The Fourth Estate's Drop In Property Value

The MSM (“mainstream media”) has--again!--bitten the bullet, and become an uncritical, non-objective part of the problem and a pawn of the fear-mongering Right Wing--rather than “The Fourth Estate” that is supposed to be charged with personifying and protecting the interests of the ordinary, average American citizen. Rush Limbaugh and a few loud Republicans take 1 sentence from one of Judge Sonia Sotomayor's legal talks…and conflate that into being indicative of “judicial activism” and “racism.” I was familiar with her broader speech, and couldn’t wait to see liberal political pundits, legal ethicists, constitutional experts, and MSM politicos from the "Sunday Talk Show Circuit" take that wrong-headed mis-characterization to task. And so I waited and heard {gasp!} nothing. It then hit me that news organizations stopped being both "independent" and "news-oriented" a long time ago. They are entertainment organizations, in which that 1-sentence sound byte--and the metaphorical liberal/conservative “steel cage match”--is leveraged to increase profit and advertising revenue, while the search for truth becomes immaterial. I have copied the section below from the speech to give the reader a richer context. Judge Sotomayor was speaking about race and sex discrimination cases. She said that she was “hopeful” that a minority woman (Latina Woman)--with the experiences of being discriminated against--would be equipped to come to a “better conclusion” than a white man (of privilege) that doesn’t have that historical and personal experiences to draw upon in making high-minded, legal determinations of racial- and gender-based equity and justice.

Now...what's so controversial about that?

Shame! Shame!


Left Angst
Political Media Assassin


For the full text of her speech--in its fullest context--please access:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/15/us/politics/15judge.text.html?_r=2

--------------------------------------------------
The Judicature Journal has at least two excellent studies on how women on the courts of appeal and state supreme courts have tended to vote more often than their male counterpart to uphold women's claims in sex discrimination cases and criminal defendants' claims in search and seizure cases. As recognized by legal scholars, whatever the reason, not one woman or person of color in any one position but as a group we will have an effect on the development of the law and on judging.

In our private conversations, Judge Cedarbaum has pointed out to me that seminal decisions in race and sex discrimination cases have come from Supreme Courts composed exclusively of white males. I agree that this is significant but I also choose to emphasize that the people who argued those cases before the Supreme Court which changed the legal landscape ultimately were largely people of color and women. I recall that Justice Thurgood Marshall, Judge Connie Baker Motley, the first black woman appointed to the federal bench, and others of the NAACP argued Brown v. Board of Education. Similarly, Justice Ginsburg, with other women attorneys, was instrumental in advocating and convincing the Court that equality of work required equality in terms and conditions of employment.

Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, a possibility I abhor less or discount less than my colleague Judge Cedarbaum, our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging. Justice O'Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases. I am not so sure Justice O'Connor is the author of that line since Professor Resnik attributes that line to Supreme Court Justice Coyle. I am also not so sure that I agree with the statement. First, as Professor Martha Minnow has noted, there can never be a universal definition of wise. Second, I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life.

Let us not forget that wise men like Oliver Wendell Holmes and Justice Cardozo voted on cases which upheld both sex and race discrimination in our society. Until 1972, no Supreme Court case ever upheld the claim of a woman in a gender discrimination case. I, like Professor Carter, believe that we should not be so myopic as to believe that others of different experiences or backgrounds are incapable of understanding the values and needs of people from a different group. Many are so capable. As Judge Cedarbaum pointed out to me, nine white men on the Supreme Court in the past have done so on many occasions and on many issues including Brown.
However, to understand takes time and effort, something that not all people are willing to give. For others, their experiences limit their ability to understand the experiences of others. Other simply do not care. Hence, one must accept the proposition that a difference there will be by the presence of women and people of color on the bench. Personal experiences affect the facts that judges choose to see. My hope is that I will take the good from my experiences and extrapolate them further into areas with which I am unfamiliar. I simply do not know exactly what that difference will be in my judging. But I accept there will be some based on my gender and my Latina heritage.

# # #

“Quis custōdiet ipsōs custōdes?”

