I've wondered about Rodin's famous sculpture. Is he engaged in deep thought or sitting around wasting time? And why isn't he wearing pants? I ask the same of myself. Here we comment on well, mostly politics. Or we may just sit! If you like it, tell a friend. If not, tell us, but please read the GROUND RULES before you do.
From the BBC comes this interesting article. In a country that has given its people universal healthcare, the debate in the United States is puzzling, to say the least.
“One of the fallacies that politicians often have on the Left is that things are obvious, when they are not obvious. Obama's administration made a tremendous mistake by not immediately branding the economic collapse that we had just had as the Republicans' Depression, caused by the Bush administration's ideology of unregulated greed. The result is that now people blame him.”
Psychologist Drew Westen, author of The Political Brain
“You vote to strike a blow against elitism and you receive a social order in which wealth is more concentrated than ever before in our life times, workers have been stripped of power, and CEOs are rewarded in a manner that is beyond imagining. It's like a French Revolution in reverse in which the workers come pouring down the street screaming more power to the aristocracy.”
Thomas Frank, author of What’s The Matter with Kansas
Seldom in the world of Literature has one with such a small body of work been so influential. It's a shame we couldn't have more of his voice to give meaning and perspective to a world he turned his back on for the past 50 years. Rest in peace, Mr. Salinger. I grew up loving your books.
Last night’s speech didn’t come close to this, but what speech could? This is, indeed, the Great Man’s template, a call to arms against those forces that threaten our democracy. Listening to FDR moves the soul and reminds us there are things worth fighting for. Thank you for this, Keith:
President Obama had his moments last night. He could, and should have gone further, but his unprecedented scolding of the Supreme Court -- “With all due deference to separation of powers” -- was necessary (thanks for heeding the suggestion, Mr. President):
We see Justice Alito shaking his head and mouthing the word “no,” right wing Republican hack that he is, not an “impartial” Justice. This is simply the latest example of the other branch of government showing disrespect for the executive branch, in the person of President Obama. The first was Joe Wilson’s disrespect, speaking for the legislative branch. It seems the only thing that kept Alito from jumping to his feet, pointing a bony finger at the President, and screaming “YOU LIE!” was the hovering presence of our generally mild-mannered Senator Dick Durbin, clapping extra hard over the Justices’ heads, as if he was ready to smack down any black-robed hombre who tried the Wilson stunt.
Yeah, you actually do look like a “bump on a log,” Mr. Alito. (Former Chief Justice Rhenquist famously discouraged his crew showing up at the SOTU because they’d look like “bumps on a log.”)
The President lurched right while boxing in the Republicans and daring them to do something constructive instead of saying NO to everything. It played well in the hustings but the Republicans, as Harry Truman said, are not going to change their stripes. Not quite sure the President realizes this yet, which is worrisome. It’s fine to urge Congress to show leadership, but in the end, it’s the President who must lead.
Tactically, though, the President called their bluff and dared them to respond to the populist anger against Wall Street. The Republicans, who are in bed with the bankers, quite simply will not. At the same time, Mr. Obama mocked Democrats for having the largest majority in decades, with which people expect them to solve problems, not “run for the hills” -- another theme echoed in this blog. He held his ground on healthcare, trying to inject some backbone into the Democratic Party, telling them in effect to get it done. Obviously, the House needs to pass the Senate bill and fix it in reconciliation. (The President lavished praise on the House showing open admiration for Speaker Pelosi. And why not? Nancy Pelosi got his agenda passed in the House while the do-nothing Senate was seriously dysfunctional.)
Yet President Obama keeps throwing Republicans more red meat. It’s not going to work. Little was said by talking heads about the President's unsettling swing to the right on energy policy: a radical turnaround embracing new nuclear power plants, offshore drilling, and so-called "clean coal" as a trade-off to compel recalcitrant Republicans to support climate change legislation. Likewise, the spending freeze is a largely symbolic gimmick that is bad policy but good politics in terms of neutralizing a raise in the debt limit and Republican assaults on Social Security and Medicare.
Ultimately, President Obama was his most confusing counterintuitive self: partisan/nonpartisan; spending/freeze; jobs/teenie tiny $30 billion in 2010, NADA in 2011; healthcare/let's get it done with Republicans (?) -- best to wait till Hell freezes over. Everything so positively Clintonian triangulation. Clinton is the template. Nothing close to “I welcome their hatred,” unfortunately.
But that president had the American people -- and kept them -- with him from the start.
President Obama swept into office as the second coming of FDR. One year into his term Mr. Obama is acting more like FDR’s predecessor, Herbert Hoover, whose spending freeze at the height of a depression only deepened and intensified it. Now on the eve of the State of the Union speech, President Obama has done an about-face and embraced the self-same discretionary budget freeze proposed by his defeated opponent John McCain. The criticism of the President’s capitulation to the very policies that brought us to this point as a “gimmick” and a “stunt” is withering. Progressives are beyond furious; we’re appalled.
