Political Opinion - Articles - Zimbio

Failures Of The "Old-Think" Ideology

Mon, 22 Jul 2008 14:00:00 GMT

posted by mentarch
Perhaps it is indeed time that we wake up to the fact that we are in the 21st century now and consequently change our way of thinking with regards to economics, energy and the environment, as opposed to our current thinking as if we're still living in the lower half of the 20th century?

Enjoy the following article:

Drilling Without Oil, Tax Cuts Without Growth
By Dean Baker

Senator McCain is in the unenviable position of running on the track record of a president with the worst economic performance since Herbert Hoover. He has adopted the strategy of ignoring the record while embracing his predecessor's policies. McCain is betting the media will be so incompetent that they will not notice. He might be right. The basic story here is very simple. The centerpiece of Senator McCain's economic agenda is the continuation of the Bush tax cuts. Of course, he has tossed out a few other items, but impact of his other proposals, such as ending earmarks, is trivial. For all practical purposes, McCain's economic agenda is Bush's tax cuts.

We could have an interesting debate about whether giving tax cuts to the wealthiest people in the country is good economic policy, if we didn't already know the answer. We have had almost eight years of President Bush's tax cuts and the record is as clear as it can possibly be. When it comes to producing economic growth that benefits the middle class, the tax cuts were dismal failures.

The economy is now in the process of sinking into the second recession of the second Bush administration, and President Bush already has the worst record on job creation of any president since Herbert Hoover. At the current rate of job loss, it is entirely possible President Bush will have created fewer private sector jobs in his entire eight years in office than the 2.6 million annual average for the eight years of the Clinton administration.

It is virtually certain the wage for the typical worker will be lower when President Bush leaves office in January of 2009 than when he took office in January of 2001. This means most workers will have seen nothing from the benefits of productivity growth over the last eight years.

Certainly, President Bush cannot be blamed for everything that went wrong, but it certainly does not make sense to claim that his policies bear no responsibility for this economic failure. President Bush was left in charge of the store (he also controlled both houses of Congress through most of his presidency) and we got cleaned out. Imagine if some big government Democrat had this track record?

This is why it is absurd for McCain to present himself as the candidate of jobs and growth. We are doing his policies now - they don't work.

Keep reading ...

The Two Words That Brought on Change

Thu, 25 Jul 2008 13:09:00 GMT

posted by beyondthecusp
I recently had a hurried trip to the Emergency Room of one of the local hospitals. There I was introduced to a trial run for Obama’s first one hundred days. I was informed that I not only had the one problem I had suspected, but I also had another life changing problem. It is remarkable how much the two words, “Heart Attack” can totally change your priorities. My public enemy number one is no longer Marxists and Socialists; it is now the accursed chemical sodium. My diagnosis of suffering congested heart failure was accompanied with the wonderful news that I was also suffering severe type II diabetes. So, now my diet has taken a severe turn to the bland and tasteless, kind of like many of my jokes. This, along with quitting smoking should assist my dealing with this new reality. Time will tell how invasive these life changes will prove to be. I have a good support group provided by the hospital and after my family and friends get used to the changes and adjustments we can assess what is necessary.

Now on to the second most important subject, politics. I feel compelled to point out that this little life lesson has placed things into tighter focus. I have gained a new understanding of what is truly important and that which is merely an inconvenience. Over the next number of weeks, I will open doors to a new life style with more rigid guidelines. This will hopefully make Beyond the Cusp more relevant and give another voice to those who actually believe that the Constitution is one of the two documents chiseled out of stone (the other being the Ten Commandments). It is time to slay the beast that is, “the Constitution is a living and changing set of guidelines." We are at a crossroads where a monumental decision must be made. We are at that point where we must choose whether we will abide literally by the will and documents from our Founding Fathers or will we decide that there are no real truths anchoring our Republic into a solid foundation. This will be decided by the Judges we appoint and whether or not we can bite the bullet and reign in our seemingly run-away bureaucracy. My prayers are for our being equal to this task that may very well spell the life or death of the American Dream. America has come to that heart attack moment where we must decide if the American Dream is worth saving or if relativism is allowed to dilute all that we should believe in. My recent brush with heart failure has me convinced that we have what it takes to face these problems intelligently and with firm resolve. Let us go forth and provide an American Dream for our children and their children and save this Dream and our children.

