The Republican base have crossed the Rubicon*, of separation of church and state, and blended political philosophies with religious ideology, this toxic mix has poisoned the public discourse.
Their petty attacks and political machinations have used fear as a battering ram against the truth and that fear has turned into rage. It has clouded the minds of some with doubt. This country has been greatly diminished by it. Some would take away the rights of many for the privileges of a few. By taxing the poor and giving to the rich.
At the same time they would have you believe that by suppressing the rights of a few "liberals and homosexuals" that they are in some perverted way preserving, "traditional American values". Since when has this Nation ever been about suppressing anyones unalienable rights? Rights that are endowed by their creator, because all men and women are created equal in the eyes of God. Yet these self righteous, twisted, Christians, believe that they and they alone hear the voice of God and everyone else is damned. To my ears they sound more and more like the radical Taliban Islamists who are the sole arbiters' of God's will on earth and anyone that is not with them is an infidel and must die.
But in spite of the vitriol that they haver injected into American politics, beyond the hostile and ugly face of this campaign, beyond the animus, beyond the backdrop of financial chaos they have created with their policies of privilege and uncertainty it engenders, beyond charge and countercharge, beyond their visceral hatred, America's promise still waits.
Many Americans have lost sight of that promise and forgotten the potential greatness of this nation, and forgotten the greatest promise ever made, by one generation to another in the history of mankind, a promise of freedom and equality for everyone.
Whatever else happens on November 4th 2008, we stand at the crossroad of that promise, and of its fulfillment or its failure, afraid and trembling or confident and victorious. November 4th will determine whether we become a nation, of the few, by the few, for the few, or we remain a nation of the people, by the people, for the people.
I for one choose the latter. That is why we must rise above the lies and deliberate deceptions that hold us bound by uncertainty and fear. We must drowned out the voices that cry out, "Kill him"' the voices that cry out, "Traitor!', "Treason!", "Terrorist", that cry out, "Socialist!", off with his head" and "Bomb Obama!". We must speak out loudly, and we must speak the unflinching truth to those voices of intolerance and injustice.
The blood that was shed by our forefathers and our fathers to preserve this promise of freedom and equality demands that we move forward not backward, that we press on with courage and fulfill the promise that is America.
Commentary:
This nation has almost succumbed to the illusion that its greatness lies in its ability to unleash its unlimited military might on anyone without consequences. That is a dangerous idea that has been promoted by the far right, who have massive financial interests in the military and the industries that supply the military with arms. It has subordinated, diplomacy, to a relatively dysfunctional position in the executive branch without a strong vigorous advocate. The real power of this Nation lies in the perception of its character, by other nations, that America strongly defends individual rights, freedom and liberty. We have nearly lost that moral advantage within the last four years. Gain it back on November 4th.
If you love your country speak up! Speaking truth to power is real patriotism.
*Crossing the Rubicon is a metaphor for deliberately proceeding past a point of no return. The phrase originates with Julius Caesar's invasion of Ancient Rome when, on January 10, 49 BC, he led his army across the Rubicon River in violation of law, hence making conflict inevitable. Therefore the term "the Rubicon" is used as a synonym to the "point of no return".
Monday, October 13, 2008
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Where's the outrage?
Not long ago I received an e-mail from my oldest sister, which I posted. It's subject line was: 'Am I The Only Guy That's Fed Up! The e-mail contained several excerpts from Lee Iacocca's new book, "Where Have All the Leaders Gone?" Frankly that's a question I've been asking myself a lot over the last four years. Sometimes I have felt a profound sense of isolation and a burgeoning anger about the growing list of deliberate assaults on the Constitution. Don't people understand what peril we are facing?
Where's the outrage?
For the repeated unchecked desecration of the Constitution.
For the Suspension of the Fourth Amendment.
For the Invasion of a country that posed no threat to America.
For the torture of prisoners of war advocated by no less than the Vice President.
For the arrest and open-ended imprisonment of SUSPECTED terrorist.
For allowing a pervasive atmosphere of corruption to exist in Washington without a word of moral outrage.
For hiring cronies so incompetent an American city was left to languish like in a third world country.
For sending American troops into harms way without proper armor and equipment.
For allowing war profiteering with no bid contracts.
For allowing innocent civilians to be slaughtered by federally funded private mercenary paramilitary like Blackwater.
For trying prisoners of war by secret tribunal rather than by trail in open court with.
For suspending the writ of habeas corpus.
For squandering 10 billion dollars a month on an unjust war for oil, while America's infrastructure crumbles.
For the voter suppression that stole two Presidential elections and perverted the foundations of America most sacred right, the right to vote for who represents us.
I am by temperament an Independent, and I have voted both Democratic and Republican over the years, but, I was unable to stomach the profound radical changes that the Republican party made since the implementation of the Contract with America by Newt Gingrich and Tom DeLay in collusion with an intolerant, radical religious right.