The right wing punk, James O’Keefe, who gained notoriety in wingnut circles for posing as a pimp to smear ACORN may end up pimping for something or someone else in a federal prison. O’Keefe was arrested by the FBI for illegally entering the offices of Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu posing as a telephone repairman and attempting to bug the Senator’s office phones. O’Keefe and his accomplices are facing 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for entering federal property under false pretenses for the purposes of committing a felony.
From pimp poseur to prison bitch, from Fox News Hannity to MSNBC’s Lockup Raw, from A-hole to ACORN, such is the flameout odyssey of a G. Gordon Liddy Watergate burglar wannabe. I love it when a plan comes together: Poetic justice and then some. After posting bail O’Keefe said “Veritas” (truth in Latin), adding “the truth shall set me free.” Um, what’s the frequency, James . . . or maybe it was all a big misunderstanding?
Latest Capitol Hill rumor: A House Resolution introduced by Rep. Pete Olson of Texas, with 23 cosponsors, honoring “the fact-finding reporting” done by James O’Keefe III, is being hastily amended:
Whereas James O’Keefe III is “owed a debt of gratitude by the people of the United States: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the House of Representatives--
(1) honors James O’Keefe III . . . ;
(2) commends James O’Keefe III for bringing to light . . .; and
(3) respectfully requests the Clerk of the House to transmit an enrolled copy of this resolution to . . . James O’Keefe III [.] Insert Amended language here [: AT FEDERAL PENITENTIARY – ADDRESS TBD.]”
“The most important thing is that the IMF is now working with all donors to try to delete all the Haitian debt, including our new loan. If we succeed—and I'm sure we will succeed—even this loan will turn out to be finally a grant, because all the debt will have been deleted. And that's the very important thing for Haiti now.”
Geez, I must have missed this side of the story on all those sites bashing the U.S. “military occupation” of Haiti. I guess they’re parsimonious about quoting Naomi Klein on her doctrine of disaster capitalism when it doesn’t fit their ideology. So we’re left with half a story. It’s the old slice-and-dice that Fox does so well. I actually saw this on the Rachel Maddow show. She said it’s “huge” for Haitian relief and reconstruction. I think so too. So does Naomi Klein, who has been a guest on Rachel’s show several times. I e-mailed Rachel about a week ago that she should cover what Naomi’s been writing on Haiti because it’s important; and she did. Rachel also read Naomi’s reply:
“In response to the wave of criticism, the IMF has just issued a statement saying that they will try to turn the $100-million loan to Haiti into a grant. This is unprecedented in my experience and shows that public pressure in moments of disaster can seriously subvert shock doctrine tactics. They are also now saying that they will not put conditions on the emergency loan—another popular victory, since this is not what they were saying last week. Of course people have to keep up the pressure to make sure Haiti's debts really are cancelled as the IMF is now predicting they will be. Something to hold them to!
Quick, pass the smelling salts, lest the leftie bashers feel faint! Naomi’s piece, titled “A Small Victory for Shock Resistance,” didn’t surprise me, nor did Rachel’s positive report. Honest reporting from good progressives who are not ideologues. Withholding information is never, ever what we should be about. What’s the buzzword du jour? Reboot, recalibrate? Here is, in Naomi’s word, Rachel’s “terrific” report:
“I hope we shall...crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and to bid defiance to the laws of our country.”
--Thomas Jefferson, letter to George Logan, November 12, 1816
This one's laughable coming from Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut. The Senator said Democrats should “take a breather for a month, six weeks” so Congress can regroup after Senate Democrats lost their filibuster-proof majority in Tuesday’s Massachusetts election.
This is the same senator who lamented the lack of comity in the Senate in an oblique criticism of the feisty new Democratic members of Congress: Al Franken, Sheldon Whitehouse, and Alan Grayson.
Isn't it curious that less than a month after Dodd announced (at the urging of the White House) he would not seek reelection, he is first in line in the Democratic Party to raise the white flag of surrender in the form of “advice” to his Party colleagues? Is the Senator regretful and/or resentful that he may have taken one for the team prematurely?
A major reason Democrats are in this position is that they waited too long already to pass healthcare, without strong presidential leadership. The longer Democrats wait, the dimmer their prospects for passage of a healthcare bill become. And if they do not pass some form of healthcare, bye-bye majorities because the base is royally pissed.
Who knows, perhaps Mr. Dodd is auditioning for prospective corporate clients once he becomes a lobbyist. Whatever the case, his comments are unwelcome. The best thing a lame duck like Chris Dodd can do (as Al Franken would say) is to sit down and shut the fuck up.
Suggestions for President Obama concerning the State of the Union speech:
This is a unique opportunity to publicly bitch-slap the five conservative Supreme Court Justices, as they sit before you, for their scathingly undemocratic decision opening the floodgates to the corporate takeover of our nation. Take names, Mr. President. You’re a Constitutional scholar. Knock down their arguments. Make Roberts squirm.
