Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

One of the grave tragedies of our times is how Iraqi deaths receive no accountability.  This occurs at the point where President Obama and others hold the U.S. out as a major source to achieve global stability.  

The question is this:  How can the U.S. hold itself out as a guardian of peace and security when the subject of Iraqi deaths extending from that first "shock and awe" aerial assault to the present is ignored?  

It should be recalled that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld sought to assure Americans that newly developed U.S. "smart bombs" would penetrate the forces of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein but would bypass Iraq's citizenry.

As for the U.S. dodging accountability, a comment made by General Colin Powell in the aftermath of the earlier Gulf War is instructive for the tragedy of avoiding responsibility that it denotes.

Is Glenn Beck trying to play the race card for the benefit of his followers while being coy?

Is it mere coincidence that Beck selected the Lincoln Memorial, the venue Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. chose for his 1963 "I have a dream" speech?  The date of August 28 also happens to fall on the forty-seventh anniversary of that historic speech.

Are these both coincidences, as Beck insists, or an insidious way to play to the more radical elements of the right wing fringes?  Anticipating possible trouble, Beck has requested that no signs be brought to his rally.

We recall what happened at the huge Tea Party tax protest rally in Washington.  Congressman John Lewis, a former aide to Martin Luther King, remarked that the reception he and another African American congressman received while seeking to enter the Capitol Building was reminiscent of the South in the sixties, when racists sought to snuff out civil rights efforts by Dr. King.

The Republicans as the party out of power confronting a Democratic Party that elected a president and made legislative gains in the 2008 election had history on their side approaching the 2010 national mid-term election.

Absent any analysis or factoring, parties that are out of power, in this case with Republican minorities in both houses of Congress and in the executive branch, historically odds have overwhelmingly favored the outs as opposed to the ins in mid-term elections.

The Republicans held another prospective trump card with Barack Obama presiding over turbulent economic times.  This issue gave Obama a decided edge against Republican nominee John McCain in 2008.  The Arizona senator was unable to shake the specter of George W. Bush Republicanism as Democratic strategists linked the aforementioned Republicans together.

In perilous economic times voters become understandably angry and nervous.  At election time there is a strong predilection to vote against incumbents just as incumbency becomes a more favorable posture during halcyon periods.  

In place of approaching White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs' recent well publicized rebuke of progressives in a troubling context, how about instead examining the positive side?

My response is, congratulations progressives, you earned the rebuke.  Now  take a well deserved bow.

How long were progressives to be expected to play the same gullible duopoly game of rigging a system for the benefit of the top one-half of one percent?  

Did it occur to Gibbs and others that progressives do not fit into the passive zombie mode to which the frequent viewers of Fox News and listeners to Rush Limbaugh delightedly occupy?

Shock resounded through America when it was learned that waterboarding and rendition were among the international crimes being conducted on the pretext of fighting the war on terror.

The 9/11 tragedies had been used in addition to generating the Iraq War to justify virtually any action, no matter how contrary to the U.S. Constitution and international law.  

The government run by executive office signing statements engaged in  preventive detention, electronic surveillance and dropping into residences when the occupants are out, all without court orders.

There was even the removal of materials to be later used as evidence without legal remedy based on these home invasions, the same province that was supposed to be a citizen's castle.

When John F. Kennedy was running for president in 1960 he used to say, "Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a good neighbor in Latin America because he was a good neighbor right here at home."

Kennedy was referring to Roosevelt's Good Neighbor Policy which increased America's popularity to people in that region.  The future president was correct in citing the connection between how people of other nations see us relative to what we are doing at home, and the parallel between adopting a humane attitude domestically and extending it to other nations with which we interact.

Now we are regrettably in a negative cycle in which other nations see America as marauders based not on what the typical American has done, except in instances where voters have overlooked the obvious when some kind of choice was afforded, but what has been done in the name of greed to serve the interest of a tiny handful.

As Mitch McConnell and John Boehner struggle mightily to preserve Bush tax cuts to aid the top two percent of Americans we see the level of resistance against America extending political and economic influence.  

There was one line in Oliver Stone's perceptive 1986 film "Salvador" that capsulated the tragic American post-World War Two road to economic calamity.

James Belushi, playing the sidekick to James Woods, who seeks to resuscitate his career as an international political reporter amid the dangers of war torn El Salvador, asked Woods an important question of what it says about America's and the world's future when the U.S. was preparing to elect "a guy who played straight man to a chimp."

The scene occurred on Election Day 1980.  Belushi and Woods were attending a party given by the American Embassy in San Salvador to view U.S. election results.  

As those who followed Reagan's movie career know, he played in the 1951 comedy "Bedtime for Bonzo" in which he was cast opposite a chimp.  Those critical of his fitness for political office, beginning with governor of California and eventually the presidency, have used the film and Reagan's role in it to underscore what they deem to be the futility of a B movie leading man undertaking such awesome responsibilities.

