August 2011 Archives
One of the biggest signs of a sociopath is people who abuse animals and children.
Someone on my Facebook page posted a story about pitbulls that are used as bait in dog fighting rings, meaning that they are used to bait the more aggressive dogs to fight because of their sweeter dispositions. Their teeth and claws are filed down and their mouths shut so they can't defend themselves while being attacked.
There are organizations that save these animals. One of them is the Lucky Dog Rescue Foundation.
As for the perps, maybe they should be put in a ring themselves with the more rabid canines.
Acting more like children, than children
Obama wants to speak to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday. Automatic. In the bag, right? In a normal universe maybe, however we're a long way from normal. The Republicans are having their debate on Wednesday. So what, it's just another of over 20 debates, right? Well, not exactly. It's at the Reagan Library and it is Rick Perry's first outing. Two rules: Don't mess with Texas and more importantly: Don't diss Nancy!
And since the President is the guest of Congress, your staff really should work out the date before going public. A verbal assurance from a junior secretary is not good enough in these hyper-partisan times. So, Speaker Boehner politely suggests that Wednesday isn't really good for him. He's having his hair varnished and his skin dyed, I guess. He counters with Thursday night, a night which as any manly man knows is the opening of NFL Football and will feature The Saints against the Packers. Obama won't draw flies.*
These are exactly the kinds of political games we have all come to hate. These are the kinds of games that make everyone look bad--but only because they are bad and cynical and mendacious. Obama knew perfectly well of the debate and wanted to put it in the shadows. Boehner knew perfectly well that no times could be worse than against the opening game. And both sides incredibly are playing dumb. Boehner looks petty. Obama looks weak. And I'm starting to feel a little nauseated myself.
What makes this all the more silly is that Obama is saying that we have to get beyond petty politics and then plays this card. He plays it, probably not knowing that Boehner will give him trouble but definitely knowing that anything he proposes in his big speech will be characterized as "dead on arrival" and a "non-starter" by the Republicans. The speech is an attempt, a political attempt not to pass legislation that will create jobs, but to look good and above the fray. Thus, it has already failed. However this is resolved, whether Obama rents a hall or finds a time with Congress, this is the kind off petty bickering we hate. It reminds me of the months America spent negotiating with the North Vietnamese not for peace but the shape of the table. All the while people died.
Now, we can't agree on a meeting and make high drama out of trivia. All the while tens of millions go jobless.
* As any number of disaffected liberals would have predicted: Obama caved. It's on against the NFL
©2011 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com
Labor leaders, the Congressional Black Caucus, and many liberal Democrats hope Vice President Joe Biden is wrong. In an interview on the eve of President Obama's much anticipated jobs proposals speech. Biden seemed to dash hopes that Obama will go big, and aggressive in promoting a jobs for all program. To them that means, spending billions more on repairing and building, roads, bridges, and schools, pumping up manufacturing with federal funds, arm twisting major corporations to spend more on job creation here and not in other countries, extending unemployment insurance benefits, and continuing to pound away on the rich to cough up more in tax revenues to bankroll a sweeping jobs program.
Any other time if he went' big on jobs he'd be wildly applauded by the majority of Americans, and garner broad support from Congress. But this isn't that time. And Biden well knows the political constraints that hem in Obama. That's painfully evident with the dozens of employment creation related bills the Congressional Black Caucus has proposed. All are deep frozen in congressional committees. The Caucus members lashed out hard at Obama to do and say more about black joblessness, but Obama is powerless to do anything about their bills which would actually do something about the Great Depression rates of unemployment in poor black communities. He's powerless for the same reason the Caucus is.
Millions of Americans chant the tea party and GOP congressional mantra that the country is hopelessly awash in red ink, and that it would be economic and fiscal suicide to spend billions more on public job creation projects. Even if Obama were willing to risk the firestorm of protest, and thumb his nose at the GOP, there's little chance that he'd get even a handful of Senate Democrats to back a massive government job creation program. This doesn't even take in the hysterical vitriol that would be hurled at him from millions more goaded by the professional Obama loathers among the pack of bloggers, web sites, and rightwing talk show hosts tea party members. They have whipped up the crowd to fervently believe that Obama's a closet socialist and his economic policies have straight jacketed private business and Wall Street. Obama's stimulus 1 package is still being relentlessly denounced by conservatives as deficit busting, wasteful, and ineffectual. They rail at it as naked big government expansion, and reckless spending by a liberal Democratic president.
But Obama's trademark caution, conciliation, and firm emphasis on bipartisanship, or simply repeating the standard call for tax cuts and more corporate giveaways, will fly squarely in the face of the demand by the Congressional Black Caucus, labor, and liberals for a bold approach on jobs. That poses a far greater political risk to him than incurring the wrath of conservatives ready to finger point him as a reckless big spending Democrat. Polls show that the three major GOP presidential candidates are either neck and neck with him, or close enough to make his reelection bid anything but a shoo-in. He will need every vote he can get from his base. But he will also need their passion, energy, and legs to get out and pound the pavement, people the phone banks and work the social media and networks as they did in 2008.
This won't happen if there's even the slightest sense among his core constituency that he fumbled the ball in being bold and assertive on his jobs proposals, and hitting back hard at the GOP for doing everything it can to stymie his proposals. The grumbles and growls of discontent and impatience that Obama has heard loudly the past few weeks could quickly turn into passivity, disinterest or even active hostility among number of the millions that he will need to hold off the GOP voter onslaught in 2012.
In 2010 the GOP took the House and a good chunk of the Senate back, Obama read the political tea leaves and concluded that it was pointless to call for more federal initiatives that require massive amounts of federal dollars. But that was then, and in the months since then, the job situation has deteriorated, the frustration of millions of job seekers has grown, and the GOP has not relented one bit in its drumbeat blame of him for the apparent crisis. This should be ample reason to take off the gloves, plop on the table a comprehensive federally driven job and stimulus program, and then when it crashes against the inevitable GOP wall rip the party for keeping millions in economic misery. This is the political game plan that the left wants and the right anticipates from Obama. Now it's up to him not to disappoint either one.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He is a weekly co-host of the Al Sharpton Show on American Urban Radio Network. He is an associate editor of New America Media. He is host of the weekly Hutchinson Report Newsmaker Hour on KTYM Radio Los Angeles streamed on ktym.com podcast on blogtalkradio.com and internet TV broadcast on thehutchinsonreportnews.com
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson
President Obama should be a ruptured duck in the water. The economy still stinks and maybe even sinks (which is worse is hard to say). Unemployment is high enough that no incumbent president has ever won reelection with such numbers except for FDR. He has infuriated liberals by not being tough enough on Republicans while being too war mongering abroad. He has infuriated conservatives by being, well, Obama. I think that's actually enough. He is after all still a plausible Democrat and some suspect him of also being an African American.
He gets no credit from liberals for passing healthcare reform that no other president ever did. But he gets all the blame from Republicans. By this time in this election cycle the wars are his, he owns the economy and no one is satisfied. Even leaders in the African American community such as Cornel West and Tavis Smiley have turned on him with a certain viciousness, barely covered with the "I say this with love to my brother" rhetoric.
Normal political analyses hold that if the Right and the Left are angry, you should be in good shape with the middle--those who actually decide elections. They reason that the Left will vote Democratic and the Right will vote Republican so the Independents and broad middle will decide the outcome. This usually good bet is not such a good bet this season. While Obama will get the votes of non-white ethnics and liberals--but without the same enthusiasm and hope--he is in free fall with independent whites.
Clearly Obama is a wounded duck, and he would be a dead duck except for his secret weapon: The Republicans! Hope is a feathered thing the poet wrote and every day Republicans feather Obama's wings. Only today (Aug 8) Eric Cantor insisted that every extra dollar that FEMA needs for our natural disasters, say from Hurricane Irene, needs to be balanced by a cut somewhere else in the budget. This from a party that carried both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars off the books and outside the budget for 7 years. No questions asked for bombing foreign countries but mandatory cuts to social services for helping Americans who are not figuratively underwater but actually under water. Never mind the lack of values or decency. The utter tone-deafness is astounding.
But that's not the end of toned-deafness--only the most recent example. Earlier this week, in a separate moral universe, Mitt Romney, who had told unemployed folks that he was also unemployed, set the standard for having a tin ear by applying for a permit to expand his beach house in La Jolla from 4,000 sq. ft. to 11,000. So much for the unemployed man of the people.
Yes, all that can rescue Obama's presidency is incarnate in the Republicans. Against an un-named generic Republican he gets trounced, but when people start filling in the names, Obama starts looking to be more fully fledged. Yes, I know many of my ilk would like him to fight back harder and act angrier. But we are wrong. No, it isn't the old chestnut that we don't want to see an angry black man. We don't want to elect an angry president. We elect these people to come into our homes--and sometimes hearts--for 4 or 8 years. We have almost always elected the person whom we like, who embodies optimism and hope.
Eisenhower was a comforting grandfather, JFK a can-do optimist filled with vigor, and Reagan was the supreme optimist, cheerleader and consoler. Clinton was literally the man from Hope who felt your pain and sold a vision of a better tomorrow. George W was no pessimist and displayed little anger. While his affect didn't reveal a sunny disposition or wantonly display a lot of compassion, he used the words "hope," "compassion" and "hopeful" frequently. Obama, of course, campaigned on hope; it was his platform.
Obama has got to thank divine providence for Rick Perry. While Perry is probably a genuine person and as comfortable in his skin as Gore was not, he is not of a sunny disposition. That's not his fault. It is simply who he is and reflects his hardscrabble life of rural poverty.