This (below) is why ordinary citizens and a responsible media (not the MSM (“mainstream media”) that has woefully dishonored their commitment on our behalf) have to continue to put our eyes—rather than blinders (see Bush/Neo-Con era of “misinformation” and “disinformation”)—on the actions of the USG and authoritative officials at the top. This is also why, though many of us support President Obama and want him to succeed, we have to continue to be relentless in challenging him and forcing him to exhibit political courage (Mr. President, please do not choose politics over substantive policy issues) when confronting a USG’s acts, policies, and culture that is unbecoming, immoral, and illegal. This (national security) is not a zero-sum game in which the USG can arbitrarily choose to implement reprehensible acts…just because some (only some) of the people that they are perpetrated against are also reprehensible. It doesn’t work that way, and—as I will continue to say—we need to move from being “objectified and reactionary citizens” to being "informed and empowered" citizens.



“Quis custōdiet ipsōs custōdes?”
(Question Put Forth To Socrates in The Republic)

Translation: Who will guard [against] the guardians?
Who will police the policemen?


LeftAngst
Political Media Assassin
------------------------------------------------------------
source: Democracy Now!

Jeremy Scahill: “Little Known Military Thug Squad Still Brutalizing Prisoners at Gitmo Under Obama”

Jeremy Scahill reports the Obama administration is continuing to use a notorious military police unit at Guantanamo that regularly brutalizes unarmed prisoners, including gang-beating them, breaking their bones, gouging their eyes and dousing them with chemicals. This force, officially known as the Immediate Reaction Force, has been labeled the “Extreme Repression Force” by Guantanamo prisoners, and human rights lawyers call their actions illegal. [includes rush transcript]

Guest:
Jeremy Scahill, award-winning investigative journalist and author of the bestseller Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army. His writing and reporting is available at RebelReports.com. His latest article written for Alternet is titled ‘Little Known Military Thug Squad Still Brutalizing Prisoners at Gitmo Under Obama’

Rush Transcript
This transcript is available free of charge. However, donations help us provide closed captioning for the deaf and hard of hearing on our TV broadcast. Thank you for your generous contribution.
AMY GOODMAN: A coalition of advocacy groups have launched a campaign to disbar twelve former Bush administration attorneys connected to the administration’s torture program. The coalition, called the Velvet Revolution, filed legal ethics complaints with state bar associations Monday, saying the twelve attorneys violated the rules of professional responsibility by approving interrogation methods, including waterboarding, that constituted torture.
While there’s been a lot of focus on torture under the Bush administration, what about under President Obama? In a new article, investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill writes the Obama administration is continuing to use a notorious military police unit at Guantanamo that regularly brutalizes unarmed prisoners, including gang-beating them, breaking their bones, gouging their eyes, dousing them with chemicals.

This force, officially known as the Immediate Reaction Force, has been labeled the “Extreme Repression Force” by Guantanamo prisoners, and human rights lawyers call their actions illegal, Jeremy writes.

Jeremy Scahill is an award-winning investigative journalist, author of the bestselling book Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army. His writing and reporting is available at RebelReports.com.

Welcome to Democracy Now!, Jeremy.

JEREMY SCAHILL: Thanks, Amy.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, describe what you call as this “little known military thug squad.”

JEREMY SCAHILL: When the Bush administration established the US prison camp at Guantanamo, of course, we know well that they set up a system where detainees were going to be systematically tortured. And, of course, Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats were briefed on this program, despite what they’re saying right now.
And while much of the focus has been on the tactical use of torture at Guantanamo, almost no attention had been paid to a parallel force that was torturing prisoners in a variety of ways, including waterboarding them, and that is this riot squad of sorts that you referred to called the Immediate Reaction Force. The prisoners and their lawyers at Guantanamo call it the “Extreme Repression Force.”

And basically what this is…is a thug squad that is used to mercilessly punish prisoners who show the slightest bit of resistance or who do things that technically they’re not supposed to do, infractions like having two Styrofoam cups in their cell instead of one.

Guards will call in this goon squad. They come in with their Darth Vader outfits, and they literally gang-beat prisoners. There are five men, generally, that are sent in. Each of them is assigned to one body part of the prisoner: the head, the left arm, the right arm, the left leg, the right leg. They go in, and they hogtie the prisoner, sometimes leaving them hogtied for hours on end. They douse them with chemical agents. They have put their heads in toilets and flushed the toilets repeatedly. They have urinated on the heads of prisoners. They’ve squeezed their testicles in the course of restraining them. They’ve taken the feces from one prisoner and smeared it in the face of another prisoner.