What an irony it was that the very person who cheer led the high priest of voodoo economics at a different point in political time nailed it down precisely as the danger it constitutes.

Presidential candidate George H.W. Bush, or Bush the Elder, sought the Republican nomination in 1980 at a time when the eastern Republican Party establishment was on its last legs.

This was not the same Bush we saw eight years later exploiting through communications mudmeister Lee Atwater bogus issues like Willie Horton and the pledge of allegiance while solidly touting his membership in the National Rifle Association.

The George Bush of 1988 positioned himself in many ways like his son 12 years later as a grand Texas cowboy, a good old gun touting American buttressed by God, Mom, apple pie and the flag.

What is a crowning achievement of star status?

Stardom in the eyes of the directors who know more about the subject than anyone else equate the rare phenomenon with the ability to generate interest.  They explain that while studying one's craft will make one a better performer that this is a different element than stardom.

There are those with inferior diction and emphasis who have electrified screen audiences.  On the other hand, many who have mastered the basic elements of the acting craft were unable to generate the level of excitement that enthralled cinema audiences.

Hollywood born and bred Gloria Grahame was a combination of both, someone who had that indefinable electricity that prompted fans to buy tickets to her films while at the same time delivering her lines in the most professional fashion, her emphasis on consistent perfection.

One of the areas among many where candidate Barack Obama promised fundamental change from predecessors George W. Bush and Dick Cheney was in the national security realm.

Progressives were highly incensed over the use of torture under the Bush-Cheney team that made Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib household terms denoting harsh abrogation of fundamental liberties under the U.S. Constitution and international law.

As Massimo Calabresi noted in the July 12 issue of Time, the Obama "White House ... has moved steadily to the right on national security in the past 18 months."

This movement by the Obama Administration has led to a rare clash between the executive branch and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

The most impressive element of the current World Cup competition is the fervent commitment to stamping out international racism.

The appeal is all the more dramatic and meaningful in this year's edition of the international football classic in that the host nation is South Africa, for all too many years the home of the racially oppressive system called apartheid.

Pictures of Nelson Mandela, the towering beacon of unity and fervent opponent of racism, are seen in evidence at the stadiums where the games are held throughout the nation.

Before the games begin player representatives of the competing national teams deliver statements condemning racism.  

Observing the continuing tragedy on America's Gulf Coast as reported day by day prompts me to think of the bold and decisive act by President Harry Truman in a case with which legal scholars are highly familiar.

The 1952 case of  Youngstown Sheet & Tube Company vs. Sawyer was the outgrowth of a strike launched by steel workers during the Korean War.  

Truman seized control of the steel mills, using a "theater of war" argument linked to his executive power as the nation's commander in chief during an emergency, in this case the Korean War.

The seizure resulted in steel company lawyers making a late night visit to a D.C. federal district court judge.  This prompted a series of quick actions resulting with the U.S. Supreme Court deciding the case.  

Political reporters have delighted in covering Jerry Brown's political campaigns through the years.

The reason for reportorial delight is that they do not have to strain for a story.  Brown supplies interesting copy by just listening to him and reporting what he has to say.

Brown, who launched a political comeback in California by initially becoming mayor of Oakland, then the state's attorney general, last week achieved the Democratic Party nomination for governor.

George Skelton, a political reporter for the Los Angeles Times, did a piece on Brown.  He mentioned that Brown has been quiet as of late, especially for him.  Skelton speculated that the reason could relate to Brown not wanting to provide a target for the opposition.

When Mitt Romney sought to help embattled senators in Utah and Arizona the issue went well beyond those preferences.

What was at stake and continues to be the major issue that Romney confronts as a Republican presidential aspirant in a party where a major ideological confrontation is in vigorous progress is the direction of the party.

The contrasting force to former Massachusetts Governor Romney is former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.  This confrontation, as in so many others, finds at least quasi-historical precedents.

A tenacious battle for ideological control of the Republican Party occurred in 1964.  This was a period when a prominent Eastern wing existed.  It was headed by New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller, who waged a no-holds-barred battle for the Republican presidential nomination with Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater.

The Myth of the Free Market
by Craig Barnes

Millions of Americans are today unemployed because the free market is not working for them. Millions of Americans have lost their homes because the free market did not work for them or for the banks.  Before the health care bill passed last January millions could not get health care because the free market worked for them when they were healthy but often did not work at all when they needed care.

"Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress...but then, I repeat myself."~~Mark Twain

Two of the world's richest men and the Spanish government have pledged $150m (£101.7m) to battle disease and improve health in Central America and Mexico. Carlos Slim and Bill Gates are to fund a project jointly with Spain aimed at improving nutrition and maternal health and fighting dengue fever and malaria. The two men and Spain's Princess Cristina announced the project in the Mexican capital, Mexico City. The project also aims to reduce infant mortality and boost vaccination rates.