Beyond the Cusp

Clintonisms, A Book Review

Thu, 25 Jul 2008 17:18:00 GMT

posted by beyondthecusp
My recent little vacation from Internet access gave me the time to read the book, “Clintonisms” by Julia Gorin. Julia breaks numerous quotes from both Bill and Hilary Clinton mixing them with comments from both sides of the isle. She has each chapter address some aspect of the Clinton life styles, for example, Chapter 6 is Titled “Games First-Couples Play” through which some amusing quirks of this unique couple of American politics are revealed. The book is light reading and one can pick it up at any time and just start reading. Some of the quotes will be familiar to many who have followed the Clinton Express but Julia also finds some of their more remote quotes. The book is relatively short, almost to the point of leaving you wanting even more of the humorous look and fresh approach to America’s first family for much of the 1990’s.

I recommend this book as a fair and balanced look at the Clinton legacy through their own words and comments from others from their time in Arkansas, Hilary’s time in the Senate, and the White House. So, pick up a copy and leave on the nightstand as a little comic relief at the end of the day, you will not be disappointed.

Beyond the Cusp

Losing Ourselves Beyond Redemption

Fri, 19 Jul 2008 22:20:00 GMT

posted by mentarch
The increasing erosion of our constitutions, civil rights and democracies as they are being gradually subjugated by Authoritarian Security Surveillance States. The bloating no-fly lists and terrorist watch-lists. The continuing inhumane and barbaric renditions, "enhanced interrogations" and indefinite detentions - of children, teenagers and adults alike. The continuing standing of Military Commissions, which are nothing more than politically-driven, rigged, kangaroo courts. The seemingly unending wars of choice and occupation in Afghanistan and Iraq - both based on lies to justify a vengeance operation for 9/11 and the securing of foreign oil resources. The ever mounting toll of civilian deaths, displaced refugees and soldier casualties.

This is the overall state of things today with regards to our so-called "Western civilization" - especially with regards to the U.S.A., the U.K. and Canada.

Through it all, much of the currently occurring discourse and debating on these above-mentioned, self-evident evils deal largely with semantics and quaint legalese gymnastics in order to defend and justify not only their perceived necessity, but to actually establish, maintain, or cement, their legality as well.

The following exchange cristallizes the sheer insanity which is now prevailing over what passes as reason these days (h/t):

American News Project notes that in yesterday’s House Judiciary subcommittee hearing on torture, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) asked Doug Feith if a 20-hour interrogation involving “hooding” and “removal of clothing” was “humane.” Feith hedged, curiously claiming that “removal of clothes is different from naked”:
NADLER: : Let me ask you. How could you force someone to be naked -

FEITH: It doesn’t say naked. It doesn’t say naked.

NADLER: Removal of clothing. Removal of clothing doesn’t mean naked?

FEITH: Removal of clothing is different from naked.

This, coming from that same Douglas Feith who has claimed to have championed a policy of respect for the Geneva conventions during his tenure in the White House (ri-ight).

Let's have another example (h/t):

The controversial interrogation technique of waterboarding has served a “valuable” purpose and does not constitute torture, former Attorney General John Ashcroft told a House committee Thursday.

“I believe a report of waterboarding would be serious, but I do not believe it would define torture,” Ashcroft said, responding to questions from Rep. Maxine Waters, D-California.

He added, “the Department of Justice has on a consistent basis over the last half-dozen years or so, over and over again in its evaluations, come to the conclusion that under the law in existence during my time as attorney general, waterboarding did not constitute torture.”