And while Barack Obama, almost immediately upon taking office, issued an executive order saying he was going to close down Guantanamo within a year and that he was going to respect the Geneva Convention while his administration reviewed Guantanamo, this force has continued to operate and torture prisoners under the Obama administration.

In fact, in February of this year, about a month after Obama was inaugurated, there were sixteen prisoners on a hunger strike at Guantanamo. The Immediate Response—or Immediate Reaction Force was used to go in and violently shove massive tubes down their noses into their stomachs. And what the IRF teams, as they’re called—when they beat someone, it’s called IRF-ing, or to be IRF-ed up by these teams. They would use no anesthetics or any painkillers, shove this massive tube by force down their nose into their stomach and then yank it out. Some prisoners have described this as torture, torture, torture. And many have passed out from the sheer pain of this operation.

This force has received almost no scrutiny in the US Congress or the US media and operates at this moment.

AMY GOODMAN: How do you know about this?

JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, I discovered these teams, because I’ve been covering the investigation being done by Judge Baltasar Garzon in Spain into the Bush torture system. What’s interesting is that the most aggressive investigation at this point into the Bush war crimes is being done an ocean away in Madrid.
And I came across a story of a prisoner named Omar Deghayes, and he is one of the four people that is cited directly in the Spanish investigation as having been tortured by the United States. He’s originally Libyan, is a British resident and is one of the subjects of Baltasar Garzon’s investigation. Omar Deghayes was repeatedly IRF-ed, was repeatedly abused by one of these squads. And so, when I came across this reference to this team that he was referring to in his testimony, I started to look into it and realized that there has been a multi-year pattern of abuse on the part of this team.

And yet, the only time when it’s really made any kind of a flash in the corporate media was when a US soldier, a young guy named Sean Baker, who was a Gulf War vet, was participating in a training exercise in Guantanamo in January of 2003, where he was ordered, he says, by his superiors to dress up in an orange jumpsuit and play the part of a restive or combative detainee at Guantanamo. He was told that the team that was going to come in to handle him knew that he was a US soldier, knew that it was a training drill, and he was given a word, a codeword, “red,” that when he said it, the beating was supposed to stop, or the subduing of him was supposed to stop. When he was in the cell, the team comes in. He describes them just mercilessly beating him, and he’s yelling out “Red!” and they continue to beat him, even after he then said, “I’m a US soldier! I’m a US soldier!” He describes how one of his fellow soldiers continued to beat him.
That young man, Sean Baker, has permanent brain damage, suffers from multiple seizures, and had actually sued Rumsfeld and other officials because of his treatment. So you had a flash, a moment in time in 2005, where this case came to public light, because of this lawsuit brought by a US soldier. As Scott Horton, a military and constitutional law expert I talked to, said, you know, this is one US soldier who received this kind of treatment; imagine what happens to these detainees.

And let’s be clear here, you read the New York Times today, and you realize that despite Obama’s rhetoric about how he’s going to reform the military tribunal system, we understand that it’s all cosmetic changes. The fact is, torture continues at Guantanamo. The place has not shut down. Interestingly, Ari Fleischer, the former propaganda chief for the Bush administration, said the other day, quite clearly, that he doesn’t believe Obama, in any universe, is going to be able to shut down Guantanamo in a year.

So, Amy, as far as I can tell from this in-depth investigation, we see the status quo alive and well, and it’s very, very damaging to the US Constitution, international law and the lives of these prisoners who remain in legal limbo.

AMY GOODMAN: Jeremy, this force, known as the Immediate Reaction Force, or Emergency Reaction Force, IRF or ERF, are they being filmed when they go into these cells?

JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, according to—I’ve been reading the now-declassified Standard Operating Procedures for Guantanamo that were written by Major General Geoffrey Miller, the man was—who is believed to have started all of this, in terms of the tactical level at Guantanamo, and then Gitmo-ized Abu Ghraib and other US prisons. After he left Guantanamo, he went elsewhere and brought these torture tactics with him.

In the Standard Operating Procedures that General Miller issued in 2003, he said that all of the IRF teams, when they would go in to restrain a prisoner, that they had to videotape the operation and that all of the members on a team, immediately following an incident where they had to restrain a prisoner, had to give sworn statements. Well, the fact is that we know that at least 500 hours of video were filmed. The ACLU tried a few years ago to get those videos, and they failed to do so. The government resisted it.