While it is true that we elected the less than sunny Richard Nixon over the relentlessly ebullient Hubert Humphrey, that was because Humphrey was fatally wounded by having done his job as Vice President and supported his boss, LBJ, and the Vietnam War.
As Perry's snarky put-downs get more coverage, as Michele Bachmann's apocalyptics get more play (perhaps unfairly, but inevitably), as Romney's White Horse Prophecy beliefs come out, (perhaps again unfairly but also inevitably) the only optimist will be the battered but still flying Barack Obama. He won't win with the same vote margin, nor with the same dreamy enthusiasm. But with the invaluable help of this year's version of the Republican Party, this duck will fly--even if he no longer soars.
©2011 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com
Democratic presidential candidate Obama faced the problem. President Obama faces the problem. And now President Obama in his re-election bid faces the problem. The majority of whites still will not accept his presidency. The latest Associated Press-GfK polls once again told in stark numbers that the racial gap is just as big and daunting for Obama. The overwhelming majority of white independent voters say he does not deserve to be reelected. An equally large majority of whites say they don't like the job that he's doing, especially on the economy. And overall, nearly sixty percent of whites will not support his reelection. The hopeful news is this could change in the more than a year run-up to the November 2012 presidential election with the constant shifts and swings in voter attitudes, perceptions, and events. In any other election cycle and with any other president and presidential candidate, this pattern would hold true. The brutal fact is that the resistance to candidate Obama and President Obama from the majority of whites has been constant and unyielding.
This seems tough to believe, and even tougher to accept for several reasons. The myth that Obama made a major and lasting breakthrough in getting millions of whites to vote for him replaced the brutal fact that the majority of whites did not support him. In 2008, GOP Presidential candidate John McCain got nearly sixty percent of the white vote. Though this represented a significant inroad for Obama in that that he did better than Democratic presidential contenders Al Gore and John Kerry in 2000 and 2004, but McCain's getting the majority white vote still was enough to keep him relatively competitive.
The first warning sign that Obama's white support has been shaky, tenuous, and iffy cropped up not with McCain but with Democratic rival Hillary Clinton during the Democratic presidential primaries. In Pennsylvania and Ohio, Clinton drubbed Obama with the white vote. Many white Democratic blue collar voters openly said that they would not vote for Obama not because of any great love for Clinton, but because he was black. It took a near holy crusade turnout by black voters in both states to seal Obama's win in the two key states and ultimately the White House.
The monumental GOP sex and corruption scandals, the towering domestic and foreign policy blunders of Bush, a collapsed economy, two costly and unpopular wars, and a laughingstock GOP VP candidate still were not enough to decisively reverse the trend that a majority of whites, especially white males, will not back a Democrat, in this case a black Democrat.
The shaky ground that Obama's white voter support rested on eroded quickly at the first hint of trouble. The faint grumbles that Obama was too nice, too conciliatory, too indecisive and had no plan on the economy fanned by the borderline racist taunts of the Tea Party members, the pack of right wing professional Obama baiters on blogs, websites and radio talk shows grew quickly to crescendo pitch.
A Pew Research Center survey in April backed that up. White males still by big margins either disapproved or strongly disapproved of the president's job performance. The continued high disapproval ratings among this group was even more glaring since it came at the point where more Americans than in the past year said they liked the job Obama's doing. Even then that did not include a majority of white males.
President Obama can't much more to ease the doubts and fears of many whites that he meant his oft repeated vow that to fulfill his duty as president of all the people, and do the best job he can on legislation and public policy to serve the needs of all constituencies. He has even repeatedly drawn the wrath of the Congressional Black Caucus publicly resisting their loud appeals to do and say more about the crisis of black joblessness and poverty. He's paid a price for that as his approval ratings have dropped among blacks. But his unswerving race neutral, low keyed, scrupulously non-confrontational, approach to presidential governance has meant absolutely nothing when it comes to changing the attitudes of many white voters. It's in part the ancient mix of white suspicions and doubts about black competence, intelligence and ability, pure blind, naked bigotry, and unease with an African-American holding the world's most visible and important political power position.
The GOP has played hard on the anger, frustration, and hatred that many males harbor toward government and their swoon over military toughness. And for four decades before that it has been the trump card for winning GOP presidents and even losing GOP presidential candidates, like McCain.
It's paying dividends again. Despite deep doubts among voters about the competence, credibility and even electability of the crop of GOP presidential candidates, polls show they are still in a neck to neck race with Obama. Race is not the only explanation for this, but it can never be discounted as a factor as long as Obama's white problem exists.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He is a weekly co-host of the Al Sharpton Show on American Urban Radio Network. He is an associate editor of New America Media. He is host of the weekly Hutchinson Report Newsmaker Hour on KTYM Radio Los Angeles streamed on ktym.com podcast on blogtalkradio.com and internet TV broadcast on thehutchinsonreportnews.com
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson
is here @ wordpress, and it is a more religious piece. A bientot!
G. Tz. ; )
The news photo was literally was worth a thousand words. There was President Obama, Daisy Bates, and a group of White House staffers gazing at the world famous Norman Rockwell portrait prominently positioned on a West Wing wall of a black girl being escorted by federal marshals through a howling mob of enraged whites to class. The class was of course at Little Rock's previously segregated Central High School in 1957. Bates was one of the prime movers behind the school desegregation movement in Little Rock.
Though Obama gave no reason why he chose to hang the portrait in a conspicuous spot on a West Wing wall, it was no accident that he did. The portrait was hung there just days before he was scheduled to give his much touted and long awaited speech at the unveiling ceremony of the Martin Luther King Jr. Monument on the National Mall. Hanging the Rockwell painting was more than symbolism.
Though the King Memorial unveiling and Obama's speech was postponed due to a Hurricane threat, the portrait was a strong signal that race would have been very much on the table in the speech he would have given at the King monument unveiling. And well it should. Obama has repeatedly been ripped in recent weeks by the Congressional Black caucus and other blacks for not doing or even saying enough about the colossal crisis of black joblessness and poverty. Polls have shown that the criticism has touched a nerve with many blacks. His performance rating on the jobs issue has plunged among them. The tiniest chink in Obama's black support is cause for deep worry at the White House. He'll need black voters to turn the 2012 presidential re-election campaign into the same, fiery holy crusade that they did in 2008. This means a turnout in numbers, big numbers, in the key battleground states.
For much of his first term, Obama has walked a perilous racial tight rope. On the one hand he's been hyper cautious not to give any ammunition to bigots to paint him as a race conscious or even race baiting African-American be speaking out on racial matters. On the other hand he's done what he can quietly to boost black appointments to judgeships, federal posts, and get the best deal he can from a GOP sworn to make him a one-term president, on education, jobs, and health care spending and preserve Social Security and Medicare, and Medicaid.
The withering assaults on Obama as disappointing the King legacy misses the mark. The 1963 March on Washington that brought King world-wide attention and stamped him as a transformative leader for the ages brought thousands of persons together across gender, class and color lines in a vocal protest against intolerance and violence. This was the hope and promise of Obama's election. It showed that millions of whites could strap racial blinders around their eyes and punch the ticket for an African-American for the world's most powerful political post. King would undoubtedly have glowed with approval at that.
The same ugly hate that King faced. Obama has faced. The racially tinged and in some cases blatant racial vilification and ridicule of Obama, and even issuing veiled physical threats against him by the pack of extreme Tea Party leaders, right wing talk show gabbers, and bloggers and websites have been relentless. Polls showed that a significant percentage of whites vehemently oppose Obama's policies on health care, and the economy. The slur is continually made that Obama is a closet Marxist and racial agitator. These were the exact same slurs that were repeatedly tossed at Dr. King.
The centerpiece of King's March on Washington speech and his decade of activism for racial justice and tolerance was that America could both be pushed rudely, or gently evolve, into a color blind society. He didn't mean the phony, deliberate, and self-serving distortion of his words by many conservatives to hammer affirmative action, special programs, and initiatives and increased spending on jobs, education, and health programs for African-Americans and minorities. King never lost sight of the fact that the legacy of segregation, bigotry and discrimination trapped thousands of poor blacks and that offered no easy resolution. Even as the King Monument is unveiled the black poor are still just as tightly trapped in the grip of poverty and discrimination that King warned about.
Obama decries any thought that the civil rights movement is outdated and that he supplants the ongoing work of civil rights leaders. He made a point to tell Bates that without "you guys I might not be here." This is a fitting tribute to the civil rights movement that challenged the nation to make King's dream of justice and equality a reality. Obama can seize King's racial high ground by making that point forcefully in his speech and continuing to back it up with action. Obama firmly understands that there's still much more to overcome.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He is a weekly co-host of the Al Sharpton Show on American Urban Radio Network. He is an associate editor of New America Media. He is host of the weekly Hutchinson Report Newsmaker Hour on KTYM Radio Los Angeles streamed on ktym.com podcast on blogtalkradio.com and internet TV broadcast on thehutchinsonreportnews.com
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson
The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. may have been a "transformative leader," but years later, what did his transformation bring? He handed the black community the ball, but in many cases, they've yet to run with it. And while there have been some strides, it's a small crack in the wall against the tide of black unemployment, the number of blacks who break laws and go to prison, and those who quit high school after years of misbehaving and ditching.
While the phrase "to get a good job, get a good education" may have been the catch phrase at one time, this just isn't so because many with only high school are making millions, and they're doing it legally! Music moguls are but one example, athletes and rap artists are another and actors are a third. For every Russell Simmons, there are thousands in gangs. For every Shaquille O'Neal, there are thousands hanging out in the streets and for every Jennifer Hudson, there are thousands who think they can sing and act but never do anything about it.