When the Judicial branch of the federal government so overreaches its authority as to threaten the very foundations of the state and its political institutions, it’s your solemn responsibility to push back, and push back hard. There is no better stage than the State of the Union, where you will have the Justices, the Congress, and the nation as a captive audience.
It would be a master stroke and strike a blow for democracy. Sadly, Mr. President, I rate the chances of it happening no better than 50-50. Such is the current state of disenchantment within your progressive base.
Healthcare options for Democrats now that the fictitious supermajority is no longer an excuse for reactionary hacks from small states to hijack and exploit the debate:
The general consensus is there are three options left to Democrats:
1. Do nothing.
2. Work cooperatively with Brown-Palin-McCain-Lieberman-Vitter-De Mint-Bachmann-Grassley-Snowe-Enzi-Hatch-Coburn-Baehner-McConnell Republicans to craft a bipartisan “scaled back” bill on one solitary page that Rham “the Appeaser” (a.k.a “Little Neville” in White House circles) Emanuel can frantically wave in his hand, declaring “we have healthcare in our time!”
3. Tell House Democrats to hold their noses, pass the seriously flawed Senate bill (with some good things), and we can fix it later in reconcilation.
But there is also a fourth option. Here it is, it’s very simple and all things devolve from it:
4. GROW A SPINE, DEMOCRATS!
Massachusetts Senator-elect Scott Brown, said on arriving in Washington:
“I'm a history buff. I love the Museum of Natural History.”
Not a misstatement. Come to think of it, to Republicans, natural history -– Cro-Magnons, the missing link, survival of the fittest, the whole “social” Darwinism thing –- is their kind of history.
It began with a coup d’etat: Bush v. Gore, in which the Court intervened to halt the Florida recount arguing that it was a violation of the Equal Protection clause and handing George W. Bush the election. That, by itself, was one of the most glaring examples of judicial activism of the kind liberals are always accused of but that conservatives like to practice.
It ends with a stunning decision reversing established law and electoral politics protections dating back to when Teddy Roosevelt warned of “malefactors of great wealth.” Or rather, the beginning of a new phase in which corporations, deemed to be persons with First Amendment rights of free speech, can freely spend as much as they like in support of candidates for president or Congress.
There is no group –- not the unions, not the Sierra club, not netroots activists such as MoveOn –- that has the overwhelming purchasing power of the corporations. We have seen it in action already, working its will in the halls of Congress, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce boasting of its power to “influence” the Massachusetts Senate race with its millions. Thanks to SCOTUS the corporations no longer need to find creative ways to sidestep electoral laws. Their capacity to buy elections and own politicians is now guaranteed.
If 2009 was the year of the lobbyist, 2010 looms as the year democracy ended in America.
It has begun. Scott Brown ran a classic stealth campaign. You'd be hard-pressed to find the word “Republican” in any of his literature. His website colors are blue, the traditional Democratic colors. And, in a most outrageous sleight-of-hand, he wrapped himself in JFK morphing into his own image in a TV ad. Have I mentioned yet this dude is a misogynistic Teabagger? This is what passes for right wing humor: tasteless, sexist, gross, demeaning –- anything but funny.
Even Glenn Beck was alarmed: “I want a chastity belt on this man. I want his every move watched in Washington. I don’t trust this guy . . . This one could end with a dead intern. I’m just saying, it could end with a dead intern.” Hmm. Okay, Beck's certifiably insane. On the other hand, you never know, just 'cause you're crazy doesn't mean you don't have a point.
There are less than 34 months remaining in this bastard’s term. Time enough to draft Ted Kennedy Jr. to take this pretender on and take back his dad’s seat, FOR THE PEOPLE. What a contrast: Young Mr. Kennedy –- so much like his dad –- has what it takes, in spades:
DRAFT EDWARD KENNEDY JR. FOR SENATOR FROM MASSACHUSETTS
And to the Massachusetts voters, especially the women, who cast your ballots for Brown: SHAME ON YOU.
The President's steadfast refusal to acknowledge that we have a two-party system, his insistence on making destructive concessions to the same party voters he had sent packing twice in a row in the name of "bipartisanship," and his refusal ever to utter the words "I am a Democrat" and to articulate what that means, are not among his virtues. We have competing ideas in a democracy -- and hence competing parties -- for a reason. To paper them over and pretend they do not exist, particularly when the ideology of one of the parties has proven so devastating to the lives of everyday Americans, is not a virtue. It is an abdication of responsibility.
- Drew Westen, political psychologist and neuroscientist, Emory University (in the Huffington Post)
The first thing I will say about the Republican Party, believe it or not, is an expression of gratitude. I want to thank them for the way they help the Democrats win elections. Under the liberal policies of the Democratic administration, our country has grown strong and prosperous. And this has been true for such a long time now that people tend to forget what things were like under the Republicans. They criticize the mistakes the Democrats make, but they take for granted all the benefits we have brought them.
You can always count on the Republicans, in an election year, to remind the people of what the Republican Party really stands for. You can always count on them to make it perfectly clear before the campaign is over that the Republican Party is the party of big business, and that they would like to turn the country back to the big corporations and the big bankers in New York to run it as they see fit.