But Brandon Neely, who is an Army specialist that was on one of the first IRF teams—and I talk about his story in here—says that his experience with IRF teams is that either the video camera wouldn’t have any tape in it, wouldn’t be turned on, or it would be pointed in a direction that was nowhere near what was actually happening.

And I went through hundreds of pages of incident reports, where these military police officers, as part of the IRF teams, gave their sworn statements. They were so robotic in their uniformity. They all had the exact same phrases to describe operations that went off without a hitch, detainees were never hurt, procedures were followed. Case closed. End of the day, a few handwritten sentences, almost uniformly identical in each instance.

So, Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights asks a very simple question: “Where are the tapes?” Presumably, if the Standard Operating Procedures were followed, we could see Omar Deghayes having his head repeatedly put in a toilet and flushed. We could see a prisoner, under the Obama administration, having his head urinated on after he was doused with chemicals by these forces. We could see the breaking of noses and other body parts on the part of prisoners. But in order to do that, we would have to have an administration that was going to come completely clean with the crimes of the past and make these videos available, along with the thousands of photos that show the systematic abuse of US prisoners.
But what we see at every turn is the Obama administration, backed up by the Wall Street Journal editorial board, backed up by the neoconservatives, backed up by the hawkish Republicans, on one side, and then the ACLU, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and social justice and antiwar activists and human rights advocates, on the other side. This is a sad reality in America today, where you have a president that campaigned on a change that we can believe in continuing the most repressive policies of the Bush administration.

AMY GOODMAN: And medical personnel there?

JEREMY SCAHILL: Medical personnel not only were there during the operations of these IRF teams, particularly when they were force-feeding detainees by shoving these massive tubes down their noses, but in the case of Omar Deghayes, this prisoner that I’ve been referring to, he actually says that the medical personnel participated directly in his torture, would join in the torture with these IRF teams.

You, probably, Amy, on this show, have covered this issue of medical and psychological and psychiatric professionals participating in the US torture structure. Their role as part of these teams of repression should be thoroughly investigated, because this is an utter scandal and should be a scandal for every medical professional in this country.

AMY GOODMAN: Why do you say Nancy Pelosi knew about the torture?

JEREMY SCAHILL: Right. I mean, the fact is that Nancy Pelosi was fumbling in her press conference through a statement that someone else clearly wrote for her. This is not some secret that Nancy Pelosi was briefed on this. In fact, the Washington Post reported on this in 2007, that she had been briefed and that other Democrats that were senior figures in the Democratic leadership, particularly on the Intelligence Committee, had received briefings about the tactics that were being used at Guantanamo.

I think what’s going to be important is that we know that some of the members of Congress, Democrat and Republican, who were briefed actually pushed for stronger tactics to be used during these briefings. I think one of the reasons why the Democrats are—the Democratic leadership is not pushing for a special independent prosecutor in this case is because if you actually examine the record, you will find that the Democrats funded these programs, supported these programs, and refused to speak up when it actually mattered. That’s the pattern we saw through the eight years of the Bush administration. Now that the Democrats are in power, you see Obama—the right wing tries to say flip-flopping—you see Obama upholding the consistent one-party system in this country when it comes to foreign policy.

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Class Warfare: An Analysis of the $700B Rejection

The $700B Bailout Plan was lackluster, and I am glad that it was rejected. I think that it was necessary but not well thought out, and not well-developed. There is the appropriate public perception that the taxbase (comprised, mostly, of ordinary "modest-means" citizens) is underwriting the cost of "bad [CEO] behavior," and compensating the "CEO Class" (and those that both overty and indirectly colluded with the CEO Class (banks, lenders, financial investment firms, et al)) for actions, approaches, and a fiscal philosophy regarding mortgage lending and other financial investments in which a particular class (the least equipped class, in terms of their socio-economic positioning, history, and education) was preyed upon for the benefit of the elite CEO Class ("the haves"), at the long-term detriment of the "have-nots."

