Of course it's not 100% true, but it ain't far off. Under whose stewardship did the world's financial system and economies get fucked up? And Iraq and all the associated costs in 'blood and treasure'? And the years of neglecting Afghanistan? Katrina recovery? I'm surely forgetting alot.
(Thanks to some Facebook friends for circulating this great poster)
Thanks to a huge snowstorm, Washington, D.C. has come to a total standstill. Is Mother Nature providing us with a metaphor that we need to listen to?
On Saturday's New York Times website I saw these two introductions to two opinion pieces:
Regardless of what one thinks of the New York Times or its regular columnists - you don't even have to read these columns, I haven't - one can't deny the truth of the overall points that Collins and Herbert are apparently making.
Time is indeed perhaps running out on the economy – short, intermediate and long term – and the legislative branch of government, with the Senate deliriously far in the lead, has become totally dysfunctional. And it is not functioning primarily due to the dysfunctional behavior of its members. That our representatives and senators can behave the way they do - while the country is in the throes of many serious crises, all with long term implications - is absolutely reprehensible. It’s outrageous. It’s hard to believe that our elected congresspeople have slid so far. But they have.
National crisis and a dysfunctional Congress. Not a pretty combination. But worse than that, yes, there is something worse than that.
The Kennedy family has put up a beautiful website about the Senator's life and about the events and arrangements leading up to his burial in Arlington National Cemetery. There are also tributes and a place where people can add their own thoughts or stories. I just shared this on that website and I would like to share it here:
In 1960 I was five years old but it wasn't too many years later, around the time I was 11 or 12, a year or so before becoming Bar Mitzvah, that I was already becoming quite politically aware and even involved.
And I grew up in Massachusetts in a Democratic family.
My political, social and perhaps even moral development was impacted and influenced by the Kennedys. And that is the kind of impact and influence that Senator Kennedy has exercised over his 47 year career in public life. That is for me his legacy and message.
By what he has done, by what he has fought for and by how he has fought those fights Senator Kennedy has helped us learn about fairness, justice and human dignity. And even after his most vulnerable and dark moment of human failings, Chappaquiddick, we have seen how he dedicated most of the rest of his life to repairing the negative karma he knew was his.
That's a sign of the most humble sort of greatness we can strive for as human beings. That's what Senator Kennedy's life, and his sickness and how he marched towards death, will mean to me. He was a great man and his absence would have been felt at any time. He will be even more sorely missed today, in a time when there are so few men like him in positions of leadership.
An Irish blessing:
May the road rise to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face.
And rains fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the hollow of His hand.
I almost never do what I just did. I can’t think of when I did it last. But this media frenzy called “The First 100 Days” is so ridiculous that I just had to shut out the news. Given the way so many things are going, we should be talking about the next 100 years and not wasting our time on “The First 100 Days.”
One hundred years from now, probably a lot sooner, we are going to see the moment we are living in for what it is. What we are experiencing and witnessing all around the world may be nothing less than the end of one Age and the beginning of a new Age. Could we passing from what I call the Age of Commerce to what could be called the Age of Man? Just as we once passed from the Age of God to the Age of Commerce.
I don’t know when it began
I hope you also watched Obama's address to Congress (see transcript or video) and perhaps Jindal's response as well (see transcript or video). Obama presented a powerful vision of one possible future America. It was honest about today while challenging us about tomorrow. It was hopeful, at times inspiring, quite energetic and at certain moments very emotional. But that's what we have become used to with Obama.
My favorite part
Continue reading "Two Images of America. Which Do You Like?" »
Obama’s administration brings with it the expectation that America’s misadventure in Iraq will finally begin to end sometime soon. At the same time, the number of US troops in Afghanistan is about to increase.Two events remind me that one’s feelings about these wars must not tarnish the affection and respect that those who die fighting in them deserve.