To get ahead in these or any field, a person has to have talent and discipline, which is what many lack. We may strive for a color-blind, ethnic-blind world, but when we hear about blacks shooting each other or see blacks looting on the streets of London or robbing stores and beating up on people in flash mobs in Philly, all bets and color blinders are off.
As an ethnic I know this: Those who don't want to fan the flames of ethnic hatred and stereotypes had better work hard. They'd better mind their p's and q's and be prepared to work hard, but this is hard to do when society becomes the fall guy for all that's wrong.
We were going to dedicate the Martin Luther King monument on this anniversary of his "I Have A Dream" speech. The hurricane has postponed the date of the official dedication, but this makes no difference to our dedication. This monument will be dedicated and consecrated not just to the memory of the life and death of The Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King JR, but also to his, as yet unfulfilled, dream. "It is altogether fitting and proper that we do this," as Abraham Lincoln, that other Great Emancipator, said at the dedication of the Soldier's National Cemetery at Gettysburg.
Make no mistake Dr. King was also a Great Emancipator not only of the chains of bigotry and hopelessness that continued to enslave Black folks but also of White folks. The oppressed certainly suffer the most from bigotry, but they do not suffer alone. Many of us were also enslaved by moral blindness. Many of us were cut off from our brothers and sisters of other races, religions, ethnicities and classes. Dr. King expanded our vision and our embrace of hope, change and each other.
Dr. King's monument seems carved from solid rock. As he emerges from the stone with the weight of history behind him, he looks down as if from a mountaintop. You do get the sense of his other famous speech, the one that just preceded his death, that he had indeed been to the mountaintop and could see the Promised Land of freedom and equality. As I recall that speech,I can see in his eyes and hear once again in my heart's living memory both the sadness and hope. He knew that we would get there--some day. He also knew that he, like Moses, would not live to enter that Promised Land on that happy day.
That day is not here. The dedication of a statue is indeed fitting and proper, but it must not stop there. Stone is not the accomplishment; a memorial is not the dream. Stone is but stone. It is up to us to animate it, to breath life into it through our actions, our dedication to social justice and equality, our dedication to the dream that is lived in our days and not simply a nighttime visitor. In truth we do not dedicate a monument to the memory of a man. We dedicate ourselves to fulfilling his dream that must become our dream.
©2011 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer. com
Ah, Gail-Tzipporah, the statistics are misleading. Only one in ten seniors may fail the exit exam, but half of those who began high school in LA did not last long enough to sit for the exam. So, really, there are two scandals. The first is our drop out rate and how that disproportionately affects the kids in our lower socio-economic group. The second is our failure to deliver quality education.
Our failure is, I believe, related to our distrust of teachers and our obsession with systems--reading systems, math systems, learning systems. To paraphrase T.S. Eliot, "We are busy inventing systems so perfect that men (or in this case both students and teachers) will no longer have to be good." Every couple of years we get a new magic bullet that will teach reading or math. Then, it's gone, and a new magic bullet is bought by credulous educators. We spend far too much time and energy in testing, assessing and measuring. We take our most creative teachers and tie their hands with system-wide protocols and make them teach to tests--instead of inspiring and involving the students in the joys of learning.
As for the dropout rate, there are two clear factors. One is that we socially promote students, starting at early grades, so by the time they get to high school, they are so far behind they cannot catch up. Then there is teen pregnancy which is a factor in the majority of female dropouts and also for a large number of males.
Finally, and most controversially, there is culture and parentally transmitted values. While we tend to make this complicated by race or ethnicity, the socio-economic level is key regardless of race. However, the lower socio-economic quartile is over-represented by minorities. Parents have to believe in education and its importance in the upward social mobility of their children. If they don't, the kids will know and just flow downward with the culture.
The single most important predictor of educational success is not race or ethnicity. It is the educational level of the parents. To give LAUSD its due, they are trying to reach out by creating Parent Centers and working to enroll the parents as educational cheerleaders. Having kids in school for 8 hours a day when they have TV, social media, videogames and peer pressure the other 16 hours cannot work without the parents.
School discipline is surely a problem, but neither discipline nor education can work without parental support. For our society to work, we must prevent dropping out both by the students and their parents.
©2011 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com
So fourteen percebt of all LA Unified seniors cannot pass the exit exam? I'm dumbfounded. I thought it would be higher considering how little we have asked from them and they, in turn of themselves. Is it too much to ask a kid to come to class on time and if he is late to just sit down and be quiet rather than make a whole royal production of his entrance? Is it too much to ask a kid not to talk back to the teacher or to zip it when the teacher is talking? Is it too much to ask a kid to open a book to the right page and perhaps learn how to read? Now it apparently is.
And that's what happened when some knuckleheads rolled out education reform that consisted of trying to understand the adolescent psyche and telling kids they are beautiful, smart and gifted underneath it all, regardless of how many buildings they tag or how much mayhem they cause.
It used to be that if a student couldn't read or played around in class that that kid was the knucklehead. Now it's the school system for failing to reach him and unlock whatever hidden door has closed and locked in his brain. Add No Child Left Behind to the mix and it's a sure recipe for the proliferation of knuckleheads, who then beget other knuckleheads around the same time their peers are graduating.
The answer is to bring more discipline back into the schools and tell the enabling parents and lawyers to take up a hobby or find more productive ways to spend their time. Our future is serious business and they've trounced on it long enough.
We Californians are sometimes smug about earthquakes. So, when we see the coverage of a 5.8 on the east coast, we may laugh and want to tell those good folk at the various cable stations that their constant coverage seems a little, well, over-done. We eat 5.8s for breakfast. We laugh at anything under 6.
Evacuate the Pentagon? Hell, we wouldn't get out of bed or run to a doorway. "Ride 'm cowboy," is our motto. We are macho men and macha (If this isn't yet a real Spanglish word, it should be!) women. We survived the Northridge Quake at 6.7! (About 9 times larger than today's mini-temblor) Our Northern Cal cousins went through the Loma Prieta Quake in 89 and rocked and rolled at 6.9. This here is quake country. Of course, not everyone survived those two quakes. Ah, yes, memories are short. We are indeed terribly smug.
We are also indeed terribly wrong. We are not prepared for the Big One or even a pretty big one. Yes, our new buildings are designed properly. Many of our older buildings have been retrofitted and have a chance of staying intact. Our freeways, bridges and over-passes? Not so much. Our ability to deliver food and water, never mind electricity and gas? We are not ready.
Few have earthquake kits with supplies of food, clothing, medicines and water that could sustain the household for a week or two. Many more people have firearms to protect themselves from marauders than enough supplies to maraud.
Earthquakes should be no laughing matter. Our east coast friends got off lucky today. The quake was just under the severely damaging level. I hope it will be a wakeup call to them. Remember that just because quakes are rare in that part of the country doesn't mean they don't happen. The New Madrid Quakes of 1811 in Missouri were felt in over a million square miles, while the San Francisco Quake of 1908 was sensed in a little over 16,000 square miles! And just because quakes are common here, doesn't mean we should be blasé. Being prepared is not a bad idea.
©2011 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com
Will Gadhafi, assuming he survives his overthrow,seek refuge in Israel under the law of return? Don't bet on it. He is sincere in his hatred of Jews, of Israel and even of the Berbers. What makes this all the stranger is that two Jewish women of Libyan origin, living in Israel, claim that Gadhafi is legally Jewish--that his grandmother was a Jew who converted to marry her second husband. Therefore, with an ethnically Jewish grandmother, he may qualify to come to Israel.
Now this claim is only anecdotal, but is slightly more credible coming from Jewish/Israeli sources. Still, it is standard operating procedure in the Arab World to accuse anyone whom you don't like of being a secret Jew. In fact, if you read the various really anti-Semitic websites--both Muslim and Fascist--every controversial person is a secret Jew.
It may be an interesting lesson in self-hatred that Gadhafi, who is also partly of ethnic Berber origins, has spent his life hating Berbers and Jews. He tried to rid Libya of the Berber language. He demeaned their music, history and heritage and exalted all things Arab. From the start of his career as the "Brother Leader (c.f. North Korea and Great Leader & Dear Leader) he persecuted the indigenous Jewish population of Libya and expelled all he could find.
This all may be nonsense. There are other birth stories involving a Jewish woman and an Italian military officer. But even as I write this non-story, I can imagine Donald Trump demanding his long-form birth certificate. At bottom, the genes are not the issue. Whether he is crazed by self-hatred or just crazed, his brutal history speaks for itself.
But if he really wants to come to Israel, I say welcome him with a brass band and handcuffs! But if he doesn't survive the revolution, I won't be saying Kaddish for him.
©2011 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com
Scott Wannberg, poet, bookseller, encyclopedic resource and mentor of poets, passed into memory too soon at age 58. Scott was a big man, with Renaissance knowledge of literature, an offbeat sense of humor and an enormous heart. Ironic that it was his heart to gave out. Well, more likely, it wore out.
When Dutton's Bookshop in Brentwood closed, many of us mourned. Dutton's was far more than just a store. It was an institution, a meeting place, a venue where virtually every author (including me) introduced our new books at signings and readings.
Being part of the Dutton kurass (See: Vonnegut), whether as author or customer, you got to know Scott. He was always ready with suggestions and seemed to have read everything. He spoke knowledgably and passionately about books, authors and even a political opinion slipped out once in a while.