Some notable, long time Goldwater Conservatives have spoken out, including Mickey Edwards and John Dean, and Susan Eisenhower, but, for the most part the majority of Republicans seem to have ignored these egregious excesses and continue to rationalize them or spin them or worse they have embraced them. They remind me of the "good Germans" after WWII that disavowed the consequences of their own complicity.
While people are trying to focus on "the real issues" like the economy and the spin doctors are trying to distract them with "bogus issues," like gay marriage, there is in my mind only one issue, that supersedes all other issues, the survival of the Constitution and this nation as a democratic republic.
For me the most alarming aspect's of John McCain's campaign have been: 1. His embrace of the Bush's negative attack machine, headed by Karl Rove that helped Bush get elected with some of the most scurrilous ads in American political history, e.g. Swift Boaters. 2. The fact that he now employees a legion of lobbyists to run his, "straight talk" campaign the same lobbyists he once disavowed. 3. The fact that he has been pandering to Bush's radical base who authored the extreme positions that have eroded this country's Constitution and replaced it with their own twisted ideologies. And 4. The continued efforts of the Republican Party to suppress minority voters.
The next election is a watershed event, this country has come to a crossroads of profound importance, it will decide wether America remains a democratic republic or becomes a nation of a one party oligarchy of a few rich powerful men and its corporate financiers, that prizes their own power over the rights of the people.
McCain's embrace of these dangerous left over remnants of the malignant Bush Administration are a clear sign that the same players will survive and the assault they started will continue. Nothing else will matter if he is elected.
Far from being the Change We Need McCain is, the Past We Must Reject Forever!
Where's the outrage?
For the repeated unchecked desecration of the Constitution.
For the Suspension of the Fourth Amendment.
For the Invasion of a country that posed no threat to America.
For the torture of prisoners of war advocated by no less than the Vice President.
For the arrest and open-ended imprisonment of SUSPECTED terrorist.
For allowing a pervasive atmosphere of corruption to exist in Washington without a word of moral outrage.
For hiring cronies so incompetent an American city was left to languish like in a third world country.
For sending American troops into harms way without proper armor and equipment.
For allowing war profiteering with no bid contracts.
For allowing innocent civilians to be slaughtered by federally funded private mercenary paramilitary like Blackwater.
For trying prisoners of war by secret tribunal rather than by trail in open court with.
For suspending the writ of habeas corpus.
For squandering 10 billion dollars a month on an unjust war for oil, while America's infrastructure crumbles.
For the voter suppression that stole two Presidential elections and perverted the foundations of America most sacred right, the right to vote for who represents us.
I am by temperament an Independent, and I have voted both Democratic and Republican over the years, but, I was unable to stomach the profound radical changes that the Republican party made since the implementation of the Contract with America by Newt Gingrich and Tom DeLay in collusion with an intolerant, radical religious right.
Some notable, long time Goldwater Conservatives have spoken out, including Mickey Edwards and John Dean, and Susan Eisenhower, but, for the most part the majority of Republicans seem to have ignored these egregious excesses and continue to rationalize them or spin them or worse they have embraced them. They remind me of the "good Germans" after WWII that disavowed the consequences of their own complicity.
While people are trying to focus on "the real issues" like the economy and the spin doctors are trying to distract them with "bogus issues," like gay marriage, there is in my mind only one issue, that supersedes all other issues, the survival of the Constitution and this nation as a democratic republic.
For me the most alarming aspect's of John McCain's campaign have been: 1. His embrace of the Bush's negative attack machine, headed by Karl Rove that helped Bush get elected with some of the most scurrilous ads in American political history, e.g. Swift Boaters. 2. The fact that he now employees a legion of lobbyists to run his, "straight talk" campaign the same lobbyists he once disavowed. 3. The fact that he has been pandering to Bush's radical base who authored the extreme positions that have eroded this country's Constitution and replaced it with their own twisted ideologies. And 4. The continued efforts of the Republican Party to suppress minority voters.
The next election is a watershed event, this country has come to a crossroads of profound importance, it will decide wether America remains a democratic republic or becomes a nation of a one party oligarchy of a few rich powerful men and its corporate financiers, that prizes their own power over the rights of the people.
McCain's embrace of these dangerous left over remnants of the malignant Bush Administration are a clear sign that the same players will survive and the assault they started will continue. Nothing else will matter if he is elected.
Far from being the Change We Need McCain is, the Past We Must Reject Forever!
Thursday, October 2, 2008
A Wolf(owitz) In Sheeps Clothing
There has been a political metamorphosis going on within the Republican Party for the past thirty years. It has been a gradual process that has left many older Republicans perplexed.
The so called NeoConservatives have abandoned original Republican philosophical underpinnings and transformed Republicanism into a pernicious ideology that has had, and is having a devastating impact on this nation.