A few days ago I was alerted by a Facebook friend (thanks David T) to the sad story of John Roberge, 22 years old, who along with three comrades was killed on February 9 in a suicide bombing in Mosul, Iraq. John Roberge came from Leominster, Massachusetts, my hometown. And although I left Leominster long before he was even born, reading of his death and especially of his homecoming touched me deeply. I knew the streets, the street corners and squares that his funeral procession passed along. My friend David, who still lives ‘back home,’ wrote on Facebook of going to the candle light vigil to pay his respects along with thousands of other area residents.
It wasn’t always that way.
Tuesday, President Obama will sign the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act into law. Then it’s ‘waiting to exhale’ as we see if it will have any significant effect over the next couple of years. In the meanwhile, the sub-text of this bill, ‘the making of’ if you will, deserves close and critical scrutiny. The last several weeks have seen a scary and disgusting display of everything that is wrong with our congressional representatives in general and the Republican caucus in particular.
No one denies the gravity of the crisis facing the global economy. It is compared to the two worst episodes in modern economic history – the Great Depression and Japan’s lost decade. Depending on who is talking, we are either repeating the mistakes of those two catastrophes or we have learned the lessons. The stimulus bill is either way too large or not nearly expansive enough. The spending share is too much, or too little; the tax cuts take in an excessive portion of the total or not nearly enough.
Just heard this great quote while chatting with a few hundred thousand people from all over the world on the CNN.com/live-Facebook integrated application:
'Rosa Parks sat, so Martin Luther King, Jr. could walk, so Barack Obama could run, so the rest of us could fly!
Thanks but no thanks George. Your words, empty words, cliches, nothing new, 'look and see what we are doing', 'we are on top of it' and all the rest of it just makes things worse. No one, well, almost no one, has any faith in your ability to handle this crisis. When you started your talk this afternoon, the Dow Jones Index ticker in the inset screen was down about 100 points. By the time you finished your ten minute talk, the index was down 195 points. And once you finished and the traders could turn their full attention back to trading the Dow Jones Index was down to minus 210 points within seconds. And now 15 minutes since you shut up the Dow is down 290 points. Nice job mate!
With your approval ratings now at near all-time historic lows of 25% you should know better. And if you don't, then your advisors should know better. You do more damage than good when you open your mouth and nothing comes out except hot air. No one has any faith that we are in good
hands with your leadership. Every time you open your mouth, my situation and that of hundreds of millions of other people around the world, just gets worse. The surety that I can stay in my home goes down, my ability to have anything approaching a timely and secure retirement gets less, my feeling of security and well-being gets even shakier.
Why? Because every time you open your mouth, millions, if not billions, of dollars of market value are wiped out of peoples' holdings. It would be comical if were not so serious. You open your mouth, and whammo, net worth starts to evaporate! It's like magic!
George, you just said it yourself: "...anxiety can feed anxiety..." and guess what we are feeling a lot of anxiety about. You guessed it! Your ability to lead us out of this crisis!
Mommas everywhere have always said, "If you don't have anything nice to say, just keep quiet." George, if you don't have anything helpful to say, do us a favor, and just SHUT UP!
Yesterday was the fortieth anniversary of RFK's assassination. I have taken some time this weekend to watch and read some of the historical material about his run for the presidency in 1968, the events of his turbulent times and many of his speeches.
It was also this week that Barack Obama became the prospective Democratic nominee for the presidency. I can't escape the feeling that in many ways Obama's candidacy could be the fulfillment of the promise that RFK fought, and died, for in 1968. Although the things tearing America apart were in many ways very different in 1968, the country remains divided, often bitterly, along the fault lines of ideology, economics, lifestyle, race, gender and opportunity. RFK's message of hope and unity resounds as loudly today as it did forty years ago.
Of all RFK's speeches,
Am I the only one who thinks this presidential primary season is turning more and more into silly time at the happy farm? The gas tax holiday debate now raging between the candidates is nothing more than the idiocy du jour.
McCain got the ball rolling by proposing a summer recess from the 18-cent a gallon federal tax on gasoline. As he put it:
"I'd like to see families in America have a relief from ever-increasing costs of gasoline so maybe at the end of the summer, after this tax holiday, they could buy school supplies for their children."
Quite a sweet thought but since everyone agrees that the savings for the average American family would be around $30, McCain should have said ‘a bit of the school supplies for one of their children, maybe.’