He was fun, funny and that rare kind of person whom you looked forward to seeing. Many times I'd come to Dutton's Brentwood, as I had to their Studio City shop, without knowing what I wanted. I always knew that Scott would know exactly what I wanted.
When Dutton's was forced to close, I just assumed that Scott would surface some place near by. But he didn't. He moved north to Oregon. When Dutton's closed I mourned the sad fact of another real bookstore gone. I knew that Brentwood had lost an institution of unique character. Many of us fought the good fight to preserve the character of the neighborhood. Scott was a character in the neighborhood--a genuine character, a man of real and rare character. Lovers of literature, lovers of poetry and lovers of books will miss his wit, his wisdom and his enthusiasm.
©2011 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com
1. Stirring to Consciousness
The Arab Spring evolved into Arab Summer and no Jeffersonian democracies were born. Nor should any have been expected. Heads rolled and two old heads in particular, Zine El Abadine Ben Ali of Tunisia and Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, lost power. The militaries they fronted remained largely in charge, but many have taken heart that at least politics is happening and people are talking to, sometimes yelling at, each other.
As summer fades to fall, we do not want to surrender all hope in our impatience and so rather than calling this The Arab Fall, it is now officially The Arab Awakening. Indeed this is accurate. Arabs all over the Arab World are awakening, looking around at the corrupt governments that have ruled them cruelly and kept them in chains. They are now demanding their rights, that their voices be heard, that their lives and deaths mean something.
Tunisia gave them hope. Egypt confirmed their power to make change against the formerly inevitable. Bahrain and Yemen have broken both bodies and hearts--but not spirits. Libya offers great hope today--but freedom is not assured by simply toppling the old and corrupt. So far Syria offers frustration that Assad is implacable, mendacious and brutal. But it also offers real inspiration in the courage of the people and their longing for, if not democracy as we understand it, but freedom to be a part of their own destinies.
2. Libya: A Tabula Rasa Written in Blood & Hope
Libya and the world will both be a better place without Muommar Gadhafi. Whenever his end comes, and that seems to be sooner rather than later, Libya will have a real opportunity to create a unique state.
Libya's strengths and weaknesses are related. Gadhafi didn't build institutions. He was a destroyer not a builder. There is virtually no political infrastructure, no governmental or bureaucratic cadre and, perhaps most strangely to many, no military establishment. His fear of a coup, such as the one he perpetrated in 1969, made him take the military apart and create what was really a family controlled militia.
Without institutions there could be chaos, and the governance could fall to the strongest. Tribal warfare could break out. Old scores might be violently settled. But there is also a unique opportunity to start virtually from scratch. Tunisia had the advantage of an identity as a nation and not being overly tribal. They had institutions and a military that chose not to fire on their own people. But with Zine gone, the military still governs--or actually still rules.
Egypt had a national identity, despite its diversity of religion (10% Christian) and a lot of ethnic distinctions. Egypt's revolution has done little so far, more than getting rid of the figurehead leader of the military, Mubarak, and replacing him with the collective leadership of the military.
Libya is almost a tabula rasa upon which the Libyans can write there own future. They have tribes and regional loyalties, and they are blessed or cursed with oil and gas, so there will be lots of offers of help, a good amount of graft and corruption, but a chance, a unique chance, to build something special.
Yes, there are troubling warning signs already. One rebel general was assassinated by his own soldiers in a power struggle. And it is not comforting that one of Gadhafi's sons, who was captured, "escaped." The power of tribe and money will be both tempting and corrupting. But even though the Calendar says summer turning to fall, this could be springtime for Libya.
3. Syria: The End May Not Be Near But is Clear
The monster Bashar al-Assad cannot be happy that Gadhafi' murderous reign seems to be coming to an end. While Assad does not have to worry about NATO bombing him, or any other western force interveniing, he does have to worry about the power of the people.
However, it is important to remember that the people now revolting are not his people. He is from a tiny Shiite minority sect called the Aluwites whom many Muslims consider to be heretical. Assad's primary adversaries are the Sunni Arabs, and his allies are the Iranian Shiites. Representing under 10% of Syria's population and despised both for their religious heterodoxy and the Assad family's misrule, Aluwites do not have a bright future in Syria.
The fall of the Gadhafi regime bodes ill for the Aluwites in general and the Assad family in particular. They do have some support from the Christians in Syria as well as some small sects and schisms in Islam. However, this is not true support but only the justifiable fear of what a revanchist Sunni government would do to them.
The west does not have a good card to play in Syria. In Libya both the Arab League and the Gulf League begged the west to intervene and promised support. That support was largely political with just a hint of symbolic military participation. No such political will exists among the Arabs to intervene themselves or have western nations in their heartland. North Africa is not to them the same as the Middle East.
Even if we deluded ourselves into believing we could help (Yes, I know there is more than ample evidence of such delusions) we could land in Damascus and not a have a clue at whom to shoot. We do not even know for whom to root. We hate to see the Sunni demonstrators being slaughtered by the Aluwite military. The Aluwites under Assad are clearly bad guys, but we would not want the Sunnis to slaughter them--or the Druze and Christians. We would not want radical anti-western Salafist Sunnis running Syria any more than Aluwites.
As this murderous standoff continues the great danger is that it will become a proxy war between Saudi/Sunni and Iranian/Shiite interests. This could, of course, grow into a regional conflict--and we still would not know for whom to root, but, I suspect, we'd be happy to sell the Sunnis all the arms we can.
Having now told Bashar al-Assad that we think he should go, we have to know that if he goes, his people will be punished. If he were to go he would be prosecuted by the Hague. His only out, and it is a selfish one, is to take his extended family and flee to Iran. That is his only safe haven, where no one could touch him. He may indeed do this some day, but that day still appears to be relatively far off.
©2011 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com
Florida GOP Congressman Allen West in his trademark shoot from the lip style made brief news recently when he dredged out the worn term" plantationism" to describe the alleged relationship between blacks and Democrats. The slave inference translated into modern day political vernacular is that the Democrats for the past near six decades have promised blacks everything, and delivered almost nothing. Blacks still have the highest failed public schools, unemployment, poverty, and mortality, incarceration rates. Yet despite the alleged failure to deliver on their promises, blacks still slavishly give the Democrats 80 to 90 percent of their vote.
West's "plantationism" broadside against the Democrats was quickly and eagerly picked up by a legion of conservative talk show hosts and bloggers. A few Democrats were rocked back on defense and forced to parry the attack. An arguable case can be made that Democratic presidential candidates in the past two decades have shifted political gears and deliberately downplayed explicit appeals to black voters on expanded civil rights protections, criminal justice reform, ramped up spending on education and jobs programs, and in some cases out GOPed the GOP in rushing to hack away at welfare, income support, and affirmative action programs. Some have pushed tax cuts for the corporate rich, and been hawkish in rubber stamping Bush's costly war ramp up in Iraq and Afghanistan. Former President Bill Clinton's election blueprint virtually directed top Democrats to appeal more to the white middle class with tax cuts and decreased government spending to dispel the notion that the Democrats inherently tilt toward minorities at the expense of whites. President Obama repeatedly gets an earful from the Congressional Black Caucus and other blacks for allegedly not doing enough to explicitly tackle the crisis of jobs and poverty among African-Americans.
This all feeds into West and the GOP's crack about "plantationism." The inference is that it's time for blacks to wise up and cease their knee jerk hostility to the GOP. There was some hope in the run-up to last's November mid-term elections that blacks might get that message. Black Republicans peddled the fantasy that would make history and elect a record number of black Republicans to Congress. More than a dozen black GOP candidates tried. With the exception of West and South Carolina Congressman Tim Scott, they all failed miserably. Scott and West won with white votes, and represent predominantly white districts. They have no political traction among blacks.
The rock solid loyalty of blacks to the Democrats is based on elementary pragmatism. Despite the shots they take at the Democrats for taking them and their vote for granted. Most blacks still look to them to fight the tough battles for health care, greater funding for education and jobs, voting rights protections, affirmative action, and against racial discrimination. Civil rights organizations were the only groups that consistently fought back against Reagan, Bush Sr., and W. Bush's draconian cuts in job, education, social service, funding and programs, their retrograde nominees to the Supreme Court appointments that would roll back the civil rights clock, and their peck away at affirmative action, civil rights and civil liberties protections.
This alone might not be cause enough for blacks en masse to repeatedly give their firm backing to the Democrats, especially when the Democrats compromise, conciliate, and flat out fumble the ball when it comes to caving to the GOP in fighting for increased funding and initiatives that help the urban poor. But the real kicker has been the GOP. West, Scott and black Republicans delude themselves that the GOP is a party that has something to offer blacks and delude themselves further in implying that the party has put out the welcome mat for blacks.
The GOP's long, blatant, and infuriating history of racial exclusion, neglect and race baiting, and polarization is smoking gun proof of that. The endless foot in the mouth, racially insulting gaffes, racially loaded campaign ads by Republican officials and politicians, and the refusal by mainstream GOP leaders to loudly condemn them, ignore, downplay, or worse defend them hasn't helped. The endless racist taunts, mockery, depictions, and ridicule of President Obama has been a textbook example of how a party that claims to want to break the grip that the Democrats have on the black vote does everything to insure that the Democratic grip is even tighter. This further confirms black suspicions that the GOP is chock full of bigots.
Tea Party leaders have done even more to heighten that suspicion. They loudly protest that blacks should not judge them as racists based on the lunacy of a few bigots and race baiters among their ranks. Yet their movement is regarded as the shock troops of the GOP and the fact that with few exceptions Tea Party leaders have not drummed the bigots and race baiters out of the movement speaks for itself.