Just leave them alone, and the Republicans will manage to scare the daylights out of the farmer and the wage earner and the average American citizen. They always do that.
This year they are at it again. The Republicans think they have been so successful with their campaign of smears and character assassination that they have the Democrats on the run. And they just can't restrain themselves enough to hide their true colors until after the election.
[T]he old Republican leopard hasn't changed a single spot. It ought to serve as a big, glaring danger sign to the voters of this country of what to expect if they turn the administration of the country over to the Republicans who are now in control of that party.
The main body of the Republican leaders are doing just what they do every election year. They are making it good and plain to the American people that so far as domestic policies are concerned, the Republican Party is the party of reaction and the party of special privilege--just as I proved in 1948, and the people believed me; and they will yet.
The first rule in my book is that we have to stick by the liberal principles of the Democratic Party. We are not going to get anywhere by trimming or appeasing. And we don't need to try it.
The record the Democratic Party has made in the last 20 years is the greatest political asset any party ever had in the history of the world. We would be foolish to throw it away. There is nothing our enemies would like better and nothing that would do more to help them win an election.
I've seen it happen time after time. When the Democratic candidate allows himself to be put on the defensive and starts apologizing for the New Deal and the fair Deal, and says he really doesn't believe in them, he is sure to lose. The people don't want a phony Democrat. If it's a choice between a genuine Republican, and a Republican in Democratic clothing, the people will choose the genuine article, every time; that is, they will take a Republican before they will a phony Democrat, and I don't want any phony Democratic candidates in this campaign.
But when a Democratic candidate goes out and explains what the New Deal and fair Deal really are--when he stands up like a man and puts the issues before the people--then Democrats can win, even in places where they have never won before. It has been proven time and again.
We are getting a lot of suggestions to the effect that we ought to water down our platform and abandon parts of our program. These, my friends, are Trojan horse suggestions. I have been in politics for over 30 years, and I know what I am talking about, and I believe I know something about the business. One thing I am sure of: never, never throw away a winning program. This is so elementary that I suspect the people handing out this advice are not really well-wishers of the Democratic Party.
- President ”Give ‘Em Hell!” Harry S. Truman, in a speech to the ADA, 1952
This is my post-mortem of the election results in Massachusetts. Five is an arbitrary number in no particular order of importance. The reasons for the Democrats losing the Massachusetts Senate seat to a right wing “Tea Party” mysoginistic Republican could number two, or seven, or ten or more. Please feel free to contribute your views.
1. Timidity: Jon Stewart had one of his famous on-air coniptions when he wondered why George W. Bush and the Republicans in Congress could do any “fucking” thing they wanted with 50 votes, but somehow anything shy of 61 votes required endless negotiations, and cave-in compromises on national legislation for 300 million Americans to senators who represent states with less that 2 million people at the bottom, and 5 million at the top -- all of whom could comfortably fit inside New York City, or LA, with plenty of uninsured Americans to spare. Think on this: The Republican Party hasn't had 60 votes in the Senate since 1923!
Perhaps the President conflated progressives and the right. Progressives accepted the craven compromises of Rham Emanuel with reactionaries so often because we are tolerant and pragmatic. We went along with the proposition that one-half loaf is better than none; but not because we're cut from the same cloth as the right. Progressives (this blog) incessantly pleaded with President Obama not to waste his time reaching out to conservatives; but the President had a surprising tin ear. He wouldn't listen.
3. Hubris: Some commentators refer to the Senate as housing 100 presidents. It's more like 47 tin-pot despots and dictators with the power and authority to bring government to a standstill. When Senate “rules,” specifically the filibuster, are used to undermine democratic government and majority rule, as if it were nothing but a sporting match, then it’s time to change the Senate rules. When the Constitution permits the election of a president with millions of fewer votes than the losing candidate -- like the ultimate hackable Diebold machine -- then it’s time to change the Constitution. It’s been done several times before. When first enacted the Constitution limited elections to white male property owners. (Astro-turf corporate Tea Party owners are no doubt OK with that.)
4. Complacency and arrogance: This applies both to the Massachusetts and national Democratic Party. Ted Kennedy never took the voters for granted. He never felt he could just sit on his lead and not work for every single vote. He had the common touch, cared about his constituents, and showed through tireless campaigning and in the Senate that he would work hard for them. It's amazing how few otherwise honest politicians fail to grasp this. Unlike Martha Coakley who disdained such retail campaigning, Teddy loved pumping hands outside Fenway Park. Coakley may be a good AG, but she will go down as one of the worst campaigners in Massachusetts -- and American -- history.
5. Deserting the dance partner who brung you here in the middle of the ballroom floor: Also called “the Rham Emanuelization of the Democratic Party” (Thom Hartmann, progressive radio commentator). There is a debate in the liberal community between those who argue for incrementalism and including Blue Dog Democrats in the governing majority, and those who say the progressives that elected the President should determine the Democratic agenda, not the Blue Dogs. Jonathan Alter, journalist and FDR historian, argues for incrementalism and big tent inclusion. Firebrand film maker Michael Moore and liberal talk show host Ed Schultz are among those pressing full steam ahead with the progressive agenda, the Blue Dogs be damned.