Continue reading "Woops, Sorry. This Gas Tax Holiday Debate is Giving Me Gas" »
The US Supreme Court delivered a 7 - 2 decision this afternoon finding that Kentucky's application of lethal injection does not qualify as 'cruel and unusual' punishment. Several states wasted no time in welcoming the decision and announcing they would be gearing up their murder mills now that the decision is in.
Over the last weeks we have been treated to the spectacle of a President who is increasingly out of touch with reality and for whatever reason is less and less inhibited about showing it.
First we had George as the dancing bear outside the Oval Office as he waited to endorse John McCain.
Last Friday, we had the President telling the Economic Club of N
ew York, "I'm coming to you as an optimistic fellow,"
exactly
at the time that Bear Stearns' stock price was nose-diving and behind the scenes efforts were underway for JP Morgan to buy the once venerable bank for 7 cents on the dollar in an effort to stave off further bank collapses. Not since the 1930's had such a government guaranteed deal been necessary; but George was optimistic.
The most insightful and revolting look into Bush's emotional and intellectual state came on Thursday in a videoconference the President held with American military reconstruction teams in Afghanistan.
Today marks the start of Iraq Veterans Against the War's 'Winter Soldier: Iraq & Afghanistan' event in Washington, D.C. You can follow the proceedings via the Web.
Inspired by the Vietnam Veterans Against the War's original Winter Soldier Investigation of 1971, Iraq Veterans Against the War are holding a similar event this weekend in Washington, D.C.
Regardless of how one feels about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan it is fundamentally important to respect those who have chosen in good conscious to serve their country in this way. Too many have paid the ultimate price with their lives and too many have come home as physically and psychologically shattered men and women.
The very least we can do is to listen to these courageous men and women who are bravely stepping forward to bear witness to the true horrors of the wars we have sent them to fight in.
From IVAW's website:
Continue reading "Our Brave Vets Speak Out - We Should Listen" »
In 1949, the author George Orwell introduced the word ‘doublethink’ into the English language. As they say, ‘you’ve come a long way baby’ since then. After almost sixty years of refinement and further development, doublethink has become a fascinating phenomenon in social, psychological and political thought and action.
George Orwell introduced the word and concept of doublethink into the English vocabulary in his seminal 1949 classic entitled 1984. Doublethink, as described by one of the characters in the book is: “To know and not to know… to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them.”
Pre-schoolers and young children
For weeks the candidates, the pundits and the media have been all a’ chatter about the Democratic superdelegates. Endless speculation about what could happen IF the Democratic nominating contest has to be decided by the superdelegates. Well, we’re way past that point because the superdelegates are going to have the final word in this historic contest.
Fears of a potential super ugly superdelegate mess? Did I say potential? Forget that. The future is here and so is the superdelegate mess.
Given the current delegate count (see visual) there is practically no way that either candidate can reach the magic nominating number of 2,025 without the superdelegates. As you can see, Obama needs to win 78% of the remaining delegates while Hillary needs almost a total sweep of 89% of the regular delegates left to win the nomination.
Given that Democratic delegates are awarded along a more or less proportional fashion it is for all intents and purposes a foregone conclusion. Neither candidate is going to reach 2,025
I earlier wrote that this could be America’s next potential great moment in time. The kind of moment that doesn’t come along very often. A moment of potentially transformational importance. As we look at the last three standing in America’s primaries, we can see what makes this moment so unique and so challenging.
Imagine the times we are in: The country’s confidence in its President is at one of its lowest points ever. And even more significantly, barely 1 in 5 Americans, only 22%,
puts much stock in the Congress. And the rest of the world is waiting
with bated breath for an America renewed. Against that background, look
at the three presidential candidates left standing: a woman, the son of
a black Kenyan immigrant and an old white guy who is one of America’s
last true warrior heroes in national public service. 
The recent California Democratic debate was on the surface not very spectacular. However, if one were to look at it thru other eyes, it is possible to imagine the contours of a 16 to 20 year period of transformational change with a gigantic capital C. Part II – A Six Point Plan for Political Transformation.