Waters asked Ashcroft whether such techniques would be regarded as “totally unacceptable and even criminal” if they were used on American soldiers. “Well, my subscription to these memos, and my belief that the law provides the basis for these memos persisted even in the presence of my son serving two tours of duty overseas in the Gulf area as a member of our armed forces,” Ashcroft said …

Let's have more (h/t):

During a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee today, former Attorney General John Ashcroft falsely claimed that waterboarding has “consistently” been defined as “not torture” and refused to agree that the use of enhanced interrogation techniques — including waterboarding — on captured U.S. soldiers is “unacceptable” or “criminal.”
REP. MAXINE WATERS: Do you think that if these techniques were used on American soldiers that they would be totally unacceptable and even criminal? (…)

ASHCROFT: My job, as Attorney General, was to try and elicit from the experts and the best people in the Department definitions that comported with the statues enacted by the Congress and the Constitution of the United States. And those statutes have consistently been interpreted so as to say, by the definitions that, waterboarding, as described in the CIA’s request, is not torture.

Which in turn must be followed by this (h/t):

Today, during a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) dismissed the torture of prisoners at Guantanamo and other U.S. detention facilities. According to Issa, “we treated our hospital patients worse” than we treat al Qaeda detainees. Former attorney general John Ashcroft chimed in, joking that doctors “were poking needles into me”:
ISSA: It is sort of amazing that as a member of the permanent Select Intelligence Committee, I’ve never heard any allegation of any detainee being denied food or water for a week. It’s clear that we treated our hospital patients at times worse than al Qaeda.

ASCHROFT: What’s more, they were poking needles into me all the time time.

Now comes the logical outcome (h/t):

Appearing on Shepard Smith’s Fox News show yesterday, O’Reilly explained that he “held (the released footage of Rev. Jesse Jackson criticizing Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) before an interview) back” because “it was not relevant to the general subject — one civil rights leader disparaging another, over policy.” Towards the end of the interview, Smith asked O’Reilly, “do we know who leaked it?” “No,” replied O’Reilly, adding that he would find out because he had “the waterboard over here”:
O’REILLY: So, we held it back, and then, some weasel got the whole thing, leaked it out to the internet, and here we are.

SMITH: Do we know who leaked it and what’s happened to that person?

O’REILLY: No, but I have the waterboard over here, and we have a couple of people that, you know, we’ll dunk. We’ll find out.
When Smith said, “we don’t allow torture here,” O’Reilly replied, “well, you talk to some of my guests.”

All of the above reminds me again of this:

(...) whether you call it "frathouse pranks", "enhanced interrogation techniques", "water treatment" or "waterboarding", torture has been going on, and is still going on - even after the revelations of Abu Ghraib and Gitmo. In fact, many detainees have actually been tortured to death. Even children and teenagers ("child soldiers" and civilians) have been likewise tortured. Why, torture has become so mainstream that the U.S. is now in the business of torturing for, or helping in doing so ... other countries like China! Thanks to another of Bush's signing statements, the new motto is: "torture - it's not only legal, it's all good".

Indeed - Gitmo is really more like a boy scout camp than it is a prison camp. Why, it is practically Disney Land!

Not. At. All.

Nevertheless, there you have it. From first denying any torture, we've come to redefining torture as not torture, to trivializing it and, now, to make it a subject of asinine jokes.

Never mind the dirty little secrets that torture by the military is not really new, and that torture of detainees of the Global War on Terror(TM) began well before Bush and Co. decided to undertake the necessary legalese gymnastics in order to justify it "legally" after-the-fact,

And never mind that torture techniques currently being used (yes - torture is still going on) came from China, and that privatizing torture can be good business.

No, never mind all that because the new truthiness of the day is: torture is A-OK.

No wonder, then, that there are politicians who still think that torture techniques, such as those used in Gitmo or those revealed in Abu Ghraib, are nothing more than hazing pranks from some Fraternity.

No wonder, then, that U.S. politicians are doing their best to close down hearings on torture.

No wonder, then, that radio loudmouths can proudly say - and without any backlash whatsoever - that they would hang any lawyer doing their job in defending Gitmo detainees.

No wonder, then, that the President can claim with a straight face that critics of Gitmo, Abu Ghraib and renditions are slandering America.

And it is no wonder, then, that Bush allies/emulators (like my Prime Douchebag of Canada) actually support implicitly the use of torture, by either mendacious denial or by using the same types of euphemisms, obfuscations and sleight-of-hand double-talking in doing so.

Once again, as I previously wrote:

There is no going deeper into the pit of savagery and perversion here, folks. This is the very bottom, the lowest of the lowest, level of inhumanity.