It generally happens in world history that change comes to rural areas later than it comes to cities and that, no matter where you are on the planet, rural areas are more conservative politically, which is saying the same thing, really, since conservative means to want to hold on to what was good in the past, or not to change too much. Whether you are talking about rural Pakistan, or rural Russia, or rural Wyoming, the people who live--and are separated from each other by fields and forests --are likely to hold tight to traditional values and be suspicious of change.

 That could be good, of course, but the bad side is that rural areas are also more likely to resist the mingling of races that comes with commerce and cities, or the rise of women's rights, or mixture of social classes, or experimentation with education and health care, or, in fact any other form of government intervention to assist those who are in trouble.  

"Going to church no more makes you a Christian than sleeping in your garage makes you a car."~~Garrison Keiler

The poll published today shows the public prefers now for the Dems to hold Congress, 45% to 40% — and a roundabout flip from a month earlier, when the preference for Democrats was turned around, 41% then for Democrats having majority control to 44% for the GOP.

You can read the details here. There's an anti-incumbent leaning that still makes the result hard to interpret.

Change is the process by which the future invades our lives~~Alvin Toffler, "Future Shock"

Each time it appears that Republicans can't get any nastier, any more bereft of morality, they wrap themselves in the flag, grab their guns and Bibles, and manage once again to hit the bottom of the ethical barrel. A good example is Ben Smith's recent startling revelation in Politico.com, which exposed the dirty tricks Republican National Committee (RNC) operatives were planning to play, not only on Democrats in the upcoming elections -- but on their own donors. Smith writes...

by CODY LYON

...Perhaps the school system's decision is based in fear rooted in flawed and prejudiced assumptions, that by allowing a teenager to bring her same sex date to such a traditional event as the prom, the powers that be may appear to be condoning gayness to the local masses. More likely,moral concerns extending from literal interpretations of scripture, verses located on the same pages where one finds instructions for the stoning of adulterers and punishments for wearing certain types of textiles. But then again, the Mississippi prom case is more likely just another piece of fallout from a very commonly held membership in a society where there is a quiet tolerance of homophobia which is nothing more than a phobia of homosexuality itself....

There is a fascinating yet potentially dangerous transformation currently taking place in American political journalism. We are witnessing the return of a purely partisan press. At the dawn of the 19th Century, John Fenno's Gazette of the United States propagated the views of the Federalist Party and Philip Freneau's National Gazette served as a mouthpiece for Jeffersonian Republicans. Now, at the turn of the 21st Century, we have Keith Olberman of MSNBC and Sean Hannity at FOX.

After the recent Supreme Court ruling that gave corporations "personhood" status, I was pleased to see President Obama publicly call them out on it.  This is the Obama I voted for. 

Sadly, this Obama has been conspicuously absent since being sworn in as President.  It's time for "this" Obama to stand up at last for the people who put him in the White House in the first place, the folks on "Main Street," rather than those on "Wall Street." 

I know you need your sleep now,
I know your life's been hard.
But many men are falling,
where you promised to stand guard.
~~Leonard Cohen

My friend Bernie says he's suffering from Afghanistan information exhaustion. "During all those months that Obama was dragging his feet about escalating the war in Afghanistan, did you ever get the impression," he asked, "that foxes were in the hen house, chickens were squawking and running around crazily, wolves were tearing the foxes to pieces, and farmers were shooting wildly into the coop with no regard for the innocent?"

I stared at him, mouth agape, my mind trying to shore up all that activity. "Well ... I --"

"And that's just the generals -- David Petraeus and Stanley McChrystal -- and their boss, or cohort, defense secretary Robert Gates. They were everywhere -- everywhere!" Bernie said, rolling his eyes. "And still are. Turn on the TV, pick up a newspaper, open a magazine, check out Congress, look under a rock -- peek behind a tree -- and there they are. They're a three-man brigade -- "we're going in, we're coming out -- we're winning, we're losing. Or maybe not. We won't know for 15 years...20 years...or until it's over --"

I've spent a good part of the last week re-reading Neil Sheehan's book, A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam. Partly, this is just happenstance; I found a nicely annotated hardback copy in a local used book store. But it's also because I wanted to look again at the 1962-64 period of the Vietnam War to see how much it resembles our current situation in Afghanistan. I don't have good news to report.

Biochar, the modern version of an ancient Amazonian agricultural practice called Terra Preta (black earth, TP), is gaining widespread credibility as a way to address world hunger, climate change, rural poverty, deforestation, and energy shortages... SIMULTANEOUSLY!

If you talk to God, you are praying; If God talks to you, you have schizophrenia.~~Thomas S. Szasz, The Second Sin