Jonathan points to Social Security as an example of transformative social legislation that became what it is today -- a robust social safety net for retired seniors -- over decades of incremental improvements. He notes that when Social Security was first adopted it excluded entire classes of people and did not provide such benefits as disability. His conclusion is that Democrats should take what the Blue Dogs will accept on healthcare reform as a foundation that can be improved upon in the coming years and decades.
Michael and Ed argue that the party that decisively won the last two election cycles (the third is in November of 2010; special elections do not count as cycles) has earned the right and received a mandate from the electorate to push through the agenda on which it campaigned. To the extent that the Democratic Party reneged on its responsibility to carry out the people's agenda, it was punished at the polls by the voters. There is a tendency among pundits to overanalyze and nationalize election results where local issues trump the national agenda. Not “all politics is local” to be sure, but much more of it than is generally recognized, is.
With all due respect to Jonathan, the result in Massachusetts if anything shows that Michael and Ed were right all along. Ceding the progressive agenda that carried Barack Obama to the presidency to Blue Dog Democrats representing districts carried by John McCain and conservative Republicans has been disastrous for the Democratic Party.
It's worth noting that Micheal and Ed represent today's “new” electronic and digital media and Jonathan represents the “old” print and paper medium. FDR did not have to contend with a 24/7 news cycle, sound bites, and “optics.” Little more than 30 years after the enactment of Social Security, President Johnson took far less time to pass comprehensive Medicare and Medicaid, self-contained transformative legislation -- Parts A and B -- that was changed only (for the worst, in my view) with the passage of Part C cosmetic enhancements and a flawed prescription drug program that benefited private insurers as much, or more, as it did seniors.
Given these historical political and technological realities, it stands to reason that healthcare reform should have been enacted in less than six months, with less complexity, loopholes, and trade-offs, and should have included popular (consumer but anti-corporate) elements such as the public option which was consistently favored in public polls. The foundation was in place. Absent single-payer, Medicare for all was the way to go. Simplify and sell. That was the President's task. In this blog, we have consistently called for the President's leadership and early engagement. Instead, the President stood on the sidelines flirting with Grassley and Snowe, never campaigned (as President) for the public option, drew no lines in the sand -- “Retreat! Retreat! Retreat!” was Rham Emanuel’s clarion call through it all -- and waited and waited and waited to step in to close the deal. Too little, too late. BIG MISTAKE.
In an NPR interview a few weeks ago, President Obama said our claim that the insurance companies want this healthcare bill is “nonsense.” If that is so, Mr. President, why did insurance company stocks shoot up when the public option was killed then fluctuate wildly after Brown “41” was elected in Massachusetts? Either way, whether or not the insurance companies get this bill, it's a win-win for corporate interests. There is no other explanation for insurance companies hosting a fundraiser for losing MA Democrat Martha Coakley one week before the vote, playing both sides against their own self-interest.
If the Massachusetts election derails President Obama's agenda it will be entirely his fault. Progressives are most disappointed not only by the President's absent leadership on healthcare, but by his cozy relationship with Wall Street bankers and insurance companies. There is more “talk” and far less “walk” on the financial regulatory front, witness the gutting of strong banking and financial regulatory reforms in Congress with a lobbyist-driven watered down SEC enforcement arm and consumer financial protection agency. The Senate healthcare bill is a veritable Xmas tree of goodies for corporations and entrenched self-interests, including reactionary Democratic senators from sparsely populated states.
Gramps McCain took to the Senate floor to say “begin from the beginning.” He may yet get his wish to kill healthcare reform. The DINOs, including DINO-come-lately Jim Webb of Virginia, are already talking about incrementalism and retrenchment, i.e., protecting their own hides. Healthcare and financial regulatory reform are on life support thanks to corporatist capitulators Rham Emanuel, Tim Geithner, and Larry Summers. They have not served the President well and they should be gone. If the President's policies, as Presidential adviser David Axelrod said, “are widely misunderstood,” whose fault is that, Mr. Axelrod; aren't you the “optics” guy?
The progressive agenda in the Senate breaks down to 53-47. That's how many votes it would take to pass real healthcare reform, with a public option, paid for by a tax on the wealthiest 2%. That's very close to the percentage of the President's election. Instead of passing healthcare reform with this solid majority rather than squandering an entire year trying to convince 47 conservatives to go along with it, the President now finds himself in a position where he has surrendered his agenda to the right and ironically enjoys only about 47% or less support for his policies.