Who are the "NeoConservative Republicans" and why we should care?
We should care, because, as you will see, they want to do away with America as a democratic republic, and replace it with a powerful, theocratic oligarchy, transforming it into a nationalistic authoritarian state whose power is wielded by an elite few who can pursue their own vision of "the public good."
Bluntly stated by a leading NeoCon strategist, Grover Norquist, when he said, that he wants to shrink government "down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub."
They are the Machiavellian power behind the throne. They're political philosophy retains the outward trappings of traditional Republican principles: fiscal conservatism, strict adherence to the Constitution, small central government, laissez faire capitalism. They have reduced some of these principles to slogans they use to as labels to demonize others i.e. "tax and spend liberals", but in practice they have run up tremendous national debts, expanded government, and have begun a reverse socialism that benefits the rich.
They have added four other elements to this toxic mix, based on the teachings of Leo Strauss a professor of Political Science who taught at the University of Chicago.
His four basic principles are:
1. Strauss and his followers* like Paul Wolfowitz, and Richard Perle, reject man's natural rights and believe that an unfettered government power held by a few powerful elite who could better determine what was in the best interest of the "public good" was preferable. And that it required an imperial like figurehead that was guided by "prudence and moderation" which are euphemisms for "unlimited and unconstitutional executive branch power." Strauss rejected the idea of limited government and advocated an omnipotent, unlimited state power in the pursuit of jingoistic "nationalism."
2. Strauss also believed that only a powerful omnipotent state could control natural human aggression and that a omnipotent state could only be maintained by a perpetual state of war, "even if one has to be manufactured." (such as Iraq?) And its citizens could be rallied behind it by false patriotism.
3. Strauss believed in aggressive lying. He believed that in order to maintain an omnipotent state that it required "perpetual deception" of its citizens. This is all a part of their perpetual campaign to confuse the public and keep it ignorant of their political designs.
4: Strauss believed that fake religiosity was a useful tool to promote this agenda. But Strauss’ position was that the political rulers and the intellectual elite (its philosopher kings?) need not be bound by religion themselves; religion was primarily a propaganda tool to be used to get the masses to acquiesce in state intervention on behalf of aggressive nationalism.
BEWARE: They are the voices urging a war with Iran and now Bill Kristol: is taunting Russia into an ever increasing aggressive posture in South Ossetia which Georgia invaded at the urging of the Bush W.H.. Writing in the Washington Post today, Robert Kagan goes even further, suggesting that the Georgia-Russia conflict may be the start of World War III:
Commentary:
"The founders," believed that natural law holds men are endowed with unalienable rights and that government was always a threat to those rights and that government should be "bound by the chains" of The Constitution.
I had an alarming epiphany four years ago when it struck me like a bolt that I was no longer living in the America of my youth. There were deeply disturbing and insidious changes taking place in this Nation that were the antithesis of the founders vision. It filled me with a fear I didn't understand at the time. I started educating myself as to what was behind this relentless decent into an Authoritarian Fascist Nation.
Don't take my word for it, I urge each and everyone who comes to this website to pursue their own inquiry into what has taken place in America and then reject the cynical policies of the NeoConservative movement on Nov 4th.
*Some of his ardent followers included: Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Defense Policy Board chairman Richard Perle. Lynne Cheney worked with Perle at DPB. Both were close advisors to Vice President Richard Cheney. Others include: Irving Kristol,
Widely referred to as the "godfather" of neoconservatism; William Kristol, Son of "godfather" of neoconservatism, Irving Kristol and chairman of the Project for a New American CenturyLewis "Scooter" Libby, chief of staff and national security advisor for Vice President Dick Cheney; John Bolton, US ambassador to the UN; Elliott Abrams; deputy assistant to the president and deputy national security adviser for global democracy strategy; Robert Kagan, Mr. Kagan writes extensively on US strategy and diplomacy. Kagan and fellow neoconservative William Kristol co-founded the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) in 1997. Kagan signed the famous 1998 PNAC letter sent to President Clinton urging regime change in Iraq; Michael Ledeen Seen by many as one of the most radical neoconservatives, Mr. Ledeen is said to frequently advise George W. Bush's top adviser Karl Rove on foreign policy matters. He is one of the strongest voices calling for regime change in Iran.; Frank Gaffney Jr. Mr. Gaffney is the founder, president, and CEO of the influential Washington think tank Center for Security Policy, whose mission is "to promote world peace through American strength." All were heavily involved in Republican administrations going back to Reagan.
Where to start your own search:
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/08/11/neocon-russia-war/
http://www.alternet.org/story/15935/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoconservatism
http://www.csmonitor.com/specials/neocon/index.html
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/lind1.html
http://www.againstbombing.org/point3.htm
The so called NeoConservatives have abandoned original Republican philosophical underpinnings and transformed Republicanism into a pernicious ideology that has had, and is having a devastating impact on this nation.
