigot. Rick was unclear that Jon is a satirist and he is supposed to be a reporter.
This is a fair confusion since the common law marriage of entertainment and news took place some years ago. Rick may not think of himself as a reporter but instead as a ratings driven entertainer trying, as Gail wrote, to gin up his ratings. Well, not any more. At least not at CNN.
As for the charge of media ownership: CBS is owned by the Carlyle Group--whose largest stakeholder is Abu Dhabi. ABC by Disney. CNN is Time-Warner. And Fox is controlled by that famous Hebrew Rupert Murdock.
One thing is certain. Rick Sanchez isn't making his alma mater, the University of Minnesota School of Journalism, look very good. Maybe he doesn't care. Maybe he thinks his scholarship didn't have enough perks or maybe he is unhappy about his ratings. (Let's face it. Before last Thursday, most people hadn't even heard of Rick Sanchez.)
Then in desperation or maybe from not enough shut-eye due to those ratings, he had to do something, so he reviewed his options one night while helping himself to a midnight snack. He couldn't make a sex tape because someone might laugh. He couldn't blame his mother-in-law or call his shrink because it was in the middle of the night. Then, he had an idea, a real gunner of a brainstorm, if you will. He would do what thousands of other nimrods before him did; he would revert to that standard standby that millions of others before him like Stalin, Goebbels and Czar Nicholas III reverted to. He would take a swipe at the Jews. 'Brilliant,' he thought as his bloodshot eyes widened.
So he opened his yap, smiled with his yellowing teeth and said that the Jews own the media. Not exactly original, but enough to raise his rank on Google. Never mind that he probably didn't do any research or even Google anything.
But I did, and It turns out that it even isn't even true. Even if we were, we earned it. And we didn't step on anyone's face or stand under a money tree to get there. We did it not by greasing anyone's palm but through a lot of sweat and hard work.
That debate wasn't like a bullfight; it was like hominy grits scattered in a bullring with both candidates slipping around left and right.
But beyond all those grits, are the grains of corn in this, namely gubernatorial candidates Meg Whitman and Jerry (Moonbeam) Brown. Let's look at what each has to offer. Being a (pardon the expression) Republican, I initially sided with Whitman partially because I thought we would be on the same political page. But upon closer reflection, the main thing she has going for her is her tremendous experience as the CEO at E-bay, which at one time was good enough for the voters aside from electing a candidate with an IMBD movie portfolio and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
We did it with Arnold, and look where it got us, the lowest credit rating in the country and a high unemployment rate. We did it with Obama, one of the best campaign managers and fundraisers of all times, and look where it got us. A silver-tongued president who thought he could worm his way into the hearts and souls of a Republican Congress and an economy worse-off than when he took office. So we are once burned and twice learned, or at let's only pray so.
Whitman may believe that an elected official can run a government like a business, but this is just untrue because one elected official cannot fire any freeloaders, ne'er do-wells or anyone who doesn't show up to vote. Then there are the impending issues of housekeeper-gate and her sieve of a voting record.
That leaves Jerry Brown. Whitman has referred to him as a "career politician," but that may be just what we need if he doesn't keel over while in office. To that end, I am proposing that we revert back to the days of the wild, wild west. With the way things have been going on the streets and all the vigilante justice out there, we're already halfway there.
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carolagate on They're Just Not That Into You, Mitt: But, Jack, who scares you any less? ...
Jack on LAUSD Meets Komen, Karzai & Hamas: Boy, did you take on an impossible task -- trying to cover all the "im ...
Jack on They're Just Not That Into You, Mitt: Boy did you hit the nail on the head! My first impression of Mitt in ...