Congressman John Lewis, a hero of the great civil rights struggles of the 60s, in times like these asked, “what would Bobby do?” Win or lose, RFK wouldn't have been afraid of mixing it up with his rich and powerful opponents, and getting in their face on behalf of the people, especially the weak and voiceless. He would never have stood on the sidelines waiting for things to break his way, trying to protect his “lead,” i.e., popularity. He never cared about the polls; he was confident that if he stuck to his principles people would follow. And if they didn't, he'd get up, brush himself off, and move on to the next fight, with a clear conscience.
There's a lesson in there somewhere for the President and the Democratic Party.
The right wing attacks on President Obama and the U.S. govenment’s Haiti relief effort from GOP Boss Rush Limbaugh, Telefascist Pat Robertson, and Ann Coulter --“the shame and embarrassment” of Bill Clinton in Haiti, the “horny hick” who’s “leaving his essence in Kleenex” -- among other wingnuts are despicable and racist but totally predictable.
Set aside Coulter's hedonistic garbage and Robertson’s brain-addled devil nonsense. Limbaugh’s hideous racism is worse. Here's a sampler: The Democrats are good at “meals on wheels”; we’re already donating to Haiti relief, “it’s called the income tax”; President Obama wants to use the epic tragedy in Haiti to “burnish” his standing and credibility in both the “light-skinned and dark-skinned” black community in this country; “It's made-to-order for 'em; that's why he couldn't wait to get out there. Could not wait to get out there.”
Forget all that. Incredibly, the Obama-bashing isn’t confined to the right. So-called “investigative journalist” Greg Palast, darling of the leftist fringe, said these things on his website:
“Bless the President for having rescue teams in the air almost immediately.” That was President Olafur Grimsson of Iceland. On Wednesday, the AP reported that the President of the United States promised, "The initial contingent of 2,000 Marines could be deployed to the quake-ravaged country within the next few days." “In a few days,” Mr. Obama?
Yes, Mr. Palast. The President was true to his word. The first contingent of U.S. troops arrived in Haiti “a few days” after the earthquake. What you neglect to say is that immediately after the earthquake struck USAID deployed and airlifted to Haiti search and rescue teams with professionally trained sniffer search dogs, as well as Coast Guard cutters carrying food, water, and medical supplies.
“China deployed rescuers with sniffer dogs within 48 hours. China, Mr. President. China: 8,000 miles distant. Miami: 700 miles close. US bases in Puerto Rico: right there.”
If you had bothered to cross-check your sources, Mr. Palast, you would have discovered that on Wednesday, one day into the catastrophe, at least two U.S. Coast Guard ships and two U.S. Air Force transport planes delivered generators, fuel, food, water, communications equipment, medical teams, and medical supplies to Haiti. China’s official news agency reported their team arrived on Thursday: “China's rescue team arrived in Haiti on Thursday, two days after the Latin American country was devastated by a major earthquake measuring 7.3 magnitude.”
The Christian Science Monitor got it wrong when it reported China arrived in Haiti before the U.S. The President stressed that their first priority in those initial hours was to save lives, search and rescue. U.S. search and rescue teams arrived Wednesday and set up operations in the airport to coordinate search and rescue for units from around the world, in addition to tirelessly working their shifts, night and day.
Forty hours into the crisis the U.S. Air Force reopened the airport and brought it up to 24/7 operations, substituting for the collapsed air traffic control tower so that relief supplies from around the world could land safely. It remains a logistical nightmare, with one runway for the massive logjam of relief flights.
It should be noted that cash-rich China so far has pledged only $1 million to Haitian reconstruction compared to the U.S. initial pledge of $100 million, the most among donating countries. To keep things in perspective, here are a few facts and figures from USAID:
To date in FY 2010, USAID has provided nearly $111.3 million in humanitarian assistance for the Haiti earthquake, including a USAID/OFDA contribution of approximately $63.3 million and USAID/FFP food assistance valued at an estimated $48 million.
On January 12, USAID/OFDA activated a Washington D.C.-based Response Management Team (RMT) to support the USAID/DART that deployed to Haiti early on January 13 to assess humanitarian conditions and coordinate activities with the humanitarian community.
DoD has authorized $20 million in overseas humanitarian and disaster assistance appropriations in support of the Haiti earthquake relief effort. DoD has been supporting the humanitarian response through transportation of emergency relief personnel and commodities into Haiti. In addition, several U.S. military ships are currently positioned near Haiti to provide tactical and operational support to the emergency response operation.
Palast sneers: “Obama's Defense Secretary Robert Gates said, “I don't know how this government could have responded faster or more comprehensively than it has.” We know Gates doesn't know.”
Send in the Marines. That's America's response. That's what we're good at. The aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson finally showed up after three days. With what? It was dramatically deployed -— without any emergency relief supplies. It has sidewinder missiles and 19 helicopters.
The purpose of the helicopters, Mr. Palast, is to provide critical vertical lift and transport capability in a country whose infrastructure, transportation system, and port are almost totally destroyed. The USS Carl Vinson, said its commander, is to function as a “floating airport for helicopters picking up supplies from other ships or from a new logistics hub at Port-au-Prince’s international airport and then flying the supplies into hard-to-reach areas of Haiti.” In addition, U.S. Navy hospital ship USNS Comfort is due to arrive off Haiti this week.