Who are the "NeoConservative Republicans" and why we should care?
We should care, because, as you will see, they want to do away with America as a democratic republic, and replace it with a powerful, theocratic oligarchy, transforming it into a nationalistic authoritarian state whose power is wielded by an elite few who can pursue their own vision of "the public good."
Bluntly stated by a leading NeoCon strategist, Grover Norquist, when he said, that he wants to shrink government "down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub."
They are the Machiavellian power behind the throne. They're political philosophy retains the outward trappings of traditional Republican principles: fiscal conservatism, strict adherence to the Constitution, small central government, laissez faire capitalism. They have reduced some of these principles to slogans they use to as labels to demonize others i.e. "tax and spend liberals", but in practice they have run up tremendous national debts, expanded government, and have begun a reverse socialism that benefits the rich.
They have added four other elements to this toxic mix, based on the teachings of Leo Strauss a professor of Political Science who taught at the University of Chicago.
His four basic principles are:
1. Strauss and his followers* like Paul Wolfowitz, and Richard Perle, reject man's natural rights and believe that an unfettered government power held by a few powerful elite who could better determine what was in the best interest of the "public good" was preferable. And that it required an imperial like figurehead that was guided by "prudence and moderation" which are euphemisms for "unlimited and unconstitutional executive branch power." Strauss rejected the idea of limited government and advocated an omnipotent, unlimited state power in the pursuit of jingoistic "nationalism."
2. Strauss also believed that only a powerful omnipotent state could control natural human aggression and that a omnipotent state could only be maintained by a perpetual state of war, "even if one has to be manufactured." (such as Iraq?) And its citizens could be rallied behind it by false patriotism.
3. Strauss believed in aggressive lying. He believed that in order to maintain an omnipotent state that it required "perpetual deception" of its citizens. This is all a part of their perpetual campaign to confuse the public and keep it ignorant of their political designs.
4: Strauss believed that fake religiosity was a useful tool to promote this agenda. But Strauss’ position was that the political rulers and the intellectual elite (its philosopher kings?) need not be bound by religion themselves; religion was primarily a propaganda tool to be used to get the masses to acquiesce in state intervention on behalf of aggressive nationalism.
BEWARE: They are the voices urging a war with Iran and now Bill Kristol: is taunting Russia into an ever increasing aggressive posture in South Ossetia which Georgia invaded at the urging of the Bush W.H.. Writing in the Washington Post today, Robert Kagan goes even further, suggesting that the Georgia-Russia conflict may be the start of World War III:
Commentary:
"The founders," believed that natural law holds men are endowed with unalienable rights and that government was always a threat to those rights and that government should be "bound by the chains" of The Constitution.
I had an alarming epiphany four years ago when it struck me like a bolt that I was no longer living in the America of my youth. There were deeply disturbing and insidious changes taking place in this Nation that were the antithesis of the founders vision. It filled me with a fear I didn't understand at the time. I started educating myself as to what was behind this relentless decent into an Authoritarian Fascist Nation.
Don't take my word for it, I urge each and everyone who comes to this website to pursue their own inquiry into what has taken place in America and then reject the cynical policies of the NeoConservative movement on Nov 4th.
*Some of his ardent followers included: Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Defense Policy Board chairman Richard Perle. Lynne Cheney worked with Perle at DPB. Both were close advisors to Vice President Richard Cheney. Others include: Irving Kristol,
Widely referred to as the "godfather" of neoconservatism; William Kristol, Son of "godfather" of neoconservatism, Irving Kristol and chairman of the Project for a New American CenturyLewis "Scooter" Libby, chief of staff and national security advisor for Vice President Dick Cheney; John Bolton, US ambassador to the UN; Elliott Abrams; deputy assistant to the president and deputy national security adviser for global democracy strategy; Robert Kagan, Mr. Kagan writes extensively on US strategy and diplomacy. Kagan and fellow neoconservative William Kristol co-founded the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) in 1997. Kagan signed the famous 1998 PNAC letter sent to President Clinton urging regime change in Iraq; Michael Ledeen Seen by many as one of the most radical neoconservatives, Mr. Ledeen is said to frequently advise George W. Bush's top adviser Karl Rove on foreign policy matters. He is one of the strongest voices calling for regime change in Iran.; Frank Gaffney Jr. Mr. Gaffney is the founder, president, and CEO of the influential Washington think tank Center for Security Policy, whose mission is "to promote world peace through American strength." All were heavily involved in Republican administrations going back to Reagan.
Where to start your own search:
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/08/11/neocon-russia-war/
http://www.alternet.org/story/15935/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoconservatism
http://www.csmonitor.com/specials/neocon/index.html
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/lind1.html
http://www.againstbombing.org/point3.htm
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