If the banks need $700B of the taxpayers' money, why hasn't it dawned on the respective CEOs to ask the people if they can borrow it? Boone Pickens and others are taking out ads to ask people to lobby their congressmen to enact responsible, renewable energy policies. Right now the Bank/Financial Investment CEOs seem to be taking the "main-street-is-too-stupid-to-get-it" approach. These CEOs could do a lot to restore the public trust that they have steadily eroded by simply taking out an ad, or holding a press conference, to admit that they need the public's help in order to continue to do business. And, a further requirement should exist (or be self-imposed by the CEO Class and the Mortgage/Banking/Lending Sector) which would reward the public for their support in this time of shared crisis. They could probably just offer to waive all banking fees...or cut the interest rate that their "paycheck advance" branches charge...or cut the "rate-over-prime" that they charge on credit cards for 5 years, and pay a small fee to hedge against taxpayer losses.

I think that their arrogance prevents such a commonsense approach, because they don't accept that "their failure to MANAGE RISK is at least half of the problem." In addition, they feel entitled to be rescued with free money. They found out yesterday, however, that they're not asking for Congressional money. They are asking for taxpayer money.


"It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning." -Henry Ford

Progressively,
LeftAngst

The Impact of a $700B Bailout (Or Rejection) To John Q Citizen

I do not think the initial rejection of the initial $700B Bailout Plan will have an overbearing impact on the Obama (or McCain) presidential campaigns. The final bill (whenever we get a financial recovery package that they can approve) will have a HUGE impact on either an Obama or McCain *administration* (not campaign), with a particularly significant/adverse impact on an Obama/Biden *administration*. Why? The push towards universal healthcare? Forget it. The redistribution of funding to underwrite this cannot --- in addition --- support the increased costs (wealth re-distribution) needed for universal healthcare (and other progressive socio-economic programs designed with the average, ordinary citizen-voter as the direct beneficiary). That is how the Bush Administration's laissez-fair oversight (and policies of de-regulations endorsed by REPUB political philosophy and Candidate McCain) has cut off the legs of the American infrastructure base. When you add the fact that *fraudulent-and-criminal* actions (without accountability, oversight, or punishment), as it relates to war profiteering and the War on Terror (see Blackwater and Bechtel as examples of contractor criminal abuse in the billions of dollars), and the *anti-conservative* fact that Bush has created and advanced a bloated, top heavy, costly government (conservatives traditionally call for "small government" in terms of infrastructure and costs to the taxbase), America is in a position of long-term economic crisis that *makes us less safe* and *more vulnerable* to terrorist attack or attack from rogue/hostile nation-states that we have been posturing against (Iran, North Korea, Russia; We cannot fund/allocate taxpayer-base appropriations to support military actions against a nation or group that actually *does* have weapons of mass destruction. This is a result of the federal government (primarily REPUB)'s disregard for the power-less, voice-less, etc.

Feel free to call me prophetic when Bush claims an "economic emergency," suspends the presidential election, and stays in office *past* January 2009 through the enactment of "The National Security & Homeland Security Presidential Directive 51"...

(Click: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/05/20070509-12.html).

This isn't George Lucas' Star Wars, but life does imitate art when both the citizenry and the media don't challenge the status quo of the power establishment.


"One should try to locate power at the extreme of its exercise, where it is always less legal in character." -Michel Foucault

Progressively,
LeftAngst

A $700B Bailout? There's Always A Choice!

Has anyone read * SECTION 8 * of the proposed $700 billion bailout plan? It reads that:

"Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are *non-reviewable* and committed to agency discretion, and may *not* be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency."

In short, the so-called "mother of all bailouts" --- which will allocate/transfer $700 billion in taxpayer dollars to purchase the distressed assets of several failed financial institutions --- will be conducted in a manner *unchallenged-able by courts* and *ungovern-able by the citizenry's duly sworn representatives*. All decision-making power will be consolidated into the Executive Branch (President of the United States/Treasury Secretary) who, let me remind you, will have the incentive to act upon this privilege as quickly as possible, before they leave office. The measure will run up the budget deficit by a significant amount, with no guarantee of recouping the outlay, and no fundamental means of holding those who fail to be accountable. This is amazing...given the very public (loud) opposition to WEALTH RE-DISTRIBUTION that REPUBs and capitalism-driven DEMs (and socio-economically comfortable/politically centrist and moderate citizens) typically have. Fundamentally, this is a wealth redistribution of funds from the have-nots to the "elite wing of the elite class" of Americans.The privately owned Federal Reserve Bank is *not* FEDERAL. It is a private bank that controls the money supply and loans money out to the Country, Government, and World Banks at INTEREST which, thereby, creates more debt.