Greg Palast's parting shot:
Secretary Gates tells us, “There are just some certain facts of life that affect how quickly you can do some of these things.” The Navy's hospital boat will be there in, oh, a week or so. Heckuva job, Brownie!
How original. The fact is, sir, that the scope of Haiti's tragedy and its challenges are daunting, to say the least. It's easy to sit in your comfort zone and take cheap shots at the people who are in Haiti saving lives at this very moment. Could things have been done differently or better? Certainly. The disaster is so massive and the destruction so complete that the “bottleneck” getting relief in with one operational airstrip, no port, and bad roads is critical. And the Comfort is not a “boat” it's a ship.
Moreover, the Comfort's mission is long-term. Its first phase is expected to last 45 days, treat 40,000 patients, and could require up to 100 French and Creole translators, according to commanding officer, Capt. Jim Ware. The ship can normally accommodate 250 patients over 30 days, with up to 1,000 operations over this period. “Right now we think we're going to be surgically-intensive,” Ware said. Mr. Palast would no doubt snort that this is but a drop in the bucket. But it won't be for a lack of commitment and dedication by American medical personnel in Haiti.
Of the field hospitals established in Haiti, the best are the IDF's, which arrived with its fully functional MASH unit, including an OR, and an inflatable hospital that is up and running with ORs from the magnificent Doctors Without Borders. The Cubans administering La Paz Hospital along with medical units from other countries are doing yeoman work in one of the remaining functioning hospitals left standing in that ravaged country. (All three of MSF's hospitals collapsed in the quake.) Cuba had a headstart with hundreds of doctors and medical personnel in Haiti when the earthquake struck. In light of the unprecedented scope of the tragedy and needs of the Haitian population, the Cuban government has allowed U.S. military aircraft to fly over Cuban airspace to and from Florida and Guantanamo base. So much for the self-serving paranoia in some quarters of an imminent invasion threat from the U.S.
I have a simple message for anyone in the state of Illinois who thinks we're getting out of this mess without both raising taxes and cutting spending -
you are a moron.
So when you see Andy McKenna or any of his friends telling us that they have aplan that won't involve raising taxes, ignore them. They're either lying to you or they'll oversee another four years of economic disaster.
1-15-10 -- Letter of the day from the Minneapolis Star Tribune:
Dear Pat Robertson:
I know that you know that all press is good press, so I appreciate the shout-out. And you make God look like a big mean bully who kicks people when they are down, so I'm all over that action. But when you say that Haiti has made a pact with me, it is totally humiliating.
I may be evil incarnate, but I'm no welcher. The way you put it, making a deal with me leaves folks desperate and impoverished. Sure, in the afterlife, but when I strike bargains with people, they first get something here on earth -- glamour, beauty, talent, wealth, fame, glory, a golden fiddle. Those Haitians have nothing, and I mean nothing. And that was before the earthquake. Haven't you seen “Crossroads”? Or “Damn Yankees”? If I had a thing going with Haiti, there'd be lots of banks, skyscrapers, SUVs, exclusive night clubs, Botox -- that kind of thing. An 80 percent poverty rate is so not my style. Nothing against it -- I'm just saying: Not how I roll. You're doing great work, Pat, and I don't want to clip your wings -- just, come on, you're making me look bad. And not the good kind of bad. Keep blaming God. That's working. But leave me out of it, please. Or we may need to renegotiate your own contract. Best,
Satan
LILY COYLE, MINNEAPOLIS (//Nod to the Joshua Blog)
After the devastating earthquake that crushed Haiti on January 12, 2010 religious zealot Pat Robertson commented on The 700 Club that Haitians had sworn “a pact to the devil” to get “free from the French” and that “ever since, they have been cursed”:
“. . . [S]omething happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon III and whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, ‘We will serve you if you will get us free from the French.’ True story. And so, the devil said, ‘OK, it's a deal.’”
This so-called “reverend” sits atop a billion-dollar tax-exempt (“church”) enterprise, exploiting and robbing vulnerable people desperate for religious meaning in their lives. Robertson’s empire, funded by donations from victims who can ill afford to hand over their meager funds to his mobsters-for-Jesus, is an affront to every legitimate Christian church and organization on Earth.
Rev. Paul Raushenbush, the religion editor for the Huffington Post, echoed the outrage of many Christians when he wrote: “Go to Hell, Pat Robertson -- and the sooner the better. Your ‘theological’ nonsense is revolting. Don't speak for Haiti, and don't speak for God. Haiti is suffering a catastrophe and you offer silliness at best, and racism at the worst.”
When a hatemonger like Pat Robertson uses history to justify the depredations of a cruel interventionist deity that resides in his sick mind, he’d better get his history straight. For as corrected by the erudite Haitian Ambassador, Robertson’s perverted logic has turned in on himself. If ever there were an example of fire and brimstone looming over Pat Robertson’s diseased brain like the Sword of Damocles, turning his hate speech into a cudgel to smite him with the measured tones of the truth, this is it:
“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves.”