The GOP presidential contenders and other GOP candidates in 2012 will occasionally try to look and sound like they want to get a few more black votes. But it will take a lot more than slapping at the Democrats with a racially loaded comparison to slavery to convince anyone that they're really going to do anything to get those votes.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He is a weekly co-host of the Al Sharpton Show on American Urban Radio Network. He is an associate editor of New America Media. He is host of the weekly Hutchinson Report Newsmaker Hour on KTYM Radio Los Angeles streamed on ktym.com podcast on blogtalkradio.com and internet TV broadcast on thehutchinsonreportnews.com
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson
Congresswoman Maxine Waters minced no words when she said that members of the Congressional Black Caucus are "frustrated" and impatient that President Obama is not doing enough to tackle the crisis problem of black unemployment. This is hardly the first time that Waters and other members of the Caucus have gently chided Obama on the jobs issue. But this time their criticism has taken on even greater angst, with a tinge of antagonism to boot. The unemployment lines have gotten longer, the time that the unemployed have been unemployed has stretched out from weeks to months with little end in sight, and many major businesses have flatly said they're not hiring. Worst of all, Congress has made it even clearer that it will pinch pennies even tighter, and that means even less likelihood for increased federal spending on job creation initiatives. This drastically narrows the president's options, and even though he'll propose a jobs bill in September, almost certainly it will have little chance of getting around the Scrooge mindset in Congress. And it's equally certain that his proposals will be race neutral and not specifically single out blacks for special spending initiatives and programs. This is in keeping with his firm position that spending more on jobs for all will help blacks, since they are the neediest and the hardest hit among the jobless.
This line won't fly with many in the Congressional Black Caucus and many blacks who demanded that Obama roll his job tour buses and economic forums through the poorest of the poor black neighborhoods in Chicago, Detroit, Atlanta, Los Angeles, and other hard hit inner cities neighborhoods. But there was never much likelihood of that. Obama's eye is firmly set on re-election. And he can't and won't publicly at least depart from the race neutral formula that got him into the White House. He's walking too fine a line to take that chance. Obama operates on the same principle that Democratic presidential candidates and presidents have operated on for the last three decades and that is to avoid like the plague the perception that Democrats inherently tilt toward the poor and minorities, but especially minorities, on policies and initiatives. This political cross weighs even heavier on Obama. He would have had no hope of winning the Democratic presidential nomination, let alone the presidency, if there had been any sense among white independents that he embraced the alleged race-tinged politics of Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson. His campaign would have been marginalized and compartmentalized as merely the politics of racial symbolism.
Polls continually show that he's lost major support among white voters, and the sharpest drop has been among moderate and conservative white independent voters. They provided his margin for victory in 2008. No Democratic President, in this case him, or GOP presidential challenger can win without significant backing from them. The slightest hint that Obama is tilting toward African-American voters with a big, bold and aggressive jobs plan, or other special programs that primarily target blacks would likely blow any chance that he had of winning a significant number of independents back in 2012. It's just too risky.
Even if Obama were willing to take the gloves off and specifically turn part of the battle for increased job spending into a battle explicitly to help the black poor, there would be little political gain. There is absolutely no chance that black voters will desert him in 2012. They are Democrats en masse, and will give any Democratic president, or presidential candidate, a lock down 85 to 90 percent of their vote. The top GOP contenders offer the worst choice of any GOP presidential candidate that has come down the political pike in ages as an alternative to him. Their set in stone, laissez faire business friendly, slash and burn of government services and programs, and silence or outright hostility to expansive civil rights and civil liberties protections, positions has sent massive chill through the black electorate. Their frustration, discontent and grumbles with and about Obama won't move their vote dial even a tiny tick toward a GOP candidate. This would be tantamount to political suicide. This especially includes the Congressional Black Caucus. With one exception, they owe their offices, position, authority, patronage, perks, and total allegiance to the Democratic Party. They will hector Obama to do more on jobs and poverty for blacks. But in 2012 they will be in full throttle on the circuit campaigning for the president. They have no choice. Still, it would have been nice for Obama to direct his bus driver on a detour through a few desperately needy and job starved black neighborhoods.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He is a weekly co-host of the Al Sharpton Show on American Urban Radio Network. He is an associate editor of New America Media. He is host of the weekly Hutchinson Report Newsmaker Hour on KTYM Radio Los Angeles streamed on ktym.com podcast on blogtalkradio.com and internet TV broadcast on thehutchinsonreportnews.com
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson
In addition to our wonderful Daily News and Friendly Fire, I write a column for a great local paper in Fullerton, The Fullerton Observer. This lovely little town is unfortunately in the news all over the country because of the beating death of a homeless man by some police officers. There is a lot of pain, anger and shouting. But can there be some learning and healing? I hope so.
Almost all of our religious traditions teach us that the rescuer, the Messiah, the Mahdi, the Buddha may come in the form of a beggar, a poor person or someone wretched in appearance. Our traditions teach us to give generous respect to the poor and outcasts, to look beyond the rags they wear or the dirt that covers them. Inside may be the one who will make all the difference. Whether you take these nearly universal exhortations literally or not, the lesson is the same: The least amongst us is deserving of some respect and time, our time, to consider him or her as a person with inherent worth and dignity.
However, most of us when we walk past a homeless person don't actually see a person. We see a problem. Most of us when we see a problem we don't think we can solve we avert our eyes, refuse to engage our hearts and just move on--both physically and spiritually. Most of us feel uncomfortable around the homeless and the mentally ill. These are not identical categories, but we conflate them. We don't like their looks, their smells and their eyes. We fear, I think, we might see ourselves if we looked too deeply. We might feel our own fiscal and emotional vulnerability, and so it seems better to move on.
Some of us see the homeless at the shelter, our Fullerton Armory. Most of us see them on the streets, and what do we do? Some of us donate clothes or food, some serve food, some drop some spare change, but then we leave these people, these problem people, on the streets.
We make assumptions about them because they're on the street and often dirty, sometimes drunk or high and disoriented. We may also assume that they are dangerous. Homeless equals mad and mad equals violent. Right? Well, no, but it is all too often our assumption.
Some are violent. Some do pose dangers to society in general and us in particular. But not all, not even most. We profile and stereotype. We don't see the person.
So, why should we be surprised when the police, also made up of human beings, make the kinds of assumptions we do? Why would we be surprised when the police, who, unlike us civilians, are charged with keeping order, react when their command authority is not processed and obeyed in the way they expect from normal people? Well, we expect the police, rightfully, to act in a more professional and controlled manner than we ourselves. We hold them to a higher standard. When some police misbehave, go over the top and act, not simply unprofessionally but brutally, we have the right to demand accountability.
What we don't have is the right to do what we accuse them of doing. The police, just like the homeless, are mostly good and want to live decent, peaceful lives and be of service to the community. And like the homeless some are violent--some, not most. When we see a uniform and we stereotype the person, we do with them what we do with the homeless and that is not look deeply enough into the eyes of a unique human being--an individual. We see a bum on the streets or a pig on patrol. These are equally unfair dehumanizing characterizations.
The Messiah or the Prophet may come in rags or a uniform, the Imam may be hidden in a disguise, neither the Sadhu nor the Buddha will look neat. Our common challenge is to look deeper than the disguises of uniform, power or class and see the humanity in all of us. We must judge by actions; people must be accountable for their actions--but not their circumstances.
©2011 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com
Rick Perry immediately becomes the front-runner. In theory he brings the Tea Party vote. In theory he also brings the center and appeals to many independents. Going both for him and against him is that he is another western Texan governor with swagger, drawl and plainspoken manner. Some love the style and some are still traumatized by W's swagger and moral certainty.
Most in his favor are the facts that he has executive experience as governor and he is not Mitt Romney. The conservatives and Evangelicals do not either like or trust Romney. Business interests can support him because he is one of them, but they too would be happy with an electable alternative. Up until this weekend, that was Romney. The Establishment could live with him, but the conservatives might sit on their hands (and checkbooks) or even run a Tea Party candidate against him.
But now, riding out of the west is a true man on a horse--a man with moral clarity, a man who is not afraid to run as a divider and not a uniter. In Rick Perry we have that rarest of all candidates who is not afraid to be controversial and to say impolitic things and mean them--and not walk back from them.
Who but Perry would produce an Evangelical event that was labeled "For Christians only"? Anyone else would have at least given it cover of a larger tent and pretended to reflect the broad spectrum of American belief. Not our Rick. Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus and Humanists, please stay away. You got to appreciate his moxie.
Who but Perry would talk openly about Texas' right to secede from the union--shortly before running to be the head of said union? It takes guts. And it also takes some considerable lack of understanding of the facts. Texas was not given the right to withdraw from the union--only the right to break up into 5 separate states. This would not actually be a stupid idea--only a bad one for the rest of us, since Texas would go from two senators to ten.
Who but Perry in his first week of his first national campaign would implicitly threaten violence to the head of the Federal Reserve (or any other official of our government)? Yesterday, in his second full day as candidate, he warned that Fed Chair Paul Bernanke better not come to Texas. He said if the Fed printed more money it would be treasonous and remarked, "I don't know what you'd do to him in Iowa be we would treat him pretty ugly in Texas." More moxie! Threatening violence towards a Federal official takes Texas size cojones and Perry's got em and not afraid to show them.