The Federal Reserve Bank:
1. Operates under "little-to-no" regulation or legal oversight by/under the government.
2. Creates, writes, and manages its own policies (Section 8).
3. Is privately owned by international bankers.
4. Controls the MONEY supply.
5. Controls the interest rates.
6. Profits from WAR, lending money for WAR (approximated at $12 billion per month at interest)
7. Has had to increase the influx of money since its inception.

Why? It is a system that creates debt due to the fact that it controls the money supply while simultaneously determining the interest rate, thus giving people money with interest attached to it to pay of their debts. Paying off debt with debt money (money loaned at interest)?? There is a need for wholesale, SYTEMATIC and SYSTEMIC CHANGE...and not just the on-the-surface changes to electoral (campaign-driven) presidential politics.

"It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth." -Morpheus (Laurence Fishburn), The Matrix

Progressively,
LeftAngst

The Failings of The Bush Doctrine

Charlie Gibson (ABC News) asked REPUB VP nominee Sarah Palin about the so-called "Bush Doctrine" and if she agreed with/supported it. She hemmed and hawed ("With respect to what aspect, Charlie?") in the effort of an unprepared student to get the teacher (or a smarter fellow classmate) to give her some "context clues" or the answer. Charlie was shrewd in initially not falling for that, and re-phrasing his inquiry by asking: "What's your interpretation of the Bush Doctrine?" She went on some riff that clearly illustrated that she didn't know what The Bush Doctrine is/was. Now, for the record, the average USA citizen/voter and even the average politician (particularly those that are NOT in the Senate/House or well-versed in international affairs/policy) does NOT comprehend what The Bush Doctrine is.

Was it fair to ask? Yes. Does Palin get a failing grade because she didn't know what it was? No. Does Palin get a failing grade for her answer (after Charlie Gibson educated her on what it was)? Yes. Why? The Bush Doctrine is the belief (see Iraq example) that the USA, as a result of self-assumed and defined rights of "anticipatory self-defense," can arbitratily attack another sovereign nation (basically "attack them before they attack you"). What's so radical (illegal/unconstitutional) about that? Anticipatory self-defense is illegal. It is outlawed by the international Geneva Convention treaties, the UN Charter (international treaty), and the US Constitution. In addition, anticipatory self-defense is NOT a right that is appropriated to the executive branch of the government (President, VP, Department of Defense, etc) to arbitrarily exercise. The ONLY justifiable means for attacking a nation FIRST (before they attack you) is if their attack on you is IMMINENT. The Iraq attack was unconstitutional/illegal because there was NO THREAT OF IMMINENT ATTACK. The presence of WMD...would not have even triggered imminence, unless actionable support existed that the production/presence of WMD was about to be used in AN IMMINENT WAY against the USA. The problem (in terms of world community stability is that the USA cannot continue to justify The Bush Doctrine (but then get mad at the use of that same support when other nations do the same). Examples: (1) Russia's attack on Georgia was an example of the illegal (violation of int'l treaties and the international laws of war) anticipatory self-defense (2) Israel/Lebanon was an example of the illegal (violation of int'l treaties and the international laws of war) anticipatory self-defense, etc. Adoption of The Bush Doctrine ENDAGERS AMERICANS because a rogue nation (Iran, North Korea, Russia, etc) could say that --- based on the speeches, posturing, and verbal threats of prominent neo-cons within the Bush Administration --- they feel like they are in danger. To thwart that danger, they are going to attack the USA. McBush/Palen fail in this area. Obama/Biden need to simplify the explanation of this for the non-wonks of the USA public, and criticize the REPUB ticket with respect to this issues-based policy. Please also understand that WE ARE NOT AT WAR. Only Congress can issue a DECLARATION OF WAR. That has NOT been done. We are engaged in the illegal invasion and occupation of the sovereign nation of Iraq.

"If you wish for peace,
understand war." -B. H. Liddell
Hart in Strategy (1967)

Progressively,
LeftAngst

"Revisiting The Reverand"

"Our nation was born in genocide when it embraced the doctrine that the original American, the Indian, was an inferior race." -MLK, Jr.

"They ask if our own nation wasn't using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today -- my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of the hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent." -MLK, Jr.