“Whatever you neglected to do unto one of these least of these, you neglected to do unto Me.”
By Robertson’s “logic” it is poor, tiny, suffering Haiti that rests in the palm of a compassionate God and not the wealthy, prosperous American states that surround it. Haiti was the first post-colonial independent black-led nation in the world and the only nation whose independence was gained through a slave revolt. The Haitian Revolution set the conditions for America’s territorial expansion under President Thomas Jefferson –- his bargain basement Louisiana Purchase from Napoleon’s France -- that transformed the United States into a dominant continental power. Along the way “manifest destiny” unleashed westward expansion to justify the genocide of native Americans, culminating in the “Trail of Tears.”
The Haitian slaves who gained their freedom through revolution were not greeted as fraternal brothers by the young American republic also born of revolution against colonial oppressors. To the contrary, Southern slaveholders feared a similar fate would befall their profitable human cargo. And so Congress imposed a trade embargo on Haiti. (Note how history really does repeat itself.) Historically, it seems, black people and communists/socialists are interchangeable. Therein lies the source of Pat Robertson’s hideous statement about Haiti: the black man as “devil” is the white man’s most primordial racist fear.
There was no official U.S. recognition of Haiti until 1862. By then the War Between the States was underway. The bloodiest conflict in American history, which was to claim more than 600,000 lives, rendered Haitian recognition the politically correct thing to do. There is rich historical irony in this. Thomas Jefferson could have emancipated America’s slaves and spared this nation the horrors of Civil War and assassination, followed by the humiliation of Reconstruction, followed by racist KKK violence, apartheid, and the civil rights struggles that continue to this day.
Had Thomas Jefferson embraced the precepts of those famous words he wrote on parchment, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” . . .
This would have been a different and better nation.
But Jefferson’s judgment was clouded by the guilty sexual pleasures of Sally Hemings, his captive slave-girl mistress with whom he bore several illegitimate mulatto children. In the height of passion was Jefferson thinking his lofty words could not possibly apply to African slaves because, well, the fringe benefits were just too irresistible? Did he ever confront his immoral behavior, his hypocrisy? If he did, they remained buried in the deepest recesses of his brain.
The public Thomas Jefferson was a master of deception and dissimulation. Jefferson was the most prominent American politician to compartmentalize his revolutionary legacy -- one he knew would live on in American legend –- from his steamy sexual trysts in Monticello’s slave quarters. Despite the rumors and whispers that dogged his existence, Jefferson himself was the best guardian of his sanitized historical legacy. It lasted more than 200 years, protected by a loyal battalion of historians dedicated to preserving the lily-white purity of Jefferson’s standing as one of the great icons of American history.
As Fawn Brodie was to discover, woe to the historian who dared challenge the party line and explore the master-slave liaisons of Thomas Jefferson. With the advent of DNA testing, the issue for many was finally laid to rest.
The charismatic Toussaint L’Ouverture, a Haitian-born black slave, was the first leader of a revolution in the Americas to defeat the armies of three imperial powers: Spain, France, and Great Britain. After the American Revolution, his was the first to break the yoke of colonialism and presage the subsequent liberation of all of the Americas from the colonial European powers. One would think that Toussaint L’Ouverture’s Haitian Revolution would find a friendly ally among the revolutionists who then governed the fledgling independent republic of the United States of America.
But it was not to be. Thomas Jefferson, who as author of the Declaration of Independence was the natural, undisputed leader of the American idea, spurned his progressive abolitionist anti-slavery allies in favor of a policy of isolation and embargo toward Haiti, even as he seized the opportunity to purchase the Louisiana Territory from the French while Toussaint L’Ouverture had Napoleon on his heels.
The rest, as they say, is history.
A history of which Pat Robertson is ignorant. Napoleaon III wouldn’t be born for another five years to the month after Toussaint L’Ouverture died in 1803. The Haitian Revolution led by Francois-Dominique Toussaint L’Ouverture was completed in 1804 when Napoleon Bonaparte ruled France, 44 years before his nephew Napoleon III came to power. If Pat Robertson’s fantasy of an interventionist, avenging God are true, it stands to reason that his hard dessicated soul will burn like dry twigs from a devastated Haitian landscape in the eternal fires of Hell.
The sin of slavery is America’s cross to bear, the dark stain on this nation’s soul. In this sense, for those who are true believers, it was not Haiti but America, perhaps even Thomas Jefferson himself in a moment of passion with Sally Hemings, that made a pact with the devil.
It would be too much to ask that a boycott of Rush Limbaugh's sponsors could get this despicable racist pig off the air. But here's the list, just so you know what companies NOT to patronize with your dollars. Some of these would surprise you. Phone numbers are included to call them and inquire about their sponsorship of HATRED, INHUMANITY, and RACISM. Then we can ask what they're doing to relieve the suffering in Haiti. //Nod to Daily Kos for this.