He's to be commended for his candor and condemned for his narrowness and thuggish manner. So if the Republicans nominate him, they will know what they're getting. And if we elect him, we will get what we disserve. He has not yet developed the safe shell of a professionally shaped candidate. Rough and raw is what we see and ultimately what we would get.
©2011 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com
If Michele Bachman becomes president, I'm going to handcuff myself to a Fox News cam. And I am a Republican, too, but not a crazy, Bible toting, gun-slinging one. I am a normal one, the kind that wants to see lawns trimmed, street art gone, people here legally, the drainpipe fixed and the Pledge of Allegiance restored.
That is why I am not exactly for Ron Paul and not at all for Michele Bachmann. I couldn't handle the tumult, though her comment about John Wayne Gacy was pretty funny when she confused their birthplaces.
Perusing their websites, one can see that many of their policies are nearly identical. Both oppose abortion, both go for drilling for oil on our shores instead of making people rich overseas and both want to limit government spending.
But some of these are things up with which we should not put, even if the Republicans aren't afraid of Ron Paul because they don't plan on nominating him. Therefore, here is my mix of an ideal person to run this country be it man, woman or something in between.
One, this person should look presentable; therefore no goatees, be it a man or a woman, or tattoos. They are fine for truck drivers or for the stage, but that's about it. Nice haircuts, a minimum of Botox, knee length dresses (for the women only) and nicely pressed shirts would be just fine. (No polyester, American-grown fibers, on principle alone.)
Second, this person would need to have the following views:
Abortion. I know that life is precious, especially when it is my own hide, but I don't agree that every fricken life is precious but think that some people are pretty good arguments for birth control. Idi Amin is one, Osama bin Laden is another, but Hitler takes the cake.
Also, asking some people to keep children that they have no intention of raising isn't fair to the child, unless those who are so opposed to abortion would like to raise them, feed and clothe them and send the little buggers to school.
Energy. Oil is fine as little fossils, but it has also gotten us into trouble above ground, so the less of it the better. Ron Paul is right on giving tax breaks to those who use alternate energy sources, and he gets points in my book for that. I don't think that Michele Bachman has thought far enough ahead about it, at least not according to her website.
Jobs: Both are opposed to unions because the organizations raked in a hefty 8-billion dollars a year. As a former union member myself, I have seen the good and the not-so-good that they can do, so my position would be to go after the union dues and make joining optional rather than mandatory and hope that no potential member winds up wearing cement boots for politely declining an invite.
Both want to create jobs like any good candidate. Bachmann thinks that lowering business taxes would create more jobs, but methinks that giving breaks to companies that create jobs is the best way to go.
Immigration: Hallelujah to Ron Paul for wanting to tweak the Fourteenth Amendment, which in so many words, says that those of reproductive age (or older than twelve) who are here illegally start popping out kids in this country, then those kids shouldn't become citizens automatically. I don't know what they should be, but it makes sense to me.
Bachmann agrees, but she doesn't go into much detail, so maybe she is just being secretive.
One area where Ron Paul hits the booby mine is in his foreign policy, meaning that he doesn't have one. He thinks that Iran should have nuclear weapons and that other countries should duke it out.
To which Michele Bachman would crook a brow and say "Whaaaat?"
The best approach would be to fuse parts of them together with some Ralph Nader, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln thrown in.
Texas governor and reported GOP presidential candidate Rick Perry is the nation's greatest political con artist. His so called Texas Miracle has been totally debunked as a fraud. Yet, Perry with generous help from conservative business leaders, tea party acolytes, and suddenly revved up evangelicals will keep the con very much alive. The so-called miracle that Perry and his backers peddle is of course that Texas is the runaway national model for how to create lots of private sector jobs, with minimal government red tape, and with a pittance of taxes. It's the state where the good times are supposedly rolling for everyone, while the bad times are piling up for everyone in every other state.
Debunking Perry's con is easy. The Bureau of Labor and Statistics found that Texas' jobless rate has steadily crept up in recent months not plunged to zero as Perry would have the nation believe. Unemployment was over 8 percent in June. New York, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Wisconsin, and a slew of other states beat Texas on the employment numbers. And New York and several other states that outshined Texas did it without gutting environmental and labor regulations, slashing taxes, and with bare boned spending on education, housing, unemployment benefits and health services, as in Texas.
Even the 8 percent plus figure on Teas unemployment, though below the national jobless figure, is horribly misleading. In the state's big cities, such as Houston, the jobless rate matches the national figure, and in rural, impoverished areas, the jobless rate soars to double digit figures. This means only one thing. More and more people in the state have sunk into or never risen out of poverty. The quality of life indexes on Texas amply confirm that. And an increase in the number of poor people invariably translate out to more children in poverty, greater income disparities, a dearth in quality prenatal care, and higher teen birth rates. Texas ranks in the bottom ten in every one of these areas and is a rock bottom number 50 among the nation's 50 states in the number who graduate from high school by age 25.
Then there are the types of jobs that have been created. Perry has little to say about them. And there's a good reason. Nearly forty percent of them are bottom rung, minimum wage retail and service industry jobs. This high figure makes Texas, along with Mississippi, one of the two hands down state leaders in the number of minimum wage workers. There's a good reason for that too. Texas, like most Southern and Southwest states, is a rock solid right to work state. Unions are treated as virtual pariahs by Perry and GOP state officials. The result is minimal to nonexistent labor protections, and pension benefits. The same holds for health care. Texas is again the national leader in having the highest number of residents without health insurance. Only slightly more than half of the state's construction workers that are exposed to the industry's high hazards and incur the highest rate of injuries and fatalities, is covered by workers compensation.
There's virtually no chance any of this will change soon, and the reasons again aren't hard to find. The state makes bare minimum investment in graduate and higher education for professional and job skills training. The state is in the bottom tier in the percentage of jobs that require a college education or degree. Yet, the state official's penny pinching on education, health care, and professional job investment hasn't made for a bulging state treasury. The legislature had to scramble to close a $4 billion deficit in the current year's budget. Texas officials did the one thing that officials everywhere are adept at doing when faced with budget deficits. They make even more slash and burn cuts in the favorite targets, education and health care, always at the expense of the poorest and neediest, and continue their all out assault on state workers. Here is one glaring example. State officials axed funding for pre-kindergarten programs that served about 100,000 low income children.
The biggest reason, though, there being little likelihood of change is who runs the state. Democrats hold majorities in a few Texas big cities, but they are an endangered species in Texas state government. The executive is run by Perry, and the state legislature is under lock down GOP control. In the 2010 elections the GOP took a supermajority in the state's house and even managed to capture two Hispanic-Majority seats in south Texas.
Labor hostility, laissez faire tax and business friendliness, and the scoff at regulations, are virtually the sacrosanct Holy Grail in the state legislature and Perry's state house. Perry genuflects before the Grail deeper than nearly all the current crop of GOP presidential candidates. Now that he's in the presidential race, he'll take his Texas miracle con job to the nation. The terrifying prospect is more than a few just might buy it.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He is a weekly co-host of the Al Sharpton Show on American Urban Radio Network. He is an associate editor of New America Media. He is host of the weekly Hutchinson Report Newsmaker Hour on KTYM Radio Los Angeles streamed on ktym.com podcast on blogtalkradio.com and internet TV broadcast on thehutchinsonreportnews.com
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson
This has become a virtual ritual. Just about every month, or more like after each new fresh crisis that President Obama has to ward off, the chant begins "Run Hillary Run." The chant goes up because so the argument goes, Obama is too weak, vacillating, and conciliatory to the GOP. He broke every campaign pledge that he made on everything from a swift Iraq war withdrawal to caving into to Wall Street, the banks, and major corporations. He's bungled the economy. His approval ratings totter near the danger zone for presidents in their reelection bid.
Clinton supposedly is tougher, more politically savvy, and will go toe to toe with the GOP in fighting for Democratic Party ideals. Hillary was the more popular Democrat of presidential choice during the Democratic primary slugfest with Obama in 2008 with moderate and conservative independents, blue collar whites, and women. And that if she hadn't run out of money and organization she would have entered and won more primary states than Obama, it would have been enough to make her not Obama the Democratic presidential nominee. The spate of editorial and articles, not to mention grumbles and rumbles from within and without the Democratic Party supposedly confirm the widespread disgust with Obama and the fervent belief that Hillary is the party and the nation's savior.
This is nothing but fanciful, desperate, and even delusionary prattle. Hillary will not challenge Obama in a Democratic primary. And not just because she's part of Obama's administration team. She is the consummate Democratic Party loyalist. She will do whatever it takes to keep Democrats in all offices, and that most importantly, means the presidency. She will be a fixture on the campaign trail in 2012 for Obama, and she'll deliver impassioned appeals for his reelection, and loudly warn of the mortal danger of an Obama defeat for the country.
The pining for Hillary to displace Obama ignores another hard political reality. Hillary holds no political office. When she did hold one, there was no tea party that had an iron-clad lock on the House, fashioned a hard line, take no prisoners, political agenda based on pure ideology, and made compromise and conciliation, dirty words. There was no tea party then that has declared virtual civil war on not just Obama, but liberal and moderate Democrats. The tea party and the GOP's goal are not solely to drive Obama from office. They would waged the same war against Hillary had she won the presidency with the same down and dirty vehemence that they have waged it against Obama. The only thing different about Obama from Hillary is that he's African-American and that has opened the racial floodgate to hector, harass, and demean him. The GOP war is about regaining power, control, political dominance, protecting its corporate and financial interests, its strict construction definition and enforcement of the laws, and more broadly the imposing its philosophical view of how government should be run. The presidency is the grand prize that pulls the political, economic and philosophical threads on how government and power will be exercised together for the GOP.