"And I come by here to say that America, too, is going to hell if she doesn't use her wealth. If America does not use her vast resources of wealth to end poverty and make it possible for all of God's children to have the basic necessities of life, she, too, will go to hell." - MLK, Jr, Memphis, Tenn., March 18, 1968

----------------
Neither this (nor Obama's very clear separation from Rev Wright) changes much. I think that the overall message...the overarching point that is tantamount is that political systems (the inequitable DEM-nominating system that makes the ordinary voter obsolete due to the SuperDelegates, the voter-nullification inherent in the American national Electoral College System as it relates to electing a President, the disproportionate effect that money, power, and elite status have on elections, etc) need to be brought to account for any notions (tangible effects) that veer away from the person-oriented emphasis and equal value that the Constitution and higher powers of morality hold-to-bear for ALL people, regardless of race, ethnicity, socio-economic status, political positioning, religion, immigrant status, sexual orientation, educational background, etc. I think that the question...that many of us have to do a "self-check" about is" "Are we more concerned about Obama being elected or do we have a greater concern for having sound and just policies that serve the needs of the "high-and-mighty" and the needs of the "low-and-downtrodden"...equally"??

Those are BIG IDEA issues...and those do not so readily fit into the 5-second soundbytes (and the air time that has been sold to advertisers that shop products on erectile dysfunction, soap, feminine hygiene products, pharmaceuticals, groceries, or the next theatrical blockbuster...that fund the bottomline profit margin of the corporate-owned "media"). These BIG IDEAS are often shaped and molded by BOTH internal and external forces...and that's the thing that (sorely) a lot of folks, a lot of citizen-voters and residents...don't seem to get (or don't want to get), and the media is not putting those viewers in the most advantageous position to get [it]. For all of the folks that are "comfortable" with the system, then things are good. For all the folks that are "uncomfortable with" (and "discomforted by") the political system and the millions of voiceless that they represent, the "agitation" that Rev Wright and those of his ilk brought was necessary. I didn't (don't!) agree with everything that Rev Wright said. I didn't (don't!) agree with everything that Obama espouses. But...I agree with the fact that both are free (and have serious duties) to walk the path they feel has been laid out for them. I think Obama's distance and speech...was more about what he perceived as Rev Wright's "attack on his integrity" (by intimating that Obama was "being a politician," it may give some the feeling that Obama is not sincere, not genuine, and lacks integrity). That is something that most anyone would take very personally and may disassociate as a result (btw: I do think that some citizen-voters may think that it smacks of hypocrisy because when Obama talked about opposing NAFTA and reforming it, his campaign official told Canadian officials on the plane (and this was recorded as you recall) that "oh, this is just politics...he's just being political." That official remains with the campaign and Obama did not disassociate himself from him.).

I started with the MLK quotes above...because many "romanticize" the actions and memories of MLK. He was fiercely anti-establishment, anti-status quo, and "raged against the machine." He used many of the Black Liberation Theology tactics and imagery that Rev Wright incorporates. But...those are conveniently forgotten. He talked about America going to hell. He talked about America being the most violent nation (and that being an embarrassing thing - maybe he would have the same kind of "for-the-first-time-I'm-proud-to-be-an-American" moments that Michelle Obama had). Who knows? But..."the system" (and all of its incidents and attributes that retard, rather than advance, ALL people...fairly) needs to be RE-SHAPED and RE-IMAGED and RE-IMAGINED. That is only going to happen due to the AGGRESSIVE efforts by those stakeholders within the system, and those stakeholders that are more external to the system. And...Obama is one of those inside stakeholders. As a liberal progressive, there's nothing that I'd like more than to see a Black man (this Black man) as President. As a liberal progressive, and in the same vein as Cornel West's statements...in the same vein of "some" of Rev Wright's statements...and in the same vein as those that share the "same space" in the liberal progressive movement that I am a part of...Obama-as-President will be the highest representative of "the system" and if we are going to be true to "change," then he will equally be challenged...not-as-a-person, not-as-a-symbol-of-advancement, not-as-a-Black-man...but as the de facto and de jure head of that system. Together (external and internal forces aligned with "creative tension"), this inside/outside approach may move America from "being great" to being "THE GREATEST THAT IT CAN BE."

Progressively,
LeftAngst

"DoubleSpeak and The War On Terrorism" by Timothy Lynch (CATO Institute Briefing Paper)

http://www.cato.org/pubs/bp/bp98.pdf (Click)

Progressively,
LeftAngst