No civilization allowed here - when the debate is about the efficiency and validity of torture in getting solid intelligence and confessions, as things are now, instead of being about the inherent immoral nature of torture, then you know you have lost any semblance of human rationality and grace.

Case in point.

All the while, we keep on ignoring the following simple, self-evident verity:

I also think of those dozens (hundreds?) who have been tortured over the years, thanks to the Bush administration's policy which has ever been supported - if not encouraged and staunchly defended - by pundits, lawyers, justices, politicians, warhawks, chickenhawks and all assorted fear- and hate-driven neocon enablers, supporters and apologists - including all those ostriches who would rather bury their heads in the sand rather than face the awful, ugly truth:

The U.S.A. has become a rogue state which practices indefinite detention and torture.

And who cares if some of those "evil Muslims" die in the process, right? After all, indefinite detentions, secret tribunals and enhanced interrogation techniques torture are valuable means and tools for the defense of freedom, liberty and democracy ...

(...) I humbly assume that I will be forgiven if I do not appreciate the "courageous" work done over the last seven years by the Bush administration and its cheerleading supporters - because from where I stand, they have spat upon and irreversibly sullied every precept of human dignity, of human respect, of Humanity, which used to be held as unassailable and uncompromising, sacrosaint values.

And it doesn't matter however much they try to justify/legalize/spin their actions - for indeed, nothing justifies indefinite detention, secret tribunals and torture.

Nothing.

Period.

Every single one of these fear- and hate-driven incompetents have pushed us from the moral high ground of justice, freedom and human rights into the bottomless precipice of barbarous and savage injustice.

And this other one:

That. Is. Justice. For. You.

All in the sacro-sanct name of Security.

Doesn't it make you feel so proud and patriotic?

God bless America and God bless Canada, f***ing indeed.

But the ugly truth is that all of us are guilty for our silence and absence of outrage. All of us have been irremediably stained for such a sociopathic lack of basic human decency, empathy, compassion and contrition.

In the meantime, the apparent majority of our fellow citizens either approve, remain complicit with their silence, just don't want to know, or simply don't care - as they are being conveniently distracted on a daily basis by the whims and vagaries of vapid and insipid (if not asinine) traditional media outlet accomplices (yet one more example here).

Thus I ask again:

(...) what does it say about a society where those who are the most pro-war and pro-torture can only change their minds after undergoing waterboarding?

I think it is now safe to say that the answer to that question is the following: simply read again the very first paragraph of this essay.

That is what "it says" about our societies.

Not entirely convinced? Then glance over these few headlines:

8 million Americans are now listed as potentially suspect;

FBI might use profiling in terror investigations (h/t);

Terrorist Watch List Hits One Million Names (h/t);

Court Backs Bush on Military Detentions (h/t);

CNN reporter criticizes TSA, finds self on terror watch list;

Prosecutor turned up on US terror watch list;

Torture and the rule of law;

RCMP slammed for storing secret files on Canadians (see also here);

CSIS keeping tabs on Olympic protesters (see also here);

U.K.: What do we do now? (see also here);

Homeland Security blocks voter drive (h/t)

Council used terror law to spy on fishermen;

Congressman still faces airport screening problem.

And I could go on and on and on and on.

If we can accept something so inhuman and barbaric as torture, and if furthermore we become so accepting/used of it that we can trivialize and even joke about it, then we can accept anything.

And so we have.

And frankly, I've used up all my outrage and my contempt on these matters. I wrote letters (newpapers, elected representatives), I've written blogs, I've been discussing this over and over in the public place (in RL) ...

Still, most people seem too self-absorbed, or too fearful of them "terrorists", or actually approve, or remain simply in denial, to be outraged or even give a damn about the slow destruction of our democratic principles, as well as our values of civil rights, human rights, human dignity and human respect.

And I - at least on this day - just don't know what to do about this anymore.

We have been losing ourselves since the day after 9/11.

Looks like we have crossed the threshold of ever being able to find ourselves again.

So we keep on riding fast and hard onto that road to perdition ... well beyond redemption.

(Cross-posted at DKos, NION, The Wild, Wild Left, Progressive Historians, Diatribune, ACR)

A Kinder, Gentler Imperialism?