The tea party's relentless rage and hounding of Obama is not fueled by insecurity over bloated government spending, failed wars, or that the government is in hopeless hock to the Chinese, Japanese and Europeans. It's fueled by race and shrewd media and political manipulation. America has been in the era of economic uncertainty, foreign competition, and military shrinkage, for the past two decades. If America's domestic and foreign slide alone was a reason to scream for Hillary to oust Obama the scream for an alternative should have been made in 2004 to W. Bush.
There were, of course, no loud cries, endless polls, and legions of pundits hinting or outright calling for Bush to step down. And that if he did, it would somehow reverse America's slide, or at least let him off the hook for it. That's what the Hillary clamor to confront Obama suggests.
The notion that Obama can lose, or even will lose, his bid for reelection defies presidential political history. A majority in a Gallup poll in 1982 fed the rampant talk that Reagan should not run for re-election because of political failures and public disgust. His approval numbers were in the tank. The majority in the poll said Reagan was damaged political goods because of high unemployment, double digit inflation, and even his alleged inexperience in dealing with these problems. Reagan, of course, won a smash reelection victory in 1984. Sitting presidents from Truman to Clinton have all heard the dreaded three words, "one-term president" said about them after popularity plunges, legislative reversals, or midterm party losses.
With three exceptions, Bush Sr., Carter, and Ford, all sitting presidents have won reelection. They won without facing any challenges from someone in their party, and with no clamor for anyone within their party to challenge them. It should be the same with Obama. In other words, knock off the run Hillary run chatter.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He is a weekly co-host of the Al Sharpton Show on American Urban Radio Network. He is an associate editor of New America Media. He is host of the weekly Hutchinson Report Newsmaker Hour on KTYM Radio Los Angeles streamed on ktym.com podcast on blogtalkradio.com and internet TV broadcast on thehutchinsonreportnews.com
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson
The disenfranchised and down and out may number in the millions, but they aren't rioting in the streets of London, or anywhere else for that matter. They're out rolling up their sleeves and working for what they want, because we've all been down and out at some point, and we've all had to roll up our sleeves.
Ah, but this is the new generation of the entitled, the ones who haven't seen war or had to quit school and go to work to support their families. They are the ones who were told they were brilliant for being able to eke out their names and the alphabet at age thirteen and whose garbled squawking passes for singing.
This does not an upstanding citizen make and so we have the riots in London led by the disenfranchised with Blackberries and free tweets.
Perhaps they are not totally at fault because we raised them in a world that quickly excuses most criminal acts by bandying about catch phrases about abuse and post traumatic stress disorder, as if they don't have any free will and aren't supposed to know right from wrong. And if society isn't quick enough to forgive them, then they are quick enough to forgive themselves.
"This is the uprising of the middle class. We're redistributing the wealth," said 28 year-old Bryan Phillips, a self-described anarchist, as looters left stores with candy bars and other sundries.
Of course he's going to stop for a sound byte or two because the police haven't stopped them either or used one canister or tear gas or any water cannons because it may result in a lawsuit and or may hurt their feelings.
If this doesn't make for a case for the military, I don't know what does. We should ship the ne'er do-wells off, both here and abroad, to fight in a war in Iraq or somewhere else. Never mind. The ACLU and their counterparts would step in and defend their rights and artistic, sensitive natures, and that would be the end of that.
If this Great Recession becomes a true depression, if we continue to cut services and shred social safety-nets, if people continue to see the rich getting richer while the poor and the middle class sink, our society will get uglier and more violent. We the People have some internal sense of fairness and whether or not most folks can put it into words, they know that the social contract binds two parties. If those with money and power want those beneath them--about 98% of us--to behave, they too must play a constructive part in our lives.
Laying off teachers, police, firefighters, cutting social services, education and welfare will lead us all down a path to destruction. We have only to look east to England to see what happens to the social compact when the people feel cheated. Yes, the ostensible reason for the riots is the killing of a man by the police. And yes, most of the rioters are no more interested in his death than the average looter cared about Rodney King. But what our riots and theirs share is rage and a sense of being ignored at best, persecuted at worst and certainly abandoned by the rich and powerful.
This is not just a phenomenon of the poor or ethnic minorities. Look at the populism expressed by the Tea Party. Look at the history of populism in the United States and you'll see it isn't really about right or left but the sense that the ordinary citizen is being wronged. Populism is the idea--pretty well accepted from the lowest socio-economic group to what once was the comfortable middle class--that the government is not working in our interests and big money runs the government in their own interests. This view clearly has the potential to reach across our traditional political lines and unite us in our grievances and sense of alienation.
During our Great Depression the unemployed stood quietly in breadlines and at soup kitchens. Sure there was some political action and revolutionary rhetoric coming from the old Communist left and the growing Fascist right, but a revolution was averted, and violence from the people was held to a minimum. Most violence back then came from both big business and government--with anti-union goons breaking up demonstrations and American soldiers used to charge on horseback and with bayonets fixed into American veterans during the Bonus Marches when they demanded what had been promised them.
Do not expect our all too well armed and angry citizens to show the passivity, dignity and restraint of our grandparents. We are a different people, a different society. We are restless, impatient and far more violent--and this is true from left to right from middle class to poor.
We would do well to look at England today and the results of cutting police by 20% and withdrawing social services. We see anger, frustration and alienation. And while the riots started with an ethnic flavor, today they express something deeper and more universal. England has literally been penny-wise and pound-foolish. They have used austerity to dis-employ people while also reducing aid to education and services. Their economic recovery has stalled, unemployment is growing and their social contract is fraying.
Will we learn from their mistakes or continue cutting jobs and services to balance our budgets? If we don't learn, we will spend our money on police, National Guard and fire services as we try to maintain order in rusting cities and control angry folks who have lost jobs, lost homes and lost hope.
©2011 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com
Ralph Nader is a predictable as the sun rising in the Sahara in July. He wasted no time in jumping all over President Obama following the debt ceiling deal. He made his by now standard plea for someone to challenge Obama in a Democratic primary campaign or better still from his view a third party challenge to Obama. Nader promised with smug assuredness that the chances of such a challenge are near "100 percent." Nader, as in the past, when he begged for an Obama challenger quickly added that the pined for challenger wouldn't be him. That's charitable. It couldn't be him. He's not that delusionary. He's had his moments in the political sun, and the combination of age (he's 77), the still heavy historical cross he'll always bear as the "spoiler" who tipped the election to George W. Bush in 2000, and his virtual disappearance from the media scene except for the occasional outbursts at Obama, make him a political anachronism, and to most, a pariah.
There will be no challenge to Obama in the Democratic primary. There's not even much assurance that there will be a third party ticket of any note from the left. States have made it even more difficult for third parties to get on ballots. The crushing requirements of exorbitant ballot fees, a massive numbers of signatures required, and astronomical costs of running even a local office campaign, and the total media blackout for any third party candidate for any office have made third parties virtual museum pieces. No Democratic ex-senator or ex-governor as Nader claims will toss his or her name into the challenge column for several compelling reasons. Many still harbor political aspirations and an intra-party challenge would be a virtual kiss of death for their getting future Democratic Party political patronage, favors, positions, contracts, and other perks that party affiliation and loyalty rigidly demand. All Democrats still have the horrific memory of Ronald Reagan's challenge to President Gerald Ford in 1976, and Senator Ted Kennedy's challenge to President Jimmy Carter in 1980 Their challenges weakened both presidents, divided the party, and ultimately helped make possible Carter's win over Ford, and Reagan's win over Carter. Many Democrats still have nightmarish memories of Nader too. Though there's still much debate over how much Nader actually did contribute to Bush's win, the undeniable fact is that when Nader ran in 2000 he had vast name recognition, respect and admiration from a wide body of independent, liberal Democrats, and progressives, and he had by third party standards a virtual king's ransom to run a vigorous multi-state national campaign. He may not have helped elect Bush. But the certainty is that he didn't help Gore.
This just pecks around the edges at why there will be no third party or Democratic primary challenge to Obama. The political danger is just too great. Gore and Bush were not sitting presidents. Neither faced a financially well-oiled, organized, relentless, foe hell bent on running either one of them out of political life. Obama is a sitting president facing that kind of foe. And neither Gore or Bush had the burden of having to spend every waking and sleeping moment being blamed for the economic woes of the country, with the absolute knowledge that history has shown presidencies rise and fall on one thing, and one thing only, the reality and perception among voters that the economy is either hopelessly sick or comfortably well-off. Challengers don't get blamed for the real or imagined shortcomings of an incumbent president in dealing with the economy; the incumbent president does. This burden on an incumbent president is terrible, unfair, but real, and that's what Obama must contend with. With an approval rating barring any spectacular uptick in the economy that is likely next year to still be razor thin between what's needed to eke out a victory or tottering perilously close to a defeat, he will have virtually no margin for error to ward off the distraction of a spirited challenge from inside the Democratic party. This would be manna from Heaven for the GOP. And every Democrat party leader, official, or name figure member knows that.
Nader then is just blowing smoke when he claims that Obama will be challenged by some unnamed intra-party opponent. But then again Nader can always be depended on to take a swipe at Obama when there's a touchy issue on the nation's political table that puts Obama on the spot. He gets some press ink attention because there are many who still like and admire him, and even more like his anti-corporate, tweaking of the two parties. They fervently believe there is no substantive difference between the Democrats and Republicans. They don't see Obama as a real change guy but rather another deal making Beltway insider who has betrayed his hope and change promise.