Over the past hundred years,
Continue reading "A Six Point Plan for Political Transformation" »
The recent California Democratic debate was on the surface not very spectacular. However, if one were to look at it thru other eyes, it is possible to imagine the contours of a 16 to 20 year period of transformational change with a gigantic capital C. Part I – The Choice No One Should Be Asked To Make
As I nestled into the couch to watch this debate, I had low expectations. Given the tenor of the recent campaign I feared a ‘he-said-she-said-no-I-didn’t’ kind of debate. Sort of what the Republicans had offered the previous night. Instead we were treated to a show that was to a surprising degree ‘I’m okay-you’re-okay-it’s-the republicans-we-are-after.’
On the key issues of this primary season these two are practically within millimeters of each other. When it comes to the complex issues of
Continue reading "The Choice No One Should Asked Be To Make" »
Obama’s landslide victory last night in South Carolina has provided crystal clear answers to several fundamental and burning questions about this year’s campaign. And none of those answers bode well for Hillary, Bill or the Clinton legacy. But maybe, just maybe, the answers bode well for America.
Boy oh boy! What an exciting primary season. Last night I stayed up for the first time to watch the results come in live and to follow the discussions on CNN, the BBC, English language Al Jazeera and on the Internet.
With Obama’s overwhelming victory
It’s a damn shame. This should have been one the most significant and inspiring presidential election seasons since the first time Americans went to the polls in 1789.
Perhaps I was expecting too much or I am naïve or as some would say even pollyannish. But I couldn’t help myself.
Continue reading "The Arkansas Rumblers Tag Team Strikes Again" »
Monday, January 21, is Martin Luther King Day in the United States. I dedicated some time over the weekend to read and watch some of his speeches and to see a wonderful CNN special appropriately entitled MLK: Words That Changed a Nation.
Dr. King did indeed change a nation and it was primarily through his words that he catalyzed and led that change. The purity and incontrovertible truth of what he wanted to share with us, the absolute passion and humility with which he spoke and the magic oratory style he was a master of brought his concepts to life in a way that could not be ignored. And as I read and watched this weekend, I realized that those of us who care deeply about or are in whatever way involved in the conflict between Israel and Palestine need to hear his words as if for the first time. We need to understand as never before what Dr. King lived and died for.
Most people know his “I Have a Dream” and “I’ve Been to the Mountain Top” speeches. Fewer people may be familiar with one of his lesser known sermons from 1957, a Sunday church sermon that enunciated so clearly and so beautifully
Continue reading "Listen… Listen Close Enough to Hear… His Words Resonate As Loud As Ever" »
Obfuscate: To make so confused or opaque as to be difficult to perceive or understand
Synonyms: camouflage, disguise, cloud, obscure
(click image to view full size)
I have always been disgusted by the term collateral damage especially when it is applied to the destroyed lives of totally innocent men, women and children. It is how we sterilize and de-humanize the horror of war. It is how we insulate ourselves from the gruesome consequences of the actions we actively support or facilitate by our inaction. It’s a word that soothes our individual and collective conscience and allows us to sleep at night. It’s how we replace the guiltless yet bloodied and mangled face of innocent death with a false mask of acceptability. It’s the sugar that helps the disgusting medicine of war go down.
In both the Afghanistan and Iraq wars
Continue reading "Two, four, six, eight, let’s go obfuscate" »
When I think about Bush and Ahmadinejad I usually get two varying images in my head. Sometimes I see them as two nuts, two peanuts, two Mr. Peanuts if you will and sometimes I see Bush and Ahmadinejad as two peas in a pod. Since both the peanut and the pea are actually in the same family, I guess I could just think of them as two whacky and wild pea nuts.
But seriously, whatever image these two guys conjure up in your head, one reason why they have developed into such arch rivals, with an enmity that has become palpably personal, lies partially in the fact that they are actually quite similar. And maybe that’s why they just can’t seem to get along.
Both men are motivated by their deep religious convictions. As is well known,
Continue reading "Will the Real Mr. Peanut Please Stand Up? Part I" »