Fri, 19 Jul 2008 15:00:00 GMT

posted by mentarch
I said it before and I'll say it (yet) again:

(...) when will we acknowledge the fact, once and for all, that it is the incompetents among us who consistently promulgate violence as a solution for anything, to everything?

For the sake of our continued existence, we must strive to forget nevermore that rationalizations supporting the use of violence - other than the need for the rightful exercise of self-defense when set upon by a genuinely clear, present and immediate danger - invariably constitute deceitful fabrications meant to conceal, disguise or justify incompetence ...

... including our very own for embracing such mendacity.

To this effect, I stumbled upon the following article which I furthemore find quite à propos as a follow up to yesterday's post here:

A Kinder, Gentler Imperialism?
Getting Beyond the Either/Or Choice
By Corey D. B. Walker

“Even those who do not share the views of the old generals and proconsuls of the U.S. world empire (which were those of Democratic as well as Republican administrations) will agree that there can be no rational justification of current Washington policy in terms of the interests of America’s imperial ambitions. . . ."

Eric Hobsbawm

Both major party presidential candidates have been sparring over the focus, scope, and reach of the Bush Administration’s self-proclaimed “War on Terrorism.” Each, in their own way, look to tweak the grand designs of imperial power to properly and correctly align it with their particular ideological proclivities and vision of American global hegemony.

Whether it is Senator McCain’s continuation of the war in Iraq or Senator Obama’s intense focus on the theatre of conflict in Afghanistan (and extending into Pakistan), both candidates have chosen not to challenge the underlying foundational assumptions that have informed American foreign policy and national security policy since the events of 11 September 2001.

Both candidates agree with the deeply flawed language and logic that our nation is at “war.” As military historian Sir Michael Howard opined almost seven years ago, “[T]o use, or rather to misuse the term ‘war’ is not simply a matter of legality, or pedantic semantics. It has deeper and more dangerous consequences. To declare that one is ‘at war’ is immediately to create a war psychosis that may be totally counter-productive for the objective that we seek. It will arouse an immediate expectation, and demand, for spectacular military action against some easily identifiable adversary, preferably a hostile state; action leading to decisive results.” In this respect, Senator McCain will have us “win” in Iraq and Senator Obama will have us “win” in Afghanistan.

While both campaigns have given lip service to the need for increased diplomacy – Senator Obama much more so than his republican counterpart – neither campaign has decided to make a decisive break with the fundamentally flawed logic that has governed and continues to reign supreme in American foreign policy circles. Indeed, neither candidate is prepared to repudiate the flawed doctrine of massive military action as a primary response to the challenges of rogue networks of stateless actors who employ terroristic measures to achieve their ideological aims and objectives.

In several significant ways, the foreign policy differences between the two candidates can best be understood as two competing visions for the enhancement and perpetuation of American imperialism.

After the events of 11 September 2001, the Bush regime decided to formulate and implement a foreign policy that placed a premium on unilateral military action in imposing the dictates of a renewed American imperialism. Deliberation, debate, and diplomacy were jettisoned in pursuing a global vision of unquestioned American supremacy that would ensure the safety and security of the “homeland.” Rehearsing the discourse of impending threat, the current regime strategically reoriented the American state – consolidated considerable power within the Executive branch, deepened the politicization of the governmental bureaucracy, significantly shifted and militarized foreign assistance, realigned corporate interests with foreign military policy, among other things – to domesticate and disseminate a “benign” imperialism always and already in our own interests.

Initially supported by a majority of the American public and given legitimacy by the mainstream intellectual class, the Bush regime’s imperialist vision no longer claims majority support or sufficient legitimacy. But despite this loss of legitimacy and support, the underlying principles continue to inform discussions of the proper aims and goals of American foreign policy in this election cycle.

Whether war in Iraq or Afghanistan, whether the will to win or the dedication to lead, whether little discussion or considered diplomacy, this presidential election cycle reminds us that while the bellicose imperialism of the Bush regime is entering its final days, American imperialism will continue, albeit with a different set of actors.

And it is this imperialism that marginalizes alternative visions of relations between sovereign nations and that imperils the prospects for a global peace.

Keep reading ...