That's just enough to make Nader's fantasy about a possible Democratic primary challenge to Obama media quotable. The GOP for its part though would love nothing better than for Nader's fantasy be more than quotable but a reality.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He is a weekly co-host of the Al Sharpton Show on American Urban Radio Network. He is an associate editor of New America Media. He is host of the weekly Hutchinson Report Newsmaker Hour on KTYM Radio Los Angeles streamed on ktym.com podcast on blogtalkradio.com and internet TV broadcast on thehutchinsonreportnews.com
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson
![images[9].jpg](http://www.insidesocal.com/friendlyfire/images%5B9%5D.jpg)
John F. Kennedy and the social-service sector that family must be rolling over in their graves over the sham the UN has become. Rather than being an acronym for the United Nations, it must mean something else in code like United Nuts or Under Knuckleheads. (I know that that is a "K," but it is the sound we are after, but please allow me some literary license here.)
Take the famine that in Somalia caused by a drought. There is plenty of food in the world to feed everyone and farmers have had to throw food away, but it is the governments in places like these that allow their citizens to starve.
In this case, it is the al Queda-backed Muslims in the country are preventing aid from filtering in after people have walked from the drought-ridden southern part of the country in search of food or even gruel. 29,000 children under the age of five have died from disease and starvation during the last three months and most families have had to bury a loved one along the way.
But Friday's shipment of 290 tons of food never reached them after attempts to distribute the shipment broke out in chaos when government soldiers who were stealing the food shot at the crowd that descended upon them.
In parts of the world where people work together, this wouldn't happen, but much of Africa is marked by unrest, opportunistic dictators and violence.
Deploying aid to the region is risky. During a similar situation in 1992, US servicemen on a multi-national mission were deployed to the area, but their Black Hawk helicopter was gunned down and 18 servicemen were killed the following year. Still, the few sane members of the UN need to rouse and use diplomacy and/or a peacekeeping force to use diplomacy to deal with the extremists.
The diving Dow is certainly bad news for some, but could be good news for America and our famous debt and deficit. Certainly those people who either have to sell in order to generate cash or the amateurs who are always the last in at the top and first out in panic are getting hurt very badly. For those who don't have sell, this is a non-event.
Let me explain: As with stocks, if I buy a house for 100k and after a decade it gets assessed at 1.5 million, if I don't sell, I haven't made 1.4 million. Nor if the assessed value then goes down to 1 million, have I lost half a million. This is the Tao of the Dow.
But of course, it isn't just the desperate and amateurs who are selling. So why is so much money seemingly fleeing, but actually just leaving, the market? Why are mutual funds and institutional investors taking some of the money they control out, and where is it going?
There are two answers, and they are related. One reason is the real crisis in the Euro Zone. The global economy is very fragile and the second bailout of Greece is unlikely to work. Worse still, both Italy and Spain are teetering. It is not at all clear that the healthier countries, e.g. Germany, will be either willing or actually able to save them and hence save the Euro. European and American investors understand that when Europe gets sick--and Japan is already very sick--the rest of the world, including us, is vulnerable to the contagion.
The second reason for selling out of the market is a good sign. The money coming out of the market is not being hidden in mattresses all over the world. Nor are all the American businesses that are sitting on trillions of dollars in cash, sitting on actual cash. Much of the money coming out of the market and being squirreled away by corporations is being kept in American Treasury Bonds.
Yes, our deficit ceiling controversy was about our commitment to pay the interest on the bonds we sold. We are triple A because we pay and can be counted on to pay. When that commitment came under question it created a disincentive to buying more bonds--traditionally the safest place to park money.
We are so secure an investment that we pay about 0 % on bonds from 3 months to a year! Two year to thirty year paper goes from 1/3rd of 1% all the way 4.3%. Why not buy a Greek bond? It promises over 15% annual yield. The question answers itself. Risk! We are still a good, if low-yielding, risk.
This is why China buys American. I know most of the media says that China is our biggest holder of debt. It's not really true. They are the largest national holder/buyer of our treasury bonds. The majority of our bonds belong to American citizens--I'm still holding some of the Series E Bonds I got for my Bar Mitzvah! Most of our bonds are held by corporations and investment funds.
Now that our bonds are looking secure again, and with the global economy looking shaky, money is migrating to our bonds. We are still a safe place to park money. The volatility of the Dow is a function of fear. The money being lost is from the individuals who sell. It is not being lost from the economy, but only moved into our treasuries. The buying of our debt, in the form of bonds, is good news for America.
©2011Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com
(Aug 3, 2011) L.A. Times' front-page photograph, by Barbara Davidson, is a stunning, heart-rending work of pure art.
A Somalian mother in a Kenyan camp holds her small child and looks at him with such pity, fear and fragile hope. This is Michelangelo's Pieta in our time. This is an archetype and leaps from the page to our hearts.
The previous day's New York Times gave us a shocking picture of a starving child. It conveyed pity without hope. Both pictures create emotions but the NYTimes shocks and makes one want to avert the eyes, while the no less tragic LATimes picture, with its classical composition, draws us in--in to the picture and in to the harsh reality.
It gives us a reason to go beyond feeling and act, extend our hands along with our hearts and give flesh to our compassion.
LATimes pulled the link to the pic.
See small version on LA Observed:
http://www.laobserved.com/archive/2011/08/catching_up_media_notes.php
If I were a cartoonist, I would draw a rendering of the tea partiers, grinning, looking down and shooting themselves in the foot. And it would be a beautiful drawing, too by a possible soon-to-be ex-Republican.
Like many political analysts said, they passed legislation that they couldn't have ordinarily passed, and they held this country hostage while doing so. Why they are patting themselves on the back is anyone's guess, though it must be part of their affliction. One GOP email asked me for a donation to get America back on track, as if a party of mlillionaires needs my twenty-five or fifty dollars. Then, I received another from Reince Priebus, the Chairman of the Republican National Committee, thanking me for being a patriot and containing phrases like "Make no mistake. President Obama wanted hardworking American taxpayers to bail him out once again." Silly me. I thought that he wanted to raise taxes on the rich to help balance the budget. But Priebus skipped over that, so he must be as out to lunch as some of the Tea Party patriots in Washington.
Some pundits have predicted a Republican sweep come the next election. I would be surprised if there were only enough Republican voters to fill a boardroom after this. As for me, I'm thinking of ordering one of their membership cards so I can tear it up and mail it back to them. Then, I'm thinking of becoming a libertarian.
Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid on the chopping block. No extension of unemployment insurance benefits. No tax loopholes closed. No new tax and funding revenue hikes approved. No guarantee that any substantial military spending will be cut. A so-called super-committee that can virtually unilaterally chop off billions more in spending from vital education, health, transportation, and infrastructure development programs. No plan or program to create jobs. And worst of all the real possibility within a few months Congress and the White House may be forced to lock arms in another round of fiscal sumo wrestling.
The manufacture of a phony fiscal crisis, the gut of federal spending and by extension the government, the mocking of the political process to engage in this financial charade, was the fine handiwork of the Tea Party; a party that played the nation, the White House, Congress, and the media like a finely tuned Stradivarius. The Tea party marvelously hijacked the political process with one goal in mind, a goal that it never bothered to hide. and that's to hector, harass, embarrass, and ultimately insure that President Obama is a one term president.
Yet despite the Tea Party's triumph some are foolishly crowing that this marks the demise of the Tea Party! That's the kind of demise that established political parties would salivate over. No, far from writing the epitaph for the Tea Party, that epitaph would be better written for the White House, and Congress and a nation that now will be forced to look over its shoulder in stark terror at every overblown. clownish, and destructive scheme that the Tea Party decides to dump on the nation's plate. And make no mistake; there are more, many more of those schemes to come.
The power of the Tea Party movement reached its peak this week and now is doomed to diminish into practical irrelevancy. Certainly, it will be credited or blamed for changing both the conversation and the tone. It was a powerful screaming voice but now it's all over except for more shouting.
Yes, I know this is a contrarian view. Most pundits are seeing them as a growing force--or perhaps a growing farce. Still, like Ross Perot who changed the agenda but faded, so too will the Tea Party movement--and for many of the same reasons.
In most pursuits integrity is a virtue. Politics is different and, for better or worse, integrity is a mixed blessing. I respect the True Believers who are willing to risk all for their beliefs and never compromise their principles. But they cannot govern as a loose association of grievances and negativity.
The moneyed backers of the Tea Party and other loud Astroturf associations meant to drive liberals crazy and frighten moderate Republicans, succeeded beyond anyone's expectations. But in their success they sewed the seeds of their destruction. Big money thought that they were financing what Lenin called "useful idiots." Well, maybe. But these people are for real. They are sincere and they will not be moved.
They will not be moved by reason, by practicality or by official leadership. They have in their convictions driven us to the edge of an abyss, an abyss that big money does not want to be pushed into. The Tea Party people may be committed to principles, but the money people are committed to making money. Crashing the world's economy is not on their to-do list. To mix a metaphor: The Tea Party drank the Kool-Aid and now the establishment types know the dangers and will withdraw support.
The money people from both Main Street and Wall Street know that to beat Obama (which they very much want to do) a Tea Party candidate is likely to be a loser and that if Romney is nominated (who is acceptable) the True Believers will run a separate candidate who will doom Romney--as Perot did to Bush and Nader did to Gore.
So, Tea Party folks, the Republican Establishment says to you: Thanks and so long. Your romance, in the words to the song, "Was too hot not to cool down." You were useful, and we appreciate all you have done but now it's over.
©2011 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com
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